[LaSuena]

Интересно, сколько времени человеку обычно требуется, чтобы услышав словосочетание "твёрдая вода", сразу же воспринять его и осознать, что речь идёт о льде?

А вообще, вот ещё одна любопытная мысль: для бактерии, которая находится в воде, вода представляет собой примерно то, что для нас представляет густой кисель. А ведь никогда не подумаешь. Потому что мы вообще склонны мыслить антропоцентрично как-то, мы не можем вот так вот запросто представлять себе воду густой или, например, инопланетян так, чтобы те не напоминали до убожества нас самих.

Кстати, Нил Тайсон как-то выразил потрясающую мысль насчёт возможности контакта с внеземными цивилизациями. Если вспомнить, что человек от примата отличается всего 1% ДНК, то каким было бы существо, если бы оно отличалось от нас на этот 1%, только в ещё более эволюционную сторону?

Не удержалась и всё-таки накидала скрипт к последним 4 минутам вот этого монолога. Нил Тайсон - просто мегамозг, его слушать одно наслаждение.

8:40 и далее:

Everything that we are that distinguishes us from chimps emerges from that one percent difference in DNA. It has to, because that's the difference. The Hubble telescope, these grand... that's in that one percent.

Maybe everything that we are that is not the chimp is not as smart compared to the chimp as we tell outselves it is. Maybe the difference between constructing and launching the Hubble telescope and a chimp combining two finger motions as sign language - maybe that difference is not all that great. We tell ourselves it is. Maybe it's almost nothing.

Imagine another life form that's one percent different from us in the direction that we are different from the chimp. Think about that. We're 1% different and we're building the Hubble telescope. Well, go another one percent. What are we to them? We would be drooling blundering idiots in their presence. That's what we would be.

They would take Stephen Hawking and roll him in front of their primate researchers and they will, like, 'this one is the most brilliant among them, 'cause he can do sort of astrophysics in his head. Oh, isn't that cute? Little Johnny can do that too. Oh, that's so nice. In fact, Johnny just did it... let me get it, it's on the refrigerator door - here it is, he did it in his elementary school class'. Think about how smart they would be. Quantum mechanics would be intuitive to their toddlers. Whole symphonies would be written by their children, and like I said - just put up on the refrigerator door.

So, the notion that we're going to find some intelligent life and have a conversation with it. When was the last time you stopped to have a conversation with a worm? Or a bird? Or you might have had a conversation, but I don't think you expected an answer. So, we don't have conversation with any other species on Earth with whom we have DNA in common. To believe that some intelligent other species is going to be interested in us? Enough to have a conversation? They'd look at our Hubble telescope and say like 'Isn't that quaint? Look at what they're doing!'

So I lay awake at nights wondering whether simply we as a species are simply too stupid to figure out the universe that we're investigating. And maybe we need some other species, one percent smarter than we are, for which string theory would be intuitive, for which all the greatest misteries of the universe, from dark matter, dark energy, the origin of life, all the frontiers of our thoughts would be just something that they would self-intuit. I'm jealous of that possibility, because I want to be around for those discoveries.

Я бы тоже хотела в садике строить Хабблы (-