Wonder and popular science

Wonder has been studied in a variety of disciplines, including psychology (Fuller Reference Fuller2006), philosophy (Hepburn Reference Hepburn1984; Rubenstein Reference Rubenstein2008; Vasalou Reference Vasalou2015), aesthetics (Greenblatt Reference Greenblatt1991; Fisher Reference Fisher1998; Campbell Reference Campbell1999) and intellectual history (Daston & Park Reference Daston and Park1998; Evans & Marr Reference Evans and Marr2006)Footnote ². But although the variety of disciplines is large, the quantity of research is not; scholars interested in wonder often make a point about there not being much research on it (Fuller Reference Fuller2006, p. 9; Vasalou Reference Vasalou2015, p. 12). In recent decades, not least thanks to these very scholars, wonder has been given more attention, but it is still a fairly small research field. Needless to say, given the variety of disciplines involved and the complexity of emotions in general, there are differing accounts of wonder. In this paper, I use primarily Fuller's (Reference Fuller2006) psychological approach and, to a lesser extent, Vasalou's (Reference Vasalou2015) philosophical and historical approach.

Wonder has a long history, dating back at least to Plato (or Socrates) and AristotleFootnote ³. These philosophers hailed wonder as the beginning of philosophy. In the dialogue Theaetetus, Socrates says to Theaetetus: ‘Theodorus seems to be a pretty good guesser about your nature. For this feeling of wonder [thaumazein] shows that you are a philosopher, since wonder is the only beginning of philosophy […].’ (Plato 1977, 155d) In Metaphysics, Aristotle says:

Already in these early philosophers there are two different kinds of wonder. As can be seen in the latter part of the Aristotle quotation, philosophy dispels wonder. Aristotelian wonder is akin to curiosity: the philosopher finds some phenomenon puzzling, but through inquiry and understanding the puzzlement ceases and the wonder disappears. Knowledge replaces wonder. Plato is not as explicit as Aristotle on the nature of wonder, but according to Vasalou (Reference Vasalou2015), discussing Nightingale's (Reference Nightingale2004) and Rubenstein's (Reference Rubenstein2008) interpretations of this issue, one can distinguish two kinds of Platonic wonder. The first, connected to Socrates' famous dictum that true wisdom is knowing one's ignorance, is a kind of vertiginous uncertainty from which one should not attempt to flee. The second ‘is linked, not to puzzlement or perplexity, but rather to a sense of awe or reverence with strong religious undertones,’ and it is connected to the philosopher's ability to see the true, eternal, transcendent world of forms (Vasalou Reference Vasalou2015, p. 63). However different these two kinds of wonder may be, they have one thing in common: duration. Whereas Aristotelian wonder is a transitory state, which is overcome by knowledge, Platonic wonder is, ideally, permanent, an enduring attitude or emotional response toward existence and oneself.

The point of this brief historical excursion is not to say that wonder in popular science can be categorized as either Platonic or Aristotelian. Rather, the point is to say that wonder in popular science is more complex and diverse than that, incorporating both Platonic and Aristotelian components. But when it comes to the question of temporality, much popular science is closer to Platonic wonder than Aristotelian. Wonder is seldom merely a spontaneous emotional reaction to be overcome through knowledge; it is, more often, a sustained emotion, an enduring attitude toward science and the universe. There are many science writers that one could cite to illustrate this, but two will suffice. Physicist Lisa Randall (Reference Randall2011): ‘Our universe is in many respects sublime. It prompts wonder but can be daunting – even frightening – in its complexity. Nonetheless, the components fit together in marvelous ways. Art, science, and religion all aim to channel people's curiosity and enlighten us by pushing the frontiers of our understanding. They promise, in their different ways, to help transcend the narrow confines of individual experience and allow us to enter into – and comprehend – the realm of the sublime.’ (42) Physicist Max Tegmark (Reference Tegmark2014): ‘[P]hysics is the ultimate intellectual adventure, the quest to understand the deepest mysteries of our Universe. Physics doesn't take something fascinating and make it boring. Rather, it helps us see more clearly, adding to the beauty and wonder of the world around us.’ (11)

Wonder in Cosmos: A Personal Voyage

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, directed by Adrian Malone and written by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, originally aired on Public Broadcasting Service in USA in 1980. The series takes the viewers on a tour through the history of science, contemporary science and the universe. Carl Sagan, the on-screen presenter, invites the audience to join him in his so-called ship of the imagination, which ‘can take us anywhere in space and time.’ (Sagan et al. Reference Sagan2009: episode 1: 4′33″–4′36″) Wonder is present from the very beginning of the first episode. In the title sequence of the show, spiritual and soaring sequences from Greek composer Vangelis' 1975 album Heaven and Hell is played while stars and galaxies pass by against the backdrop of the blackness of space. Succeeding the title sequence the music continues, but the shot shifts to a wave breaking in slow-motion and then to Sagan standing on a cliff by the sea. Sagan's introductory speech rings of wonder: ‘The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our contemplations of the cosmos stir us. There is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory of falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries.’ (ep. 1: 1′08″–1′34″) Throughout the series, this kind of wonder-filled mood – evoked by the soundtrack, the visual effects and Sagan's words, pronunciation and persona – is prevalent. Of course, there are sections with other moods as well, for example jocular and terror-filled ones, but wonder could be described as the general or overarching mood of Cosmos.

However, wonder is not present simply as an emotional state or mood in Cosmos. Sagan also uses the word ‘wonder’ repeatedly, with several different but related senses. The most frequent and important senses could be illustrated with the following examples.

1. 1. ‘In 1976, after a year's voyage, two robot explorers from Earth landed on this alien shore [Mars]. On Mars, there is a volcano as wide as Arizona and almost three times the height of Mount Everest. We've named it Mount Olympus. This is a world of wonders.’ (ep. 1: 23′44″–24′12″) This sense relates to objects, and here Cosmos aligns with a recurring theme in travel writing: describing the ‘wonders’ of foreign places and peoples (Daston & Park Reference Daston and Park1998, p. 25; Thompson Reference Thompson2011, p. 66).

2. 2. ‘All my life I've wondered about life beyond the Earth. On those countless other planets that we think circle other suns, is there also life? Might the beings of other worlds resemble us or would they be astonishingly different? What would they be made of?’ (ep. 2: 1′02″–1′22″) This sense is close to Aristotelian wonder, a kind of curiosity or puzzlement, a wish to find answers to questions that pose themselves in encounters with the world.

3. 3. ‘Although we cannot yet be certain, the same processes which led on Earth to the origin of life and intelligence should've been operating throughout the cosmos. There may be a million worlds in the Milky Way galaxy alone which are at this moment inhabited by other intelligent beings. What a wonder, what a joy it would be to know something about non-human intelligence.’ (ep. 11: 3′33″–4′04″) At a first glance, it is not obvious how ‘wonder’ in this quotation differs from the previous one. They are similar; but there is a shift of emphasis. The previous quotation emphasizes the urge to know the answer to a question; this quotation stresses the wonder and joy in knowing the answer to a question. In other words, this kind of wonder does not disappear when knowledge is acquired. This is also made clear by how Sagan continues: ‘And we can. Here is an exotic inhabited world mostly covered with a liquid,’ (ep. 11: 4′04″–4′16″) after which various life forms in the ocean are displayed before turning to the intelligence and communication of whales. This sense of ‘wonder’ is thus close to Platonic wonder: it is a kind of attitude or stance toward the universe that can be cultivated through science.

There are several ways, in which these senses relate to each other and can reinforce one another. The most direct way, however, could be described as follows. An individual encounters a strange and unexpected object. This encounter can evoke an emotional experience of wonder, which may include a wish to understand the object and explore it further. Typically, this happens to children as they find their way in the world. Wonder often diminishes when the object is understood (or is believed to be understood) and as time goes by. However, this emotional experience can have a lasting impact on the individual, who may be able to sustain the emotion, turning it to an enduring sense of wonder, or an attitude toward existence. Fuller (Reference Fuller2006) makes this point: ‘The experience of wonder first arises as an emotional episode of relatively brief duration. But, like all other emotional experiences, experiences of wonder also have the potential to shape longer-lasting moods and personality traits. It thus makes sense to speak not only of experiences of wonder but also of an ongoing “sense of wonder.”’ (101–102) In sum, what is sketched here is an ideal type sequence of events, going from encounters with objects, which evoke an emotional response, which may in turn be sustained and developed into an attitude, a sense of wonder.

At least three senses of ‘wonder’ can thus be discerned in Cosmos, signifying: objects; emotions; and attitudes. The next question is: why is wonder used? As Fahnestock (Reference Fahnestock1986) and Perrault (Reference Perrault2013) rightly suggest, wonder is used to make people enthusiastic about science. But what is it about wonder that makes it suitable for this purpose? Fuller (Reference Fuller2006) develops an evolutionary and psychological account of wonder that may provide the beginnings of an answer to this question. According to Fuller, wonder has adaptive value for humans. While it does not have the kind of immediate survival and reproductive values of fear and sexual desire, it has long-term value in that it develops creativity and cognitive skills crucial for surviving and reproducing in the human world, which to a large extent is ‘fluid rather than static, social rather than physical, abstract rather than solely physical, and striving toward future possibilities rather than composed only of present realities.’ (59) There are two central aspects of wonder that make it adaptive:

If Fuller is correct, then it seems clear that, insofar as popular science awakens wonder in the audience, the audience will likely develop a positive attitude toward science.

But enthusing the audience about science is not the only function of wonder. The other functions do not contradict enthusiasm, but they are not exhausted by it either. The first function that I wish to discuss is existential. Fuller touches upon it in the quote above (‘meaning and purpose’). As I suggested in the section Introduction, modern science can be seen to pose an existential dilemma. Steven Weinberg (Reference Weinberg1977) puts it succinctly: ‘The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.’ (154) Weinberg also offers, in the very next sentence, a response to this dilemma (cf. Leane Reference Leane2007, pp. 128–129): ‘But if there is no solace in the fruits of our research, there is at least some consolation in the research itself.’ (154) Weinberg himself ends on a tragic noteFootnote ⁴, but many science writers use the more positive emotion of wonder instead: even if the universe may be pointless on a metaphysical level, exploring the universe and discovering our cosmic origins induces a state of wonder, which makes life meaningful. The search itself is the point, because this search puts our lives in a ‘greater whole’ (in Fuller's words). In Cosmos this perspective permeates the whole series, culminating in the final speech: ‘[The modern scientific account of the history of the universe] has the sound of epic myth, but it's simply a description of the evolution of the cosmos as revealed by science in our time. And we, we who embody the local eyes and ears and thoughts and feelings of the cosmos, we've begun, at last, to wonder about our origins.’ (ep. 13: 53′50″–54′13″) Wonder thus acts as a kind of mediator between the meaningless universe of modern science on the one hand, and the human need for meaning on the other, in that it suggests that doing science and contemplating its results in itself provides meaning.

Another aspect of the existential function of wonder is directly related to astrobiological questions. As is well known, Sagan played an important role in the development of astrobiology (Dick Reference Dick2004). It is no coincidence that many of the wonder quotations concern the possibility of extraterrestrial life: questions about the origin of life and life elsewhere in the universe are one of the focal areas of wonder in Cosmos. What makes these questions a source of wonder? One answer is that we do not yet know how life started or whether there is life elsewhere, and as an unanswered question, they naturally attract attention. But that is not the whole story. A clue to the attraction is given in the second episode: ‘The nature of life on Earth and the quest for life elsewhere are the two sides of the same question: the search for who we are.’ (ep. 2: 1′30″–1′39″) For Sagan – who voices a widely shared sentiment in popular science on this subject – these questions have an existential dimension. In fact, the existential dimension is described as the key reason why these questions matter. In trying to resolve the mysteries of the origin of life on Earth and life elsewhere in the universe, we are not just putting another piece of the scientific puzzle in place; we are also trying to understand ourselves, our origins, and our place in the universe.

Another function of wonder is aesthetic. A relatively frequent complaint against science is that scientific explanations reduce the beauty of nature. Richard Feynman's discussion of the beauty of a rose is famous in this regard. He quotes an artist friend according to whom science takes things apart and makes them dull. Feynman replies that science only adds to the beauty of a flower, since science can discover beauty at spatial and temporal scales and in dynamical processes otherwise inaccessible to us; ‘science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower.’ (Feynman Reference Feynman1999, p. 2) The same perspective is implicit throughout Cosmos and is made explicit in the first episode: ‘The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths, of exquisite interrelationships, of the awesome machinery of nature.’ (ep. 1: 3′33″–3′43″) In examples like these, wonder is used as a way to show that there is no contradiction between scientific explanation and experiences of beauty, that the possibility to perceive the beauty of the universe increases through science, and that science gives access to sites of beauty, which would otherwise be inaccessible.

A related point can be made about wonder and ethics. As several scholars of wonder have pointed out, wonder tends to make people more attuned to otherness, more aware of the fragility of living beings and systems, and less likely to treat the objects of wonder instrumentally (Hepburn Reference Hepburn1984, p. 145; Fuller Reference Fuller2006, p. 95; Vasalou Reference Vasalou2015, p. 205). Hepburn (Reference Hepburn1984) makes this point when he talks about the ‘life-enhancing character of wonder, appreciative and open, opposed to the self-protective and consolatory. Particularly relevant is a set of liaisons or affinities that connect wonder with moral attitudes.’ (144; italics in the original) He goes on to discuss the moral attitudes he has in mind, which include other-acknowledging, compassion, gentleness and humility (145–146). In Fuller's (Reference Fuller2006) words, wonder ‘is associated with a recognition and contemplation of the intrinsic significance of the stimuli at hand.’ (41) This perspective is certainly present in Cosmos, with the advocacy of nuclear disarmament, peaceful exploration and respect for other cultures and species as central moral attitudes throughout the series. The very last words of the last episode are a condensation of the series's moral outlook: ‘Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We [not the warmongering politicians] speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive and flourish is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.’ (ep. 13: 54′33″–54′53″) Wonder, with its capacity to impart openness, gentleness and compassion, is thus used as a way to imbue science with ethics. This also has bearing on astrobiological questions. In discussing what to do if we discover life on Mars, Sagan says: ‘If there is life on Mars, then I believe we should do nothing to disturb that life. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if they are microbes.’ (ep. 5: 52′44″–52′57″)