The Martian and the Overview Effect

Via Paz on FB

Are you familiar with the "overview effect?"

You should be.

It's what astronauts report after coming back to Earth after spending some time in space, circling the "pale blue dot."

It's important because a number of people have cited it as a "consciousness altering event" that occurred when seeing the earth from outer space.

Carl Sagan mentions it and coined the phrase "the pale blue dot."

Scientist/Philosopher Giordano Bruno had an out of body experience where he "saw the earth" from outer space, and it altered his idea of the heavens (and he was burned at the stake for it.)

Private Manning cited it in the film by Alex Gibney as to why she felt compelled to share the secret military files she's spending life in prison for.

OVERVIEW from Planetary Collective on Vimeo.

"The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts and cosmonauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from orbit or from the lunar surface."

In my life of research, a "cognitive shift" is what I'm hearing over and over in interviews with people who either have had a near death experience, an out of body experience, a run in with someone who is no longer on the planet, or while under deep hypnosis. ("Flipside" and "It's a Wonderful Afterlife.")

People who've had these profound experiences claim that they've gone through some form of cognitive shift, where they no longer see their lives, or the lives of those around them in the same way.

During one hypnosis session, a woman was asked "what's the reason behind this shift?" and her "spirit guide" replied - "In terms of the cosmos, it's not a big deal.  However, if you want to understand a shift in consciousness, imagine yourself a crab walking on the ocean floor and you suddenly open your eyes and realize - you're in an ocean. That's a shift in consciousness."

So how is "The Martian" like the "Overview Effect?"

It's in the plant. (Funny. "Plant" and "planet." Can't get much closer than those two words).  

The plant that the "Martian" says hello to on Mars, and later we see a plant on another planet, which the actor in the scene says hello to as well.

How fragile. How precious. How indelibly linked are we to this place.  How incredibly amazing it is that we can actually have food and light and water - when obviously the experiment on Mars didn't have the same effect.  The experiment on Mars, for lack of a better term - we could call it the Universe's ability to turn a planet into a lush place teeming with life - didn't take hold on Mars.  For whatever reason.  And yet it did on Earth.

So when you go to Mars, and inevitably you will go to Mars when you see this amazing film, think for a moment how that sister planet - Mars might be an example of what Earth will look like in the future. 

If we don't take care of it. 
If we don't realize how precious it is. 
If we don't consider, embrace, understand the overview effect.

Here's a booklet from the overview project that is worth reading about space exploration:
http://www.overviewinstitute.org/images/overvieweffect.pdf

Sarah Palin is a Bad Disney Movie

Couldn't agree more. Great comment Mr. Damon. Bravo.

Sarah Palin is a bully. She lies, and then covers it up. (Watch the ABC interview - she can't admit she was "for the bridge and then against it." She admits it but won't admit it.) She's already abusing power, and she's only been in office a couple of years. Books banned from libraries. Advocating creationism. Demanding to erase choice as a woman's option, except in the case of her daughter.

Mark my words; the next time you see her daughter on stage with her "fiancee" she will be wearing a wedding band or fake engagement ring put there by the McCain campaign. Not an accusation - who cares? - just an observation.

Sarah Palin is a Bad Disney Movie. The past 8 years have been NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. Lies about going to war, smearing CIA agents from the White House, from the Office of Vice President!! He should be charged with crimes against the Constitution. 8 years of BS.. I'm just sick of it. Enough is enough.

The country is going to be on the edge of its seat everytime John McCain coughs if he's President. A spot appears on his face, and people will be scrambling to build nuclear shelters. What's this country come to? We'll elect anyone because they believe in creationism? Because they go to Church? Because they have a sarcastic streak, and bully those who are beneath them?

Yesterday NPR reported she made employees sign a loyalty oath. That the librarian that she harassed out of her job, wouldn't sign the oath.

THAT'S WHAT A NAZI DOES.

We're at a crossroads in this country. We're nearly bankrupt. Our children's children will be paying the interest on the loans we took out to finance this ridiculous and unjust war. And now more men have died in Afghanistan than in Iraq. The just war, the war that went after the people responsible for 9/11, was shifted to another theater, making the victory in Afghanistan a hollow one. Why is that? It's because the WAR CRIMINALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE took their supplies and intelligence and men away from them so they could satisfy their own cravings for justice, to "spread democracy," to protect the oil supply - whatever it is, they're guilty of throwing our nation in front of a bus. And they're still war profiteering on it as they sail into the sunset.

If McCain had picked someone who wasn't a complete fake - after all, he spoke to John Kerry about being his vice president - if he had any balls, he would have done the same.. but by picking this Bad Disney scenario, he's lost any respect he had. And the world will treat him as they treated Bush - a dolt who doesn't know what he's doing.
It's so sad to see our nation divided once again, over culture wars. The right wing pretending to be blue collar, and the left wing pretending to be blue collar. When neither collar fits them. I'd throw my hands in the air, but when all is said and done, someone's got to go into the White House, and I'd prefer to bet my money on Obama and Biden to lead us into the future.. and not into a comedy from hell.