Podbit · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Humans are remarkably comfortable sleeping on their backs — a vulnerable position almost no other animal adopts. Wake up outside on your back at night and the first thing you see is the universe. Tyson thinks this evolutionary quirk is why astronomical curiosity feels hardwired into us.
Where this was said
At 4:30 · chapter starts 2:19
Steven Bartlett opens the substantive conversation by asking what the most pressing question people bring to Tyson is — and the answer is clear: are we alone? Tyson notes that pop culture shapes these questions profoundly, citing polling data showing ghost belief spiked after the film Ghost was released. He then offers a wilder, more personal speculation: that humans are nearly unique among animals in sleeping comfortably on their backs, and if you're outdoors on your back at night, the universe is literally the first thing you see upon waking. This habit may have embedded cosmic curiosity in our DNA. [1] — Neil deGrasse Tyson "Humans are remarkably comfortable sleeping on their backs — a vulnerable position almost no other animal adopts. Wake up outside on your ba…" 04:30 He connects this to the ancient religious impulse — gods have always lived in the sky or high places — and argues that alien imagery and deity imagery share a common ancestry in our imagination of things that transcend ordinary existence.
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