Inpho Interviews Carl Sagan, Part Three: Information

(Cartoon of Inpho's spaceship flying in outerspace.) Inpho: Inpho: Hold on, Mr. Sagan, you think the reason I'm anxious is because I have information overload?
(Inpho and Carl Sagan in the podcast studio.) CS: Well, just think about the amount of information you're exposed to every day. Billions of people at a time are broadcasting their thoughts to the whole world through a revolutionary new medium. It's enough to drive anyone crazy.
(Close up on Carl Sagan.) CS: The good news is that nature has enountered this problem before; and over the course of the earth's evolution, it has developed numerous inventions that were designed to harness all that information.
(Cartoon of the DNA double helix.) CS: One of the first inventions: DNA. Your DNA has all the information needed to create you. That's the equivalent of a one thousand volume encyclopedia of information, and there's a complete copy of it stored in every single cell in your body.
(Carl Sagan holding up an image of DNA.) CS: But, despite DNA's immense storage capacity, there came a time in our evolution when it simply wasn't enough. Something new had to be invented...
(Cartoon of a brain side by side with cartoons of neurons.) CS: The brain! Your brain processes information through a network of 100 billion neurons. That's close to the number of stars in the milky way galaxy.
(Close up on Inpho scratching his head.) CS: But again, even with these amazing brains, it still wasn't enough. And we needed to invent something else...
(Carl Sagan standing in a library full of books.) CS: Books! Another fantastic way to store information.
(Cartoon of an open book in outer space.) CS: Books are magic. One glance at a book, and you hear the voice of another person--perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia the author is speaking, clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.
(Close up on Carl Sagan holding a book.) CS: Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding people together, citizens of different epochs, people who would never otherwise know one another...
Inpho: And then computers came next, right? CS: Sure, yeah. Then computers, too. The point is...
(Carl Sagan by the window showing a cascade of binary.) CS: Well, it's like I was saying before: the universe is really just an infinity of information.
(Carl Sagan floating in space out the window, Inpho looking out over his shoulder.) CS: Information that wants to meet... your imagination!
(Back to normal view of Inpho and Carl Sagan in the podcast studio.) Inpho: Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. This has been really fun. CS: Let's do it again real soon.
The end.