Thanks for writing Hermes. Yes, Carl Sagan was an intellectual giant, and he is one of my heroes. That's why I find it very saddening that he didn't allow himself to hope.

It's your privilege, of course, to take what you see as intellectual honesty over my particular brand of hope.

But that form of intellectual honesty is not very honest in my opinion.

Reverse wishful thinking is also dangerous. Olaf Stapledon noted that, just like wishful thinking can lead to an irrational belief in the afterlife, "the fear of being irrationally swayed by the strong desire for immortality" can lead to an equally irrational belief in the finality of death. "For every irrational emotive influence on the one side there is an opposed irrational emotive influence on the other."

As I say in the OP, Carl Sagan was imaginative enough to conceive of scientific models of an afterlife. But due to reverse wishful thinking, he didn't allow himself to.