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Man this is a sad thread. Humanity is the most incredible thing in what we know of the universe. Stars and gas clouds sure are beautiful too, but unless you a
by blhack 9y ago
Man this is a sad thread.
Humanity is the most incredible thing in what we know of the universe. Stars and gas clouds sure are beautiful too, but unless you are very religious, the those are simple an artifact of statistics, there was no intention there.
Without the humans, the universe is empty.
- e40 9y agoThat assumes we're the only ones in the universe. If there are others, then we are much less consequential (except to ourselves, of course).
- Retra 9y agoIt doesn't assume it. It only assumes a value qualification that is necessary from our perspective: without human morality (which determines the value of things), there is no guarantee to exist anything that humans value. It doesn't matter if life exists elsewhere if we're the only ones that ever cared about it. Besides, the only alternative is useless optimism - to assume that life elsewhere does exist and implements our values (perhaps better than we do,) and thus we are totally unnecessary and it makes no difference if we all die. (This is the same nihilism inherent in believing in an afterlife.)
- Florin_Andrei 9y ago> Without the humans, the universe is empty. Max Tegmark adds a twist to that statement: without consciousness (subjective experience), the universe is pointless.
- jelll 9y agoWould you mind expanding?
- Neeek 9y agoNot familiar with the source from the parent, but the "point" to anything depends on a form of consciousness assigning that definition. There is no point to a water logged ball of rock, orbiting a giant ball of hot gas unless there is someone on that rock to say "the point of this rock is so I may exist.". Ignoring some cosmic creators with some purpose for us to exist (which would just be another form of consciousness), the whole point is decided by us. So without us, there would be no point.
- ruthvik947 9y agoWas there intention with our species?
- jolmg 9y agoI believe we should be the ones to define our intention. So, what do you want humanity to accomplish in the future?
- akvadrako 9y agoI agree that humanity is astronomically more important than anything else we know, but your argument for why isn't very good. Humans are just as much an artefact of statistics as stars, but with complexer patterns.