I guess my point is that it wouldn't surprise me, given the way science tends to downgrade humans from being at the center of the universe, if we were in fact n

I guess my point is that it wouldn't surprise me, given the way science tends to downgrade humans from being at the center of the universe, if we were in fact not alone but instead are one of many intelligent species throughout the galaxy and universe today (while on the lower end of the intelligence scale as our relative lack of time in existence would suggest.) What would be rather surprising but yet poetic to me is if we find out that ultimately humans are special: we are special in our solitude, entering the cosmos in a period of declining intelligent life due to the expansion. It would be a strange twist: we get some satisfaction in knowing we are unique in being an unremarkable, irrelevant, isolated civilization.