Human Exceptionalism

[Worm of Despite]

Do you feel that humans are exceptional? Or do you feel that we're just some species of pond scum on a typical planet in a typical galaxy (paraphrasing Hawking here).

I tend to go with exceptional for two reasons:

For every solar system-sized cube of the universe one in a million has matter. The rest is just empty space (dark matter). It's even more exceptional to have a life-supporting planet; more so to have microbial life and unbelievable to have knowledge-creating, reasoning beings such as ourselves with advanced civilizations.

So to me science itself (or a glance at the universe's composition) shows we're out of the ordinary.

Secondly: We're so exceptional that we are limitless, thanks to our use of explanatory knowledge. And it is only limited by physics. There are countless things in the universe we can do and probably don't know yet, only due to a lack of knowledge at this time. We might be able to convert tonnes of hydrogen one day into a space station and mine stars for energy. I don't believe there are "higher beings" thinking on some higher level of reality and we're disabled compared to them. That's like asking me to believe in magic. What I see is that with the proper computers we can quantitatively perform infinitely as well, and if they know something we don't they can explain it to us and we'll know.

A lot of this is stuff I'm admittedly scraping from a fantastic book by David Deutsch, called The Beginning of Infinity.

My favorite quote so far:

So the biosphere is incapable of supporting human life. From the outset it was only human knowledge that made the planet even marginally habitable by humans, and the enormously increased capacity of our life-support system since then (in terms both of numbers and of security and quality of life) has been entirely due to the creation of human knowledge. To the extent that we are on a ‘spaceship,’ we have never been merely its passengers, nor (as is often said) its stewards, nor even its maintenance crew: we are its designers and builders. Before the designs created by humans, it was not a vehicle, but only a heap of dangerous raw materials.

We all know it’s a jungle out there but from the glass tower of civilization we don't really know (unless you got buried under snow in a car accident or saw that bear you weren't hoping to see). Instead we (me included) write poetry praising nature, when in reality its killed untold numbers of people, especially in our primeval years in places such as the Great Rift Valley in Africa or jolly old cold Europe.

So anyway. Screw nature, screw the universe; we are awesome.



My

[Orlion]

Poopy poo! I use to think humans had boundless potential... but we've just stopped exploring the cosmos, it seems. No one seems to care beyond their tablet or whatever gadget they have. And the projects we do try to send to space? They crash (thinking mostly of Russia's recent failures at exploring Mars). If we can't leave this bubble Earth, we might as well be like everything else in the universe.

[Vraith]

quoting your end, yes, we are awesome. Maybe even awesome squared, or to the power of ten, or more.
And yet...pond scum is awesome, too...we wouldn't be here without it.
And yet...just because there is a LOT of it [for example, intelligent life, or pond scum] doesn't mean we "don't have our own special way."

As far as our explanatory ability: we kill each other, and always have, over explanations, and almost without exception the explanations on ALL sides have been purely false. Lets face it: human being tend [unless something else interferes with it] to kill the people who tell the truth.
Last I checked almost half of u.s. citizens believe humans have only existed for 6,000 years or less. they are all just plain stupid, that's not awesome. Only half of those believe the universe is only that old...the other half believe it's old, but that god just magically inserted us in the mix 6000 years ago, and evolution doesn't ever happen. What's half of stupid?
But more related to the topic we, today can make buildings that put the pyramids to shame...but the f-ing pyramids are f-ing awesome anyway!
Pythagorus was right about some things, wrong about more things, and hadn't the slightest clue that other things were possible in imagination, let alone reality...but he was awesome!
Plato...wrong about everything except MAYBE the way we have to argue about things [even the neo-platonics ruin what he said while saying they follow it] he's AWESOME!
You can be old, dead, wrong, singular, one of billions, right, alive, young, and still be exceptional...you can also be all of those things [or an odd mixture] and be perfectly run of the mill.

[Worm of Despite]

Well I do think we are fundamentally an exceptional factor in the universe. We can (if we make it out into space and master colonization) go out into empty places or bodies eliciting nothing and create in them an endless stream of knowledge building on knowledge and explanations.

Yes; we have been wrong before the Enlightenment (and continue to be wrong), but ever since the Enlightenment we've striven not to accept an authoritative answer and to test and replace anything that can't withstand it. That's why we've had an explosion of progress in the past 200 years and will continue to, I believe. I also believe that problems are inevitable but all problems are soluble.

So explanations on all sides false? Hm, no; if explanations were wrong we wouldn't be typing on these keyboards or enjoying our wildly (or at least relatively) conveniently present era we have.

But I do get you; and it actually highlights my point: in the past progress was slow because people were quick to accept one thing as the answer or a rule of thumb. But we've gotten rid of rules of thumbs and parochial things for the mind's ability to explain something and the even greater ability to reject a bad explanation out of hand.

Last I checked almost half of u.s. citizens believe humans have only existed for 6,000 years or less. they are all just plain stupid, that's not awesome. Only half of those believe the universe is only that old...the other half believe it's old, but that god just magically inserted us in the mix 6000 years ago, and evolution doesn't ever happen.

I agree. We have a long way to go. But I also think we're on the right track.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Hey, LF!

I voted yes, but if you'd gotten me 20 hours ago, it woulda definitely been poopy-poo. =)

I do wince at the author's jab at the model in which we are stewards of the world. Nothin' wrong with bein' a steward (imho).
(But eh, I'm always finding good in books whose authors I disagree with.)

Lets face it: human being tend [unless something else interferes with it] to kill the people who tell the truth.

Yes.
Btw, my current signature I made before I read your post. Also, I might want to hijack your quote to make a point you disapprove of someday in the future, vraith, but that's neither here nor there!

[Vraith]

Btw, my current signature I made before I read your post. Also, I might want to hijack your quote to make a point you disapprove of someday in the future, vraith, but that's neither here nor there![/size]

Heh...put me in your SIG! people have done it before and it makes me feel all tingly and write things like:

Vraith wrote:
You know there's something wrong when two opposing viewpoints agree on an action that strips people of choice while pretending on one side to do one thing, and the other another.
Prebe wrote:
You ARE the Sig-man!

Vraith wrote:

Everyone sing along:

"Sig-man, Sig ma--AN! hah hah, charade you are
Ideal word wi-ield! hah hah, charade you are...
And when your mouse is on reply,
You're nearly a good laugh,
Almost a joker,
With your head down in the think tank,
Saying "Keep on parsing."
Sig stain on Orlion..

P.S.: Cail liked it too.
and I don't mind being used against myself or my meaning if it feels good...do it to myself all the time.

[Avatar]

We're both, and that is great.

We're capable of the worst atrocities and the noblest self-sacrifice. And you never know which it's going to be.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

You need a "Both" button. We're exceptional pond scum. Far beyond any of the other pond scum we've seen so far.

[aliantha]

Yeah, I wanted an "other" button, too. I don't think humans are poopy-poo, but I also don't think we're the best thing in the Universe since sliced bread or whatever. We're no more, and no less, important than anything else.

[DoctorGamgee]

People are exceptional.

One is curious what to make of the serendipitous mention on Yahoo today of a scientific study in which researchers found that religious people live longer than those who are not. And among those in America, the longest lived are a group of exceedingly conservative SDA'er in California. Being stupid, I will leave those wiser to ponder the irony...if time permits...

[Vraith]

People are exceptional.

One is curious what to make of the serendipitous mention on Yahoo today of a scientific study in which researchers found that religious people live longer than those who are not. And among those in America, the longest lived are a group of exceedingly conservative SDA'er in California. Being stupid, I will leave those wiser to ponder the irony...if time permits...

Heh...It isn't irony really...I'm not religious at all and I know this is so, and it's been so and known so for a very long time. [I do have mystical tendencies, though, even went and got Reiki certification just in case, cuz I know the state an flow matter even if the system is a fantasy, so will live a probably long time because my index is also slightly longer than my ring...and because almost everyone blood related to me lives longer than they're supposed to, even if they do drink smoke and screw a lot...which most do]
The irony part is that it doesn't matter at all which or how many god's are involved in "being religious." hell, they count [I don't know about this particular one, but other same kinds of studies] things as religions that actually aren't. Like my buddy Buddha, and the Taoists.
The answer is...and please don't anybody steal this, I'm using it somewhere... just like "it's not what you say, it's how you say it" is, in a general way, true, my claim is that "it isn't what you believe, it's how you believe it."
Trust me..I have witty dialogue plans for that. but it really is so...not absolutely, but an extremely significant extent.

[Dread Poet Jethro]

...almost everyone blood related to me lives longer than they're supposed to, even if they do drink smoke and screw a lot...

Drinking smoke...not good
But nothing wrong with screwing
Quite the opposite!

[Holsety]

We all live in our own separate universes, and it's entirely up to us how much we're worth. I've heard stories and songs, seen pictures and statues, and tasted fine brews and stews, but somehow I can't value the humans on the basis of their creations, even those wonderful stories that focus on other humans, sometimes less like the men I know than most beasts and compelling regardless/because of it.

I can't value human life: I can only pity it, because to me it seems miserable, destitute and shorn now - love doesn't hurt me but the truth does now, though I never minded it before. I've been in the midst of nature, and I know it's too rough for me, but the constructions we've superimposed over it are lacking, - not so alien to me were those of the past ages - and so lacking I fear will be whatever "grand" attempts we make in the universe to fuel our own egos or burgeoning populations or whatever it is that drives us beyond where we might already find contentment or die without it - so mote it be either way. To the above poster who mentioned it, I've seen a mother bear and her cubs and known relief at her fortunate flight. But that's fear of dying, not death. I'm not willing to discard any life besides my own, because I acknowledge that others value differently, and on some standard they may be more correct - or there's no such thing as correct or incorrect in such matters, just sincere.

[Worm of Despite]

I've been in the midst of nature, and I know it's too rough for me, but the constructions we've superimposed over it are lacking

What if someone forcibly deposited you into prehistoric human dwelling places or even 2,000 years ago? By relativistic standards we are living in heaven.

I get so tired of this view we're doing something awful to the earth by creating civilization when people are complaining about it on keyboards.

It's not ego--it's just a fact that we increase living quality and thus should be much more optimistic about ourselves. We made life enjoyable. The earth alone makes it lethal.

What we've developed is a development of nature since we're a part of it, down to the very atom.

Yes: we have pollution problems and population problems and rough edges; but I'd rather be a human being than the center of a star, than hydrogen or helium or anything else that elicits nothing at all. I believe all our problems are soluble only by human knowledge. Our long-term survival is something we ancients can't conceive of yet, much as many people centuries ago failed at flight. Much as we at one time were subject to countless diseases. But as human knowledge has shone us--we alone are our only hope. If we don't find an answer to overcrowding the earth's will be much crueler and swifter: mass starvation.

[Holsety]

What if someone forcibly deposited you into prehistoric human dwelling places or even 2,000 years ago? By relativistic standards we are living in heaven.

Gee, I dunno, what if? I probably wouldn't speak the same language as the people around me, and who knows what would happen to me? I might get worshipped or get my head stuck on a pike? I'm not arguing I'm not a creature of my environment: your scenario is as ridiculous as it is useless. Though I would welcome your experiment for the sake of the variety I would bring to myself and the prehistoric humans who might happily entertain me with primitive weaponry. Where is your sense of adventure, that you would suggest traveling into the past as a form of punishment rather than as a special reward - perhaps that is the reason such a voyage has not befallen my person?

I get so tired of this view we're doing something awful to the earth by creating civilization when people are complaining about it on keyboards.

OK. Why are you tired of it? What's it to you? Does it really seem so impossible to you that the world has created a class of dissatisfied slaves? That they would remain dissatisfied despite the materials given to them?

It's not ego--it's just a fact that we increase living quality and thus should be much more optimistic about ourselves. We made life enjoyable. The earth alone makes it lethal.

The earth alone makes it lethal? Really? Are you denying war? Disease - which, if we are not the Earth, is not the Earth either? The Earth makes life possible - its role cannot rationally be denied. Even if we grow accustomed to the vacuum of space, it will be only the ignorant who live without realization that the firmament made possible their existence. You yourself acknowledge in your post that matter in space is more unusual than antimatter, yet you fail to attribute exceptionalism to anything we are a part of but ourselves.

Yes: we have pollution problems and population problems and rough edges; but I'd rather be a human being than the center of a star, than hydrogen or helium or anything else that elicits nothing at all. I believe all our problems are soluble only by human knowledge. Our long-term survival is something we ancients can't conceive of yet, much as many people centuries ago failed at flight. Much as we at one time were subject to countless diseases. But as human knowledge has shone us--we alone are our only hope. If we don't find an answer to overcrowding the earth's will be much crueler and swifter: mass starvation.

You are talking about long term survival? And how long? As long as possible because *shrugs* longer is better than shorter? It seems like the most empty of pursuits to me. And for what? It seems as though life is just a game of maximization. I would rather play a game of chess against Death and lose. Why so pessimistic at the thought of life ending so shortly? An infinite death awaits!

[Worm of Despite]

What if someone forcibly deposited you into prehistoric human dwelling places or even 2,000 years ago? By relativistic standards we are living in heaven.

Gee, I dunno, what if? I probably wouldn't speak the same language as the people around me, and who knows what would happen to me? I might get worshipped or get my head stuck on a pike? I'm not arguing I'm not a creature of my environment: your scenario is as ridiculous as it is useless.

I used it as a point to illustrate that the world is indeed a much better place thanks to us; rather than "lacking" as you say. Rather than being worshiped you would most likely die of exposure, starvation or a Neanderthal smashing your head in with a rock.

And even if you had any skills comparable to prehistoric man, your life would be lacking without civilization.

The earth alone makes it lethal? Really? Are you denying war? Disease - which, if we are not the Earth, is not the Earth either? The Earth makes life possible - its role cannot rationally be denied.

The earth is a shitty life support system in and of itself. It kills and makes life for humans nasty, brutish and short. Then we came along and improved it with civilization, which you are now warmly tucked in and debating with me about.

Like most creatures, we did not live to old age. It’s a jungle out there. Outside the human world I mean.

I don’t deny anything we’ve done terrible; after all we are products of evolution and aggressive beings, but I think there’s also a reverse side to that coin: our possession of rational inquiry and the evidence of our progress and the power to solve any of our problems. Again; we have problems but I believe they’re soluble. If it doesn’t look obvious now—well a lot of what we know wasn’t even thought of at one point.

You yourself acknowledge in your post that matter in space is more unusual than antimatter, yet you fail to attribute exceptionalism to anything we are a part of but ourselves.

Oh; I definitely love the universe. It’s pretty to look at but it is a cold killer without human knowledge. Human knowledge will allow us to spread out into it if we make it off this rock. I love more so (and think it’s infinitely more exceptional) that we’re able to live in all this inhospitality and possess rational inquiry and the limitless capacity to improve our knowledge. I think it’s all exceptional; this reality and the questions it raises.

I just think we’re the most awesome. Why? Because we're the universe made conscious. We're it trying to understand itself. We're pretty damn important.

Yes: we have pollution problems and population problems and rough edges; but I'd rather be a human being than the center of a star, than hydrogen or helium or anything else that elicits nothing at all. I believe all our problems are soluble only by human knowledge. Our long-term survival is something we ancients can't conceive of yet, much as many people centuries ago failed at flight. Much as we at one time were subject to countless diseases. But as human knowledge has shone us--we alone are our only hope. If we don't find an answer to overcrowding the earth's will be much crueler and swifter: mass starvation.

You are talking about long term survival? And how long? As long as possible because *shrugs* longer is better than shorter? It seems like the most empty of pursuits to me. And for what? It seems as though life is just a game of maximization. I would rather play a game of chess against Death and lose. Why so pessimistic at the thought of life ending so shortly? An infinite death awaits!

Why is surviving an empty pursuit to you? And false words since you’re persisting as a being right now. Fact is: I hope we persist beyond this universe and I think it may be possible but something we, with our current science and technology, can’t explore yet. So for me the idea of "infinite death" is on indefinite hold.

[Holsety]

And even if you had any skills comparable to prehistoric man, your life would be lacking without civilization.

Lacking what? The ability to criticize civilization? Ooh.

Like most creatures, we did not live to old age. It’s a jungle out there. Outside the human world I mean.

No, as you correctly observed earlier it's mostly a vacuum. Anyway, where's your lust for adventure? I'd explore a jungle and get eaten by whatever came my way!

Oh; I definitely love the universe. It’s pretty to look at but it is a cold killer without human knowledge.

OK, but you did just a short time ago say that we make life enjoyable, i.e. that there is nothing enjoyable about life without other humans, which is why you're not getting any points with me on the consistency front. Which admittedly might not count for much in any case.

And false words since you’re persisting as a being right now.

The sating of hunger is not the avoidance of death. The quenching of thirst is not the avoidance of death. The fear of pain is not the avoidance of death. "Hate dying, not death." I am a slave to my body: if I hold my breath with the most benign of intentions, I will find myself breathing.

My life is not empty of meaning, but I eagerly await the day that it will be (though paradoxically I would still slow the coming of that day if I could, on the condition that it would someday come to pass that I was free).

Really, are civilization's protectors so insecure that they must insist that its detractors are dishonest in their intentions?

[Worm of Despite]

And even if you had any skills comparable to prehistoric man, your life would be lacking without civilization.

Lacking what? The ability to criticize civilization? Ooh.

Never mind.

Like most creatures, we did not live to old age. It’s a jungle out there. Outside the human world I mean.

No, as you correctly observed earlier it's mostly a vacuum. Anyway, where's your lust for adventure? I'd explore a jungle and get eaten by whatever came my way!

Enjoy?

Oh; I definitely love the universe. It’s pretty to look at but it is a cold killer without human knowledge.

OK, but you did just a short time ago say that we make life enjoyable, i.e. that there is nothing enjoyable about life without other humans, which is why you're not getting any points with me on the consistency front. Which admittedly might not count for much in any case.

There's no inconsistencies with me. Ever. Just shimmering depths and wheels within wheels.

But yes: we do make our lives enjoyable; and humans are social animals so they need each other. Without humans you'd just be some weird thing running about naked from a tiger-lion thing.

And the universe is pretty to look at it. What's inconsistent? It's all consistent with the human mind, which creates beauty, social needs, etc., blah blah.

And false words since you’re persisting as a being right now.

The sating of hunger is not the avoidance of death. The quenching of thirst is not the avoidance of death. The fear of pain is not the avoidance of death. "Hate dying, not death." I am a slave to my body: if I hold my breath with the most benign of intentions, I will find myself breathing.

My life is not empty of meaning, but I eagerly await the day that it will be (though paradoxically I would still slow the coming of that day if I could, on the condition that it would someday come to pass that I was free).

Really, are civilization's protectors so insecure that they must insist that its detractors are dishonest in their intentions?

Well. I plan to live forever or at least linger on until they download me into a computer and blast me into space to suck up a star's energy. But that's just me.

I don't feel like a slave to my body, personally. I guess everyone has different feelings about their state of living. Maybe it's 'cause I'm young and I can bench press a gorilla. In either case, I'm not insecure in this thread about civilization but was trying to give a party for it.

Drinks are over there. Free kittens in the back.




PS. This is my 700th topic. Woo.

[Holsety]

Without humans you'd just be some weird thing running about naked from a tiger-lion thing.

No, without humans I wouldn't be a human.

And the universe is pretty to look at it. What's inconsistent? It's all consistent with the human mind, which creates beauty, social needs, etc., blah blah.

Actually, it might not all be within the human mind. It might be that senses etc. interpret external stimuli and respond accordingly: that we are actually responding to something inherent in the things themselves. It may be subjective, but that doesn't mean that the objects don't play a role in the creation of the systems that value them - that there isn't something actually there to be valued. Crediting the human mind with what it experiences is a part of the picture, but far from the whole of it - do you, like Severian of Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, live out your memories again and again more-or-less at your will? I suspect that, like myself, you rely upon actual interaction with the rest of existence to achieve beauty - therefore it is not actually the mind that creates beauty, or your mind could do it all on its own, without need for all that material dressing.

(The suggestion of an all-encompassing I-know-not-what, which I seem to remember you have eschewed in any case, but which I find somewhat persuasive, that entertains us at its leisure still suggests a separation between us and this subconscious that might as well be isolating individual existences.)

In either case, I'm not insecure in this thread about civilization but was trying to give a party for it.

I'm sure civilization appreciates the effort. But you did make this a poll, which does imply an interest in dissenting opinion, which I have done my best to provide in the hopes of entertaining you (and you have responded in kind). Therefore I feel I can again conclude there are inconsistencies, regardless of your protests - I do not do you the unkindness of suggesting that those inconsistencies signify dishonesty or anything else, unlike the distrust you placed in me.

PS. This is my 700th topic. Woo.

Congratulations. Please do not take the lack of smilies as guaranteeing a lack of sincerity: I simply do not use smilies that much.

[Worm of Despite]

And the universe is pretty to look at it. What's inconsistent? It's all consistent with the human mind, which creates beauty, social needs, etc., blah blah.

Actually, it might not all be within the human mind. It might be that senses etc. interpret external stimuli and respond accordingly: that we are actually responding to something inherent in the things themselves. It may be subjective, but that doesn't mean that the objects don't play a role in the creation of the systems that value them - that there isn't something actually there to be valued.

Surely I believe things exist outside our minds; but without our minds those things are just--well what? Sitting out there in non-existence as we non-exist? I just see our sentience as integral for anything having any value in the universe.

I suspect that, like myself, you rely upon actual interaction with the rest of existence to achieve beauty - therefore it is not actually the mind that creates beauty, or your mind could do it all on its own, without need for all that material dressing.

So you believe beauty exists on its own, without the mind? I do agree the brain needs external stimuli, but that stimuli has no significance without human consciousness to apply labels to it, which again; I think is an exceptional force unique in this universe. The universe has accidentally and unconsciously assigned us the role as its interpreter and ambassador. We're a part of it, down to the very atom. We're wonderfully exceptional.

In either case, I'm not insecure in this thread about civilization but was trying to give a party for it.

I'm sure civilization appreciates the effort. But you did make this a poll, which does imply an interest in dissenting opinion, which I have done my best to provide in the hopes of entertaining you (and you have responded in kind). Therefore I feel I can again conclude there are inconsistencies, regardless of your protests - I do not do you the unkindness of suggesting that those inconsistencies signify dishonesty or anything else, unlike the distrust you placed in me.

Well yes; I am hosting a party for civilization. Your quote of me was just me explaining that I am (and continue to be) pro-human-exceptionalism. Pro-dorsal-fin-creature slogging out of the depths and walking on two legs. At no point have I discouraged discussion; unless this is some kind of anti-discussion we're having and I didn't know it! As far as me being distrustful of you or inconsistent; I’ve only tried to express my views.