Are you an object of the universe?
Man, it seems to me, gives itself a special status among existing things; special in the sense that Man thinks Man, somehow, is more particularly unique OR essential (OR divine) compared to other existing things.
Man believes its special status among existing things comes from its conscious nature and its living nature, the former having a larger weight in such belief (Man believes Man is special among living things for its particular sense of awareness, and Man believes living things are special among existing things for their particular behaviour/organization).
However, the only true difference between Man and everything else that exists (living and non-living things) is the physical space Man occupies relative to every other existing thing (otherwise, the same basic laws that govern every object govern Man).
Man believes its special status among existing things comes from its conscious nature and its living nature, the former having a larger weight in such belief (Man believes Man is special among living things for its particular sense of awareness, and Man believes living things are special among existing things for their particular behaviour/organization).
However, the only true difference between Man and everything else that exists (living and non-living things) is the physical space Man occupies relative to every other existing thing (otherwise, the same basic laws that govern every object govern Man).
Comments (28)
Man is just as organic as everything else in nature.
And Man is just as "inorganic" as everything else in existence.
NON-CENTRIC
The holist brain side can entertain
Ungrounded notions
That are unfettered by detail,
But then, eventually,
Come the details that
Ever haunt the notion.
And this is even after the mistake
Of being human-centric,
The stance that man
Is the measure of all things.
It is neither meek nor humble
To suppose that humans
Are special and/or deserve
Reward in an afterlife.
The time of our universe happening
Is not of any special moment;
Therefore, any universes could be,
Any time or even at the same time.
Ours is not even the center of all.
There is no Earth-centric, human-centric,
Time-centric, or even universe-centric,
Which outlook is humble.
It is pride that wants one
To be King or Queen of reality.
But of course, we are ultimately governed by the same laws than the rest of the world. We are like a aircraft carrier in a storm, better than a raft, but still vulnerable.
I like @180 Proof's view of such claims :point: The Mediocrity Principle. Thanks 180 Proof.
Quoting Daniel
Which takes us back to The Mediocrity Principle. However, some might say that man bends nature to his will. To that I'll say no aircraft can match a falcon's grace, skill and agility in flight. Many people accuse China of making cheap, low-quality, knockoffs of European and American brands but Europe and America are themselves in the business of mass-producing poor imitations of mother nature's creations. Odd that! Forgers kvetching about forgers!
There is no point to anything unless it can be felt. Life brings meaning to the universe.
Then again, as far as I know, no falcon can fly for thousands of miles carrying hundreds of passengers at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
Cherry-picking. Confirmation bias.
I think you have to look up the word "object" in a standard dictionary.
Any Self has special status in its own eyes. The fat cat purring in your lap may be thinking that you exist only to serve her own needs & purposes. Any organism capable of a self-image would presumably place its own Self at the top of the value scale. Unfortunately, we can't read the minds of all those other self-centered beings. So, we point the finger of blame at the over-weening minds that are capable of expressing their smugness in words as well as deeds.
As a practical limitation, we can't all fit on the peak of a social pyramid. And the consequences of playing the king-of-the-hill game can be devastating to fragile egos. So, at least some introspective humans are acutely aware of the negative social effects of self-aggrandizing Egoism, and have developed counter-weights to selfish behavior. That's the primary purpose of man-made Morality : to round-off the sharp edges of ambitious Selves to make them less dangerous to other Selves.
In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the "pigs" declared that all animals are equal, but some are "more equal" than others. Likewise, in the Human Farm, the homos have proclaimed their kind as "more equal" than all other sentient beings. And buoyed by that inflated self-image, they have proceeded to turn the natural world to their own artificial purposes. Ironically, their almost total dominance of the world's resources, still has at least one nemesis. Invisible and insentient organisms (loosely categorized) continue to terrorize humanity with plagues and pandemics, by merely implacably pursuing their own selfish purposes. Then again, the sapiens continue to assert their divine role as the collective rulers of this world, by creating means of mass-destruction of those pests. So, who's "da man" in this eternal struggle for supremacy? :wink:
:fire:
[quote=David Deutsch]Base metals can be transmuted into gold by stars, and by intelligent beings who understand the processes that power stars, but by nothing else in the universe.
The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists.[/quote]
…….
There are those that would argue that they are not an element of the universe, that they are something set apart and special. As @Gnomon pointed out, this is one of the consequences of a self aware point of view. It is interesting, though very difficult, to think about how we might have thought about this prior to the emergence of self awareness, which is thought to have emerged after language. Would we have simply not thought about it and thus just merged into the background. Without language consciousness must have been very different.
By increasing our self awareness to encompass the universe, we can assume a more balanced understanding, imo.
You picked the cherry.
As do cats. That's a cat joke. But in fact every sentient creature does the same. Cats, dogs, the more intelligent insects. I lived in a rural area once and had to kill many living creatures, which I always felt bad about. You can't get so caught up in the beauty of it all that you let the wildlife run free in the house. One thing I learned is that everyone likes to eat and everyone likes to live. Each sentient creature is the center of its own universe. Man is hardly unique in that respect.
Quoting Down The Rabbit Hole
I could also say that the universe brings meaning to the universe since meaning is, in very broad terms, a molecular response to the external environment (isn't it?).
Quoting Hello Human
Better to Man. If you are considering humans special because of their particular functioning then every object is as special as Man because every object has a particular functioning.
Interesting principle. Makes me think, and I don't know why, on how our definition of complexity is limited by our perceptive capacity (what is complex to us might not be to other intelligent species and vice versa). I guess this applies in someway to our conception of speciality in the sense that the meaning of such concept is limited by the perception of the body that harbours such concept, as @Gnomon (I keep forgetting how to tag others) implies in its comment.
Yeah, the consequences of such believe might be very devastating; makes me wonder why such a believe would ever arise under evolutionary constraints.
Quoting 180 Proof
But Man is not insignificant either (Im not saying you are saying this; this is just something that Im saying). Man just is, like everything else that exists.
Quoting Pop
Very interesting. But as @Gnomon and @fishfry say, it might be the case that the conception of speciality is a feature that arose in ancestral species, and we might have never lived without this conception in our heads... who knows?
What is it that you are trying to say?
.......
Ha,ha, If we always had this sense of specialty, then we would have always had a sense of self, which would contradict the dominant view that what separates human consciousness from lesser forms is a sense of self awareness.
The prevalent view is that language emerged, then a sense of self, then a self centric world view.
Though, I must say, animals that I know who do not have language certainly seem to have a sense of self?
Quoting Pop
There are not two of the same pussy. Another cat joke. Or they might have their own way of communicating. However, believing that one is does not entail that one believes that one is special. In reference to your previous post, it could be possible that one must first consider itself a particular entity before one considers itself a special entity (in the evolution of consciousness, the conception of apartness must have appeared first than the conception of speciality - special is an adjective given to a process, object).
Yes, it may be we initially identified with a group, or perhaps the environment we were in, or just didn't have these thoughts at all. Some native cultures identify with mother earth, etc.
There are no two rabbits the same either. :up:
Complexity?
Complexity Paradox
1. Complexity arises from simplicity [our universe]
2. (Only) complexity can create simplicity [try and simplify something]
No I didn't. I stated the obvious. We're engaged in the enterprise of mimicking nature and quite badly at that. A simple proof that's the case: Birds have wings, airplanes have wings. Bird wings came first.
Subjectively, I am the centre of the universe. All the objects in the external world, people and the earth and the whole universe is just the contents of my consciousness. When I fall asleep, the world and universe disappears. If I don't exist, the universe and the world may still keep existing, but it is just out of my imagination. There is no way that I could be sure of that.
From an objective point of view, I am just a part of the universe. I exist as a being just like all other beings do, and will have to follow what the beings have to go through in their existence according to the law of nature.
Humanity is a function of earth and like all other creatures, humanity is a reactionary creature and that spells out, a function of earth affecting and being affected by the earth. It is a mindset with many or most believe that humanity has free-will, meaning he acts in this world when the opposite in fact is true. Daniel, well stated, when one's eyes close in death, a world ceases to be. Subject and object stand or fall together. One can only know a world cognitively.
Pterodactyls came first.
Pedantry has its limits.
The "belief" that Self is more important than Other seems to be inherent in how sentient beings perceive (awareness) their environment. All of our senses, including the extended sensing of Consciousness, are rooted in the brain & body of the sentient organism. And the primary purpose of sensation is to distinguish Self from Other. Once that dichotomy is established, the next determination is between Food and Self-sustenance. However, that Predator vs Prey relationship can also be reversed, as when the little fish is swallowed by a larger fish. So it's also important for survival to distinguish between Self-interest, and the interest of other Predators & Prey. Yet, it's only natural for personal interests to be most important to the self-centered Self-conscious organism.
Therefore, it seems that a hierarchy of interests is inherent in Darwinian evolution. Survival of the fittest, makes setting priorities paramount for every organism. Each "object" of evolution must value its own interests above those of other "subjects" of the weeding-out process of competitive fitness. Consequently, each organism, or "object", has a mandate to "out-fit" the competition. And humans seem to have taken that imperative to an extreme. Fortunately, we have also learned to moderate our self-aggrandizement to include the interests of Others within our own sphere of interest. That's why super-sentient humans had to develop a more formal cultural sense of communal Morality and inter-personal Ethics, that goes beyond what physical evolution could produce via natural instincts. :nerd:
Super-sentient : human senses have evolved beyond physical senses, to include meta-physical perception of self-other relationships. And that is a primary topic of human Philosophy.
SLIGHTLY OVERLAPPING INTERESTS :
SHARED INTERESTS :
SAPIENS SUPREME
From what beastly heart sprung our zest?
Through what searching eye became our sight?
What sounds in the bushes let us hear?
What dark past haunts but helps us be?
Across what ink black rivers did we have to swim?
To what ends at length did we search for food?
In what deep entangled forest were we bred?
Of what stars did we shine in their stead?
Oh Man! What a piece of work—the mind;
What noble deeds done and undone in kind.
What Rube Goldberg inventions heaped upon—
In the layers of brains the mind is made upon.
What is this sapiens mammal animal,
But of some slime and of brutish law!
So, let’s ‘neglect’ this state of affairing,
On the grounds that it is unappealing.
So then…
We are spun of the Eternal Golden Braid,
Those windings of Truth, Love, and Beauty made
From the Goodness of Purity Immortal—
The Theory of Everything’s singular portal.
What is Man but the special chosen species
For which all the plants grow and the waters reach,
For which the Earth turns ‘round, and orbits
A sunny furnace, spreading Love’s energy,
Enabling us to thrive above any and all creation.
What is Man but the only bloom for which all
The 13.7 billions years of evolution and love
Have occurred, in a predetermined swirling yeast,
To form and flower such a vainglorious beast.
It’s ever on forever’s edge that we meet our destiny,
That in our temporary parentheses of Eternity
We would flourish for just this moment, bidden,
As the blossoms of Perfection’s Flower Garden.
A hundred trillion stars and countless shores
Were built to light our universal nights explored;
Forty million other lower species too, the All-Might
Placed about our world, merely for our delight.
Our names are Writ Large on the Heaven’s marquee,
In the supernovae stardust showered from Thee.
From Nothing You came not, but of a naught
Our own universe was made and ever wrought.
A starring role we play in this reality show,
Every atom spinning fine just for us to know,
Our ancestors rising/falling for us to stand upon,
Oh man! They lived and died for our lone promise!
Every shaft of light shines with us in mind;
Thus it beams forth our beginning and our end—
In and of God’s hidden and Heavenly Shrine.
Oh life! We cherish being, that of Yours and mine.
We do so much deserve reward beyond this role—
And so it is that one’s immortal spirit-soul,
That angelic vapour that drives a living being,
Will go forth to glory on, beyond the scene.
We are not merely some mammally organic ‘luck’,
But purposely evolved on this planet, near a star,
In that intended long and winding mindless ‘birth’
Of slowly drifting time, dust, and selection by death
That ever sifted the best from the rest: Sapiens!
:up:
We don't know the utter end of this ever-changing cosm,
progressing by degrees from single spark to fathomless abyss,
with sentient eyes always looking up.
But, whatever end we are tending for,
its path has gone through us,
the fittest of the fit, so far. :cool: