>>The universe and us are one and the same - there is no us without it, there is no it without us
>I'm pretty sure the universe would still exist without us. Plenty of other 'species' have become extinct and the universe didn't end.
That's not what I mean - the universe would undoubtably exist without us in the future. But we are a creation of the universe in the same way the stars and galaxies are. And yet, short of other life, there is nothing about the stars or galaxies that means they can make value judgements about significance.
As for other life, yes - it would experience the universe. There's nothing to suggest that it would ascribe value to it in the way we do. Equally, there's nothing to suggest that it wouldn't - but given the sheer number of variables I would suggest it is unlikely that other life will be the same as us.
Concerning our destruction tendencies - as a living system we consistently increase the entropy of our surroundings to minimise the entropy within our own system. As life brings an entropy increase within the walls of its own system, the net entropy increase of the universe is minimised through life.
The sun doesn't do this.
And anyway - significance is only a system of classification, a lazy and simple comparison between different things. Why is significance significant? 😉
Concerning our destruction tendencies - as a living system we consistently increase the entropy of our surroundings to minimise the entropy within our own system. As life brings an entropy increase within the walls of its own system, the net entropy increase of the universe is minimised through life.
The sun doesn't do this.
entropy fail?
Individual people are pretty insignificant
Psychopath quote of the week 😉
The Andromeda Galaxy is of no significance to the Oort Cloud. The Galactic black hole matters not a jot to the stars it pulls upon. These things just are.
The opinion of my boss and what I'm having for lunch are significant.
Concerning our destruction tendencies - as a living system we consistently increase the entropy of our surroundings to minimise the entropy within our own system. As life brings an entropy increase within the walls of its own system, the net entropy increase of the universe is minimised through life.
The sun doesn't do this.entropy fail?
Blame [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_and_life#Negative_entropy ]Schrödinger.[/url] - People aren't a closed system.
If we were to cause a big kick ass..full blown Nuclear war...blew up the moon and perhaps caused a change in the gravitational pull of the planets...I think we would have made our mark!
really?
For the Universe, the galaxies are our small representative volumes, and there are something like 1,000,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy, and there are perhaps something like 1,000,000,000,000 or 10,000,000,000,000 galaxies.
With this simple calculation you get something like 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the Universe.
source [url= http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/How_many_stars_are_there_in_the_Universe ]ESA website[/url]
If you really think destroying a planet or a moon is "significant" then you are showing just how insignificant we really are.
as humans why are we told we are insignificant compared to the universe...
It's a form of fascist, totalitarian propaganda.
Tell everyone that they don't matter, and that other people don't matter, enough times and they'll start to accept it.
Because we are, innit.
[i]To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.[/i]
oh and wrt the op
1. Maybe the universe is insignificant without us...2. to my family (children/wife/parent/brothers/sisters) I am their universe and vice versa.
3.I'm not getting religious...
1 - no - if we all die the universe continues, if the universe dies, so do we
2 - no - if they all die and you don't, you'll soldier on, maybe remarry and have more kids, life goes on, and vice versia
3 - religion begins by trying to explain your place in Great Scheme, so you probably are.
religion begins by trying to explain your place in Great Scheme
So astronomers are innately religious?
The trouble with Humankind is we think we are significant. We need bringing down a peg or two. This will happen, at some point...
😕
So astronomers are innately religious?
No, just like everybody with a full head of black hair is not bald, but not everybody who is not bald has a full head of black hair, or politician are lying shits, but not all lying shits are politicians.
It's a form of fascist, totalitarian propaganda.
Love it.
The universe is a conspiracy to oppress us, man. It's really just a big black curtain with little holes in it. 😀
And anyway - significance is only a system of classification, a lazy and simple comparison between different things. Why is significance significant?
Significance has to be significant! If it wasn't then the first stage in our functioning as a sentient life form would be screwed up. Anything and everything that our senses come in to contact with is primarily assesed by our unconscious brain into "significant" or "insignificant" categories, before moving on to more complicated things like "can I eat it?" "will it hurt me?" "can I shag it?" type categories!
Concerning our destruction tendencies....
Surely "destruction" as a concept is a human construct anyway? All the killing, maiming and suffering we cause provide benefits to other life forms or systems. If people weren't getting killed left right and centre what would all the saprophytes do?!
No, just like everybody with a full head of black hair is not bald, but not everybody who is not bald has a full head of black hair, or politician are lying shits, but not all lying shits are politicians.
Indeed, and not everyone who is trying to establish their place in the universe is [i]probably[/i] religious.
3 - religion begins by trying to explain your place in Great Scheme
And the Bible begins by explaining exactly where we all fit "in the Great Scheme" ...
(But this thread wasn't getting religious, so you didn't read that ^)
I've read several books recently that deal with precisely this subject, all of them taking the perspective that we are absolutely not insignificant, indeed we may be entirely unique to the universe.
The Erie Silence is by Paul Davies and both Alone in the Universe and The Reason Why are by John Gribbin. Both are highly acclaimed scientists in the areas of astrophysics, cosmology etc, as well as acclaimed popular science writers and all three books are fascinating, illuminating, well written and very compelling. They all suggest that our place here is so bewilderingly against the odds that perhaps we aren't that insignificant. Note that neither author takes a religious or spiritual perspective to this conclusion (which in my view would denigrate the credibility of the book).
Pale. Blue. Dot.
Pale. Blue. Dot.
They all suggest that our place here is so bewilderingly against the odds that perhaps we aren't that insignificant.
Scientists they may be, but I'd question their grasp of probability (or your interpretaion of what they wrote). Improbable events happen all the time. The odds of an individual winning the lottery is vanishing small, and yet someone wins almost every week.
The Erie Silence is by Paul Davies and both Alone in the Universe and The Reason Why are by John Gribbin
I've read one Paul Davies book "The Goldilocks Enigma" it was a little crypto-religious
The only John Gribbin book i've read was "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" I might give "Alone in the Universe" a read.
I don't think you can compare the significance of an individual, society or species to the universe.
It's pointless, significance or otherwise is in the eye of the beholder
Indeed, and not everyone who is trying to establish their place in the universe is probably religious.
what I said was
3 - religion [b]begins[/b] by
and religions take as their starting point how we got here. All religions have a creation theory and most try to explain natural phenomena in terms that made sense when we lived in mud huts and caves. Maybe a bit less relevant today because we know how the sun and moon work and that it isn't because the sun is one eye of the god Horus whilst the other is the moon.
Obviously we're very significant in our own sphere. Our significance to the rest of the universe is minimal as the overwhelming majority of the fabric of the universe isn't sentient. We don't mean anything to dust, gas and radiation. If there is sentience elsewhere its either unaware of us, or totally aware and completely disinterested.
[url= http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist ]Drake Equation[/url]
Fewer than I though to be honest.
The trouble is the span of time a civilization will exist for.
The Drake equation's sceptical partner is [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi%27s_paradox ]Fermi's Paradox[/url]
the very last humans, 423 trillion years from now, unrecognisable to our current form, watch on with sadness as the multiuniverse ends, only moments before triggering the birth of a new chain reaction to start the whole process over.
Oooh, do you think Chain Reaction would have a '10% off your first purchase voucher' for that?
The Drake equation's sceptical partner is Fermi's Paradox
And the Fermi Paradox's worrying partner is the Outside Context Problem*. If the galaxy is full of life, but it's not visiting us, then something must be happening to it. A spacefaring culture is going to be much more sophisticated than us, and we know from our own history that when an "advanced" culture meets a less advanced one, the results are never good for the less advanced society.
Maybe we should stop madly broadcasting the X-Factor into space - we don't know what we might be attracting.
*Iain M Banks' name for it, which I think is a good one.
BBSB old chap...
1) OP Said:
I'm not getting religious...
2) You said:
religion begins by trying to explain your place in Great Scheme, so you probably are.
So am I to understand that any search for meaning in the universe is likely to end up as religious?
I tend to find that religion is a mechanism to retrofit facts into ideas and science is the opposite, proving or disproving hypothesis with facts. You seem to be implying that any search for meaning will probably end up being religious.
This is what I was disputing.
Can you tell it is a slow day?
5.my copy of hitch hikers is boxed up while I build some shelves but I'm sure it doesn't say drug store !
Don't know about the book, but in the original radio series it was definately chemist.
.
There were other changes too, for instance Paul Neil Milne Jonston of Redbridge got annoyed at being described as the worst peot in the whole universe and became Paula nacy Milston Jennings in the book. Bloody Martin Smith from Croydon was happy to remain.
And the Hagganenons disapeared entirely, they were replaced in the book by the Disaster Area Stunt Ship, the main man of which was Hotblack Desiato. Adams got that name from an estate agent, he saw it on a board, liked it and rang to ask if he could use it. Thye said yes, and got calls for years afterwards from people saying 'it's a bit cheeky nicking your name from the HitchHiker's Guide.'
.
Anyway, in a universe this size everything is insignificant. By which I mean I mean each object is insignificant, obviously everything together is significant. Back to Aristotle and his heap of pebbles now...
god.
There. I said it.
It's been a while since we had a good old fashioned tear-up.
Come on, then! 😈
I just checked my copy: it says chemist. So the moral is: don't cut and paste data from the first entry thrown up by Google!
OP here
I really am not getting religious in anyway just saying I'm significant in my world...and I hate the way all the media/scientists says we are nothing compared to the universe...get something useful to say that means something to the ordinary person...(waits to be shouted at...)
Neutron stars are fairly significant events in the universe, and we are living, breathing, sentient creatures made from elements created in the core of a neutron star. Therefore our part in the universe is as significant as any other process that goes on.
However, the only way we can expand upon our significance from now on would be to go out and effect the universe in some way, changing our focus from isolationism to expansionism.
I really am not getting religious in anyway just saying I'm significant in my world...and I hate the way all the media/scientists says we are nothing compared to the universe...get something useful to say that means something to the ordinary person...(waits to be shouted at...)
Take a gander at the Deep Field Hubble photo to get a good idea of just how significant you are in the overall scheme of things...
we are living, breathing, sentient creatures made from elements created in the core of a neutron star
Nova or supernova - not really neutron stars. But yes, we are made of stardust, cheesily...
The fact is that the universe could wipe us out in the blink of any eye. Our powers only extend to our planet, and possibly the moon. In the sense, we are insignificant.
I wouldn't take it so personally. The scale of the universe is virtually impossible to comprehend, and therefore the easiest way to convey it to Johnny and Jane Public is to say that even us, with our huge human egos, are insignificant compared to the size and power of the universe within which we make up barely even a calculatable percentage.
tend to find that religion is a mechanism to retrofit facts into ideas
Whereas I look at why we got landed with it in the first place. Pretty much any civilization has wondered why we're here and what we're doing, so every one has come up with some form of explanation as to why we're here, some more entertaining than others. That's how religion starts, by trying to fit an explanation into the observable universe with no understanding of how any of it works because it almost invariably means a God being was involved so there's no real need to explain anything in detail. So if you're questioning our insignificance in the universe (not the nature of the universe itself) then you're well on the way to silly frocks and latin prayers (IMHO). On the other hand, if you're questioning the nature of the universe and pointing out our insignificance in it, then standing on a mountain top with a dopey grin and a nice book/TV deal is more likely
Can you tell it is a slow day?
not just me then?
OP was that "prayer for today" on R4 (have they rebranded thought for today?)? If so, I checked it out on I-player and had a very different interpretation. Both Deistic and non-Deistic religions seem to me to be emphasising that we are ALL very singificant. The former to the notion of an ultimate creator and the latter through our central place in a larger spiritual unity. Indeed for both, it is our very significance that gives purpose and meaning to life.
Outside religion our significance and the meaning of life - why are we here? - are also pretty central. So not sure why you are so worried. Carry on making a difference!
In the same way that we may feel insignificant in the face of the universe, so may a dung beetle in the middle of the expanse of the savanna. But both play a vital role in their own way - and that IS significant.
Nova or supernova - not really neutron stars
Supernova caused by the collapse or collision of neutron stars.
So, it's correct for cosmologists to say "Our locale, large as it seems, is physically minute compared with the size of the universe". But not to make a metaphysical assertion about the (in)significance of human existence.
So, it's correct for cosmologists to say "Our locale, large as it seems, is physically minute compared with the size of the universe". But not to make a metaphysical assertion about the (in)significance of human existence.
Nailed it.
Supernova caused by the collapse or collision of neutron stars.
A neutron star is what you get left over after a supernova. Star goes nova, blasts off huge amounts of material, the core compresses into a neutron star (or black hole if you're lucky).
How can we be insignificant to the universe when we are not even the same type of thing?!?!
Human = persons
Universe = space and everything not human
A neutron star is what you get left over after a supernova. Star goes nova, blasts off huge amounts of material, the core compresses into a neutron star (or black hole if you're lucky).
Yep
White dwarfs can combine to form Supernovas but neutron stars are stellar remnants
How can we be insignificant to the universe when we are not even the same type of thing?!?!Human = persons
Universe = space and everything not human
So dogs are universe? And eyelash mites?
Would white dwarfs combine like that? I thought it was more accretion of material in a binary system, causing sudden carbon burning?
Anyhow, how has this conversation got so far without anyone linking to [url= http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=12282 ]this[/url]?
