The Galaxy Insight: 'The Universe is in Some Deep Sense Tied to Homo Sapiens'

[Stephen Palmer]

I reproduced the common understanding of consciousness as any sort of awareness of one's surroundings.

"Common understanding"? Last century, perhaps. Things have moved on.

 

[Extollager]

I hope we can keep sufficient focus on the original posting as to enable this discussion to continue.

I'm a retired English teacher with little reading, directly relevant to this topic, under my hat. I recall two items from Discover magazine (links below): a profile of John Wheeler and an article by Berman and Lanza on "Biocentrism." I then read their book Biocentrism eleven years ago. (There are one or more followups, which I haven't looked at.) Of course there've been bits and pieces relevant to the topic that I don't recall. But the reading just named had affinities with the thought of Owen Barfield, notably in Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, published in the 1950s, which has influenced my thinking since the 1980s.

Given my lack of conversancy with current scientific cosmology, I'll probably commit a blunder and/or go silent here, but so far this seems like it could be a fun discussion.

The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself

Stem-cell guru Robert Lanza presents a radical new view of the universe and everything in it.

www.discovermagazine.com

Does the Universe Exist if We're Not Looking?

Eminent physicist John Wheeler says he has only enough time left to work on one idea: that human consciousness shapes not only the present but the past as well.

www.discovermagazine.com

 

[Justin Swanton]

"Common understanding"? Last century, perhaps. Things have moved on.

Do tell.

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

In general I am skeptical of cosmic takes that center humans. We've done pretty well for ourselves over the last four and a half centuries by sticking to the Copernican principle that there ain't nothing special about us. It's possible (logically possible, not completely out of the question) that we are special in some way, but ideas in that vein are so self-serving that we have to be extremely careful about not fooling ourselves. We should only go down that road if the evidence is overwhelming, and as I see it it most certainly isn't.

 

[Ursa major]

The universe creating an organism

I'm looking at it the other way round (and using the passive tense to do so), i.e. if something is created, whatever created it is natural (because it can happen and has happened). This is the only way I can see of avoiding the use of assumptions in my statements (assumptions that are not needed in order to question the statements being made in the OP).

Having an argument that depends on something only ever happening once is an argument that depends on an assumption.

 

[Extollager]

We know that the universe is capable of creating an organism that is conscious, because we exist; we do not know of any mechanism by which the universe would be restricted, for the entire length of its existence, to producing just one such organism.

On the other hand, I've seen what appears to me to be impressive evidence that the conditions for our existence involve a whole host of things that have to be "just right" -- I suppose this is the Anthropic Principle that someone mentioned. As a (nearly) lifelong reader of science fiction, which so cheerfully populates planets under bizarre solar arrangements, I find this to be a wholesome "Whoa now!"* (I recently reread "Nightfall" by Asimov and enjoyed it as much as ever, I suppose, but kept thinking that its cheerful postulate of humanlike life under those star conditions reflected naïve assumptions about the flexibility of the conditions for life.)

*As I do Geoff Ryman's advocacy of "mundane sf." I will go on reading even Edmond Hamilton; but from time to time one needs to remember that (e.g.) faster than light travel really may well be impossible. For that matter, thanks to cosmic radiation, not only is it quite possible that we will never go to the stars; we might never get as far as Mars.

 

[Extollager]

We know that the universe is capable of creating an organism that is conscious, because we exist; we do not know of any mechanism by which the universe would be restricted, for the entire length of its existence, to producing just one such organism. So we cannot assume that we are unique in that sense (even if that turned out to be the case in reality).

Tentatively, I would put a different spin on this idea. I'd say that, if there are other organisms like us (for which there is no evidence, while there's an impressive array of evidence that the conditions necessary for Us are terribly specific), then the idea of "species" may need a big update. If They are there, and are like us, is it necessary or helpful to think of them as being a different species? They will, presumably, be a different species in that we can't breed with them. But perhaps that will turn out, in this new context, not to be the most important thing when the question arises as to whether or not organisms are of the same species.

For one thing, if we conceive of Them as of the same species as us, and they do the same for us, each may be less likely to kill the other.

 

[Extollager]

C. S. Lewis imagined three "species" as inhabiting Mars in Out of the Silent Planet (1938). Sorns can't mate with hrossa and neither can mate with pfifiltriggi, but they are all the same "species" in that they are all hnau (as are humans): rational, moral agents. Even Lovecraft "got" this. One of the finest moments in his fiction, one in which he rose above himself you might say, is when the human explorer of the ruins left in the Antarctic realizes that the ancient, bizarre-looking creatures were, in fact -- "Men"!

 

[Extollager]

And taking this a step further, might one offer the suggestion that "there is a much more intimate tie between the domestic cat and the universe than we heretofore suspected"?

Well, may I suggest that what's important here is that human beings have the capacity to love members of a different species? Whether or not there's a more intimate tie between the domestic cat and the universe than is usually supposed, it may be there's a more intimate tie between human beings (in whose nature the capacity to love is a key element) and the universe than is usually supposed.

I'm serious about this. Love is not some odd phenomenon completely isolated in me from "other" elements of my consciousness. It is an integral aspect of that consciousness even if that aspect is held in some degree of abeyance when I do certain types of mental activities such as typing blood, examining spectra, etc.

I might come back to a matter I'll only mention now, the intimate connection that Coleridge identified between consciousness and conscience, both of which are (again) integral to our minds and involve love.

 

[Extollager]

In general I am skeptical of cosmic takes that center humans. We've done pretty well for ourselves over the last four and a half centuries by sticking to the Copernican principle that there ain't nothing special about us. It's possible (logically possible, not completely out of the question) that we are special in some way, but ideas in that vein are so self-serving that we have to be extremely careful about not fooling ourselves. We should only go down that road if the evidence is overwhelming, and as I see it it most certainly isn't.

Would you be willing to consider the two Discover articles to which I provided links in #22 above?

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

No I don't think that's what's happening here. It is not woo to suggest that reality must not be limited to what homo sapiens and his instruments can even in theory ever be able to perceive or measure.

It is wrong to insist there cannot be dimensions, vibrations and entities outside homo sapiens direct natural senses. Imo

It cannot be discounted.

It is precisely what's happening here. A notion of "quantum" is being used to support a quintessentially religious view (that of the humans' privileged relationship to the universe).

 

[Ursa major]

there's an impressive array of evidence that the conditions necessary for Us are terribly specific

But there's an underlying assumption in that statement that the only way an organism (one that has whatever attribute it is that might make us tied-in to the universe) could come into existence is the way that we have come into existence.

It is, in effect, just an extension of the circular argument "only we are conscious so only we can be conscious", an argument whose first part depends solely of our profound ignorance about almost all of the universe.

 

[Ursa major]

then the idea of "species" may need a big update

We seemed somehow to have strayed into that strange Star Trek universe where aliens can, if they are conscious and intelligent, mate successfully with other aliens that are conscious and intelligent (and using only their and our built-in biological capabilities).

Of all the things about which we are supposed to suspend our disbelief on that show, this is one of the least easy, because it's palpable nonsense**.


** - And yes I do know about the apparent seeding of varous planets by a now extinct alien civilisation (as seen in one of the Next Generation episodes), but IMO that was just rubbing our noses in the palpable nonsense.

 

[RJM Corbet]

It is precisely what's happening here. A notion of "quantum" is being used to support a quintessentially religious view (that of the humans' privileged relationship to the universe).

I see it as saying that as homo sapiens perception of the universe is all homo sapiens will ever be able to perceive or measure, does not discount the possibility that there is more out there Horatio.

So it is not the job of science to insist such things do not/ cannot exist? It is beyond the remit of popular media scientists to insist so.

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

Would you be willing to consider the two Discover articles to which I provided links in #22 above?

I don't think "the moon only exists when we're looking at it" ideas hold much water. The measurement problem in quantum mechanics is indeed a problem, but because we're so far from solving it, and there are so many possibilities, I would not place bets on anything. That said, here's what's known so far:

Quantum mechanics does not define an "observer" in any formal way. However, we are observers, so the results of quantum mechanical experiments that we record are filtered through that undeniable fact.

What is defined in QM is a wavefunction. Wavefunctions have the very convenient property that if you add two of them together, you get a third one that's totally valid. This is the principle of superposition. Wavefunctions evolve according to the Schrodinger equation, and that evolution is completely deterministic: the same input will always produce the same output.

Now, from time to time, scientists come along who want to measure certain observable quantities of a particular wavefuncion. Whatever measurement we choose to make can be described mathematically as a superposition of a variety of wavefunctions giving some total wavefunction. And as it turns out, whenever we perform a measurement, our measuring device will record an observable quantity corresponding to only one component of that superposition.

And... that's it. Everything else is our interpretation. There are many possibilities for what all that entails, but to me it seems like what happens when we measure quantum systems is our problem, not reality's.

 

[Extollager]

Ori, I still think it would be worth your while to read the articles.

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

I skimmed! They've got ideas I've encountered before. (I should be working right now.)

 

[Extollager]

But there's an underlying assumption in that statement that the only way an organism (one that has whatever attribute it is that might make us tied-in to the universe) could come into existence is the way that we have come into existence.

Ursa, are you saying you want to banish this point because you think there might be some other way (though you don't need to propose that other way or ways)?

Are you saying that someone who favors the Anthropic Principle (if that's what I'm doing) has to try to imagine plausible other ways and then show they are not plausible after all?

 

[Extollager]

It is precisely what's happening here. A notion of "quantum" is being used to support a quintessentially religious view (that of the humans' privileged relationship to the universe).

t-C, your comment wasn't directed to me, and I don't need to address it, except I'd like to say that your remark sounds to me like one being made to shut down a discussion. Is that your intention?

 

[Extollager]

I skimmed! They've got ideas I've encountered before. (I should be working right now.)

I too have other stuff I need to get to. Thanks for reminding me.