A simple question...
...with no clear answer.
Is this universe better with human beings in it, as opposed to without human beings? Why?
Is this universe better with human beings in it, as opposed to without human beings? Why?
Labels: blogging
posted by Ziztur
at
3:00 PM
12 Comments:
Serious answer "Without humans no one would ask the question"
However...
I like George Carlin's answer "Nature needs humans to make plastic"
We don’t know if anyone else is around to ask the question. We don’t know what other life there is in the universe, intelligent and self-aware—as far as I can see, we don’t even know what life on Earth should qualify as “intelligent”, let alone self-aware, let alone as having “consciousness”!
I, too, like George Carlin’s answer, however. He had an awful lot of good ones.
Neither. Humans haven't made any significant impact on the universe to qualify as beneficial or harmful. Hell, we haven't even traveled to the nearest planet in our solar system. We like to think that we're important but in the big picture, we really aren't.
RBacon
On the contrary, that question has a very clear answer: mu.
Well, my line of thinking went something like this:
Morality is doing what is best for humankind.
Why do we want to do what is best for humankind?
Is there some benefit beyond our own enlightened self-interest that we do what is best for humankind?
I guess the answer is no.
Being humans ourselves, everyone's answer here will be slightly biased.
Besides, someone's gotta fill the universe with radio noise.
I'd say the coin's still in the air on that one. Too early to call.
Yes
I think the question is a good one. Here's my answer: Humans, as primates on the evolutionary ladder, working their way towards ultimate oblivion, often times don't make sense. We're odd. We're quirky. We find butterflies, flames, and sunsets to be beautiful -- and many of us find a sort of beauty even in destruction and chaos and roadkill. We are capable of perceiving and interpreting the world around us in a way quite possibly unique in the whole of Life. why is that? More than likely because of a very, very unlikely set of circumstances, accidents and leftovers of our evolutionary upbringing. Perhaps we owe it to the world to keep exploring, keep learning, keep on finding new ways to defy the status quo of matter in motion. There's nothing interesting in the Universe until there's someone to be interested in it. Maybe we even serve some greater purpose in the Quantum universe! If Hawking is right about a fundamentally anthropic Universe, then observers like us, half-evolved primate oddballs, quirks and all, determine the shape of the history of our entire reality.
Or something like that, anyways.
I have the urge to elaborate on my original answer.
"Better" is not a thing that actually exists. It is a concept invented by human beings. A world without humans is a world without the concept of "better". Would the world be better if there were no such thing as "better"? That is an incorrect question, so the answer is "mu".
The answer to that question is the sound of one hand clapping.
...which is THWAP, by the way.
I don't think it makes much difference to the universe if humans are in it or not.
-Matt
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