Universal understanding
11.30.2005
I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the picture story. Hold your fucking horses, its coming. From the typically crappy D&D thread: Universe makes man to understand itself?
chuggasaurus said:
I've read through Cosmos, then came accross a certain rip of an updated version of the series from the 70s on TV when Sagan said something interesting.
"It's as if the Universe created us in order to understand itself."
It's not an exact quote, so if someone knows it ver batum, please correct me.
Regardless, it's been bouncing around in my head for the last few days and I've begun to ponder whether or not this could actually be true. If the universe is somehow a collective intelligence similar to God, only lacking the capacity to understand itself, it brings us into being in order to understand itself. Only we too are part of this collective intelligence albeit completely unaware of our place in it because we're such a small part. Almost as if the universe is looking inside itself through our eyes.
Well, if it did, it did a piss poor job, because we really don't have a very good perspective on the whole of the universe, being in a relatively large but otherwise quite plain galaxy, near a somewhat small but extremely common star, in a relatively young but generally mature solar system. If the universe wanted some perspective on itself, surely it could have made better observers capable of taking in more information from a better vantage point, and with a larger capacity for understanding.
I don't think the universe made man to understand itself, because I think that misunderstands the role of man in the universe. Man isn't here to understand anything. We aren't very good at it, and even when we do understand something we have problems articulating what in the hell we just did.
No. Man doesn't understand, we do things. And if the universe has intentions, and put us here for some reason, it is to micromanage the structure of the universe in our local area. And we are doing an AMAZING job at that. We have already effected the earth's orbit around the sun (by a few milimeters/century or something) by throwing so much material into space that it slows us down. Our effect on the surface of the planet is plainly evident, even from space. We are radiating all sorts of information in the form of radio waves and so on, and planets aren't supposed to radiate anything. Not to mention the fact that we have broken apart atoms, and created new particles and elements that have never existed in isolation, slowed down light, and all sort of other microeffects on local space-time.
Its like we are nanobots hard at work to restructure our small area of the universe.
LePoissonDeNoel said
Setting aside all the religious crap for a moment, I like this idea or philosophy. I am greatly amused by the idea of mankind being a dim-witted, stumbling, angry drunk with the ability to render a planet uninhabitable but without the ability to comprehend anything of real value.
Aww look at human civilization it's so cute aww
Its a bit more dark and ironic than that, because we pride ourselves on our knowledge and understanding. We think its what makes us special.
