Discussion Do you think humans are an important species in the universe or, are we insignificant? Poll

[Forever Sleep]

Do you suppose the value we place on ourselves is mostly influenced by religion?

I suppose we can't really be sure how important we are- seeing as many of us aren't even sure why we exist.

I tend to lean more towards us being insignificant overall. Just a happy or rather- unhappy accident.

Just the amount of time we have existed on earth is kind of crazy to think about too- in relation to how old the earth is and, how long other species have inhabited it. I watched something that claimed if the earth's history was represented in a 24 hour period, modern day humans would only have appeared 2 seconds ago!

I just think it's our overinflated egoes that gives us this sense of importance. Plus, I suppose the intensity of our emotions and awareness of our lived experience. I think it's just too much sometimes to think it might all just be random and for no particular meaning.

If religions turn out to be myths, I think that will be most representational of what a delluded species we are. So impressed with ourselves that we believe we can't even die.

I suppose what I do find impressive or rather- horrific- is how much damage we've managed to do in such a (comparatively) short space of time. I'm not convinced other animals have changed the climate of the planet- to the point it's going to become harder to live on.

 

[darksouls]

as insignificant, speaking as a nonbeliever

 

[NameOfAction]

Significant in what way? Cosmically speaking we are dust, fleeting like a blink of an eye. The world existed for billions of years before us and will continue long after the last remnants of our presence become a vague memory, like water on the surface of Mars.

We are significant to ourselves and to each other, in whatever way we choose to be remembered. Our lives are fleeting and our numbers are large, we are to Earth what fruit flies are to us, possibly even ants, if we dare to claim such ingenuity.

Significance is arbitrary, entirely subjective and universally speaking completely negligible. It doesn't matter if we are significant, because nothing truly is until you wish it so. Ultimately our whole world exists but in our limited perception of it

 

[Captive_Mind515]

We're some sort of fast growing mould, that has learned to sing and dance... it's impressive but overall rather pointless and our consciousness serves no useful purpose while subjecting us to all manner of horrors on a daily basis. Ok I'm being a touch facetious here, but still our significance to the universe is mostly just a fantasy in some people's mind.

 

[OnceTheHappiestMan]

The famous Carl Sagan quote "we are a way for the cosmos to know itself" may be a great argument for our significance independently of our own spiritual beliefs

 

[Pluto]

 

[Mr.Tristesse]

As the only sophont species known to exist with certainty (from our POV) I'd say humans are relatively important at least *in* the universe. But not important TO the universe.

 

[SmigSauer]

Humans are nothing but animals with a greater capacity for intelligence. Our society is only this complex and intricate because our intelligence allows for such complexities, whereas a chimp society is a lot simpler. We're nothing special.

 

[ScaredCutter]

i think sorta important. looking over history and whats been made snd discovered, its pretty impresive what a human is capable of doing and creating. going super deep into the ocean, flying into space, being able to see planets, blackholes and other solar systems from afar, even finding out what mars is like. too bad that humans have so many negatives though.

 

[Forveleth]

Even when I was religious, I never thought that humana were the peak of the universe. We are just another animal living on this planet.

 

[Anonymousa]

To me you can't really say we are insignificant with how much we effected other species. We have made others extinct, totally rely on us taking care of them, move them to different places on the earth, caged to mass breed them for food, train them to help us and effect their lifestyles. We have changed a lot of how others species live more than any other animal. To me that effect on others is significant to a degree. I am a non believer btw.

 

[WhatCouldHaveBeen32]

I view us as insignificant in the grand scheme of things but dangerous to the living beings around us. We are not important.

 

[Hvergelmir]

I think it's too early to tell. We're a young species.
Ask again in a few thousand years, then ask again in a million years.

 

[GyreOfAsh]

I chose 'As Insignificant (non-believer)' because when I die that's exactly how I'll feel. But when I don't have thoughts of..., my viewpoint is more undecided, relativistic, & leans into paradoxical absurdism.

I am the type of person to say "maybe nothing & everything has meaning." I have these annoying & conflicting views because I believe that a thing cannot discriminate between meaning & the absence of it without perception & bias. I also believe that the perception & bias are completely valid. Then there's the argument that if we're here in the first place, we must be important because the universe doesn't entertain illogical endeavors which I also think is valid.

There could be other reasons that I haven't fully realized enough to put in words. But, even still, the reason why I can't value one more highly than the other is the same reason that I am agnostic when confronted with religion. I believe to say that I know the answer to questions like this is to say that I know everything &/or the origin of the universe & beyond. This is why I prefer to phrase things in ways that reflect 'hypothesis' or 'theory' for topics like these that extremely complex & likely unknowable to our species.

 

[DarkRange55]

Typical doomer SaSu answers…

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

I'm religious, but not Orthodox, so I'm a bit confused about that spirtual option?

 

[NameOfAction]

Typical doomer SaSu answers…

Then do illuminate us with your own sparking insight

We long for your life-affirming perspective, O non-doomer registered user of a suicide forum

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

Then do illuminate us with your own sparking insight

We long for your life-affirming perspective, O non-doomer registered user of a suicide forum

Didn't you know? They're not like us! They're a visitor

I am a visitor to this site and I support your right to choose, even though I don't personally want to ctb.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm religious, but not Orthodox, so I'm a bit confused about that spirtual option?

I meant that some people have their own ideas of there being a spiritual aspect to the universe without following an orthodox dogma. I wondered if this would make any difference on views of our own importance.

 

[Captive_Mind515]

Didn't you know? They're not like us! They're a visitor

I guess we're their entertainment then. But they seem to get bored very easily...

 

[daruino]

Yeah, religion separated us from the other animals as gifts of god, and later philosophy justified it by saying we differ by mental capacity (animal rationale). I personally don't really see us as any different from animals*, between the two options I'd lean towards insignificant. However in our current world it is quite clear that humans have more impact than the other animals, seeing as we are the reason for so much wildlife being destroyed and the unnatural killing of other animals. So, I think we do carry significance, but this is viewing significance as: the influence we have on the world around us. If we are just comparing species and significance as "importance" then I don't think any species stands out, but importance is subjective.

*Jeremy Bentham said: 'The question is not Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but Can they suffer?' and I really like this idea when looking at the human-animal relationship. Instead of looking at the animals thinking capacity and deciding worth based off of that- if something can suffer, we should treat it in a way that the suffering is limited.

Peter Singer expanded this by saying that while humans are often considered to have intrinsic value (meaning they are ends in themselves and deserve moral duties) if animals are conscious and capable of suffering, they also have interests[i.e. least amount of suffering], which gives them moral significance and creates obligations toward them. If the capacity to suffer is what grounds moral significance, then there is no fundamental difference between humans and other animals, since we share that same vulnerability to pain and harm.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

I meant that some people have their own ideas of there being a spiritual aspect to the universe without following an orthodox dogma. I wondered if this would make any difference on views of our own importance.

I guess I just get confused because Orthodox ≠ religious exactly lol. Orthodox Jews are way different from Reform or Conservative, similar with Christians. I suppose, though, it doesn't really matter because both Orthodox and Reform would be clicking "religious"

 

[NameOfAction]

Didn't you know? They're not like us! They're a visitor

Oh! Always a pleasure to entertain visitors by virtue of being a zoo animal in this transparent cell. How lovely to know lurkers come with usernames! Perhaps the bored visitors ought to join a murder forum for more gripping reading material. Or perhaps poke us with a stick, it works on occasion

 

[SilentSadness]

I think it depends on whether there are aliens. Humans only just appeared compared to the beginning of the universe, but the only thing there before was non-sentient planets, which are insignificant. With regards to other animals on Earth, humans are clearly significant since they have dominated most other animals. If aliens exist in other places, then humans might be insignificant compared to them. I think aliens are likely to exist due to the massive scale of the universe. However, even if humans are insignificant compared to aliens, the collective suffering of billions of humans will never be insignificant.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I think it depends on whether there are aliens. Humans only just appeared compared to the beginning of the universe, but the only thing there before was non-sentient planets, which are insignificant. With regards to other animals on Earth, humans are clearly significant since they have dominated most other animals. If aliens exist in other places, then humans might be insignificant compared to them. I think aliens are likely to exist due to the massive scale of the universe. However, even if humans are insignificant compared to aliens, the collective suffering of billions of humans will never be insignificant.

That's very true. As others have also said, without even knowing the bigger picture of everything, it's hard to know how influential/ impactful the human race will be/ will have been. I can picture us being zoo animals for aliens or AI one day. Lol.

I also really liked @daruino 's focus on sentience. I think we do place importance on emotions because they feel so big. Plus- pain and suffering is so unpleasantly real- so we feel as if it does matter. But then, as they pointed out- that puts other animals on a par with us- because they also suffer. It maybe gives us a negative value even- as being destructive more than constructive- because of the amount of damage we've done to our cohabitants of this planet.

 

[NormallyNeurotic]

Realizing that I didn't actually expand on my stance, oops.

I'm religous (Jewish), and I think we are insignificant all things considered.

As people have argued, we have destroyed entire species, are in the process of destroying an entire planet, etc, so on that fron we are significant... but are we? Philosophically, I mean.

In a way, many of us are are the oppressor of the flora and fauna around us (I say "many of us" because some indigenous people are essentially doing a net positive for the earth even now and that's important to acknowledge). Are oppressors always significant? Because over the years, some people have gone from oppressed to oppressor, oppressor to oppressed—and while some groups have arguably stayed on top, that is due to the colonizer-built structure of our society, not any sort of innate "significance."

I think humans all being equally insignificant is THE POINT. We are insignificant, but the damage we do is not. We are like a toddler with a gun in the scope of our planet. And not to mention that you said "the universe," which brings up the possibility (...probability) of other lifeforms beyond our planet. The very fact that it is taking us so long to go to space and discover life makes us insignificant from their perspective. Even just to bacteria somehow surviving on a planet, those cells might predate so much of our progress that we're basically a fetus in comparison.

 

[TAW122]

I selected "As insignificant (speaking as a non believer or unsure of there being a God)" since I don't believe that humanity existed very long, at least in the timeline of the existence of the universe (over 4 billion years old) whereas human history is maybe a few hundred thousands of years old, maybe a few million (3+ million) if counting our ancestors from earlier times. I am also an atheist since I don't believe there to be God(s) out there.

 

[DarkRange55]

Then do illuminate us with your own sparking insight

We long for your life-affirming perspective, O non-doomer registered user of a suicide forum

Importance is an evaluator-specific term.

We're probably already the third most important species in the ecosystem (after the most common phytoplankton and its main virus), and we're the only species that can save the planet from the sun. Humans are part of nature. While humans are trashing the environment more than I like at present, we are aware of it and some of us are working on it. And for comparison, photosynthetic microbes put a thousand times as much oxygen in the atmosphere as we have put in carbon dioxide, and oxygen is a lot more reactive. Furthermore, as the sun gets hotter, it will cook the earth, and humanity is the only species that can save it. We need to move the earth 10 meters further from the sun every year to make up for the sun getting brighter. What other species is going to move the earth?

As for impactful events in the history of this universe, the Big Bang would certainly be top of the list (if that's the way it started), and life would be on the list as well. I think that development of electronic intelligence will be of equal impact in the history of the earth, and that its development on some planets will be among the most impactful in the history of this universe. And since machine intelligence depends upon biological intelligence to kickstart it, biological intelligence is also significant.

Whether life has meaning is somewhat independent of whether it is important on a cosmic scale, and if machine intelligence only arises from biological intelligence, then biological intelligence will of that meeting even if it does not persist in the age of machine intelligence.

Things like meaning, purpose, value and art are human constructs that we arbitrarily ascribe to the world around us. Meaning and purpose are human generated ideas and concept to aide in our survival. In the absolute, necessity does not exist. We do not know if humans are alone in experiencing existential dread, and it might be an avoidance mechanism rather than a bug...
The evolutionary purpose in life is to procreate, as biological organisms on this planet, it is to propagate the species. The purpose of gene-based life is to pass on genes. If we didn't die, the purpose would be to duplicate genes.
(Some lucky and skillful bacteria don't die for many, many, many generations. In a sense, the first life form is still alive now, since there is a continuous chain of life from it to all current life. In another sense, it has changed enough to no longer be considered the same life form, but where do you draw the line?).

So if meaning is subjective and we choose our own, then:

Some people enjoy the search.
Some hermits find meaning in isolation.
Most find meaning in impact on people since this is evo-favored through helping kin.

So if we are the barometers of meaning, and things are given meaning by us, then the universe is not meaningless because we are part of the universe. Whether there is higher meaning than that, I do not know.

Didn't you know? They're not like us! They're a visitor

thank you

Oh! Always a pleasure to entertain visitors by virtue of being a zoo animal in this transparent cell. How lovely to know lurkers come with usernames! Perhaps the bored visitors ought to join a murder forum for more gripping reading material. Or perhaps poke us with a stick, it works on occasion

I've been a pretty active user on this forum since October 2023 and have had a generally very warm and positive experience with the community as a whole. Occasionally there are just some negative people and I truly feel sorry for whatever anyone is going through. No need to get sarcastic or defensive. I'm sorry you feel so reactionary to something mundane especially without any context. I don't know yours or anyone else's situation. And I never claim to. If this isn't your first account and you normally visit the OffTopic or Politics&Philosophy section then without a doubt you have seen my posts over the years.
Also, you can be optimistic about the future of humanity or the world but not about yourself or your situation - in regards to your first comment.