"The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent. If we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.", Stanley Kubrick
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.", Albert Camus, The Stranger
"Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her." - Kurt Vonnegut (about his sister's death from cancer)
I don't really understand what is being argued. Two statements are made:
> A: The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren't special.
> B: Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws.
The argument being that B implies A.
First this is self-contradictory: B implies B and nothing more.
What does he mean by "special". Are we talking about some mushy, subjective definition of "special". If that's the case, then it's a moot point. By that definition you're as special as someone thinks you are, including yourself. If your mom thinks you're special, you're special. That's what subjective means.
If that's not the case, by special, does he mean highly unlikely, finite, or unique? -- Math is infinite and governed by sets of universal rules, yet there are many unique ("special") mathematical patterns.
In this case, we don't know if we're special or unlikely because we don't know what the odds of us existing are. We don't know how common or uncommon intelligent life is.
"But intelligent life is not special, even if it were uncommon, because it's governed by the same universal laws as unintelligent dead matter."
Then, if our definition of special is not subjective, and uniqueness or unlikelihood does not imply specialness, then what is the definition of special that we're using here?
Or does he mean "governed by intent" (of a deity or purposeful universe). Now we've got a new problem, which is defining what intent is, and if there even is such a thing (which, if there isn't, the whole point is moot again).
I take "special" here to mean "deserving of privileges over and above other instances". In this sense, if you think you are "special" that means you think that you ought to be able to bend the rules more than other people, or that cashiers ought to be nicer to you than to the rest of the people in line, or that you deserve to get that last discount TV on the shelf on Black Friday, or that it's okay for you to zoom past traffic on the shoulder because you're in a hurry moreso than anyone else.
Possibly part of your trouble in interpreting the essay is that you're missing out on what the essay is in response to. The question was posed: "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"
Whether the Mediocrity Principle is "correct" or not is not even the point. The point is that assuming the Mediocrity Principle to be true and acting as if you and your situation are not special is a productive stance to take in life, as it is in science.
It's another way of saying "the world does not revolve around you", "you are not the center of the universe", etc.
It's a false dichotomy to say the only two choices are 1) Acceptance of the Mediocrity Principle or 2) Believing you are the center of the universe.
I can easily posit a third option where some aspect of our Universe and existence is special without needing to be the center of it all.
Who said there are only two choices? The point is that it's often more useful to assume the Mediocrity Principle. Not that it's the truth. And not even that it's always better. Just that more often than not it's more useful.
I think he means that the universe does not gain meaning by our existence. The universe will (or will not) be there regardless of whether we happen to exist or not, because our existence is just a fortunate combination of physical laws. Given a slightly different combination (the Sun being slightly further away from this planet, for example), you/we wouldn't exist at all, but the universe would still be there. Other forms of intelligent life may or may not exist elsewhere, but this still does not mean that the universe exist in order to have intelligent life. The universe will or will not exist because of the laws of physic; everything else will be subject to these laws, and so it will never be "special".
This is debatable.
The universe is not an observer of our existence IF the universe is not a simulation. If the universe happens to be a simulation than there is some external entity or rather the universe in itself, that is some kind of observer. As such, if he does fancy a stroll inside my particular life, I can suddenly become a graph of relationships and influences that have "special" meaning.
If the universe is not an observer, there is still the possibility that a certain miserable existence (think elementary particle) can affect a larger system (think Big Bang). Was the elementary particle special or not? Difficult to say.
It's not really much of an argument. I mean, even your paraphrase is being highly charitable; the article itself is much more muddled. A colder, less charitable reading of it would be that he's blurring together the statements "improbable things are improbable" and "I never grew out of teenage angst, which makes me superior to you". There isn't really much to respond to.
Based on reading his blog Pharyngula a few years ago, I suspect that was a response to the "Biology is stupid because it says God didn't create us as his special children" sort of thing he's probably heard too much of when teaching intro bio classes.
How does one prove this "Mediocrity Principle"? "Specialness" is in the realm of philosophy and from that perspective, this principle just comes across as a mellow form of nihilism. Telling students to filter all of science through the "we're not special" lens just biases them so that if there actually is something special, they will be blind to it.
Might I suggest as an alternative the "Keep an Open Mind Principle"?
About some of the other comments: We need a term on HN for this is something you'd understand if you weren't apt to take things so literally and see it as a logical argument.
Amen. I mean, maybe I expect too much of other people, but I always try to interpret what they say in the most coherent sense possible. People talking about this kind of stuff don't usually just mash the keyboard - they have something to say and assuming that it's crap because the literal interpretation is crap is dumb.
See, this is really begging the question. As in actually "begging the question" - the logical fallacy.
The author states that people who have weird religious beliefs that imply that people are the centre of the universe should not do so because science shows us that the universe is indifferent to us. We are not special but part of the universe and a product of the same rules that produced everything else. But this is obviously begging the question: if you accepted the scientific view of the world you wouldn't have a nutty religious view to start with.
In essence, the author says: accept science because science. No different to when Christians say: accept Christianity because of what the bible says.
It was phrased as a scientific question, but I think of it more on philosophical, ethical and human behavior lines. If you accept that you are not special, you will tend to be nicer to other human beings. If you accept that your country is not special you might avoid the aggressive behaviors that lead to wars because "God is on your side".
Counterpoint - humans are very much not mediocre, we really are special. No other species is as advanced as us, no other species is as capable as us and no other species is as awesome as us.
We may one day discover intelligent alien life, until then the blue planet really is special. Okay it may not look like much, but looks can be deceiving.
Indeed - it's not very flexible! If anything the principle says that nothing is more important than anything else. Which is humbling and a good thought experiment, but I ask whether we can actually go about our lives using it.
You essentially got it right. The Mediocrity Principle mean it's proper to put your users before yourself.
From a code standpoint, it means you strive for "it just works", even if it means a lot of redundant code that doesn't match common expectations of best practices or adds a lot of "useless" work for the devs.
What follows immediately from the principle is that humans are not special among species. We are average. Most of the life on Earth is bacteria life. At least half of bacteria must be more intelligent than we are. Instead of pursuing futile AI idea, we need to find a way to cooperate with bacteria, as equal partners, and make use of their talents.
I don't know. Everything in the principle seems to equate equal to equal - you as a human are not special among humans... Earth is not special among planets, and so on. To assume humans are not special among all life is to ignore evolution and our dominant position on Earth.
That said, we didn't get here by divine intervention, and on another planet with life, the dominant species will likely have followed a similar pattern to dominance, and our existence as the dominant species is not special (the dinosaurs once owned the place).
Also my ability to understand to what level you are being silly or snarky or sarcastic is equally non-special.
>> we need to find a way to cooperate with bacteria
We already do, unbeknownst to us, for centuries. [1]
OK maybe we did not decided to cooperate it but isn't that the point here.
"All the bacteria living inside you would fill a half-gallon jug; there are 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells"
"The infestation begins at birth: Babies ingest mouthfuls of bacteria during birthing and pick up plenty more from their mother's skin and milk—during breast-feeding, the mammary glands become colonized with bacteria."
Most of the life is really unknown. I mean, archea is just beginning to be discovered really, all the wired little places prokaryotes seem to be these days, all the strange things they do, all the things we are engineering them to do, it's really exciting.
I don't know what you define intelligence as, but bacteria certainly don't possess it. They mostly just travel up or down a chemical, temperature, and maybe even electrical gradient. Then they mytos if there is food around. Sometimes a virus or other gene factor comes along and then they mutate a bit. A lot of the time, they just die.
Also, the AI stuff is not futile, it's just a tool. Yeah, the phones get smarter and smarter, but they are still tools. Until we start making AI's the make their own tools, then they really can be called intelligent. That and they'll need evolutionary pressure to stay alive.
Also, we WAY cooperate with prokaryotes and eukaryotes alike. I mean, Beer?! Cheese?! Like all the really tasty stuff has a bacteria or yeast culture at the start it seems. Also, insulin is all bacteria derived. Most agriculture started out with bacteria to get the nitrogen fixations going (now we just make ammonia industrially). We really rely on bacteria a lot in civilization.
> To assume humans are not special among all life is to ignore evolution and our dominant position on Earth.
And bacteria didn't evolve during last 2 billion years, right?
Whoever downvoted me: you can't have it both ways. Average means average. We are not dominant species on Earth - bacteria is. I can imagine how they would laugh reading about such preposterous idea.
No, I'm not kidding. I firmly believe we were created by bacteria by intentional effort, and every cell of our body is a specialized bacteria. One of them (probably, neuron) believes he is "me". But you won't like the idea, hence the objection. Simply NOT LIKE. Nothing to do with science or principles, just arrogance and pride. Please continue downvoting.
"Hngh. Arrrgh. Uff." That's what I thought while reading your comment. I wish I could downvote you.
He's clearly talking about "special" not in the sense of deviating from the norm, but in the sense of being exempt from the same rules that govern other entities in the universe.
Well, I flagged you (for trolling). That will have to do.
Yeah I'm not buying it either. The author is equating intentional fate with privilege, but they're not the same. You, this planet, etc, is all a result of "random" natural processes, but it does not mean some of those random processes had substantially better outcomes than others. Like you mentioned, being a human is pretty much the choice species to be on this planet. Living in a 1st world country vs 3rd world country is another huge advantage. Being proficient in technology could be another. The list goes on. Just because there exists some statistical distribution of outcomes, it does not mean we cannot recognize and exploit the really rare and valuable ones.
The only thing that seems to violate the mediocrity principle is the staggering odds that we exist in the first place given the conditions under which intelligent life needs to have in order to exist. But then, Anthropic_principle, so there's that.
Een then, once you understand the vastness of the universe, even falls under the veil of inevitability.
Don't confuse our history as the only possible history. There are lot's of planets out there vary much like earth. Presumably there are trillions of planets with single celled life and quite possibly trillions of planets with intelegent life just not close enough for us to notice.
The universe is likely far larger than just the observable univers. Still ~27+ billion light years across means we only get to see suff that's less than 1 billion years old within ~1/20,000th of the univers and the last 1 million years is ~1/20,000,000,000,000 of the visible universe. Look back 1 million years and earth has little trace of any intelegent life. Worse if there was another identical earth pushing out radio waves as much as we do 1,000 light years from us we would probably have missed it so add another 9 zeros.
Hell voyager 1 is in a well known location less than 2 light days from us pointing a directional antenna directly at us and it's not that easy to detect. 1 light year would mean ~1/10,000th the signal which would be hard.
