Many people assume, in the face of a virtually infinite universe, that we are insignificant beings. This assumption arises from our comparative extreme smallness. After all, our planet is nothing but a ‘blue dot’ in a vast solar system, a grain of dust lost in a second-rate suburb of a vast galaxy, which in turn dwells among another three hundred billion galaxies or more in the known universe alone. We’re negligible and peripheral – they say – and the universe is completely blind and indifferent towards us.
I think this common assumption of our insignificance might be challenged in eight arguments:
First: Relative size alone cannot be a measure for the absolute significance of a thing. Comparisons don’t tell us anything about one’s value in absolute terms, or a whale would be more significant than a human being merely because of its size. The same with certain dinosaurs, space rocks, planets, even galaxies. Complexity may tell us something about significance, but not size alone.
Second: Our alleged insignificance is not some law or definitive statement given by a universal judge with a privileged insight into the very marrow of universe – that is, into its absolute nature. Therefore, our alleged insignificance cannot be an absolute, objective or universal value. And how could we ourselves, being nothing and knowing nothing, issue such an objective universal truth – thus contradicting our own petty nature and infinitely tiny intellect?
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The Two Dennises
Hannah Mortimer observes a close encounter of the same kind.
Heraclitus (c.500 BC)
Harry Keith lets flow a stream of ideas about permanence and change.
Does the Cosmos Have a Purpose?
Raymond Tallis argues intently against universal intention.
Is Driving Fossil-Fuelled Cars Immoral?
Rufus Duits asks when we can justify driving our carbon contributors.
Abelard & Carneades Yes & No
Frank Breslin says 'yes and no' to presenting both sides of an argument.
Frankl & Sartre in Search of Meaning
Georgia Arkell compares logotherapy and atheistic existentialism.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray, now ninety-two years old, was, among many other things, one of the most impactful feminists of the 1970s liberation movements - before she was marginalised, then ostracised, from the francophone intellectual sphere.
Significance
Ruben David Azevedo tells us why, in a limitless universe, we’re not insignificant.
The Present Is Not All There Is To Happiness
Rob Glacier says don’t just live in the now.
Philosophers Exploring The Good Life
Jim Mepham quests with philosophers to discover what makes a life good.