Where are humans in relation to the rest of the cosmos in your cosmology?

[BurtWorm]

Are they somewhere near the center? Are they part of the background?

My view: Taking into account just that the earth is only one of many billions of planets, and that humans have been present only for half a million years out of the thousands of millions of years of the earth's history, I think it's safe to say humans are not central in the cosmos at large.

Which doesn't mean we should not be central to each other.

[cosmik debris]

1. I suscribe to the Monty Python Cosmology

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour,
That's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains 100 billion stars
It's 100,000 light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, 16,000 light years thick
But out by us its just 3,000 light years wide
We're 30,000 light years from galactic central point,
We go round every 200 million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding Universe.

The Universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light you know,
12 million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there
is.
So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
Because there' bugger all down here on earth.

[rock]

12. Now then, can I have your liver?

[bigmonkey]

14. I can confirm that the numerical values in this song are accurate.

I had a beginning astronomy class in the 1990's, and our first task was to check out these values. They were essentially correct representations of what astronomers thought at the time. I don't believe these have since been proved inaccurate, so just memorize the song, and you have all of that knowledge in an easy-to-swallow form!

[Virginia Dare]

2. Like the tiny mite...

that feeds on the flea, which feeds on the dog? :shrug:

[patrice]

3. Aside from the organic meaning of human physical facts such as,

hunger, sexual drive, disease, heat, cold etc. all "meaning" is a human construct. Whether and to what degree any given constructed meaning is congruent with however "reality" actually/objectively is, i.e. how functional one's constructions are, varies a great deal. On an average, I guess our actions are not anywhere near a high degree of congruence with ALL of the factors that produce those actions.

[kiahzero]

4. Do you mean in a scientific sense or a religious sense?

I don't really understand what "Where are humans in relation to the rest of the cosmos" could mean in a scientific sense, but that may well be a problem on my part rather than a lack of clarity.

Yes, I realize that just about all of my first responses to your posts are requests for clarification. Once a pedant, always a pedant.

[BurtWorm]

5. I mean "cosmos" in the Sagan-ian sense of "cosmos"

But the question is about *your* view of the cosmos. It sounds as though you may have two views of it, one scientific and one religious. Is that right? Neither one takes precedence over the other?

[kiahzero]

7. Something like that

I have a cosmology - a scientific sense about the organization of the universe. Humans aren't "related to" this cosmology except in the banal spatial sense: we're on the planet Earth in the orbit of Sol in the Milky Way galaxy, etcetera etcetera. This might be termed the "Monty Python" answer. There's no real heterogeneity of value here.

Then there's my cosmogony, my world, my order. It doesn't conflict with the cosmology; it's the story. it's the pattern, it's the axes on the grid. This is where the heterogeneity of value comes in. In this story, humans obviously play a central part - it's all we know, so how could it really be any different? There may be fictional non-human entities in there too, because I tend to pick up themes from fiction, and some fiction with good themes includes such entities, but ultimately it all boils down to us.

Does that make any sense whatsoever? I just got out of a Civil Procedure exam a few hours ago, so I make no guarantees about my coherency.

[BurtWorm]

8. Sure.

That does make sense.

[kiahzero]

9. Yay!

:D

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. I believe in evolution

Evolution of consciousness. I don't think it is exactly a race-how can you race to where you are already at?

[peanutbrittle]

21. IMO......

Mortals of evolutionary time and space with the inherent, God given and directed ability to transcend this world of evolutionary learning ( a nursery world and humans "created a little higher than the angels" still immature and somewhat barbaric in the larger scope of things) to the next world of learning
"for in my fathers house there are many mansions"

[Evoman]

10. We are nothing but a chemical by-product.

We evolved into what we are by evolution, but in a larger sense, we are nothing. Life on earth really means nothing. This planet could blow up, and nothing would change. We, in a universal sense, are no more or less important than the microbes gathered in a piece of feces.

We only matter to us. This world only matter TO US. And thats all that really matters, isn't it?

[BurtWorm]

13. "All we are...is dust in the wind, dude..."

[TRYPHO]

11. Fxxx All

For Jesus to have died for the Sins of all Humans would have been impressive, but for His one solitary existence to have spread around the Universe, without assistance, would be pretty far out on the scale of miracles. I doubt he'd have sacrificed his only-begotten son once on every planet, that would just be cruel. Must be a word for that - sonicide or something?!

Luckily, my faith allows Jews to exist in a Jewless cosmos, where all non-Jews can happily find God their own way, we just have a responsibility on THIS PLANET to act according to His message. He may well have done the same elsewhere - that would be COOL, to meet an orthodox Jewish Fragal-rockian!

TRYPHO

[bryant69]

15. I think it's presumptious to guess at this point

We can't really see too much.

But then again I'm not sure measuing my life (or even humanities existence) against the immensity of the cosmos is a meaningful excercise.

Bryant

[BurtWorm]

16. Would it be presumptuous of me to say you probably have a Christian cosmology?

I'm only presuming this because you've referred to yourself as a Christian before, and one who takes the Bible pretty much at its word. Isn't that right? So wouldn't humans be pretty central to your cosmology, having been saved for creation's last day, and being central to the cosmic drama the Bible says is taking place in the supernatural realm?

[bryant69]

17. I am a Christian, yes. As for the rest

The Bible is written by humans (with divine inspiration) who had humans concerns - it naturally focuses on our place in the cosmos. It would do us very little good to learn how to be good stars or how to develope a nourishing topsoil or how to morally squeedle our lampronors or whatever concerns might occur in other spheres.

Or that's my take anyway.

Bryant

[peanutbrittle]

18. Your view actually fits in nicely with the

U book perspective on this. Other than than not believing in the Deity, divine guidance and intervention aspect, your right on target with what I believe.

Hard to imagine there not being other intelligence out there, some much like us, some modified versions of us. If so, some much more intelligent than us, maybe even less material.

But the atheist view is still we will probably never know so it really doesn't matter, correct? You know "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" thing...right?

[charlie]

20. Nice conflation of notions of an afterlife

with the possibility of non-human higher intelligence. As if one had anything to do with another. Feh.

If you paid attention to what's actually going on instead shoehorning everything into your Atheists R Teh Sux worldview, you'd find both atheists and believers amongst those keenly interested in life in the cosmos. Dawkins recently provoked a lot of guffaws from fundies with his excitement over potential extraterrestrial life. Carl Sagan wrote a novel which became a movie, maybe you've seen it. In spite of your characterization of an atheist's life as "futile" in another thread, we don't just sit in darkened rooms all day waiting to crumble into dust.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. Part of the cosmos, not central to it

But at this point, it would take a space vehicle traveling at 60 million mph four years to reach the nearest star, so if there are any other creatures in the universe, we aren't going to be meeting them any time soon.

[peanutbrittle]

22. IMO......

Mortals of evolutionary time and space with the inherent, God given and directed ability to transcend this world of evolutionary learning ( a nursery world and humans "created a little higher than the angels" still immature and somewhat barbaric in the larger scope of things) to the next world of learning
"for in my fathers house there are many mansions"