Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

We don't understand matter any better than mind
https://iai.tv/articles/we-dont-understa..._auid=2020

INTRO: It is commonly believed that there is a mind-body problem because we can give an explanation of matter but not of the mind. But according to John Collins, we don’t understand matter either. Materialism was refuted by Newton in the 17th century, and the physicalism which has replaced it is not a substantive doctrine. There are gaps in our understanding of the mental – we still do not have a good theory of what the mind is – but after Newton, there is no ‘mind-body problem’... (MORE - details)

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What if we’re alone? The philosophical paradox of a lifeless cosmos
https://bigthink.com/thinking/what-if-we...ss-cosmos/

INTRO: From the discovery of exoplanets to the sheer vastness of the cosmos, we have good reasons to suspect that humanity is not alone in the Universe. Still, we’ve yet to find evidence of extraterrestrial life, raising the possibility that we are a singular rarity in an otherwise barren cosmos. If that’s true, it presents humanity with both a philosophical problem and opportunity.

EXCERPT: For much of human history, we didn’t see ourselves as alone. We filled the cosmos with gods, monsters, and mythical beings — companions to banish the terrifying emptiness. Even today, for many, the void is softened by theology, populated with angels, demons, or spirits. Philosopher John McGraw notes that when humans endure prolonged isolation, they often conjure faces and figures to stave off solitude. Perhaps our modern science fiction, with its imagined aliens and sentient machines, serves the same purpose — a way to fill the silence with something resembling connection.

Science fiction’s thought experiments delve into this need for “others.” Per Schelde argues that aliens and AIs are modern echoes of ancient trolls, elves, and ogres. These beings thrived in a time when untamed forests and mysterious landscapes inspired wonder. Now, with nature “tamed,” space has become the new wilderness — its uncharted galaxies brimming with imagined monsters and otherworldly entities.

Philosophically, definitions rely on contrast — on the presence of an “other” to reflect and define us. In our current condition, bereft of a reflective consciousness to mirror us, science fiction may serve as a means to transcend our anthropocentric view. Aliens and AIs challenge the boundaries of human existence, forcing us to reconsider what it means to be human. As philosopher Mark Rowlands suggests, their stark otherness becomes a mirror: When we stare at aliens or machines, we’re really looking at ourselves. Films like Blade Runner and Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence don’t just explore replicants and robots — they probe the essence of humanity.

This yearning for an “other” might also explain our obsession with AI. Could our pursuit of general AI — capable of mirroring human thought — be a subconscious response to the terrifying possibility that we are utterly alone? Perhaps these creations are not just technological marvels but a collective attempt to share the burden of our cosmic solitude, to find company in the vast, vacant Universe — even if we have to build it ourselves... (MORE - details)

Great article and beautifully written!

Quote:Facing cosmic loneliness head-on might be our most empowering choice. If we are truly alone — no reflective, self-conscious extraterrestrial companions as far as we can tell — it’s time to stop waiting and embrace this Universe as ours. Constantly yearning for other life forms or hoping for redemption from this solitude risks avoiding responsibility. Would a bustling galactic neighborhood really make our existence more meaningful? Philosopher Thomas Nagel argues that even a role in some grand cosmic enterprise might fail to give us what we truly seek. In the end, with or without the fireworks of “others,” we are the naked human, standing in an unfathomable Universe, with no one to make choices for us.

One can perhaps see in the evolution of western religion over the past 2000 yrs a sort of compensating collective mythologem for the dawning scenario of humanity isolated in the natural universe. Just as science and philosophy arose then and developed over two millennia to find humanity hopelessly adrift in an astronomical diorama, so religion emerged to psychically balance out this creeping sense of aloneness with the promise of an omnipresent all-too-humanistic god that loves us like a father and who longs to reunite with mankind into one big family. Religion came to fill man's need for cosmic belonging and companionship as science revealed his lonely and inscrutable fate in the universe.

And even today, as the new state-of-the-art telescopes expand our knowledge of the vastness of our largely lifeless universe, we find ourselves surrounded less by the old "good news" of divine redemption and more by exciting rumours of alien contact and magical hyperdimensional realms skirting our bleak physicalist domain. But as the article suggests, it is perhaps time to embrace the warnings of the existentialists and find in our estrangement from our world a new and meaningful narrative--of the human as the homeless and wandering hero boldly encountering a contingent and heartless reality that seems to exclude us on all sides. We are all orphans by birth it seems, collectively destined for a tomorrow that we cannot yet even imagine. Why DO we feel so alone? And what does that say about US?

I think the universe is comparatively very young when you consider it will be around for a few trillion years. So somewhere along its time line, life shows up. It may be that Earth life ( one that can send signals)is one of the first of many to come, we just can’t say.