Brian Quass
Last night, I watched the 2014 documentary by Rick DeLano called “The Principle,”
which made the case that a special parsing of the Cosmic Microwave Background
Radiation suggests that Earth might be the center of the universe after all.
Predictably enough, the film was panned by most mainstream sources (Slate,
Variety, Popsci.com) and dutifully stamped as “pseudoscience” by the volunteer
atheist censors at Wikipedia.com. Interestingly enough, however, I’ve yet to
find a mainstream site that addresses the main claim of the film (i.e. DeLano’s
purported evidence); instead, each critic contents himself with sarcastically
reminding the reader that the geocentric view was rejected ages ago, as if
there existed some kind of statute of limitations for those who wish to object
to long-established scientific interpretations.
I’m willing to admit for the sake of argument here that Rick does not know what
he’s talking about, the more so in that I’m not qualified to even discuss the
CMBR, let alone a novel interpretation of the data by which it is studied
today. But I was struck by the problematic nature of the philosophical
arguments made against DeLano’s geocentric premise.
I’ll give just two examples below:
1) Michio Kaku (one of the film’s talking heads) said that if the Earth were indeed the center of the universe and created by God, then he (Kaku) would have to tell the deity that he had made a mistake. Putting aside the irony of a scientist turning theologian to score a materialist point: what makes Kaku think that he has sufficient facts at hand (sufficiently understood) to judge the actions of a deity? That would seem a rare piece of hubris, even in a universe that wasn’t primarily composed of dark matter and energy about whose true nature we can only speculate. Does Kaku even realize what the term “deity” entails? One who understands EVERYTHING? Surely if deity exists (with the full awesome connotations of that term), then the following relationship holds:
Kaku is to the Godhead as a five-year-old child is to the adult Einstein.
In either of the above pairings, it would be presumptuous folly for the former to think that he or she could advisedly lecture the latter about how the universe should appear to humankind.
2) On a math.columbia blog, a materialist who goes by the username of jaco castigated the college website for merely posting (or re-posting) a review of “The Principle,” although it was a negative review, as can be gleaned by the headline “Not Even Wrong.” Jaco frets that anyone who would even mention “such a travesty” as DeLano’s documentary will surely be talking about “alien autopsies” next.
As Lawrence Krauss and Michio Kaku make clear in the documentary, today’s
materialists interpret the Copernican
Principle as saying that human beings are completely insignificant in the
scheme of things. Why? For starters, there must be billions of creatures like us
out there somewhere (if not in the galaxy then in the universe, if not in the
universe then in the multiverse – or maybe in some alien's 3-D computer database…?) What’s more, we live in a totally unremarkable
solar system, orbiting an unremarkable star, inside an unremarkable galaxy – although
it’s not quite unremarkable enough that we can expect to have our humdrum location
pop up in any top 100 lists of lousy locations either (lest we insignificant Earthlings
get puffed up by thinking that our very insignificance is somehow significant).
Again, I'm the last person to ask about the Cosmic Background Radiation. But both the film’s supporters and the materialists are missing
the main point: It doesn’t matter whether humanity is at the geographical
center of the universe (since the very definition of “center” in this context is a human
designation based on human criteria)… what matters is that Homo sapiens
are the only creatures that we know of (dramatic speculation aside) with the power to envision the universe
as a whole, to admire its many manifestations, and to speculate on its origins.
That’s all I need to feel significant. And that's all I need to realize that the materialist “doth protest too much” with
his increasingly hysterical bashing of the human race.
Bernardo
Jim Cross
Complex life has been around on Earth for probably less than a billion years out of the four and a half billions of years since Earth formed. To get complex life, among other things, you basically needed to have one bacterium assimilate another bacterium and create a genetically stable organism with mitochondria. Without mitochondria organisms are unable to harness sufficient energy to create complexity. This must be difficult and very random or it would have happened sooner on Earth.
Even after we get complex life, we still need to go through a whole other series of advancements to arrive at civilization, our civilization. To get civilization on our planet, we had to oxygenate the atmosphere, move out of the ocean, and then we had to go down the big brained primate path to an ape that began to walk on two legs and use its hands to make tools. How likely was that? All the time we were evolving our planet had to have been relatively stable, not hit by a giant asteroid, not bombarded by gamma rays from a nearby super nova, or suffer some internal geological calamity.
Brian Quass
It is scientific, not hubris, to think that we are the only ones because so far that's what the evidence says -- tho' we're free to speculate about other universes and alien software programs. As for me,, I welcome billions of other sentient beings like us that can comprehend the universe and speculate. Our claim to significance is that we invented the word 'significance' and that we bestow it by our interest -- NOT the idea that we are numerically superior.
Jeff Falzone
Bernardo speaks of the contempt that is palpable in Dennet when he says:
“The way to answer these ‘first-person point of view’ stumpers is to ignore the first-person point of view and examine what can be learned from the third-person point of view”
Feel it? Not me. I think Dennet is 100% wrong. And I think he (like idealists) can be stubborn and arrogant.
But his quote fits his presuppositions no matter how poor they are.
It's good for me to be reminded of the deep inner "game" being played here.
We feel contempt in the person who denies what we are attached to.
Materialists who shutter in awe when contemplating in gratitude their time in this vast and mysterious universe are probably wrong intellectually. But they are still using those wrong concepts to open themselves into very elevated states.
And, the corollary, many idealists are selfish assholes who *know* what will save mankind.
Feeling contempt? Carl Jung would have a few beautiful suggestions.
RHC
Jeff Falzone
It's just cherry picking.
Have you ever seen the way that some materialists prove that spiritual people are narcissistic navel gazers who put children's lives in danger because of their infantile fixation on woo woo?
Yep. They cherry pick, too.
And the ego is deeply consoled by these particular cherries.
Can't be wrong! That feels amazing. And knowing a district enemy fills ego with righteous energy. Makes these things simpler.
Bernardo worked very closely with people who are passionate about AI. He might know objectively how much more contempt his co-workers feel towards humanity than, say, the people who are passionate about Ken Wilber's work. Or, maybe that's not how contempt works?
Lots and lots of cherries to choose from.
Brian Quass
Nice essay, Bernardo. Here are a couple of thoughts that came to mind in reading it:
1) Although it’s speculative for scientists to judge of the meaningfulness of human beings (as if we had all necessary data on the subject and the means to analyze it objectively) what really bothers me about this haste to judgment is that materialist scientists are not fully forthcoming in their criticism of human importance and meaning. When they attempt to sell human beings on their insignificance, they never add the seemingly crucial disclaimer that they (the scientists) do not believe in “meaning” itself when it comes to the universe. A beauty contestant might feel depressed after losing a beauty contest, but she will recover her spirits quickly if she is told that the contestant judges do not even believe in the existence of “beauty.” Just so, those of us who believe in the significance of human beings (at least in their status as conscious agents) cannot be effectively persuaded otherwise by scientific judges who don’t believe in meaning in the first place.
2) Your essay reminds me of a quote from Rimbaud: “Science is too slow for us.” This is nowhere more obvious than in the scientific evaluation of psychoactive plants and fungi for use in therapeutic settings. The “in” crowd that is intimately familiar with these largely illegal flora will tell you that they “know” that such generally non-addictive plants have the potential to alleviate depression, eliminate the fear of death, and, yes, even cure the common cold, their only caveat being that “set and setting” are crucial to attaining these various ends. Yet because the psychopharmacological action of these drugs is so hard to study scientifically (given both their illegality and the set-dependent variability of their effect), we as a society generally scorn the anecdotal claims as “woo-woo.” It’s not good enough for our society that such substances actually work: the interests of millions of suffering human beings must be ignored until these substances are shown to work in conformance with our cherished materialist expectations.
Brian Quass
Given that
my original post was about the sarcastic and angry response to the documentary “The
Principle,” let me add the following.
I believe in a sane world, a responsible disbelieving scientist would respond to the film as follows:
“Interesting premise. The evidence that was adduced did not convince me. However, I am always open to new ideas. I hope that Rick DeLano and company will get back to me if they uncover more persuasive evidence. Still, for now, I stand by my understanding of the Copernican Principle as correctly implying the insignificance of humankind and the world that we inhabit.”
Instead, the average response was along these lines:
“A shocking blasphemy against a system that has been proven true for over 500 years! It’s amazing that such people can even find the money to pursue such addle-brained ideas! What next: alien autopsies!!! I almost regret even writing a review of it, lest a flat-earther should conclude that I’m taking DeLano’s ideas seriously!”
In other words, it seems to me like the materialists “protest WAY too much” – which would seem to indicate that materialism is as much a religion for them as a scientific premise. If it were just a premise, surely a materialist would not feel so incredibly threatened by a mere one-off challenge to their views by a little-known adversary.