
Does Science Suggest Humans Have a Cosmic Role? - pmcpinto
http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/69/does-science-suggest-humans-have-a-cosmic-role
======
pron
There's a fascinating book by Stuart Kauffman, _At Home in the Universe_ ,
where he claims that under certain conditions (that are favorable in our
universe), life is all but certain (he views it as a fourth law of
thermodynamics). He uses a computational model called boolean networks[1],
which he invented in the late sixties, whose _random_ configurations -- under
very simple constraints -- cause lifelike computation to arise naturally.

Given the number of stars in a given galaxy, the fact that almost none out of
just a few thousands of observed planets is hospitable to life is still no
indication that life isn't very common in the universe, especially if we
accept Kauffman's conjecture that life is very likely to arise almost anywhere
that can accommodate it.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_network)

------
amag
_" That is to say, humanity is ordinary, cosmically speaking, just one of
countless examples of extraterrestrial intelligence spread across the
universe."_

Isn't humanity terrestrial by definition? At least ASFAWK we originated on
this planet. We may be ordinary and just one of countless examples of
intelligence spread across the universe but we're not extraterrestrial.

------
empath75
Some of that is sort of nonsensical (like the idea that observation creates
reality)

~~~
inlineint
Could you elaborate what's wrong with that idea?

As far as I could understand he just talks from psi-empistemic point of view
about wave function collapse. Although now we don't have any way to determine
whether psi-epistemic or psi-ontic point of view is 'correct' (as like as
define what precisely does mean 'correct' for this question), I don't think
that you can just call one of these views nonsensical, especially without
support arguments.

~~~
empath75
'Collapsing the wave function' is now generally thought of as a result of
entanglement between the measurement device and the system that's being
observed rather than some magical quality of consciousness.

~~~
inlineint
But any measurement device always has a conscious observer that reads in one
or another way results of measurements (e.g. spin directed up or down) from
this device. Without such observer a combined system of the device and the
quantum system of interest would infinitely be in a state of superposition.

~~~
empath75
You're just another measurement device that's entangled with the system at
that point, though.

------
thescribe
Betteridge's Law of Headlines.

