Life IS an experiment, via evolution, to propagate our DNA. We’re doing pretty great! Colonised loads of land, even at extremes of temperature. Sure, we haven’t made it to living underwater just yet, and the poles, mountainous regions and deserts are logistically tricky, and there’s only a handfulbof us in space at any one time, but we’re getting there!
The metric is biodiversity.
How many kinds of life are there, and are they thriving? What are the bottlenecks and boundaries for species that slow or stop their progress?
Well, as a living, all-consuming, extinction-level event, I’d say we are making the experiment more impossible. We are a confounding factor, a bias most foul, and the primary flaw in the experimental design.
If only there was guidance in terms of balancing our biological impact and capacity for sustainable development. If only there were some models that have and had worked for millennia. If only there were living groups who could share their wisdom.
If only.
So, for now, plunderous expropriation rules: violent, resource-heavy, rational modern warfare; apathetic, resource-heavy, throwaway consumer culture; and ignorant, resource-heavy, industrial machinations.
What could go wrong?
I enjoyed reading that. Question, do you believe in a god/ architect/ creator? No obligation to answer, I just want to know if someone as rational as yourself believes in the seemingly irrational ( for now)
If I said yes, I’d caveat that by saying, “we’re not special.” There’s no interaction, quid pro quo or otherwise, with whatever presence, energy, or overmind that I would conceptualize as a deity.
Not an architect. Not a creator. Omnipotence and omniscience defy temporality. There are, similarly, no subdivisions of the deity; there are no places that it is present, and others that it is absent. No underboss gods, angels, demons, heavens, hells, or purgatories.
The deity, in my understanding, is simply a unity: An answer to paradoxes, a solution to the incomprehensible, a layer beneath and above all other measurements, concepts, and capacities. A holographic whole that encompasses and inhabits every possibility. It is older than the universe and beyond our feeble attempts to comprehend it, let alone write its character and tell its story.
A bearded white dude who impregnated a virgin, hates masturbation, holds vendettas, destroys cities, sends plagues, and permits humans to hide from “HIM” in the garden of good and evil… it is all just silly by comparison. At that’s just from the tradition I was raised in.
I mean, a burning bush? Or tests of faith?
We, people and all other organisms that are aware of one another, need to get on with finding ways to coexist. Biodiversity is the scorecard.
/rant
If we’re going by the The Good Place point system, not only are we all going to the Bad Place, we’re all getting VIP seats in The Worst Place.
The designer has a dark sense of humour. First let’s make a thing, then let’s make the best place ever for that thing. Then let’s test the thing to see if it deserves the best place. But before that, let’s make the thing attracted to all the things that will make the thing not deserve the good place. And just to top it off let’s not tell the thing anything about it…. Now we watch.
The Vogons will demolish Earth to build a hyperspace bypass before we find out the results.
presses hitchhike button
You would need to also state what the metric is to provide a sensible answer.
I thought OP was going to ask “what do you think the metric is?”- I feel like that’s a more fun question. What do you think the metric would/could be?
I think the metric is different per individual. Progress. I have settled, after years of wonder and experiencing, that we are indeed in a the most incredible classroom. An experience machine. We Temporarily inhabit a meat suit perfectly designed to navigate the machine and initiate the types of experiences that bring about the lessons we have opted to learn. Amnesia of self leads to fear of the unknown, which in turn manifests as a fear of death. It keeps us in the classroom, because if we remembered who we are we would leave at the first sign of discomfort or struggle, and fail to learn anything. Because where we come from is pure satisfaction with no duality, and doesn’t suck. The story of the meat suit is evolution, at some point we just hop into one.
Neat answer! Should the question then be, how do you think you are doing? (Rather than “we”). I think I’m doing pretty okay on most of it- like a C+ maybe, or a B- lol
You’re right, but then I would have had to assume everyone believed the same as I do. I thought the more vague idea was better, I’m happy with the variety of answers I’m getting . Congrats on the B tho hehe
Sorry that I implied (twice) that your question sucks 😅 I enjoyed it and the responses it garnered
lol didn’t even notice
You’re absolutely correct, but there is no metric. So go on gut feel.
We’re optimizing our fitness function as living beings (ie, we’re still alive), so I’d say that’s a solid thumbs-up.
I imagined that most would take a look at the carnage spewed out on media channels and decided to vote more negatively. But the fact that we are still here and still progressing (however slowly) must mean that we are winning somewhat
Yeah, I mean it depends a lot on what you think the purpose of the experiment is, right? I take a somewhat simplistic view at the big-picture scale: I want to live, therefore it’s better to be alive than dead, therefore continuing to be alive is exceeding my expectations and counts as a win in my book. But it’s more complicated once you get into the weeds of ‘purpose’ and such. For me I think there is no point or purpose to life beyond it as itself, we’re just a particularly complex chemical soup cast adrift in the universe left to work shit out for ourselves. But what that means is that I get to decide what everything means including life itself, and since I want to continue living and creating meaning I have decided that that means I am accomplishing my purpose in life. Yeah the world sucks and all that, but it is still populated by people and people are what matter; we can make the world a better place by improving the lives of those who live here by reducing the amount of suffering in it. As Camus says, the struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart.
It’s measured on an individual-to-individual basis, and I couldn’t possibly give you a fair, all encompassing aggregate. Mmm… we have gained previously unimaginable power over our world, and we understand the universe better than ever. On the other hand, large chunks of the world remain uncivilised, and in their barbaric incursions they kill and pillage indiscriminately… but now with stealth bombers and drone swarms. I don’t think we pass the test collectively, but maybe I’m too negative. But each person is responsible for and will be judged on their own behaviour anyway, not that of others, so 🤷.
Yes.
Poetry
If life is an experiment, and there is a measuring tool
So that’s what keeps causing our wave function to collapse!
No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it.
I don’t even know what that means but I like it.
I think humanity should just have one last mass party, like a festival world wide, and by the end of the night everyone kills themselves. It starts with the richest and celebrities and entertainers and we all observe their suicide and make sure they’ve died. And it’s not sad. It’s spiritual because we know it’s best for the the universe
Do you think we have that much effect on the universe?
No, I think we don’t deserve life.
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