Fallacy of the "Late Arrival in the Cosmic Drama" Argument

Astronomer Carl Sagan tried to popularize the slogan "we are all star stuff," a slogan that many people have since repeated.  There are several reasons why the slogan "we are all star stuff" is a poor slogan to be using, reasons I explain in my post here. One reason is that on the physical side, humans are enormously organized systems of matter, with the human body being a more impressive organization of parts than the organization of parts in a large jetliner. It is misleading to call enormously organized arrangements of matter "stuff," a term that implies disorganization. Another reason for rejecting the "we are all star stuff" slogan is that (contrary to the boasts of astronomers) we do not actually understand where the carbon and oxygen in our bodies came from. For reasons I discuss in that post, astronomers lack a plausible explanation for the oxygen and carbon in our bodies, and there are major problems with theories claiming such elements came from exploding stars. A third reason for rejecting the "we are all star stuff" slogan is that humans are primarily minds, and it is misleading and morally hazardous to refer to humans as mere "stuff." 

In a recent post Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb characterizes humans as being "inconsequential spectators of the cosmic scene." Loeb's post was just another example of the oppressive dehumanization practiced so often by mainstream scientists, in which humans are constantly depicted as things so much less than what humans actually are. Defying logic and observational reality, some scientists senselessly attempt to depict humans as animals or "almost apes" or robots or puppets completely controlled by physics forces.  

Let me discuss some of the slight reasoning Loeb uses to try and back up his claim. His main argument is expressed like this: 

"No, we are not at the center of the stage and we arrived to the cosmic play after 13.8 billion years, so how can we imagine that the play is about us? Indeed, the Earth-Sun system is not unique or privileged."

The second statement is a "give you the wrong idea" kind of claim. While astronomers have discovered many other solar systems, scientists have found no other planet showing any sign of life. Because Earth is the only planet on which either life or intelligent life has been discovered, it is very misleading to claim that Earth is not unique or privileged.  An honest statement consistent with fact would be to say, "To the best of our current knowledge, Earth is very much a privileged planet,  being the one and only planet where life is known to exist."

Let's look at the "cosmic play" argument Loeb uses, one he repeats in another essay. It is a very thin one attempting to reason that the universe cannot be "about us" because we arrived "late in the cosmic play."  A person might argue, "We must be just accidents, or why did it take so long for the universe to make us?"

Making some points that are made at much greater length in my interesting post "If the Universe Was Created, Or if Everything Is Mental, Then We Do Not Know How Old the Universe Is," let me list some reasons why the argument above is not convincing:

(1) First, we do not actually know that the universe is billions of years old. There are merely calculation algorithms that can leave you with an estimate that the universe is billions of years old. What is very often forgotten is that there is no reason why a divine creator would need to start a universe in a state of disorganized simplicity like the state of the Big Bang. An omnipotent creator could create a universe in any state of complexity whatsoever. Therefore, we don't actually know how old the universe is. The universe could have been created 20,000 years ago, in a state of great organizational complexity, equipped with living humans. Indeed, the universe could have been created only 2000 years ago, in the very organized state corresponding to the state the universe was believed to exist in 2000 years ago.  The fact that astronomers have a calculation algorithm that leads them to think the universe is 13 billion years does not prove the universe has existed that long. 

(2) Estimates of the age of the universe are basically irrelevant under one of the main possibilities regarding mind and matter,  the possibility of philosophical idealism. Under the idea of philosophical idealism, all that exists are minds and mental experiences, with material objects existing purely as elements within the experience of minds.  Under such an idea, the real "age of the universe" would seem to be the earliest age at which there were minds. So we don't actually know that there were some long eons of matter existing before mind, and we don't actually know that we are late arrivals in the cosmic drama. Because philosophical idealism is a viable position in the philosophy of mind, the cosmic drama may have actually begun when the first human minds appeared. 

(3) Not knowing the length of the cosmic drama, we don't know whether our appearance in it is "early" or "late." If that drama is a trillion-year drama, our appearance could still be very early.  A drama observer seeing the first appearance of character X in drama Y might reason that this cannot be the main character, because the character is appearing "late in the drama," as in the last of Z observed minutes of the drama he has seen. But such reasoning would often be fallacious.  For example, if you see character X appear in the 34th of 34 observed minutes of a drama, that does nothing to show that this character is not the main character of the drama. 

(4) There is no rule in drama that very important characters cannot arrive late in the drama, and in many dramas very important characters are not introduced until rather late in the drama. 

What we have in Loeb's reasoning seems like another example of what I call the evidence inversion syndrome, something I describe in my post here. The evidence inversion syndrome occurs when professors in their academia ivory towers reach some conclusion that is the exact opposite of the conclusion that should follow from a straightforward examination of the evidence. What is the  straightforward conclusion that follows from the fact that man has discovered countless planets,  and we still know of only one planet with life, our own planet? It is that there is something incredibly special about our planet and our species. What is the conclusion that Avi Loeb seems to have made from such evidence? The exact opposite.  In my post here I give quite a few other examples of scientists drawing conclusions that are the exact opposite of the conclusion that naturally follows from evidence. 

Later in his post Loeb attempts to back up his eventual claim that humans are "inconsequential" by giving us some talk designed to make us think we're nothing very special. He writes this:

"Well, let me offer some breaking news on this last item. Within this century, Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems will likely appear sentient in the most elaborate Turing Tests that the human mind can imagine. Within this century, astronomers are likely to discover evidence for a smarter kid on our cosmic block, not in the form of radio signals but in the form of weird interstellar objects — identified by the advanced AI algorithms of the Galileo Project. And finally, within this century we might realize that other sentient beings already exist on Earth. Check out the following article and video on bonobos."

There is no "breaking news" here, just something like a handful of moonbeams or a fistful of fairy dust. It is not likely that Artificial Intelligence systems will appear sentient by the end of the century, in the sense of having real minds and real understanding. That is because so-called Artificial Intelligence is just a bragging "Madison Avenue" hype term for a type of computer programming and data processing, and there is no amount of computer programming or data processing that will cause machines to gain understanding like humans have or lives like humans have. As for the  middle claim, it is a mere daydream. The Galileo Project is some project that Avi Loeb has organized.  Here Loeb is predicting that extraterrestrial intelligence will be discovered by his own little project, using its strange methodology of looking for what he calls "weird interstellar objects," rather than the main methodology astronomers have long used to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (searching for radio signals). Loeb is entitled to have whatever grandiose fantasies he wishes to have, but it is quite ridiculous to be passing off such  dreams of personal glory as some "breaking news," as if they were either a fact or a likelihood.  As for bonobos (a species of primates), they have nothing to do with whether the universe exists for the sake of beings such as humans. 

Sorry, these guys are no Einsteins

In one recent essay Loeb makes this strange claim:

"The chemistry of life in liquid water on the surface of our planet, the Earth, gave rise to the most complex systems we know."

So humans arose out of water? Isn't the official story actually that they arose from the dry plains of Africa? Water didn't "give rise" to the most complex known systems, but was merely one of very many prerequisites for such systems. Saying water "gave rise" to large complex systems is like saying paper "gave rise" to literary masterpieces. 

In the same essay Loeb makes this strange claim: "In short, complexity arrived late in cosmic history because the Universe started simple."  No, we live in a habitable universe which has fine-tuned extremely complicated laws of physics and fundamental constants that allow long-lived sun-like stars to exist and incredibly organized organisms to exist, and such life-enabling physics complexity has existed from the very beginning (scientists think the laws of physics and the universe's fundamental constants have been the same throughtout the universe's history). 

In another essay Loeb gives us this curious statement:

"The Universe might care about us, if we would be ambitious enough to venture into interstellar space. Like any relationship, it goes both ways. If we would care about the cosmos, the cosmos would care about us."

"If we would care about the cosmos, the cosmos would care about us"?  Really? That sounds like something only a professor would ever say. 

In another essay Loeb states this:

"The quest for scientific knowledge should not be focused on us. It is about figuring out the reality around us." 

This is a silly principle, and when scientists follow it they waste their time on dead-end "blind alley" studies rather than studies that would lead to the most important insights.  Thus far studying distant stars and distant planets (and listening for radio signals from extraterrestrials) has got mankind very little.  Conversely, the most important insights can be gained from studying the human mind, human biology and human mental experiences in all their strange variety.  Doing that with enough effort leads you to a conclusion that is the exact opposite of Loeb's claim that we are "inconsequential spectators of the cosmic scene." Loeb would have learned things much more important by very carefully studying the old volumes published by the Society for Psychical Research than by studying distant stars, distant planets and distant little objects in our solar system or interstellar space. Why have scientists making senseless dehumanizing claims about human beings (such as claims we are  "inconsequential spectators of the cosmic scene" or claims we are not much different from apes) failed to do their homework, by putting in the many thousands of hours needed to properly study the human mind and the full spectrum of human mental experiences, a topic of oceanic depth? Maybe because too many of them are following unwise principles such as the one quoted above.