[lo_zamoyski]

The central fallacy is that size has to do with significance. It is a huge non sequitur and grist for the deepity mill to conclude that just because Earth is tiny in comparison to the Universe in terms of size that it must therefore be insignificant.

[jjulius]

Easy! It's both significant and insignificant!

[roxolotl]

This has always been my takeaway. Our cosmic insignificance reminds us just how significant what we have is.

[jjulius]

Exactly!

[wat10000]

It's equally fallacious to conclude that Earth must be significant just because it's where you and everyone you know happen to live.

[nkrisc]

Well it’s certainly significant to its inhabitants, perhaps the single most significant place in the universe (to inhabitants of Earth).

From a cosmic perspective, however, it is rather insignificant.

Of course, the idea of “significance” is pretty meaningless without context or a perspective, so naturally it ends up being quite subjective.

[chgs]

Is life, specifically intelligent life, signiant on a cosmic scale?

If so there’s a strong chance that Earth is the most significant place in the galaxy at least. It’s possible we’ll screw ourselves up before we make it to other star systems, but of we do manage self sustaining interstellar ships then within a cosmically tiny amount of time humans, or the evolved dwacwndents, will occupy every star in this galaxy.

Maybe that’s common, maybe that’s insignificant on a universal scale, maybe reaching the level of development humans have is quite common, but it’s quite possible that Earth is, or will be, very significant on a galactic scale if nothing else.

[nkrisc]

Maybe. Maybe not. We really just don’t know. If sentient life is vanishingly rare on a cosmic scale then there would some significance to Earth (currently). But it is otherwise pretty insignificant.

Even if we’re significant on a galactic scale, that’s a long way from cosmic significance. Even our galaxy is pretty insignificant on that scale.

[lo_zamoyski]

This is where philosophical training helps.

People here flippantly conclude whether something is significant or insignificant without defining what significance is and how to determine it. Question begging and bad assumptions abound.

"Pale blue dot" talk is ultimately an intellectually vacuous appeal to confusion and emotion. It strives to seem profound, but it only manages to approximate a silly deepity.

[christophilus]

I think the point is that the pale blue dot doesn’t really provide any relevant information on the subject of our significance (or lack thereof).

[wat10000]

I think it does. It’s not proof that this place is insignificant, but the fact that it’s just a tiny dot in an unimaginably vast universe is strongly suggestive.

Compare with a hypothetical universe consisting of a million-kilometer-diameter crystal sphere with the Earth at its center. Again not proof, but absent any further information, one would reasonably conclude that Earth is much more significant in that universe.

[christophilus]

Dunno. The crystal sphere wouldn’t tell me anything. If I’m the kind of life form that requires such sphere in order to evolve in the first place, then of course I’d observe such a sphere around my planet— otherwise I wouldn’t be there to observe anything!

If I lived on such a planet, I might say, well, I’d need a big sun-like outer gas giant in order to prove we’re significant. As it is, we’re just a little crystal sphere in a huge universe.

[donkeybeer]

What he was saying is if the total universe was merely a few million kilometers, the earth would form a much larger and non-trivial portion of it compared to the vast size of the observable universe in real life.

[christophilus]

Ah. Yep. I skipped the part about the universe being tiny.

[lo_zamoyski]

It suggests no such thing. Why should it?

That you find such things suggestive entails dubious presuppositions of value.

[suddenlybananas]

Humans are the only thing we know of that assigns signifiance to anything

[wat10000]

What’s your point?

[kbelder]

There is no cosmic perspective. There's only my perspective, your perspective, and so on. Perhaps there are alien perspectives, and from their perspective, their world is very significant.

When you talk about significance, you have to bring in considerations of value and worth. And at that point, you have to bring in the individual. Significance is only significant to someone.

[bena]

Probably that significance isn't an inherent quality of things.

[lo_zamoyski]

That's not the point at issue. And it is also entirely possible to have independent grounds on which to judge significance other than "this is my neighborhood" (which, btw, may very well be a very legitimate basis for judging significance).

A good place to begin is to define significance and to identify and explain what causes something to be significant.

[mouse_]

absolutely unhinged take