[alcover]

I agree so much. For all we know yet, there's nothing out there. Nothing conscious or even sentient. So our lives and the life on earth are infinitely important.

I never understood this `we're but a speck`. Do you know of many other specks with life ?

[dylan604]

The universe has been around long before humans existed, and it will be here long after humans no longer exist. If humans are the best the universe has, then that's just a sad bit of commentary. Not understanding the but a speck is just denying fact. We may be the only speck with life, but we're just a speck with life. If the life on this speck was able to hop from speck to speck and utilize all of the universe, we could have a conversation.

[AIorNot]

Consider this: In the movie, the Truman show: Truman is living on a giant hollwyood soundtage with thousands upon thousands of cameras following his every move allowing the TV Audience to subjectively experience his life - his life is writ large on the minds of billions of people- but it is only one life.

Now imagine instead- If the Universe is conscious, instead of that being one big conscious observer looking down; perhaps instead we (each of us humans, animals etc as life act as living observers) living our first person subjective perspectives like a multitude of cameras for the universe to experience itself on Earth

And we can imagine that happening at all scales simultaneously across all living worlds and other forms of mind throughout the cosmos, ie consciousness as first person observers might be as innumerable as the number of stars in the sky, and these living perspectives or subjective cameras are dotting the whole immensity all unify to provide the universe with an eye on itself in infinite perspective ..

Doesn't that make up for humans being puny tiny lifespans - we (our insignificant bodies) are just disposable cameras for consciousness

[objektif]

How does existence of life outside Earth (or lack of it) change importance of our life in the grand scheme of things?

[alcover]

It's important because we seem to be the only (visible) thing that can scheme.

[dylan604]

I'm not so sure. I've watched my cat sit there and scheme. Sure, it may be not much further than "what's this thing do if I bat it with my paw?" or "what's that taste like?" or "can I train my hooman to refill the food dish if I incessantly whine and be as annoying as possible?", but they are definitely thinking about it. Then again, I've watched my cat stare off into space as if he's pondering the mysteries of the universe, but he's probably just trying to figure out the best route he could take to get that squirrel if he could just get outside.