The vastness of the universe, and the relative physical tininess of the human species and the homeworld we call Earth, are often cited to demonstrate humanity’s insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
For example, in Carl Sagan’s New York Times bestselling book Pale Blue Dot, he comments on the apparent tininess of Earth as seen in a photo taken by Voyager 1. “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light,” Sagan writes. “Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
He continues, “It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”
But as the renowned physicist David Deutsch explains in his book The Beginning of Infinity, this perspective reflects a counterproductive attitude toward the universe and our place within it. Deutsch writes:
Some people become depressed at the scale of the universe, because it makes them feel insignificant. Other people are relieved to feel insignificant, which is even worse. But, in any case, those are mistakes. Feeling insignificant because the universe is large has exactly the same logic as feeling inadequate for not being a cow. Or a herd of cows. The universe is not there to overwhelm us; it is our home, and our resource. The bigger the better.
Thinking of the universe as our resource is accurate if we choose to make use of it. And an entity or set of entities that has more resources is more significant, whether we mean physically or morally, than one with fewer resources. The vastness of the universe therefore makes humans more significant, not less.
A cowboy with a herd of cows, all else being equal, is more significant than a cowboy with only a single cow. The cowboy with more cows is a more successful, more profitable, better cowboy. Similarly, humans cramped into a universe little bigger than us would be relatively insignificant because we would have difficulty getting much done. Humans in our vast universe are more significant because we can do so much more. If our moral aims are good, we will be more significantly good. If they are bad, we will be more significantly bad.
Will humanity’s significant potential be actualized? Will we make use of the vast wealth of opportunity the universe has granted us? Will we terraform galaxies, achieve radical longevity, radically advance scientific knowledge, or do any of the other amazing as-yet-unachieved things we can imagine (through the use of biological and/or artificial intelligence)?
No known law of nature prohibits it. Only a choice to be insignificant would do that. So, how significant would you like to be?
Yes, but does growth exceed resource utilization? Can we get into a non-Malthusian trap where we have sustainability? That is the challenge.