- Unsupervised Learning
- Posts
- Step Zero in the Evolution of Humanity
Step Zero in the Evolution of Humanity
I strongly believe that the maturity of humans starts with understanding three main things:
We are floating around in a galaxy of 100 billion suns, which is in a universe of 100 billion galaxies
We are a product of evolution, and we are animals sharing much in common with the others here
We do not have (absolute) free will
This isn’t a philosophy, or a theory of meaning, or a conclusion. No, this is step 0.
This is what you before you have a philosophy, or an idea of meaning, or have come to any conclusions. This is the blank chalkboard on which we can write. But we aren’t there yet. We’re not anywhere close.
The visiting alien test
If an advanced visiting alien civilization were to come visit, they’d likely be looking for something like this as the basic test of advancement.
What do they think about themselves on Earth?
If the answer is, “Well, most of them think they’re hand-crafted by a human-looking creator of the universe, and that he listens to them telepathically.”, that’s a fail for us. We lose extra points for trying to use the mouthbreather technology we do have to kill each other in the names of those imaginary beings.
That gets a frowny face from the visitors.
Let’s get to step zero so we can start talking about moving past it. That’s where the interesting stuff begins.
::