The Mediocrity Principle
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> A: The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren't special.
> B: Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws.
The argument being that B implies A.
First this is self-contradictory: B implies B and nothing more.
What does he mean by "special". Are we talking about some mushy, subjective definition of "special". If that's the case, then it's a moot point. By that definition you're as special as someone thinks you are, including yourself. If your mom thinks you're special, you're special. That's what subjective means.
If that's not the case, by special, does he mean highly unlikely, finite, or unique? -- Math is infinite and governed by sets of universal rules, yet there are many unique ("special") mathematical patterns.
In this case, we don't know if we're special or unlikely because we don't know what the odds of us existing are. We don't know how common or uncommon intelligent life is.
"But intelligent life is not special, even if it were uncommon, because it's governed by the same universal laws as unintelligent dead matter."
Then, if our definition of special is not subjective, and uniqueness or unlikelihood does not imply specialness, then what is the definition of special that we're using here?
Or does he mean "governed by intent" (of a deity or purposeful universe). Now we've got a new problem, which is defining what intent is, and if there even is such a thing (which, if there isn't, the whole point is moot again).
I think he means that the universe does not gain meaning by our existence. The universe will (or will not) be there regardless of whether we happen to exist or not, because our existence is just a fortunate combination of physical laws. Given a slightly different combination (the Sun being slightly further away from this planet, for example), you/we wouldn't exist at all, but the universe would still be there. Other forms of intelligent life may or may not exist elsewhere, but this still does not mean that the universe exist in order to have intelligent life. The universe will or will not exist because of the laws of physic; everything else will be subject to these laws, and so it will never be "special".
Possibly part of your trouble in interpreting the essay is that you're missing out on what the essay is in response to. The question was posed: "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"
Whether the Mediocrity Principle is "correct" or not is not even the point. The point is that assuming the Mediocrity Principle to be true and acting as if you and your situation are not special is a productive stance to take in life, as it is in science.
It's another way of saying "the world does not revolve around you", "you are not the center of the universe", etc.
The author states that people who have weird religious beliefs that imply that people are the centre of the universe should not do so because science shows us that the universe is indifferent to us. We are not special but part of the universe and a product of the same rules that produced everything else. But this is obviously begging the question: if you accepted the scientific view of the world you wouldn't have a nutty religious view to start with.
In essence, the author says: accept science because science. No different to when Christians say: accept Christianity because of what the bible says.
The author is correct but his argument is crap.
Everything that happens in the world is the consequence of natural, universal laws. That's what makes them universal.
The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren't special.
The universal laws of nature have led to beings capable (among other things) of discovering them. That seems pretty special to me.
We may one day discover intelligent alien life, until then the blue planet really is special. Okay it may not look like much, but looks can be deceiving.
There seems to be some fundamental opposition to the principle in the world we live and operate in:
User centered design implies that the User is special.
Business and marketing say that the Customer is always right.
Solutions that seek to make things better, to improve the lot may go against the principle as the universe doesn't care either way.
From a code standpoint, it means you strive for "it just works", even if it means a lot of redundant code that doesn't match common expectations of best practices or adds a lot of "useless" work for the devs.
That said, we didn't get here by divine intervention, and on another planet with life, the dominant species will likely have followed a similar pattern to dominance, and our existence as the dominant species is not special (the dinosaurs once owned the place).
Also my ability to understand to what level you are being silly or snarky or sarcastic is equally non-special.
We already do, unbeknownst to us, for centuries. [1]
OK maybe we did not decided to cooperate it but isn't that the point here.
"All the bacteria living inside you would fill a half-gallon jug; there are 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells"
"The infestation begins at birth: Babies ingest mouthfuls of bacteria during birthing and pick up plenty more from their mother's skin and milk—during breast-feeding, the mammary glands become colonized with bacteria."
[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-h...
He's clearly talking about "special" not in the sense of deviating from the norm, but in the sense of being exempt from the same rules that govern other entities in the universe.
Well, I flagged you (for trolling). That will have to do.
And bacteria didn't evolve during last 2 billion years, right? Whoever downvoted me: you can't have it both ways. Average means average. We are not dominant species on Earth - bacteria is. I can imagine how they would laugh reading about such preposterous idea. No, I'm not kidding. I firmly believe we were created by bacteria by intentional effort, and every cell of our body is a specialized bacteria. One of them (probably, neuron) believes he is "me". But you won't like the idea, hence the objection. Simply NOT LIKE. Nothing to do with science or principles, just arrogance and pride. Please continue downvoting.
I don't know what you define intelligence as, but bacteria certainly don't possess it. They mostly just travel up or down a chemical, temperature, and maybe even electrical gradient. Then they mytos if there is food around. Sometimes a virus or other gene factor comes along and then they mutate a bit. A lot of the time, they just die.
Also, the AI stuff is not futile, it's just a tool. Yeah, the phones get smarter and smarter, but they are still tools. Until we start making AI's the make their own tools, then they really can be called intelligent. That and they'll need evolutionary pressure to stay alive.
Also, we WAY cooperate with prokaryotes and eukaryotes alike. I mean, Beer?! Cheese?! Like all the really tasty stuff has a bacteria or yeast culture at the start it seems. Also, insulin is all bacteria derived. Most agriculture started out with bacteria to get the nitrogen fixations going (now we just make ammonia industrially). We really rely on bacteria a lot in civilization.
Een then, once you understand the vastness of the universe, even falls under the veil of inevitability.
We know what these are?
The universe is likely far larger than just the observable univers. Still ~27+ billion light years across means we only get to see suff that's less than 1 billion years old within ~1/20,000th of the univers and the last 1 million years is ~1/20,000,000,000,000 of the visible universe. Look back 1 million years and earth has little trace of any intelegent life. Worse if there was another identical earth pushing out radio waves as much as we do 1,000 light years from us we would probably have missed it so add another 9 zeros.
Hell voyager 1 is in a well known location less than 2 light days from us pointing a directional antenna directly at us and it's not that easy to detect. 1 light year would mean ~1/10,000th the signal which would be hard.
Furthermore, our cosmological position is, in fact, at least somewhat special, but that is not surprising, by the anthropic principle.
Yet another idiotic bloviation from PZ.