I should probably know better than to get into this one, and I’m obviously not @MrDibble, but I’ll bite.
The OP, in its entirety:
The context of the cite in that post, taken from the cite:
the two researchers set out to prove the 500-year-old principle using observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
“The Copernican principle is a cornerstone of most of astronomy [ . . . ]. “It is also a necessary consequence of the stronger assumption of the Cosmological Principle: namely, that not only do we not live in a special part of the universe, but there are no special parts of the universe – everything is the same everywhere (up to statistical variation).
“It is a very handy principle, since it implies that here and now is the same as there and now, and here and then is the same as there and then. We do not have to look back in time at our current location to see how the universe was in our past – we can just look very far away, and given the large light travel time, we are looking at a distant part of the universe in the distant past.
The cite is talking about the physical laws of the universe; the Copernican principle states that those physical laws are the same throughout the universe, and that the physical substance of the universe is similar throughout the universe, subject only to statistical variation.
What does any of that have to do with the ability to communicate observations (even aside from the question of whether humans are the only ones who can do so)?
If hydrogen is the same substance with the same behavior on Earth as on the far side of the galaxy or of the universe, and now as it was three billion or thirteen billion years ago; or for that matter if it isn’t: how is that affected in any way by whether one human is able to communicate that information to another human?
I’m asking how the ability to communicate observations has an impact on whether particular observers are special, no more, no less. It’s a straightforward question.
From my own first post here, you can see that ability to communicate observations didn’t play into why I thought humans were uniquely special. An ability to communicate played a role in developing the technology that makes them special observers, but that isn’t the same as communicating the subsequent observations.
The site also states that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and we (humans) don’t occupy a special place. My attempted analogy (yeah, maybe not a great one) was that humans don’t necessarily occupy a special place when observing the Earth.
I was getting at the idea (just for fun) that humans might be overlooking evidence of intelligence in animals because we’re looking for human-like intelligence. Maybe we are the most intelligent species to have evolved on Earth; then we would occupy a special place when observing Earth. But…if animals (say cetaceans or avians) have developed complicated language abilities and can communicate observations, then maybe our perspective isn’t so special. Part of the idea of my OP is that if we can’t recognize other advanced intelligence here on Earth (if it exists), it might be because of what we’re looking for (do birds or dolphins write calculus books or forge metal?). It’s interesting how over the decades the answer to the question “what separates humans from animals” changes: humans are self-aware, humans use tools, humans have complex language, etc. I thought this might be a fun conversation, that’s why I put it in IMHO. Thanks for keeping it fun.
The thing is that humans are, as far as we know, only in one place in the universe. Saying that our place in the universe is not special is useful for finding out what the rules of the universe are. If we assume that our place is not special then we can assume the universe is the same everywhere (at large enough scales) and that the rules are universal. We can then make predictions about all of the universe based on the small part we can observe.
On the Earth though, we are everywhere pretty much, and we have explored large parts of the planet and the parts we haven’t explored are because they actually are very different (the depths of the oceans for example). There is no utility in saying we don’t have a special place on Earth when the place we hold on Earth is all of it.
I have heard it argued, by people I respect such as astrophysicist Matt O Dowd, that sentient life is probably extremely rare because we are the only example of sentient life that we know of on Earth.
But…it’s a really bad argument IMO. The whole nature of sentience implies such a species will find itself as the first on its planet.
Because of all the prerequisites to evolving intelligence (I personally don’t see intelligence as necessarily the “apex” but I also appreciate it requires a certain degree of complexity to support).
And also because of how quickly sentient species change their environment. So a previous sentient species on earth would either have had to have been present for an extremely brief period of time (and so we might not have seen the fossils yet) or would have changed the world so much that evolution as we know it couldn’t have happened.
OTOH of course, the argument that sentient intelligence is probably extremely rare because of the lack of evidence for any elsewhere in the universe…that’s a much stronger argument.
(Not sure if this was on-topic for this thread, the topic seems a little unclear)
How would human civilization appear to aliens who were fundamentally different from humans or any Earth species? Like individual humans are interesting, but when viewed from a distance over a long timeframe, we collectively just sort of look like billions of giant ants or roaches digesting a big round piece of fruit. Just with a bit more complicated ant-hills.
I don’t think we can have any idea; which is why, IMO, it would be so fascinating to meet some, presuming that we somehow managed to communicate well enough to get any answers to that question.
(My being fascinated by an idea of course has no bearing on whether any such thing is ever likely to happen.)
I appreciate your comments on this post. We (humans) are on the brink of being able to observe the local arm of our galaxy for life, thanks to the WEBB Space Telescope. We should open our minds a little about life here on Earth. That might help us understand observations we might get looking at other ecosystems. Just for fun.