Tao Te Ching, Top Office Episodes, Cosmic Significance
Three Point Thursday
Happy Three Point Thursday!
This week’s edition features a profound idea from a great scientist, a tip of the cap to my favorite TV show of all time, and a powerful excerpt from a classic of Chinese philosophy.
Humans are significant in the cosmic scheme of things, actually.
Humans are not important. In the cosmic scheme of things, that is. We are merely little animals, on a tiny planet, in just another galaxy. How could we be significant? Only religious people of the past thought we held a special place in the universe. I bet you’ve heard an argument like this before. It is what the physicist David Deutsch calls the Principle of Mediocrity, and it seems to have become the default position among educated people. But it is false, and you don’t need a religious worldview to see why. Human beings are exceptional in the basic sense that we are highly untypical in comparison to everything else in existence. To appreciate how unusual we are, just consider what makes up the vast majority of the universe. As Deutsch explains his book The Beginning of Infinity about our unimaginably large universe of matter:
“80 percent of that matter is thought to be invisible ‘dark matter,’ which can neither emit nor absorb light. We currently detect it only through indirect gravitational effects on galaxies. Only the remaining 20 percent is matter of the type we parochially call ‘ordinary matter.’”
What’s more, most of the mass of ordinary matter is concentrated in stars, and the vast majority of the universe by volume is cold darkness. Think about that: almost everything that exists is nothing but frigid emptiness. Compare this stark reality with us humans. Here on Earth, experiencing love. Creating art, scientific explanations, and technological miracles. As the scientist and podcaster Brett Hall says, “We are, so far as we know, the sole place in the universe that is creating knowledge, an open-ended stream of knowledge that could transform the rest of reality.” How could that possibly be insignificant? The scale of the universe does not mean that what humanity is doing is not special. On the contrary, it makes what our civilization continues to create and discover even more remarkable and heroic.
The list you didn’t know you needed.
When it comes to comedy, The Office is in its own category. It is sacred to me, even. The amount of violent laughter and comedic relief it has provided is enormous, and something I’m grateful for. Behold, my top ten favorite episodes:
#1 - Dinner Party
#2 - The Coup
#3 - Business School
#4 - The Client
#5 - Shareholder Meeting
#6 - Branch Wars
#7 - Dwight’s Speech
#8 - Mafia
#9 - Gay Witch Hunt
#10 - The Convict
The wisdom of the Tao Te Ching.
“The sage does not hoard.
Having bestowed all he has on others, he has yet more;
Having given all he has to others, he is richer still.”
Your wisdom clearly shows in this great piece. Primarily by listing Dinner Party as your #1 office episode… haha. Best tv show of all time.