It seems clear to CK that lot’s of people have woken up to the fact that there’s a lot of biased perspectives around when it comes to describing history, life, other cultures, religions, political and economic systems, and so forth. Humans certainly have a tendency to anthropomorphise everything, and see things from a single perspective imbued with their own values. CK devotes his life and this site to trying to change that and help people to perceive things from multiple and more objective perspectives.
But sometimes I encounter the exact opposite and I nearly despair. I encountered this question on Quora lately. One should never jump to conclusions on Quora, since it’s clear that many people ask questions because they want to elicit answers for others to read, rather than for themselves. However, it does concern me that it seems too many people do have their eyes glued so tightly shut that they cannot distinguish between what’s around them, and the idea that this is just another human mental perspective or conceptual model.
We cannot know how remarkable the Earth is compared with millions of other planets because we know nothing about millions of other planets. We can only base our understanding on what we know.
Within the limits of our now considerable knowledge we can state that:
Earth is the only planet which has a biosphere.
We do not know how life began on Earth. In fact we don’t even know if life began on Earth or came to Earth. Given the complexity of DNA we have no theory of how life could have begun on Earth or anywhere else either. So the fact that the Earth is teaming with life is absolutely as amazing as anything you could ever imagine.
The Earth’s history is amazing. Our oxygen based atmosphere is amazing because it was created by life itself.
Since then, and the extinction of the life that created the oxygen, over a period of around a billion plus years the Earth has seen numerous major extinction events. 99% of all species that have ever existed are extinct, and yet the Earth’s biosphere is still teaming with life.
The characteristics of the Earth that enable it to support a biosphere are also amazing. Not only is it in ‘The Life Zone’ distance from it’s sun, but it has huge oceans, a single massive moon creating uncommon tidal activities, and a magnetic field that occasionally reverses for reasons we still don’t really understand. We are shielded from fatal radiations and meteor bombardments by ozone layers, Jupiter, possibly our large moon, and our magnetic fields.
Our single massive moon is an amazing feature in itself, by the way.
Out planetary inclination out of the orbital plane, and the mildly eliptical orbit give us seasons which may be important to life, and certainly greatly effect the type of life we have on Earth. Our planetary spin gives us 365 days which prevent excessive heating and warming impacts between day and night.
We also have on this planet a species capable of advanced language, consciousness and self awareness, mathematics, farming and agriculture, art (painting, drama, dance, film, architecture, literature, etc etc.), storytelling and literature and poetry, music, dance, technology, writing, spirituality and worship, and the list goes on. No other creature on this planet can do ANY ONE of those things. We do them all. (Okay - cetaceans have some conscious awareness and complex language - but they can’t write).
Mankind is also the only extant species that:
has mastered fire and cooks its own food.
is a land based mammal that has no fur / hairy coat and has to wear clothes, which also gives rise to fashion.
keeps rhythm, and thus truly has music and dance, poetry and cadence, and marching.
is able to send artefacts out of the Solar System, to land on the moon, and to explore Mars.
has changed the face of the Earth, split the atom, created Artificial Intelligence, and Genetic Engineering.
All these statements are simply facts. They have absolutely NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with being a ‘merely human perspective’.
And there are plenty more amazing facts I could have added to that list. People who dig into the CK-Oracle via The Portal will encounter them.
If these things do not constitute an ‘amazing planetary history’ I really don’t know what would. I have difficulty thinking of anything that could be much more ‘amazing’. As I keep repeating, truth is way, way more amazing than fiction.
Maybe in this vast universe there are other planets with amazing histories. We don’t know of them. But from everything we do know our planet’s history, and we ourselves, are absolutely amazing. And that is a completely objective perspective.
Hope this helps.