Life is Special Enough

Humanity's “secret sauce” in the face of advanced technology

the secret sauce is in there somewhere

As a species, we humans seem to think quite highly of ourselves. We have no problems coming up with reasons to justify how special (we think) we are. Other species could rightly accuse us of an inflated sense of self-importance.

Historical justifications for our exceptional nature makes quite a list: 

• Only humans are the distinct creations of a loving God. 

• Only humans have been endowed with a soul. 

• Only humans are at the center of the universe. 

• Only humans are rationally intelligent. 

• Only humans have a self-reflective consciousness. 

• Only humans are masters of language. 

• Only humans have a free will. 

• Only humans are meaning-making and purpose-driven beings.

There are obvious advantages for humanity to try and carve out a special place in the cosmos. Feeling unique and exceptional fosters in-group cohesion and helps create a shared identity. It justifies dominance over nature and other species. It reduces some of the existential terror that comes with our impermanence and mortality.

Yet the story of humanity is in some ways the story of science and technology systematically dismantling the entire idea that we are uniquely special. Things we once thought were eternally sacred have been reduced to mundane scientific explanations. Abilities we thought were irreducibly human have been perfected and automated by technological innovations.

Even today, we desperately want to think that there’s something special about being human. As advanced technology promises to match and exceed the remaining human capacities that might defines us as special, we wonder “what’s left?”

Soon we’ll have increasing powers to merge with machines, to genetically alter our own species, and to create intelligences that vastly exceed our own. This acceleration confronts us with some uncomfortable questions: Is there anything that humans can do that can’t be perfected or automated by a machine?  Is there anything special about the human condition that is “technology proof”?

Or to put it more concisely: In a future with advanced technology, what is the point of the human being?

The “secret sauce” of humanity

If we could locate some essential quality of human nature, then perhaps it could help us define a unique role for humanity in our technological future. But this is much tougher than it sounds. Not only would it need to be compatible with scientific consensus, it would also need to be impervious to the relentless march of technological progress. And it would need to be something that resonates with all of humanity, regardless of our cultural differences.

Do any justifications of human specialness hold up? A quick survey of the list above doesn’t offer much hope. The notion of Earth being the center of the universe was swiftly discarded once technology enabled astronomical observations. Similarly, the idea of humans as distinct creations of a divine being has lost much of its persuasive force in the face of evolutionary evidence.

Along with these empirical attacks, science has also mounted theoretical challenges. Phenomena like consciousness and free will, once thought to be hallmarks of human exceptionalism, have been reframed as mere byproducts of our neural architecture or delusions of subjective experience.

As technology advances, even more supposed human specialties will be called into question. Our intelligence and our mastery of language are increasingly being matched—and in some cases surpassed—by artificial systems.

So what is left? Is there something about human beings that can’t be reduced to mechanistic functions? That isn’t explainable by science or evolution? That could never be reproduced or perfected by future technology? Is there something irreducibly human, something inherent in the human condition that defies explainability, reduction, or reproduction?

This is often called the “secret sauce” argument—the positing of something mysterious or magical that will forever set humanity apart from everything else in the universe.

For many, this question comes down to religious or spiritual beliefs. We are the creations of a loving God, endowed with moral agency and a divine spirit that can never be replicated in soulless machines. Yet, such arguments must also grapple with the darker aspects of human nature. Moreover, what if artificial agents could be designed for greater moral agency, compassion, and environmental stewardship than anything humans have been capable of?

The more scientifically inclined cling to the hope that consciousness or intelligence will forever defy technological replication. Perhaps the brain operates on quantum principles or analog processes that can never be fully digitized. Or perhaps consciousness is only possible in carbon-based biological organisms. But as of yet, no conclusive evidence has emerged to fully justify these claims.

Others make philosophical arguments about human agency and free will. We can always choose to not act like machines and to defy predetermined outcomes. These might be theoretically appealing, but they can’t offer much practical impact in the face of increasingly autonomous and self-directed artificial systems.

Perhaps the problem is more fundamental. What each of these “secret sauce” arguments is trying to locate is some essential quality that defines humanity’s unique nature. But what if no such essential quality exists?

I say fine. The sooner we give up on the idea of some essential quality, the sooner we can stop being threatened whenever technology appears to improve or replace it, and the sooner we can embrace a different approach—one that stands a greater chance of informing a sustainable relationship between a flourishing humanity and advanced technology.

The contingency argument

Instead of arguing for some essential reason, I am proposing a contingent one. 

We can call it the contingency argument: that what makes humans special isn’t some single quality. What makes us special is the simple fact that we’re here. We exist. We are the contingent result of life itself, and life is special enough. 

By contingent, I mean that there’s nothing essential that could possibly explain life in general or your life in particular. Life could just as easily have not happened, but here we are. We don’t know why or how life happened; we just know that it did happen.

Maybe it was some God(s), maybe it was some universal consciousness, or maybe it was the law of large numbers churning through physical laws long enough to find the magic formula. Regardless, contingency will always be a part of humanity’s origins. The reason we are here and dinosaurs are not is not because of some essential character of the universe but because of pure chance. 

Yet this contingency is utterly special. As far as we know, life has only happened once. This makes life itself the most precious thing in the entire universe. It also makes Earth the most interesting planet in the universe. Everything outside of Earth’s ambit—for all its near infinite scale in matter and energy—is completely and utterly without life. It follows the determined path of physical law and nothing more. 

Somehow Earth alone has harbored the conditions necessary for life to evolve and flourish, culminating in the most advanced form of life that has ever existed: us, human beings. We are the only species with the cognitive capacity to reflect on our own evolution. Part of that capacity includes a conscious self-awareness, which we use to inject meaning into the universe itself. The history of the universe becomes our history, the history of humankind. The cosmos becomes the playground of our purpose.

This contingency means that everything we think is special about humanity—our creativity, our intelligence, our rationality—is utterly contingent on what was adaptive for our evolutionary environment. Nothing about our capacities are perfect or ideal. They were selected to be precisely attuned to Earth’s conditions and nothing more.

The most remarkable thing about human capabilities is how suboptimal they are. We learn best by failing, over and over again. We embrace errors and mistakes, transforming them into inspiration and serendipity. Long walks, showers, and naps play key productive functions in the history of our intellectual achievements. Our irrationality is one of the deepest sources of our imaginative powers. It is this suboptimality that makes our capabilities so optimally human.

Perhaps the most potent aspect of our contingent nature is our reality as finite beings. We experience suffering, and each of us will die. Our experience of life always falls short of our aspirations. Yet this very finitude is what fuels everything that makes us human: our drive for transcendence, our quest for meaning, our ceaseless push to expand the boundaries of possibility.

Our most contingent values are the ones that we value most: our judgements, aesthetics, and moral values. These can only result from the clash of finitude and transcendence that we each experience at the heart of the human condition. They are not individual attributes that can be detached from the wholeness of life. They can never be optimized for the determinant machinations of digital artificialization.

Life is not a machine—it’s too ambiguous, too mysterious, too indeterminate. Nor is life a computation, or an algorithm. Life is so much bigger than these things. There is an integrated wholeness to life that imparts an intentionality onto every human capability that can never be captured by that capability alone.

So if humanity has any “secret sauce”, it is this: we are here. As far as we know, we are the most advanced form of life that exists anywhere in the universe. There’s no need to identify some essential quality of humanity to prop up our ego in the face of technological advancement. All of the chance and paradox and failures has led to a form of life that is uniquely capable of judgment, purpose, and meaning. We are at the leading edge of life’s possibilities, and that alone is worthy of veneration. Life is special enough.

It’s only when we reject our lineage to life that we become tempted to remake the human as determined, quantified, and completely self-made. When we forget our contingency we forget our humanity. That’s when we are most likely to elevate machines as the sole means of comparison for all human achievement. That’s when we cede our agency to that which can never generate human values or make human judgments.

The path forward, then, is to forge a relationship with advanced technologies that recognizes the contingent nature of life itself, while empowering us to expand the possibilities of what life can become. It is a path of both conserving life’s essence and redefining its limits.  A path of continual becoming, fueled by the inexhaustible drive of imagination and wonder at the heart of the human condition.

---