> The earth has always been earth-shaped.

And you never needed more than 640KB of RAM [1] right? Your "statement" is based on your knowledge today. You'd be burned for witchcraft back in the days for saying the earth was not flat.

> but the universe doesn’t care what we think

Assuming you know what the universe is. Your theory is based on your limited today knowledge. Someone sometime in the future could say something completely different (just like you talking about those of the past).

[1] famously from 1981

The particular problem with intelligence is perception can cause agents with intelligence to alter the world around them even if our understanding of the universe is wrong. At the end of the day we are just the universe experiencing itself, not something separate.