Many years ago, Nova broadcast a show on the possibility that Man has an instinct to evolve, and that our growing understanding of biology and technology would allow us to create a newer Human Being. This new HB would then migrate to the stars and perpetuate our species. It was a very powerful idea that has hung in your humble writer’s consciousness ever since. Several thinkers have, over the years, refined this concept, the most notable being Ray Kurzweill. His latest book, The Singularity, attempts to define the coming singularity as the next step in human evolution. Much of the analysis is beyond your humble scribe, a student of the softer side of academe, but the imagination is rife with implications. An instinctive imperative to survive, at any cost, coupled with the same drive to populate the universe, perhaps as the last chance to avert the inevitable extinction of our species, either through our own self destructive urges or the intervention of nature, as our study of geology tells us has happened more than once on this planet. Ah, to dream!
And it may be more important than a moment or two of personal wool gathering. This story serves to remind us that, after all, we may be alone in the Universe. The only sign of intelligent life in the entire Universe! Says the author:
Those who want to believe sometimes argue that the mathematical probabilities against intelligent life may be less certain than we think. They cite "complexity theory"–which suggests there may be a certain irregularity and unpredictability even in the laws of nature. But others think the mathematical odds must be respected. "Nobody knows why equations work so well in describing things. Maybe it’s the handprint of God, or an ancient, advanced, powerful alien race," says NASA scientist David Grinspoon, but "there is something spooky about the way mathematical relationships are so enmeshed with the physical nature of our universe." For the moment, cold rationality suggests that Jacques Monod was right when he said that "Man at last knows he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he has emerged only by chance."
A chilling thought that we imperfect beings, fighters, exploiters of our planets resources, self-destructive, and small-minded, are the only race in the Universe to evolve into some sort of self-awareness, that it is in our hands to create the circumstances of our continued existence. Are we up to it?
Love the post. It reminds me of the question for the website Edge in 2006: What is your dangerous idea? The answer that I found most chilling was “We are alone.” It made me realize how deeply I felt that there were others out there, besides the life we know on this planet, and the thought of us being alone in the universe was a very strange feeling. (http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_index.html)