Epoch 8 - FUTURE EVOLUTION - Prospects for Human Survival and Alien Life - Introduction

Humans are now the preeminent intelligence on planet Earth. We’re the only species able both to communicate culturally and to construct technologically—the only ones capable of knowing our past and worrying about our future. Just how wise we are, however, is an issue of much uncertainty.

Where do we go from here? What is our future? Though these aren’t easy questions, we do know one thing: in ~5 billion years, our Sun is destined to run out of fuel, balloon into a red-giant star, and engulf some of its planets, perhaps even Earth. That will doubtless be the end of civilization on our planet, although our descendants will have likely left Earth long before then. That end might come earlier if the Sun’s luminosity continues to rise, causing global warming regardless of what we do to stop it.

Even so, the Earth will not become uninhabitable for another ~1 billion years, a time so remote as to be nearly incomprehensible. That leaves plenty of opportunity for life on Earth, should it endure, to undertake galactic engineering projects and other grand ventures literally out of this world. To be sure, leaving our home planet, thus dispersing our “eggs from a single basket” might well be key to our long-term survival.

What about shorter timescales, say a million, a thousand, or even a few hundred years in the future? Is there any way at all to predict further evolution of Homo sapiens while extending our trek along the cosmic arrow of time? Do we have any say in the outcome, or, like the galaxies, are we essentially “along for the ride”?

Surely, we would be conceited, vainglorious, and downright pretentious to regard ourselves as the final product of universal change, the very pinnacle of cosmic evolution. Change has accompanied time’s passage since the very start of the Universe and it's not likely to stop now. Just because technologically intelligent life has achieved dominance on a single planet, there’s no reason to think that change will cease.

Change must furthermore persist for all tomorrows if we are to endure as a civilization. Change or perish. That is the vital code for the continued viability of all matter, including life.

This Web site has addressed the scientific nature of matter and life as we know it. We've taken inventory of the material Universe and pondered the origin and evolution of intelligent life. We've canvassed space and studied time, all the while learning more about ourselves in the grandest scheme of things. Mainly, we've come to realize that we inhabit no special place in the Universe. Every experimental test made to date suggests that we reside on an ordinary rock, orbiting an average star, near the edge of a typical galaxy.

Thus matter all around us seems in no way unique, even though the normal (non-dark) matter from which we're made might well be rare. But is it possible that we life forms are unique? Is it conceivable that Earth is the only place where life arose in the Universe? Or are we only one of many living systems, perhaps only one of many technological intelligences, in the extraordinarily vast Universe beyond? These are tough questions, for the subject of extraterrestrial life is one for which there are no clear, unambiguous data.

We might like to think that cosmic evolution operates everywhere in the Universe. And it should if the narrative outlined in the previous 7 epochs is correct. But to be honest, we know of no other place in the whole Universe where life has arisen. This doesn't mean that life is nonexistent beyond Earth, nor would life’s absence elsewhere disprove the scenario of cosmic evolution. Rather, if extraterrestrial life does exist, we haven't yet become smart enough to detect it.

The scenario of cosmic evolution would be greatly strengthened if we could prove that life—even primitive, non-intelligent life—originated somewhere beyond Earth. As such, life would be not only a natural consequence of the evolution of matter, but virtually an inevitable result of evolution.

All these issues—survival of our species, humanity’s dispersal into space, potential contact with alien life—are in our future, however uncertain. They therefore comprise integral, perhaps interconnected parts of this eighth, FUTURE EPOCH.

The learning goals for this epoch are:

  • to realize that humankind faces natural and self-made global problems that must be solved for continued survivability
  • to accept that such global problems will likely confront civilization forevermore into the far future
  • to recognize a fundamental dilemma even if humanity does solve every oncoming, global issue
  • to explore the prospects of finding life, even just simple microbial life, beyond Earth in the Solar System
  • to know that our type of life—one based on carbon, operating in water—is not the only possible kind of biochemistry
  • to evaluate the probability that advanced civilizations now reside in our Milky Way Galaxy
  • to understand some of the techniques used to search for extraterrestrial intelligence and we might communicate with it.

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