Life In The Universe: Are We The Proverbial "It"?

Law And Order Episode Guide - Life In The Universe: Are We The Proverbial "It"?

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Are we alone in the Universe? That's a interrogate that's been asked by millions over the eons, without, to date resolution. Of course the word 'alone' implies alone in the sense of either or not there exists elsewhere our rough equals, more likely as not betters. We want to get to know our neighbours over the street, not their pets, or their plants. The standard gut-feeling reply to the interrogate ordinarily revolves around how vast the Universe is, and surely, given the billions of stars in our galaxy and the existence of billions of galaxies each with billions of stars, etc. And the vastness of time, as a matter of fact we can't be the proverbial "It". There's unfortunately one exiguous flaw in that statistical approach. There's a rather long chain of events that have to happen, hurdles to be jumped, in order to get from the elements of star-stuff to biological cosmic neighbours. Depending on whom you talk to, that chain can be highly long indeed. The point is, if any one factor in that chain of causality has a very low probability of coming to pass, it matters not one jot either or not all the other factors are highly probable, the allembracing succeed is going to be low. If any one factor is as close to zero as makes no odds, then the allembracing reply will also be a close to zero as makes no odds. Certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by zero multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty finally equals zero!

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Rather than give an exhaustive list of all those factors required to give us cosmic neighbours, I'll focus on six essentials.

Firstly, one has to have the right kinds of matter and energy that can furnish beings like us, and a solid covering to stand on. That's no problem. The Universe has lots of kinds of energy on tap; stars can invent and disperse the required kinds of matter, like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon, etc. There's lots of solid bodies (planets) out there. That's one vote for certainty.

Secondly, one has to have a solid planetary body turn into a habitable world; a favorable environment for physics, chemistry, biochemistry and biology to do their evolutionary thing. Fortunately, that shouldn't be a problem. There's a lot of real estate out there and it comes in all sizes and flavours. While there's only ever going to be one Planet Earth (I'll avoid discussions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, the view of parallel worlds, and the Multiverse here which could argue the contrary), there has been, is, and will be, lots and lots of earth-like abodes, just letter excellent for life-as-we-know-it to survive, even thrive. If one wants to throw in life-not-as-we-know-it, there will be lots of worlds favorable for those possibilities as well. So, that's someone else vote for certainty.

Thirdly, physics has to become chemistry, and chemistry has to become biology. We need biology to have had origins, or an origin, an origin(s) of life that's an obvious outcome of the daily commonplace interactions between physics and chemistry. Well, many will argue that the origin of life is as nearly predictable as death and taxes, given a favorable habitat. Many will also argue that the origin of life is a fluke! In my point of view, the origin of life need only happen once, and that clearly has been a certainty - we exist and we are life. Once there's one origin of life, the rest is just distribution. Panspermia provides the ways and means of distributing (microbial) life throughout the cosmos. So, I'll have to cast someone else vote for certainty again!

Fourthly - well, now we hit the proverbial brick wall. You and your neighbours aren't microbes - you're a colony of microbes. In short, you're a multicellular life form. We seek, in the cosmos, other multicellular life forms, on the grounds that the odds that a microbe or unicellular life form isn't going to prove to be much of a companion or drinking buddy is a near given. So, we need to get from unicellular to multicellular, and therein lays the rub. And it's here that we have to rely for guidance on a sample of one - Earth. Note: It's dangerous to extrapolate from a sample of one, but what option do we have?

There's no ecological niche on Earth busy by multicellular critters that's not also busy by unicellular critters (microbes). The reverse isn't true. You may think the world is totally dominated by multicellular critters - you, your partner, your family, your pets, your garden, your food, all the life you see around you is multicellular. There's millions of species of insects - all multicellular. What's more coarse than bugs? Yet, if you did a biological census, even in your home and your garden, you'd find that apparently coarse multicellular life forms are out-common-ed, vastly outnumbered, by unicellular life forms by a ratio of trillions to one. What you don't see does matter!

So, are multicellular critters an evolutionary certainty? Is there whatever a 'colony' of 2 or 20 or 200 or 2000 cells can accomplish or fill a previously unfilled ecological niche that one cell can't? And by the way, that 2 or 20 or 200 or 2000 stage has got to be selected for before one can get to the two million and two billion colony stage. Well, clearly the transition happened here, albeit it took some three billion years to seriously kick-start the process, so it's hardly some obvious 'law of nature'. I mean taking some three billion years to get to a colony of cells from a singular cell doesn't inspire confidence that the process is easy, primary or inevitable. Anyway, it did happen here, so it's obviously possible. I just don't see it as a super-evolutionary amelioration that confers immediate survival-of-the-fittest advantage. Of course a colony of two cells might be harder to eat than one cell, but at that level, 'food' tends to be absorbed at the molecular level. In any event, microbes can as a matter of fact assault and 'eat' multicellular critters, causing sickness, death and decay. We're finally food for the microbes and the proof of that pudding is how we spend small fortunes holding them at bay. But, eventually, though you might win the battles against the microbes, you'll lose the last one, and thus the war.

Another factor that argues against multicellular organisms being a universally coarse highlight of the Universe is that it is also a lot harder to transport around the Universe by natural means - that view of panspermia - multicellular critters. I mean getting a microbe from Earth to Mars is one thing. Getting a cockroach there is a whole different scenario.

Multicellular development; its probability, can't be zero since we're multicellular, but, on balance, I can't assign a high probability to the transition between unicellular and multicellular life on every habitable planet, every time. This one is nearing zero!

Fifthly, as noted earlier, you don't want to interact with your neighbour's multicellular pets or multicellular garden plants, but your neighbours. What do you have in coarse with your neighbours that you don't have in coarse with your neighbour's pet or garden plants? brain (even if you probably think your neighbours are a few cents short of a dollar!).

The issue now is whether, having evolved to a multicellular stage, will one invent some higher brain function? Is there any supplementary evolutionary benefit towards addition one's intelligence? By going back to our sample of one, if Earth is any guide, the reply is approximately 'not likely'. There are millions of multicellular species that have existed, and do exist, on Planet Earth. There are apparently only a very few species that have evolved something beyond the minimum level of brain power required for their day-to-day survival. That doesn't inspire confidence that brain has obvious value as a means of survival.

By far and away, most multicellular critters just operate on pure instinct and don't (can't) stop to frame things out (far less stop to smell and appreciate the roses) - but, there are an as a matter of fact few exceptions. Many wild birds would put our daily companion animals to shame in the Iq department. I mean I love my cats, but exiguous Einstein's they're not. Whales and dolphins have also been credited with being in the higher Iq bracket; ditto our close primate cousins. In the invertebrate kingdom, the octopus is pretty smart - by invertebrate standards (and then some if one is honest). However, on balance, most multicellular critters put their evolutionary strategies into something other than higher brain function. Take my cats. Is it to their survival benefit to 'figure things out' or to be just a bit faster afoot, hear just a bit better, see ever more clearly? Nearly all organisms put their survival abilities into something other than pure brain-power. Clearly brain-power has survival-of-the-fittest attributes. But, it's not the only game in town, and therefore doesn't have what I'd call evolutionary 'certainty'. However, it would be illogical to say that developing intelligence, the ability to frame things out, isn't primary and doesn't have survival value, it's just that if you were to list all the multicellular animal species on Planet Earth, very few would have an Iq of even one (the human mean is 100). So, let's say brain is somewhere between certainty and highly improbable.

Next, let's assume your lively neighbours are fairly far away and the usual means of holding in touch is by phone (or email). That introduces one supplementary complication; it's not enough to just be intelligent. You need to have technology. Then, and only then, will the 'are we alone?' interrogate be answered to our absolute satisfaction. We need technology if we are to find extraterrestrial intelligence(s); and/or extraterrestrial intelligence(s) will need technology to find us. One or both of us has to have invented engineering to a somewhat sophisticated level - maybe rocket ships, maybe radio telescopes, but something technological is required. There's also a inexpressive assumption here - you as a matter of fact want to seek out new civilizations. It matters not if you have all the required technology but care not to use it for the purpose of answering that interrogate - 'are you alone in the Universe?' I'll assume here that if you have intelligence, and it's been able to invent technology, then part of your brain is devoted to be a lively critter who wants to know and find out things - so that's a certainty of one. But what's the level of certainty of developing technology in the first place? Rather poor judging from those terrestrial species that have some uncostly smarts to their credit. There's the human species of course, and though while we're not quite a sample of one, it's pretty close. There are documentary observations of some animals (primates mainly) not so much making, but manufacture use of existing 'tools' to aid in their survival. Alas, most lively species lack the anatomy and/or the right environment to manipulate objects. In the case of dolphins and whales, their ocean environment stymies any way and means of constructing things and manufacture use of fire, for example. So, developing technology has to be rated, judging from our terrestrial sampling, as rather low.

Technology is also a double-edged sword. The use of technology has had obvious survival value for the human species. You wouldn't be hard-pressed to come up with dozens of technological inventions that have enabled us to survive longer and thrive better. But, out technological genie is out of the bottle, and unless you're a hermit, you will have noted by now that technology can also sell out our ability of life, and no doubt you wouldn't be equally hard-pressed to cite dozens of examples. Which leads nicely into the last consideration.

Lastly, there's the issue of longevity. If your neighbours move in, but then move out again in less than 24 hours, that doesn't allow much time to meet them and chat over afternoon tea - blink, and they're gone. But if you're both on the block for twenty years, that allows lots of time for afternoon teas, philosophical chats and bridge games, etc. So, how long do technological civilizations last?

Well, the pessimist will look around and cite global warming, probably antibiotic resistant germs giving rise to pandemics, chemical, biological and radiological warfare and/or terrorism, the extinction of species, rampant pollution, and in general an allembracing ability of life heading rapidly down the gurgler, right down to the point that the human race will to extinct - by our own hand. But if you're an optimist, then the sky's the limit.

Longevity - It's hard to imaging what human civilization, what humans themselves, will be like 1000 years from now, but if you could come back 1000 years hence, would you as a matter of fact find a human civilization, as a matter of fact find recognizable 'humans' at all? Once you have evolved to the stage of being a multicellular critter with brain and technology, then physics and chemistry and plain daily evolutionary biology are no longer in operate of your evolution. You are now in control! You are in operate not only over the future evolution of other species (artificial option instead of natural selection) but of your own evolution. The age of the designer baby is already upon us, albeit still in its infancy (pun intended). What will someone else several more decades bring to this now embryonic field but obviously an ever ongoing and chronic maturity!

Humans will probably go kaput within 1000 years, not because of a global nuclear war, or pandemic, or asteroid strike, but because they have by their own hand evolved into something else, and the process has already started. In fact, it's possible that in 1000 years there could be two humanoid species on Earth. One will be an amalgamation of flesh and blood plus 'iron and silicon'; the other pure 'iron and silicon' (robots).

The first is not too difficult a swallow. Just replace or augment flesh and blood bits with 'iron and silicon' bits (or wood bits, or ceramic bits, or plastic bits, etc.). Look at most pirate films and you'll see those popular peg-legs and hook-hands. Do you wear glasses or taste lenses? What about a hearing aid? perhaps you have an synthetic joint(s) or a heart pacemaker. You as a matter of fact have a dental filling (or two), maybe even dentures. Then there's synthetic skin and all manner of other internal or external types of technology that have replaced your failed flesh and blood - like kidney dialysis. There's now serious talk about the amelioration of a bionic eye within a few years (to go with the bionic ear). What supplementary synthetic bio-bits will be ready in someone else 20 years, someone else 50 years, or someone else 200 years? The era of the "RoboCop" or an actual "Six-Million Dollar Man" (and "Woman") is nearly upon us.

Within 200 years or so, I can envision that one will be able to download the contents of a human mind into an 'iron and silicon' equivalent. Why? Well, does the word 'immortality' (or as close to immortality as makes no odds) suggest a possible reason? You don't think whatever of endlessly replacing worn automobile parts for new parts to extend the useful lifetime of your car. Why not endlessly replace your worn parts. Your mind (brain) won't last forever. Replace it - change it to a more durable technology Do it again, and again and again as is necessary. In fact, one might originate a mega-mind or super-mind by merging into an 'iron and silicon' body a lot of minds. By merging the minds of say a cosmologist, general relativist, quantum physicist and mathematician, one might speed up the amelioration of the Holy Grail of physics, the theory of everything (Toe) - which is a theory of quantum gravity.

Once your mind is contained in an 'iron and silicon' 'head', just attach that to an all 'iron and silicon' 'body'. Immortality indeed!

All of which leads to a future Earth inhabited by a humanoid robot species, artificially evolved from today's human species. That process too has already started. Robotic appliances, even synthetic 'iron and silicon' 'pets' are on the market. Research into synthetic brain is ever ongoing. Watch that final exiguous of the final chapter of the Tv revising of "Battlestar Galactica'! How about those sci-fi "Transformers" or "Terminators", or Data (from "Star Trek: The Next Generation")? Then there's "Doctor Who's" Cybermen or Daleks (though they're part machine; part organism). Think of those robots from "Westworld" or "Futureworld" where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong... Then there's "The Stepford Wives", "Cherry 2000", the primary "Battlestar Galactica" Cylons, and many more. It might be just science fiction today - could it be science fact tomorrow? There doesn't seem to be any violation of physics involved. everything not forbidden is compulsory! However, some of those sci-fi scenarios suggest that perhaps finally there might be a disagreement between the (part) machines we become, and the (artificially) lively machines that we create!

Of course we're in control, so a robotic future isn't of necessity compulsory. But I speculate it will happen. Why? There are rational reasons for humans deliberately abandoning their flesh and blood existence and evolving themselves, if not 100% into 'iron and silicon' then at least into something part flesh and blood coupled with part 'iron and silicon' - sort of like we have today (recall those dentures and peg-legs).

Quite apart from immortality arguments, it's nice having more indestructible bodies and bodies that can be more as a matter of fact repaired. Death won't go totally away of course - accidents still happen. Presumably, your mind will be able to absorb 10, 100, 1000 times the number of experiences and memories and knowledge, etc. Than is currently the case. You might be able to explore environments now terminated to you, like taking a perambulate over the sea bottom - kilometres down - in your robotic 'birthday' suit. All of which then opens up the entire 'boldly going' experience. What's the hardest part of going to Mars? - it's the flesh and blood frailty of the human body - the need for gravity and oxygen and organic food and water, and space suits, and how you can't carry spare flesh and blood parts along too, etc. Extrapolate to our exploration of the entire solar system, then our stellar neighbourhood, ultimately the galaxy. Even if you don't want to go yourself, well, there's synthetic brain housed in perhaps nanotechnology bodies, spreading throughout the cosmos like so much cancer.

The greatest point of all of this is that if ultimately us (humans), why not them (extraterrestrials) now? Translated, after a relative short period of biological development, a civilization can derive longevity that evolutionary amelioration into 'iron and silicon' provides, coupled with far easier expansion into the realm of outer space.

This level of technology can also partly undo the bottleneck created by the relative improbability of multicellular evolution. There maybe relatively few multicellular infested planets, but once technology of the 'iron and silicon' kind happens on them, then boldly going, being fruitful and mechanically multiplying and colonizing the cosmos rapidly fill that gap.

All of which doesn't mean that we are, in the here and now, the proverbial "It'. However, there are enough 'probability one' or certainty factors that suggest this is rather unlikely. The proof of the pudding will be to find them; or for them to find us.

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