The prime directive

For a long time now, scientists have been puzzled about the fact that, while there are clearly a great many solar systems harboring earth-like worlds, temperate worlds with atmospheres capable of supporting life, we haven't encountered the slightest trace of intelligent life anywhere in the entire universe. Especially not right here on earth! Ha-Ha, just kidding. Nevertheless, it does seem odd that we see no evidence of intelligent beings anywhere, and that no intelligent beings seem to have any interest in us, at all. Well, maybe not so very strange, given the way human beings act, but, you get the idea, anyway. Now, there are a number of fairly simple explanations for this fact. One is simply that it's so difficult to travel in outer space -- something we're becoming more and more aware of actually -- that no beings of any type have actually succeeded in crossing the enormous spaces between solar systems, that light-years of distance simply are too difficult for any living beings to travel and survive. So, no extraterrestrials have visited us, because they simply don't know how to get here, and never will. But, just to go back a bit, we should really ask, what makes us think that there should be any extraterrestrials at all, anyway? In fact, this is primarily an Age of Enlightenment idea, deriving from the very close connection that existed at the time between Science and Christianity. The view that scientists, who were mostly also theologians at the time had, was that it simply didn't make any sense for God to have created other worlds if there were no intelligent beings there to worship him, and do his bidding. Now, I know, this sounds pretty weird today, but, that was their rationale for it. Really! And, of course, once this idea became current in scientific thinking, even people like the French philosopher Voltaire, who was basically an atheist, adopted it, and actually wrote science fiction about all the interesting exterrestrial beings who lived on the various planets in our solar system, no matter how inhospitable those planets might be. Now, of course, by now, we accept that actually most worlds certainly don't have intelligent beings on them, or probably life of any type, because their environments are simply incompatible with any form of life that our biochemists are currently capable of understanding. However, that still leaves the possibility, as our astronomers are demonstrating these days, that there are still a great many worlds that do have life, or even intelligent life on them. Certainly a significant percentage of solar systems do have worlds with temperatures, and even atmospheres perfectly consistent with the development of life as we understand it, and there seems no particular reason why they shouldn't have life as we understand it on them. Now, there are perhaps 100 million stars in our galaxy, and 100 million galaxies in the universe, so, in this particular numbers game, it seems pretty certain there are an awful lot of worlds with so kind of life out there. So, again, why haven't any of these life forms chosen to grace us with their company? Are we really so repulsive as all that? The thing is, there are a number of quite real bottlenecks between merely having life -- single-celled organisms, microorganisms, bacteria, maybe simple fungi -- and having complex life forms life like sharks, dinosaurs, mammals -- let alone intelligent life like human beings. For a billion years well after life developed on earth, there was virtually no change in it at all, and no development at all. This is known as "boring earth". Also, "slimeworld". And, in all probability the vast majority of life-bearing planets in our galaxy, and in the entire universe are actually "slimeworlds", that is to say, perfectly hospitable to life as we know it, but, actually, having no complex life forms at all, simply because they didn't evolve, had no reason to evolve, and might or might not eventually evolve. What brought about complex life on earth? It happened about 700 million years ago, and, it was called snowball earth. The entire planet froze over, all of it. The land, the oceans, everything. 90% of all life on earth was wiped out. The oceans froze to a depth of 1000 feet or more. Life only continued to exist in meltwater on glaciers, and near hydrothermal vents in the deep oceans. However, after 50 million years or so, volcanoes began pumping warming hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, and with virtually no life to absorb the carbon dioxide, this created a global warming effect that melted everything, and sent enormous quantities of nutrients from all this melted ice into the oceans. This terrific concentration of elements greatly accelerated the development of complex life forms to absorb it. Thus, complex life developed very quickly. And, here we are. Now, we actually have no idea whatsoever how probable or improbable the occurrence of snowball earths really is. But, they are almost certainly not inevitable. And without them, the complex life forms, and intelligent life, simply would not have the time to develop before stars became too hot to support life. No acceleration of evolution from snowball earth melting, no complex or intelligent life. Very simple. So, we have the "rare earth" hypothesis, that the reason we have not encountered extraterrestrial alien visitors, is simply because there aren't any other intelligent life forms, yet, anyway. We are the first one to get through the filter, as it were. There's plenty of life. But, no other intelligent life. Personally, I think this is much too extreme a position. Why should snowball earths be so extremely rare? I suspect they have occurred, and led to the development of complex life, when they melted, on other occasions. But, this might not happen so often. Say, perhaps only 1 in 10,000 planets capable of supporting life actually develop complex life forms, and even intelligent life. Say 10% of solar systems contain planets capable of supporting life. That would still leave us with 1000 intelligent life forms on different planets in our galaxy. Now, that's a lot of different types of intelligent beings in our galaxy, 1000 different species. However, they would be very , very spread out. Way, way spread out, hundreds of light years from each other. Between them would be nothing but space, barren planets, and slime worlds for the taking. They might even have the ability to travel in space, and to different solar systems. But, maybe not far enough to find us, or any other intelligent species. And, even if they did, wouldn't they tend either to avoid us, for fear of conflict, or out of respect for disturbing our own culture? I suspect they would. After all, if there are tens of thousands of empty, easily terriformed life bearing slime worlds readily for the taking in their vicinity, why would they want to bother us? Wouldn't they actually be afraid of doing so, for fear of being even more isolated in a huge universe, empty of intelligent companions. There would be no basis for conflict or war whatsoever, no scarcity of resources, only a scarcity of intelligent beings. There would almost be an instinctive "prime directive", rather like Star Trek's, but, intuitive, not to harm or control any new, intelligent life form. They would be considered too valuable. And, actually before the concentration of human beings in early proto-civilizations starting about 12,000 years ago, there was no war between human beings. The Neanderthals were wiped out by climate change, they were too hyper-specialized. Human beings interbred with them, and probably cherished them. Our folk memories of the elves or the Cyclops likely stem from the Neanderthals. We did not destroy them, the climate destroyed them. Indeed, prior to the proto-civilizations, mankind lived in eternal peace, there was no shortage of land and space, the enemy was always the environment, other human beings, even of distinct species, like Neanderthals, were friends, and allies. If humanity can somehow find a way to reach for and colonize and terraform this limitless resource of slime worlds throughout the galaxy, we will never fight each other again. There will be no need. And, if by chance, we encounter other intelligent beings somewhere, they will certainly be our friends and allies, in surviving and thriving in a limitless but dangerous universe. #biology #exobiology #biochemistry #climatology #terraforming #astrophysics #startrek #sciencefiction #anthropology #archaeology #earlycivilizations #war #sociology #spacetravel #NASA #extraterrestriallife #slimeearth #snowballearth #neanderthals #homosapiens #philosophyofhistory #rareearth #enlightenment #peace #history