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IS MANKIND WILLING TO SURVIVE AND PRESERVE
INTELLIGENT LIFE? Terrestrial primates
could be “hominized” in cosmic apartheid on a previously “terraformed” planet
to form a new intelligent species and so preserve intelligence if we were alone. Playing a similar part with us,
advanced ET would consider our refusal to do likewise as a demonstration of
cosmic irresponsibility. This would result in apocalyptic risks for mankind,
the preservation of intelligent life being obviously a cosmic duty for all
advanced species! General Index In this page below : : Cosmic Observers as
Artificial ET : “Soft” Vs “Hard”
Imperialism : Rules of
Non-Violence Required to Survive : The Fermi
Paradox : Bombs Left Behind by
Market fanaticism A CRUCIAL PROBLEM “If a man
does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him”
(Seneca; 5 BC-65 AD) Are we presently visited or observed by advanced ET, or could it have
been so in a recent or more distant past? This question is of prime importance to us. The very survival of the
human species could well depend on the answer brought to it, and mankind’s
concern for it is far from being as it should be. You perhaps consider that this opinion is quite exaggerated? And yet! If intelligent beings capable of interstellar travels do really exist
in this galaxy, their civilization is then much more advanced than mankind’s
since we are far from being able to reach such scientific and technological
performances. After man’s landing on the Moon and some other recent space and
scientific breakthroughs, most people tend to overlook the fact that we are
still at a Stone Age level in the
field of space science. Our actual performances in space travel are generally
magnified. The papers and TV reports could nearly make us believe that the
nearest star is just a little farther than the most distant solar planets
already explored by our robot spacecrafts, and that we could also reach it if
we decided to do so. But this is not the truth. If the possibility of
interplanetary travels can be contemplated in a not too distant future, it
should be recalled that interstellar cruises would only be accessible to a
class of quite different space travellers, excluding probably biological
beings such as men. The nearest star (
Proxima Centauri) is more
than a thousand times farther than the last planet of our system. With our
present launchers, it would take us thousands years to reach it with a small
robot spacecraft, and a manned spaceship with all the equipments required for
life maintenance onboard would anyway remain beyond our possibilities for
long, if not for ever, at least for man as a biological being. ET Observers as
Artificial Beings The great interstellar
distances imply a far more advanced social organization of interstellar
travellers compared to interplanetary travellers. Some form of collective
beings should even be required, at least onboard, to undertake such long
travels and master the complex problems of simple survival. Eventual ET observers
of mankind should consequently already have succeeded to transform themselves
into artificial beings, and this makes quite a difference : We do not belong
to the same category of intelligent beings! With such an advance, ET observers of mankind would anyway have solved
the difficult and crucial problems of cosmic survival we are now facing on
our own planet. If they do exist, we could then have a chance to survive too,
a prospect which is not quite evident just now. We would probably be
seen as primitive beings by ET observers. The old
geocentric view of the world belongs happily to the times of darkness. We do
no longer believe that our system is at the centre of the universe as before
Galileo and
Giordano Bruno. Thanks to the knowledge and technology now
available in the field of astronomy, our view of the universe is more in
accordance with what really exists in the material world. We know that the
earth and the sun are quite common celestial bodies among billions of their
kind, and that our galaxy is a quite common galaxy among billions of them
too. This was long
to be admitted, and Bruno was even burnt for professing such ideas! But are these
times of darkness quite over as concerns the immaterial World of
Consciousness? In this field, it seems as if we are still living in
Geocentric Times. We still globally believe that human intelligence is at the
centre of the intelligent universe, and we behave anyway as if it were so. We
still think that terrestrial life has no extraterrestrial roots, even if a
few of us are now ready to go as far as to contemplate the hypothesis of some
form of cosmic seeding of life on our primitive planet (the concept of
panspermia). Soft Imperialism of advanced ET We can now observe from space how small in the
universe is our mother planet, and even the solar system. But we still refuse
to imagine “stars, galaxies or even universes” of consciousness in which
man’s intelligence would only be a tiny and very late part, even with a
Darwinian concept of life’s birth and evolution. Man is already a
non-negligible and rather destructive actor in the process of life
preservation on this planet (through deforestation and land erosion,
pollution and global warming, road and
other urban infrastructures, etc.). But he still does not contemplate the
idea that intelligence, whether born from random laws or not, could have long
been playing a major part in this universe. In view of the age and
of the star population of this single galaxy, this most probable hypothesis cannot be discarded simply because we have not seen any ET
so far. Although they were already present, most celestial objects now daily
observed with our modern telescopes were for instance “invisible” to us until recently. ET
observers of mankind could still better remain invisible to us, whether
intentionally or not. Primitive eyes are furthermore easily deceived and man
could well be a primitive being face to them. Most probably, advanced
civilizations of artificial beings would not leave human-like traces such as
monuments, bridges or towns. Although we are not aware of it, they may for
instance well be at the origin of a lot of astronomical events so far classed
as natural. Man himself is already planning to capture
large asteroids or even moons, to “terraform” other solar planets, etc. Why
should he be the first to have reached such performances, and still beyond?
But he is still living in a Pre-Galilean World of Consciousness, placing his
intelligence in the middle
of everything, like the earth before. Neglecting a minimum advance of
thousands years on mankind, eventual interstellar visitors are thus viewed
with nearly human performances in philosophy, science and technology. But this is pure delusion. Is it not time to consider a more
reasonable hypothesis? Since we have anyway to make a bet, why not a bet with
the best chances to win? If intelligence is evenly distributed, the ratio of
man’s intelligence to total universal intelligence equals the mass of the
solar system to the mass of the universe, and unless mutual destruction, the
most advanced beings have an advance of billions of years on mankind since
some stars of this galaxy were born billions of years before our own star. To
prevent the destruction of intelligent life, such godlike beings would furthermore be in control of all
forms of intelligent life since at least millions of years. This means that universal intelligence is
almost entirely of extraterrestrial nature and that we have yet to discover
it, as we have been doing for the galaxies and all other celestial bodies. The Universe
was discovered through a long observation of our mother planet and of the sky
above. For instance, man could finally determine that the death of a star
occurs after a certain lapse of time, the formation of a planetary system
around a star after some conditions have been realized, etc. In brief, we
have learned that there are major steps in the evolution of the Universe, any major step forward (birth
or death of stars, of planets, etc.) coming when some specific conditions
have been realized after a previous major step. Each major
step can be viewed as a cosmic test passed by nature to continue farther, failure to pass it
resulting for instance in the absence of stellar or planetary formation,
etc. It could have
been the same in the evolution of Intelligence after an initial Big Bang.
Man’s intelligence can perhaps be used as a gauge to explore an Universe of
Consciousness yet unknown. Any
intelligent step forward to consciousness could have been initiated by some
initial “major test” which had to be passed to go beyond. A first
“major test” in man’s evolution would certainly have been the invention of
the first tools by our primitive ancestors. Another
“major test” would for instance have been the invention of agriculture which
was to lead to man’s sedentary life, social organization, urbanization and
the rest of it. Man’s recent conquest of extraterrestrial space should also have been
a last major test since any
exploration of the Solar System is unimaginable without it. But this step alone is probably not enough for
a galactic exploration. Requiring large and expensive equipments for life
maintenance and energy supply, interstellar travels could not be allowed to
biological beings for pure technological reasons. A mutation of men into artificial beings is certainly required. The next major test in our cosmic evolution would therefore be man’s
transformation into an artificial being in order to make possible
interstellar travels and galactic explorations. The
perspective of interstellar travels should rationally be reviewed for a new
evaluation of possible relations with ET observers of mankind already capable
of such performances. Interstellar travellers would at least have an advance
of thousands years on us, and this makes all the difference. We could not
engage any competition with them, and if their advance on us reaches only a
few millions years, as it could well be the case, they would probably have
taken control of our own evolution on Earth to make sure that we could never
represent a potential threat to them, and more generally, to universal
intelligent life. Mankind itself would be called to do likewise if future
interstellar explorations were to reveal that we are the most advanced
species, a most improbable perspective indeed! This “ soft
imperialism” probably required from interstellar travellers in their
relations with all less advanced species could not be compared with the “
hard imperialism” of the western nations toward the less advanced ones,
notably in the matters of nuclear weapons or other strategic productions.
Only “soft imperialism” in cosmic apartheid is in fact imaginable in
interstellar relations, “hard imperialism” leading inevitably to mutual
destruction. It is for instance obvious that more severe preventive actions
would be considered as vital if North Korea or Iran were located on a very
distant planet or star! (“The killer
experiences less trouble when he cannot see his victim’s eye”). The first
advanced species acquiring the capability of interstellar travels is
therefore led to control the evolution of all other ones within its reach,
and an advance of thousands years at least would make this control
undetectable for the less advanced. Mankind could well be the most advanced
species. But it could also not be the case ! For the time
being, no definitive answer can be given to this primordial question on the
reality of advanced forms of extraterrestrial life in this Galaxy and in the
Universe at large. The possible existence of advanced beings capable of
interstellar travels is now largely accepted by most scientists, and some
controversial observations have been reported during the last fifty years by
official organizations (NASA, CNES, etc.) and also by many other private
teams or associations. But no
irrefutable testimony can be claimed so far. Further discoveries in space or on our own
planet could help us in the future. But mankind should not wait too long
before defining a credible way to survival in the coming times. Our planetary
civilization is in fact running faster and faster toward a wall of
environmental and societal problems of an explosive nature, and it seems that
we are so far unable to move back and even to slow down in order to prevent a
final crash. Without any precise objective, we go ahead without knowing where
we are going, launching in front of us daily bombs ( ) which will inevitably explode as we
meet them in a near future. These are now acting like proliferating
metastases of a generalized cancer of which we should get rid if the human species is finally to survive. Well
established scientific data are however now available to advance some serious
hypotheses for a possible survival of civilizations more advanced than ours,
and therefore for mankind too. For in the absence of real contacts with
extraterrestrials or of the discovery of irrefutable traces of their past or
present existence, only hypotheses can be proposed. Any other
approach would be totally irrational. The solution of the extraterrestrial
problem may contain in itself the key of most terrestrial problems actually
met! Which side to
turn to solve this problem? The approach
followed by most searchers in this domain is quite paradoxical: In the
elaboration of their working hypotheses, they always start from a basis which
is by definition unknown: the existence or absence of such extraterrestrial
worlds, their chances of growth and survival beyond a certain critical level
of science and technology, of conquest or exploration of other stars in the
Galaxy, of past or present visits in our Solar System and on our own planet,
etc. The chances
for the apparition of life in the Galaxy are evaluated according to the
nature of the stars contained in it (single, binary stars, etc.), according
also to their mass and to their distance to the galactic centre, etc.
Equations are furthermore written on this basis (Drake), models of
representation are built. We could long
meet and discuss endlessly on the pertinence of such models without going
much ahead. The reality
is : after over fifty years, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
is obviously coming now to a sort of deadlock. Meetings on this unsolved question are frequently organized in the
world, but the silence of the Cosmos remains as heavy as it has always been. How could we
explain it? Before trying to know if other intelligent beings in this Galaxy
could survive long enough to undertake interstellar travels and eventually
come and visit us in our System, it would be reasonable to question ourselves
on our own chances to reach such interstellar performances, and on our
potential means to increase these chances. As a matter of fact, the problems
we have to solve should reasonably be of the same nature as those eventually
solved long ago by these advanced beings in other stars of this Galaxy. Face to the
cosmic deadlock which is becoming more and more evident in our evolution on
this planet, our own survival as an intelligent species cannot be guaranteed
within a relatively short term. We should rapidly find a credible way to
survival. In so doing,
we should reasonably find an answer on the existence or absence of
extraterrestrial observers. If we can find a way to survival for mankind, we
could also give an answer to this eternal question. Contrary to
other methods of research used in this domain, it is proposed here to start
from a known basis, that is, from the Earth and its civilization, its human
experience, its knowledge, its history and aspirations. Face to the numerous
problems this planetary civilization is now experiencing in almost all
domains of terrestrial life (environmental destruction, global warming and
climatic changes, exhaustion of natural resources, deforestation and wild
urbanization, wars and general insecurity, demography, unemployment,
worldwide economy, ...), the question we have to answer rapidly is in itself
quite simple: How is man to survive and perpetuate
universal and intelligent life?
The primitive man had probably no doubt on the absolute necessity to
keep the fire burning. Is modern man
likewise convinced of the absolute necessity to keep the flame of universal
intelligence alight, and is he finally
himself willing to survive? The cosmic hypothesis
presented could appear quite disconcerting to many of us. But it is not in
contradiction with our present knowledge and it could bring new hopes to
mankind. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Rules of Non-Violence Required to Survive “I saw, at a spectator’s distance, the famous explosion of Verdun. It
was by a beautiful morning and it lasted for at least two hours. Powerful
meteors were launched as from an inexhaustible crater. The explosions were
like flashing suns…” (Alain, French philosopher, 1868-1951, Propos) To define the problem correctly, let us start from a set of data on
which there is a large consensus, that is: - A few
scientific data on our environment,
i.e., the Universe - The Fermi Paradox on the
apparent absence of advanced extraterrestrial beings, or traces of them, on
our planet and in the Solar System. We should
then try to find some general rules or laws to be observed in order to
overcome our present problems and simply survive. Our present model of
development is obviously leading us to some form of self destruction and we
should try to put all the chances of survival to our side. If we can find a
way out of this cosmic deadlock in which we are confined, we could then think
on how to perpetuate terrestrial and universal life. But these two
ways toward survival could finally be reduced into a single one. A few scientific data: According to astronomical evaluations of statistical nature, our
Galaxy alone (the Milky Way) contains between 100 to 400 billions stars,
nobody knowing exactly. These stars are probably more or less like our own
star, the Sun. It is also probable that most of them could also have planets
orbiting around. Despite the difficulties of planetary observation in view of the
smallness of these celestial bodies compared with the mass of their mother
star nearby, over two hundreds extra-solar planets have been discovered so
far in orbit around nearby stars, and new ones are detected quite frequently.
Advanced instruments are now being developed for a better observation of
these distant bodies and new data are expected in a near future. With a mean
number of five planets per star (nine planets for our Sun, perhaps ten with a
late discovery), our Galaxy would therefore have some 1000 billions planets
(1 followed by 12 zeros, that is, 1,000,000,000,000 planets). We feel quite
dizzy face to such figures which are difficult to apprehend! Even if only a tiny part of these celestial bodies are eligible to
support life (1 per million?), it makes already quite a lot! It should further be added that the Milky Way itself is a galaxy of
quite moderate size, even if the light crosses it in its largest dimension in
100,000 years or so. There are probably more than 100 billions galaxies in
the Universe (still a rough statistical approximation, nobody knowing the
exact number of them). Could we be the only living intelligent beings in this
immense Cosmos? Although life could of course have appeared in many other places in
the Universe, we will only consider the eventual existence of advanced
extraterrestrials in our own Galaxy, and only of beings capable of
interstellar travels. As a matter of fact, this Universe is too vast and the
speeds we could reach in space far too low for such travels, even in a very
distant future. The galaxies are too distant from one another. Even with a
speed of 300,000 km/sec, the light itself needs some 170,000 years to reach
the nearest galaxy in our neighbourhood (the Great Magellan Cloud). As already discussed, intergalactic travels are not
even imaginable for man, at least as long as he remains a biological being. Fermi’s Paradox In view of these astronomical figures, the Italian scientist and Nobel
Prize of Physics Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) questioned himself on the existence
or the absence of advanced extraterrestrial beings in our Galaxy. During a
meeting with other scientists and students held at a summer university
(1950), he wondered about the apparent absence of any irrefutable trace of
their passage on our planet or in the Solar System. By pure logic reasoning, Fermi thought that
one should have found some traces left by such advanced beings if they
existed. In fact, Fermi raised this simple question: if advanced beings
capable of interstellar travels in this Galaxy do exist, then, Where are they? This is known
as Fermi’s Paradox Taking into
account the above astronomical figures, this extraterrestrial absence can
truly be considered as unexpected, at least at a first sight. But Fermi had
no time left to think over this cosmic paradox as he died a few years after
this declaration. The Italian scientist had briefly concluded that we could
be alone in the Universe, or that we could be the most advanced beings in
this Galaxy. This would explain this cosmic silence which was often qualified
as deafening. Our views on
the Universe have somewhat changed since that time. If we still cannot
exclude that man could indeed be alone in this Galaxy and even in the whole
Universe, many astronomers and scientists consider now as unlikely that life
could exist only on Earth. It should have appeared elsewhere in this
Universe, and in this Galaxy as well. With some definite criteria for the
selection of planets where life had more chances than others to appear and
develop to a technological level (
Drake’s equation), a large
number of advanced civilizations is statistically obtained in this Galaxy
alone. As a matter of fact, our Galaxy should be crowded with them. And we
have also little chances of being the most advanced species since many stars
were formed billions of years before the Sun. This makes
the absence of advanced extraterrestrials (or of their traces) on our planet
and in the Solar System quite mysterious! A brief
calculation shows in fact rapidly that a single advanced species would have
colonized the whole Galaxy within a few tens millions of years, which is an
insignificant time in view of the age of the Universe (~13 to 15 billions
years). Proceeding according to a human colonization model of the Earth,
advanced stellar beings should have colonized the whole Galaxy long ago, even
before the birth of man on this planet. They could indeed have observed man’s
birth and evolution all along his history! With a cruise speed of only 1% of
the speed of light and a stopover in each stellar system lasting some 500
years for reproduction and energy supply, successive waves of settlers would
have thus reached the next star some 500 years later and have colonized all
the stars in the Galaxy. If it were
so, advanced extraterrestrials should therefore be among us, as Fermi
thought. A lesser
cruise speed and a longer stopover between the successive stellar leaps would
not change the problem much, the time required for a total galactic
colonization being only somewhat longer in this hypothesis. It should again
be recalled that this rapid invasion of the whole Galaxy would have been
realized by a single species of stellar pioneers. In the likely hypothesis of
thousands or millions advanced species engaged in such a galactic conquest,
the colonization of all stellar systems would have been achieved within a few
hundreds or a few thousands years. Referring to
the colonization of our planet, the competition in this stellar conquest
could of course have been merciless. These stellar conquistadors could have
mutually destroyed themselves, which would explain the cosmic silence. Searching for a Way to Survival. The preservation of universal life by such advanced beings, which is
our main cosmic concern, would then have failed in the past. So, all
advanced stellar civilizations would not have survived beyond a certain
technological level of development we could be nearly reaching presently. We
could indeed not be far from such a fatal cosmic threshold. Should we
imagine the worst fate for all advanced civilizations of this Galaxy?
Advanced beings wiser than man could have discovered a more peaceful model of
galactic colonization, at least one allowing them to survive! And we can
discover such a cosmic model for mankind too! We want
indeed to survive! We should
still not forget that we never met any ET on our planet, and none too in our
Solar System, as far as we have observed it completely in our space
explorations of the last tens of years. This looks like a bad omen for mankind’s fate! Could we be
alone after all? Why not! In a
Universe which would not have existed for ever, everything had to begin some
day, and so would it be with this run for cosmic survival! At this initial
point of our analysis, it could not be totally excluded that mankind is the
first intelligent species engaged in this cosmic preservation of intelligent
life! If this
hypothesis of man loneliness is unlikely to be true in view of the large beam
of presumptions pleading against it, the author does not totally exclude it.
It would not forbid the realization of our survival project. If we were alone
in this Galaxy or in the whole Universe, this project would still be more
than ever required. If other advanced
extraterrestrial beings do not exist in this Galaxy or did not survive beyond
a certain scientific and technological level of development, mankind is not
condemned to do the same. We can take up the
challenge and survive! Bombs Left Behind by
Market Fanaticism The bombs left behind by modern technology can
truly be of a concrete nature, as for instance with those still exploding
quite frequently tens of years after an irresponsible use by the leading
powers, in Europe after the two world wars, and in other countries after more
recent conflicts (South East Asia, Middle East, Africa, etc.) . But there are also more subtle forms of bombs
left by an irresponsible civilization of market fanaticism only aiming at
immediate profits, regardless of long-term consequences to our mother planet
and to terrestrial life : as for example with an uncontrolled use of cars and
energy leading now to global warming, an unrestrained use of natural riches
leading in many cases to a near planetary exhaustion, an irresponsible use of
fertilizers and pesticides resulting
in water pollution and global health problems, a mad deforestation … Market fanaticism is resulting in a
generalized cancer of mankind, with innumerable metastases proliferating in
all possible fields of terrestrial life.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ IS MANKIND WILLING TO
SURVIVE? by Benoit
Lebon (English pages from a book first published in French : Une hominisation
extraterrestre vers la vie éternelle, Editions Société des Ecrivains, Paris,
2006. Also with
Trafford Publishing, 2006, Canada. All rights
reserved. No part of these pages may be used under any form without the
written prior permission of the author. Comments and proposals will be welcome. sapiensplus@orange.fr ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ |
