The postbiological universe and our future in space

摘要

Over the past 50 years the search for extraterrestrial life has been one of the main drivers of space exploration. That history is now well known [ 1,2 ], and I do not intend to repeat it here. Rather, because the question is so compelling, and thus likely to remain an important part of space exploration, I want to explore briefly the nature of the life we seek and how it can affect the search. In particular, I want to argue that, if extraterrestrial intelligence exists, cultural evolution must be taken seriously as a part of cosmic evolution. As we know from Earth, the rate of cultural evolution totally dominates other forms of cosmic evolution. Ten thousand years ago terrestrial intelligence was not much different than it is today, still less astronomical objects. But cultural evolution has caused vast changes in human life since that time. If intelligent life exists in the universe, we must take into account the long time span during which that intelligence may have evolved culturally.