Lonely Planets

by David Grinspoon

  becomes gradually more lit up with consciousness. The wise ones, the

  immortals, are accumulating, or have already accumulated to a density

  that, in their wisdom, they deemed enough.

  If we focus on our sorry-ass excuse for intelligence, rather than the

  potential for true intelligence, of which we’ve seen only hints, then we

  miss the forest for the seedlings and, perhaps, fail to see the true signifi-

  cance of our own existence.

  To accept this picture, you do not have to assume that the transition

  to immortality is likely, or that we will ever achieve this state. You must only admit the possibility that immortality is occasionally the outcome

  of an evolutionary process to conclude that the universe must be head-

  ing in this direction. When I do the math, and plug in reasonable num-

  bers for the unknown parameters, the answers I get convince me that

  this picture is correct.

  We need a new equation if we want to calculate the number of

  immortal civilizations in the galaxy. Instead of the Drake equation,

  we’ll use a rate equation, such as we would use to calculate the buildup of a chemical in an ongoing reaction. We can ask, “At what rate is the

  universe becoming sentient?” and try to model this process. To deter-

  mine the rate, we need to estimate the probability that a planetary bio-

  sphere will achieve immortality within the lifetime of its star.

  Once again, we are forced to estimate a quantity that we can’t really

  know anything about. But, as with the Drake Equation, we can explore

  the consequences of different assumptions. We can ask, quantitatively,

  given a certain average likelihood of achieving immortality, what are

  the implications for the nature of our universe, and the role of con-

  sciousness within it?

  Our new rate equation will somewhat resemble the Drake Equation

  and will include most of the same variables. But there will be no L,

  because we are talking about true civilizations, which have no finite

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  lifetime.* There will also be a new “f factor,” fIC, representing the frac-

  tion of civilizations that make the transition to immortality.† Recall that

  the Drake Equation looks like this:‡

  N = R × fp × ne × fl × fi × fc × L

  Our new rate equation looks like this:

  RIC = R × fp × ne × fl × fi × fIC

  RIC is the rate of formation of new i mmortal c ivilizations (per year) in the galaxy.

  For all of the factors, we’ll use the most pessimistic numbers that the

  Order of the Dolphin used at Green Bank. Then, if we assume that fIC =

  .001, meaning that one in a thousand proto-intelligent species (like us)

  become immortal, then we calculate that in our galaxy, a new immortal

  civilization is born every two thousand years. If fIC = .00001, meaning

  that only one in a hundred thousand of our kind makes it to immortal-

  ity, then the galaxy gets a new immortal civilization every 200,000

  years. Put more simply, if one in a hundred suns gets a planet with life,

  and if one in ten thousand of these develops true intelligence before

  their sun dies, then in the galaxy there would be a new immortal civi-

  lization born every million years. Using these numbers, we conclude

  that in the 10 billion years leading up to now, our galaxy would

  have given birth to between ten thousand and five million immortal civ-

  ilizations.

  This “back of the envelope” rate equation is actually quite conserva-

  tive. It assumes that no one is messing with the equation. It assumes that

  none of the factors on the right side of the equals sign are changed when

  the number of true civilizations gets large. This is only true if the immor-

  tals are leaving the universe alone. If any immortals decide to sow the

  seeds of life, or to teach immortality to others, the factors in the equa-

  *Or at least no finite lifetime shorter than the rest of time.

  †We are not going to worry about a seemingly immortal civilization occasionally suffering some disaster and going extinct. This can be handled in our equation by slightly adjusting the value of fIC.

  ‡All of the factors were defined on pages 295–301. From left to right they are rate of star formation, fraction of stars with planetary systems, number of habitable planets per system, fraction with life, fraction with intelligence, and fraction that communicate.

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  tion will change over time. Then the problem becomes highly nonlinear,

  and the above equation will not suffice. The more civilizations that exist,

  the faster new ones will be made. This results in a nonlinear equation,

  and the number of immortals will increase exponentially.*

  The galaxy will become saturated with them, up to a density level

  they deem healthy. They may want their space and not crowd things

  too much. After all, they didn’t get to be immortals by ignoring natural

  limits. Their cultures may have merged into a pangalactic civilization—

  the galactic club. When will we be allowed to apply for membership?

  This might all sound like a flight of pure fancy, but it’s not. It’s a

  flight of fancy reinforced with math and logic. The weakest link is the

  assumption that any species ever evolves to a state where it has the abil-

  ity to use its intelligence to survive. If this does happen, then the rest of

  this picture follows almost inevitably.

  If the transition probability (to immortal status) is large enough, or

  becomes large enough, then the universe as a whole may experience a

  sudden, irreversible transition from barrenness to universal conscious-

  ness. If that is the case, then it is not a matter of a rate, but a wait. Then

  the question is, how long does it take for the fire of universal con-

  sciousness to spark and flare up around the cosmos?

  A S T R O E N G I N E E R I N G

  As I scanned the table of contents of volume 1, number 1, of the new

  International Journal of Astrobiology, published in January 2002, the

  title of the final paper reached out and caught my eye: “A Search for

  ‘Frozen Optical Messages’ from Extraterrestrial Civilizations.” Say

  what?

  In this paper, Austrian astronomers Ronald Weinberger and Herbert

  Hartl reported on a twenty-five-year search for “unnatural looking”

  objects in the sky. They reasoned that an aged and powerful civilization

  *Nerd alert: Do not read the following unless you are a certified nerd, and don’t say I didn’t warn you. Suppose the fraction of living worlds that develop immortal noospheres increases as the inverse of the nearest-neighbor distance to an immortal (the closer a good role model, teacher, or guardian angel). Then FIC will be proportional to 1 over λ (where λ

  is the mean free path between immortals). So FIC is proportional to the total number of civilizations. Therefore dN/dt is proportional to N, so the equation for the number of immortals as a function of time (t) looks like N = Cekt. They increase exponentially.

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  might create large, bright, or anomalously shaped artifacts visible at

  great distances, possibly even across the entire universe. They might

  even move stars around or alter the form of galaxies. Aliens may under-

  take these astroengineering projects
to satisfy their own internal

  needs—living space, energy, public art installations, or whatever it is

  they’re into—or they could be making deliberate attempts to communi-

  cate with faraway creatures by creating highly visible structures that

  are clearly not natural. For example, if we saw a grouping of identical

  stars orbiting around some central massive object, with equal spacings

  between the stars, we might conclude that this was a massive work of

  engineering, rather than a random configuration.

  Such “frozen optical messages” would avoid some of the disadvan-

  tages of radio messages. For one, the message would stay put until

  someone came along to recognize it.* Maybe this cosmic graffiti tag-

  ging would just be meant to say, “Yes, we’re here.”

  The idea that we might discover alien civilizations by searching for the

  signs of astroengineering was suggested in the 1930s by the British cos-

  mic philosopher and science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon. It has subse-

  quently been explored by numerous visionaries, including Freeman

  Dyson and Arthur C. Clarke. Just as human consciousness, whether we

  like it or not, is remaking the Earth, so cosmic consciousness may one

  day remake the stars and galaxies.

  When I read these papers about searching for astroengineering proj-

  ects, it is hard not to chuckle. Recently I found myself almost reflexively

  making light of the Weinberger and Hartl paper about searching for

  frozen optical messages. I had left the inaugural issue of International

  Journal of Astrobiology out on a table in our institute library. Perhaps protecting my reputation from being tainted by my association with

  astrobiology, I heard myself making some disparaging, eye-rolling

  remark about this work to a colleague.

  Afterward I realized that I had not been honest about my beliefs. It

  reminded me of a couple of times back in sixth grade when, hungry for

  peer approval, I expressed popular opinions that I did not really hold

  or made fun of some “dorky” kid who I did not really think was dorky,

  in hopes of avoiding the dreaded dorky label for myself, and later felt

  like a jerk about it.

  *Also an advantage of biological messages, as discussed in chapter 19.

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  Why do we laugh? Percival Lowell’s wish-fulfillment “discoveries,”

  which embarrassed planetary astronomy, were of giant engineering

  works on Mars. Searching directly for alien artifacts, whether they be

  probes (Von Neumann machines) in our own solar system or distant,

  giant works of astroengineering, has a logical justification that

  arguably is no more or less secure than the rationale for radio searches,

  yet it has a much higher yuk factor (or a more impenetrable ridicule

  barrier). Acknowledging our technological infancy, how can we deny

  that we might, by looking long and far, see the handiwork of the

  immortals somewhere out among the galaxies and stars?

  The Weinberger and Hartl paper, describing the results of their

  twenty-five-year search of the sky for astronomical objects that might

  be artificial in origin, concludes, “A number of very peculiar objects

  were indeed found, but none of these appeared likely to be the product

  of alien masterminds. We may conclude that at least within about

  10,000–20,000 light-years around the Solar System no highly advanced

  extraterrestrial civilizations intend to reveal themselves through such

  objects.”

  H E L P !

  Can we communicate with the immortals? Can an amoeba communi-

  cate with us? It can give us dysentery. If the immortals do take our com-

  municative desires and abilities seriously enough to tell us anything, it

  will not be a conversation between two equals. When you read the

  speculative literature—in science fiction and scholarly discussions—

  about the possible impact on humanity of receiving a genuine alien

  message, opinions are all over the map. Some believe it would be our

  salvation, the best thing that could ever happen to us, our induction

  into a new, higher state of existence. Others believe that it would spell

  disaster.

  One of the benefits of an alien message might be to help foster a col-

  lective terrestrial identity through the knowledge of “the other.” The

  idea that the immortals might help fledgling races get through the tech-

  nological juvenile-delinquent stage has been explored in fiction,

  notably in Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End and 2001: A Space

  Odyssey. Frank Drake believes that the immortals will broadcast infor-

  mation that will help others to become immortal. Carl Sagan suggested

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  that an alien message might contain information that would help us to

  avoid a nuclear holocaust.* A deep consideration of the possibilities of

  highly advanced technological societies has led some hard-core, no-

  nonsense, skeptical scientists to the quasi-religious conclusion that

  there are immortal, infinitely wise creatures out there, ready to deliver

  us from darkness.

  *Knowing about Carl’s concern that international conflict might doom the human race, and also his belief that an alien signal might help to unite humans, I once asked him if he had ever considered trying to fake an alien message, for the purpose of helping humanity.

  His answer surprised me. He said that, yes, he had considered it and decided that it was not a good idea because too many smart people could figure out that it was a hoax.

  Astrotheology

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  On yet another world, intelligence had been born and was

  Image unavailable for

  escaping from its planetary cradle. An ancient experiment

  electronic edition

  was about to reach its climax.

  —ARTHUR C. CLARKE, 2001

  searching for a lighthouse

  in the breakwaters of our uncertainty,

  Image unavailable for

  an electronic murmur,

  electronic edition

  a bright, fragile I am . . .

  —DIANE ACKERMAN, FROM

  Jaguar of Sweet Laughter

  You may say I’m a dreamer. . . .

  Image unavailable for

  —JOHN LENNON

  electronic edition

  S O U L S U R V I V O R S

  Today many of us invest hope in extraterrestrials who may come and

  save us from ourselves. The idea of contact with advanced ETs is as

  close to a scientifically palatable miracle as anything we can imagine.

  Might contact have a transformative effect on the human race, help-

  ing us enter a future in which we, too, become broadcasters and galac-

  tic travelers? This question drives both SETI and ufology, each of which

  has at times been described as a new religion in the making. Perhaps

  our belief in advanced extraterrestrials is both a proto-religion and a

  proto-science. Natural philosophy once mingled our religious and spiri-

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  tual quests together with what we now think of as the scientific quest.

  Our common wonder and desire involving alien life creates a place, out

  on thin ice, where science and spirituality can meet, become reac-

  q
uainted, and perhaps practice working together. The success of this

  marriage, I believe, will ultimately determine the longevity and fate of

  the human race.

  Science may be a candle in the dark but it is also a lit fuse, and our

  future depends on an ability to grasp a truth that comes from some-

  where beyond science: that if we don’t do a much better job of loving

  one another here on this Earth, then we are going to miss the galactic

  party.

  It really bothered me when Bob Dylan came out with that song

  “License to Kill,” in which he sang:

  Man thinks ’cause he rules the Earth he can do with it as he please

  And if things don’t change soon, he will.

  Oh, man has invented his doom,

  First step was touching the moon.

  These lines put right in my face the dissonance between my dreams

  of liberation through space exploration and Bob’s dystopian view of

  space travel.

  Hadn’t Dylan heard that the times are a-changin’? What about the

  utopian visions of Tsiolkovsky, which echoed through my youthful

  space activism?—the dream that the move into space will spark a new

  liberation of the human spirit, a natural continuation of our walk out of

  Africa and around the globe, an assumption of our true humanity, the

  inevitable next step in the rise of cosmic consciousness . . . Something is

  happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Bob?

  Which do I believe? Tsiolkovsky’s beautiful visions, or the view

  expressed by Dylan in that wretched song?* Will space technology be

  part of our beginning or our end?

  One of the criticisms of our space visions has always been that they

  are escapist, that we need to solve our problems here on Earth First.

  Taken to an extreme, this attitude deadens all exploration and outward

  movement. I say, our movement toward our future in space must be

  *I love that song.

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  part of a general, painfully slow expansion of human consciousness

  that will ultimately help us clean up Earth and get along down here.

  Space technology has made possible powerful new forms of spiritual

  experience and communion. Apollo astronaut Russell (Rusty) Schweickart

  expressed better than anyone else the feeling of seeing the Earth from

  space. From his description you can feel what it was like to be up there