February 25, 2021
THERE ARE NO DARWINISTS:
If Aliens Exist, Here's How We'll Find Them: Two esteemed astrophysicists peer into the future of space exploration. (MARTIN REES & MARIO LIVIO, FEBRUARY 24, 2021, Nautilus)
Pioneer explorers will be ill-adapted to their new habitat, so they will have a compelling incentive to re-design themselves. They'll harness the super-powerful genetic and cyborg technologies that will be developed in coming decades. This might be the first step toward divergence into a new species.Organic creatures need a planetary surface environment on which life could emerge and evolve. But if post-humans make the transition to fully inorganic intelligence, they won't need an atmosphere. They may even prefer zero-gravity, especially for constructing massive artifacts. It's in deep space that non-biological brains may develop powers that humans can't even imagine.There are chemical and metabolic limits to the size and processing power of organic brains. Maybe we are close to these limits already. But no such limits apply to or constrain electronic computers (still less, perhaps, quantum computers). So, by any definition of "thinking," the amount and intensity that can be achieved by organic human-type brains will be swamped by the cerebrations of AI.We are perhaps near the end of Darwinian evolution, but technological evolution of intelligent beings is only just beginning.
Which conceit is more hilarious: that we are the end product of Darwinism or that it's up to us to find aliens?
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 25, 2021 7:28 AM
