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Email: [email protected]
1 1 Quoted in [3.61], pp. 122-3.
2 2 A recent accessible presentation of the same argument was given by Addy Pross in his fine neo-Schrödingerian book What is Life? [3.53].
3 3 Note that Fry’s book appeared almost simultaneously with much less interesting and important, but way more talked about Rare Earth [3.66]. For comparison, as of this writing (December 2020), Google Scholar records 290 citations of The Emergence of Life against more than 900 for Rare Earth.
4 4 This does not apply in the future direction only, although for obvious reasons we need to worry most about that direction and the future consequences of our decisions made under the influence of chronocentric beliefs. An obvious effect of chronocentrism toward the past is visible in historical sciences and especially in the abuses of history often committed by zelous political do-gooders and various political corectness advocates (for critical assessments see, e.g., [3.33, 3.44]). The outright crazy versions of chronocentrism comprise rejection of scientific/literary/artistic/philosophical canon due to the “whiggish” reading of history: today’s standards being nonsensically applied to the past. This tallies well with the actual social-costructivist, neomarxist idiotism. “Don’t read Plato, he was a slave holder!”
5 5 [3.3], p. 118.
6 6 There are exceptions to this view sometimes considered in the domain of science fiction literature. For instance, in his brilliant novel Blindsight, Peter Watts describes how the human kind of intelligence might be an exception, rather than the rule, among all star-faring species [3.67]. We cannot discuss this fascinating and disturbing scenario here in more detail, but see [3.15].
7 7 Note that this conclusion applies to epistemology and philosophy of science; extrascientific motivation clearly present in the rejection of the continuity thesis by creationists does not and cannot invalidate this heuristic usage, since their supernaturalist metaphysics lies outside science [3.28, 3.31].
8 8 Not everyone agrees, as expected. Although even most non-biocentric moral philosophers would agree that an inhabited planet possesses some additional value, even if purely instrumental, in comparison to a dead one, a small but surprisingly vocal group of philosophical pessimists and anti-natalists has argued for a diametrically opposite view. In a cartoonishly simplified form, life (both human and non-human) is mainly suffering and so is of negative net value, and human duty is to actually prevent its proliferation and procreation. Drawing on some traditional sources, like Buddhism and Schopenhauer’s philosophy, some of the modern representatives of this view have been Peter Wessel Zappfe, Emil Cioran, David Benatar, Ray Brassier, and Eugene Thacker (a popular overview is given by Thomas Ligotti in [3.41]).
9 9 Notably, the temperature at which living/intelligent systems operate is perhaps the key factor in both subjective time flow and in overall evolution, as per Dyson’s scaling hypothesis [3.23]. See also [3.56].
10 10 A popular version of this cop-out is to state that such thinking invariably belongs to the domain of science fiction. What a conservative mind fails to perceive is that there is no sharp boundary between the two discourses; what has been a science fiction concept of chain reaction for H. G. Wells or smart dust for Stanislaw Lem has long ago smoothly transitioned into the scientific/technological discourse. See [3.15] for an extended discussion of this fascinating topic.
11 11 Admittedly, some additional assumptions are required here. Notably, the cosmologically allowed future will last longer than the history of the universe so far—which is firmly confirmed by physical eschatology [3.2]. Also, the conclusion hinges on the, possibly also geocentric, assumption that a typical extraterrestrial biosphere is a system of many individual life forms as agents—and not a single biospheric-size superorganism as, for example, Lem’s Solaris (see Lem [3.39]).
12 12 Compare this with the artistic vision of Clarke and Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey (cf. [3.27]).
4
Life in the Milky Way: The Panspermia Prospects
Branislav Vukotić1* and Richard Gordon2,3†
