The Anthropic Principle

In 1975, NASA launched its two Mars orbiter and landers, the Viking 1 and Viking 2, and were the first spacecraft to land safely on the Martian surface. Their mission, other than taking photographs of the terrain, was to begin looking for signs of life in the soil. Although no evidence of life was discovered, this did not stop the scientists at NASA from developing new missions and new techniques to reach their ultimate goal. Since the success of the Viking missions, Pathfinder (1996), both Spirit and Opportunity (2003), Phoenix (2007) and most recently Curiosity (2011) have all landed safely on Mars in search for evidence that the planet once supported life.

Of course all this time and money is spent with no guarantee of reward at the end of it. We could search the entire planet, exhausting countless amounts of resources, only to find absolutely nothing. So why do we do it at all? It is almost built into our human DNA to explore and seek out new opportunities afar (see 'Fear of Oblivion https://thinker-deepthought.blogspot.com/2017/06/) but what drives us to seek out other forms of life like ourselves? Is it a fear of being alone with no one else to share the human story with and that of our greatest achievements - and our failures?

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”  Arthur C. Clarke

Not only terrifying, but immensely significant. Think of the consequences for either scenario if it should be confirmed one way or another. Either there is life out there, that developed separately from Earth, and that the Universe is arranged in such a manner that the development of life is inevitable. Or we are unique, by some lucky one in a billion-billion chance, life developed on this little rock in the vastness of the Universe and it does not exist anywhere else. Both prospects are equally daunting.

It could be argued that to think that life on this planet is completely unique is very self-centred of us, placing an amazing amount of significance on our very own existence. This idea is known as 'anthropocentrism'. It was not that long ago that ancient philosophers and astronomers believed that the Earth was at the very centre of the Universe, and that the Sun, Moon, planets and stars all revolved around us. This is known as the geocentric model. It wasn't until Nicolaus Copernicus published his paper 'De revolutionibus orbium coelestium' in 1543 CE, which argued that in fact it is the Earth and the other celestial bodies that revolve around the Sun, that began the shift towards what is known as the heliocentric model.

This idea of thinking wasn't widely accepted and stood in opposition to religious scripture at the time. How could we not be at the very centre of the Universe? From observations of the movement of the planets and the stillness of the stars and stability of the Earth, to the average person, the geocentric model made the most sense. It wasn't until the invention of the telescope that these observations began to change. Galileo Galilei used such a device to observe four of Jupiter's moons rotating around it, evidence that one celestial body can orbit another, without any influence from the Earth. Also, the observation of our own moon showed that the surface was littered with craters much like Earth, disproving the idea that the Moon is a perfect construct and that either were unique to the Universe.

This revolutionary way of looking at the cosmos, although not without some inaccuracies to begin with, also changed the way we looked at ourselves as a species. If the Sun was indeed at the centre of the known Universe, and the Earth was only one of several other planets orbiting around it, it would stand to reason that those other planets could potentially also support life.

Today, we are still searching for life within our own solar system, whether they be on the planets like Mars, or on one of the many moons orbiting around those planets, such as Jupiter's Europa, or Titan and Enceladus of Saturn.

But that doesn't mean our search stops there. Since the first detection of an exoplanet (planets outside our solar system) in 1988, there have since been a total of 3,815 confirmed exoplanets discovered. And that number is ever increasing. So even if we fail to find life inside our own solar system, the number of possibilities beyond it seem almost infinite. So what is the probability that we will?

Let's crunch some numbers! In 1961, Frank Drake did exactly that, subsequently creating what is known as the 'Drake Equation'.

N = R∗ x fp x ne x fl x fi x fc x L

Where N is the number of civilisations in our galaxy with who we might be able to communicate with. R∗ is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy, fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets, ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets, fl is the fraction of planets that could support life and that actually develop life, fi is the fraction of those planets that then develop intelligent life, fc is the fraction of those planets with intelligent life that develop technology that is detectable, and L is the length of time that those civilisations release those detectable signals.

Of course this equation has received much scepticism and should only be used to theorise the potential for life in the Universe, and as such, the equation can give a very wide range of values. When N is calculated to be below 1, that means that intelligent life existing somewhere other that Earth is unlikely, and when N is calculated to be more than 1, that means that intelligent life is likely to be out there. Values range from conservative estimates around 0.0015 to much higher values of 15 million. Average estimates put the Drake Equation at about 10,000 intelligent civilisations that we could potentially communicate with.

So if the number could potentially be that high, where is everyone? This brings us to the Fermi Paradox. The assumption is that considering the vast amount of stars with potentially habitable planets and the enormous length of time from the beginning of the Universe up until now, and with no evidence of intelligent life, there must be some reasonable explanations for the complete silence.

Some of these explanations worth considering;

   

• there is life but life has never reached the same level of intelligence as here on Earth.
• intelligent life will eventually destroy itself through nuclear war, climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence
• extinction from natural events
• the distance between intelligent civilisations is just too great
• we have only been listening for a very short amount of time or our method for listening is wrong
• we might be deliberately ignored, or the 'zoo hypothesis'
• the first existence of intelligent life will destroy all others and we just happen to be the first ones

This seems to be one of the most perplexing conundrums that we currently face and no one has yet come to the perfect answer. Even these ideas have found their way into modern popular culture. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, was inspired by the Drake Equation and used a variation to justify the number of technologically advanced aliens and planets that they encounter.

Preserver

Although I don't really count myself as much of a "Trekkie", I do remember that in one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Chase", written by Ronald Moore and Joe Menosky and aired in 1993, tackles the question of our origins. Most of the aliens in Star Trek, are humanoids, with no explanation to why they all look so similar. This is one aspect of Star Trek that really annoyed me. In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise discover a 4 billion year old computer program designed by an advanced civilisation now extinct. Efforts to repair the computer program reveal a hologram of a humanoid that explains to them that their species were the first to develop interstellar travel and after finding that they were alone in the galaxy, began spreading their genetic material on to other planets (sounds erotic, but go with it), so that one day life would develop on those worlds. These humanoids are also thought to be the Preservers from the original series episode "The Paradise Syndrome", a highly advanced species that would save other humanoids from extinction by relocating them to other planets.

Rakata

In the Star Wars universe, there is also a humanoid species that seeds the galaxy first, known as the Celestials, or the Architects. This species dominated the galaxy and enslaved all other advanced species, including Kiliks, Gree and Kwa. It is the Kwa that created the Infinity Gates (a structure that allowed instant interstellar travel between points in the galaxy) and discovered the Rakatan. The Celestials soon also enslaved the Rakatan too, but the Rakatan used their power of the darkside of the Force and the technology of the Kwa and revolted against the Celestials. The Rakatan overthrew them and eventually enslaved the other species as they expanded across the galaxy and established the Infinite Empire. The Rakatan were almost entirely wiped out when they were struck down by deadly plague and lost their connection to the Force, thus releasing the galaxy from the grip of the Infinite Empire.

Prothean

In the popular game series Mass Effect, the story is centred around the return of the Reapers, giant synthetic-organic machines that return from dark space to wipe out all intelligent species from the galaxy. The name is given to them by the Protheans, a humanoid species that once controlled the entire galaxy, before they encountered the Reapers and mysteriously vanished. The Protheans are first credited with creating the Mass Relays, similar to the Infinite Gates of Star Wars, allowing those that pass through them to instantly travel to other parts of the galaxy in the Mass Relay network. But it is later discovered that the Reapers were the original creators of the Mass Relays, in order to make it easier to harvest the galaxy's sentient life when they return. The Reapers themselves take the appearance from their creators, the Leviathans, an ancient aquatic species that dominated the galaxy and considered themselves the first apex race, eventually destroyed by the Reaper machines that they created.

So what does looking at science fiction literature tell us about our reality? In these scenarios, humans encounter evidence of ancient alien civilisations but in reality, we are still confronted with the Fermi Paradox. Not only have we not encountered alien life, but we have not even encountered any alien relics or technology or structures that point to the possibility of other space-faring civilisations out there.

So maybe the biggest question that we need to ask ourselves is not "why are we here?" but "why is no one else here too?" The idea that we are alone in this Universe is unfathomable and almost makes its very existence meaningless. But what if it's much more than that? A lot more. Our understanding of the Universe has evolved immensely from when the brightest minds of the age still believed that the cosmos revolved around the Earth, putting us at the centre of everything. But what if that thinking is not too far from the truth when it comes to understanding our place in the Universe? Could it be that life does not exist outside Earth's atmosphere, that the miraculous beginning of life on this planet is completely unique, a freak accident? But life nevertheless began and indeed flourished! Maybe it is in fact us humans that will develop faster-than-light travel and populate the galaxy and beyond, spreading the seeds of life across the cosmos. If someone has to do it first, what is to say that it isn't us? We might not be the centre of Universe but we could be the origin of life in the Universe.

This stunning realisation, could have drastic consequences. Our responsibility to look after this planet's fragile environment and ensure the survival of our species becomes immeasurable. If the only life capable of perceiving the Universe as it is, is destroyed, will the Universe still exist?

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?