Is the scientific focus on such hypothetical speculations reasonable considering the large efforts necessary to understand system earth and the particular boundary conditions it sets for life, evolution, cultivation, and industrialization? Science fiction is probably the best place/genre to explore your ideas.

You can regard my answer as concordant with a fashion in postmodern futurological thinking disenchanted with the high-flying visions of interstellar flight, colonization of the universe and the various ways of extraterrestrial salvation. Its message: Stay on earth to so solve earthly problems.

Dear Christopher,

Where is it that you are conjecturing this issue may have been faced by other meta-species than ourselves? Are you invoking an oscillating universe that "comes and goes" or are you perhaps invoking the notion of a multiverse? Are you suggesting that in the history of the universe as we know it this has already occurred elsewhere? It would seem that even a thought experiment needs a possible venue where the matter being speculated about could actually occur. I am all for "hypothetical speculation" but am just curious as to the locale of your speculation.

As a sociologist and comparative historian, I think of the Industrial Revolution in terms of being a benchmark for the economic pre-eminence of the West. Consequently, I don't see it as a particularly probative or informative starting point for any scholarly inquiry any longer. Yes, it was impressive to open the London Olympics with that Industrial Revolution skit (James Bond with the Queen flying in and all); nonetheless, I think the onset of the Digital Age and the economic growth of non-Western economies is a much more earth-shattering event! Hence, I see the onslaught of globalization (rather than industrialization) as being a much more fruitful line of inquiry. Gwen

Thanks Gwendolyn,

Using the Industrial revolution was not pivotal to the question. I am someone who can't wait to get 'out there' to see what is going on and I believe that many of the problems that we face today have been faced before - many times.

Cheers

Chris

Chris:

Yah, I get it. Understanding cognition, what it actually means and what brings it about is an important part of the science of the mind. As we make ever more capable and complex artificial intelligences, will we ever create on with equal or even greater capacity than the human mind? And, I'm talking about every capacity. Not just analytical, but also moral and ethical. I don't see why such qualities should be confined to a biological system. I strongly believe we'll eventually solve the puzzle of cognition and begin to create not just artificial intelligences, but artificial intellects similar to our own. Further, I believe that freed of the bounds of biology, such artificial intellects could exceed the human intellect without bounds (well, except for thermodynamics anyway). Indeed, such artificial intellects may be an inevitable evolution of humans as a species.

I do believe that there is a consensus in the scientific community that, given suitable conditions, life will emerge. Chris, your research and similar research argues in a similar way for the emergence of intelligence and even higher cognition. In other words not just intelligence, but intellect. I am also of that opinion. It appears to me that emergence of high levels of intelligence seems inevitable given the proper conditions. Just look around us on the Earth, there are many very intelligent species: dolphins, chimpanzees, and whales to name a few. But, why have humans developed an intellect rather than just being simply intelligent? That remains an unsolved mystery at the moment. Perhaps it is because we humans just happened to have all the right attributes, like being a land animal, having hands, speech, etc. when that stray cosmic ray mutated our DNA and pushed our brain over some kind of threshold. After that, the emergence of technology could have been inevitable.

I think the more we understand about the mind, cognition and intellect in general the more we will be able to predict or calculate the probability such a thing might happen again in our galaxy and the cosmos in general. If, after all the research is done, we discover that the probability of another technologically advanced species like ourselves is very low and we are essentially alone in the galaxy that would be a very profound thing. Such knowledge should help to give us perspective on the worth of the Earth its ecosphere and ourselves in particular. Hopefully such knowledge will help us stay focused on not destroying ourselves.

On the other hand, if the research shows that the emergence of intellect capable of technology is some kind of thermodynamic certainty, one might ask the question: Why aren't we 'hip deep' in non-terrestrial intelligences? This is of course, the Fermi paradox. I mean, given the early results of the Kepler telescope, it's clear that we actually are 'hip deep' in earthlike planets just in the Milky Way galaxy alone. Where are all those civilizations?

Did they destroy themselves? How? Why? As they say: "Inquiring minds want to know!" We'll never answer such questions until we're capable of interstellar spaceflight and we discover such civilizations. On the other hand, there are many many examples of self-destructed civilizations here on the earth. We could certainly learn a lot from "personal" experience.

But, what if they all didn't actually destroy themselves? What if a certain number have actually managed to survive so that their civilizations are hundreds of thousands or even millions of years older than ours? Wouldn't it be nice to have a benevolent 'older brother' (or sister!) whom we could ask questions like: 'How do we get out of this mess!' Something tells me they'd answer: 'You're just going to figure it out for yourselves.'

So, I think we've now come full circle. Any study of the mind, cognition ... intellect and how it emerges will contribute to self-understanding. And, it's only through greater self-understanding will we be able to do things like create artificial intellects and yes, in the end: save our butts.

Bill,

Sorry not to have replied earlier - I wasn't notified by RG that there was an answer.

Yes, I see your point.

Because my research argues that life is organized as a fractal process of catalysis, (not only on the earth but anywhere in the universe that it occurs), I would expect there to be similarities in the ways different sentient species evolve and develop socially. This idea is bolstered by the claim that if the evolution of life is the evolution of catalysis then life is a fundamental thermodynamic process - as Patrick pointed out..

Patrick (again sorry for my tardiness)

Good old Star Trek and the 'Prime Directive' may actually be right! There may be moral imperatives that preclude contact between advanced and less advanced sentient species until a certain level of intellectual sophistication is reached.

Michael,

Yes, I am a futurist and proud of it!

Being a futurist or futurologist it might be interesting to consider futures without space travel. The common way of thinking that going to space is a necessity for mankind and that there are no other ways of human self-actualization in the future might be a 20th century fashion. Even if life is a fundamental thermodynamic process in universe it might (better) be confined to certain habitats.

Hi, Christian

As far as we know, there were three species in our galaxy which were able to form societies based on common language and tool-using: the Neanderthals, the Denisovans and us, the H. sapiens. In the latter case the tool-using evolved to industrial revolution which was followed by a globalization process as Gwen pointed out. So, the answer to your first question would be =1.

Based on this answer it's difficult to make predictions, statistics or other scientific analysis related to the fate of this latter civilization. We are an incomparable, unparalelled technological civilization: the unique in the known world.

But the known world's boundaries (and our knowledge about alien worlds) are rapidly growing – not only by discovering alien planets, but taking in account also the hypothetical possibilities mentioned by Bill (mutiverses, etc). Regarding to the possibility to guide ourselves along the problem-solving methods used by the inhabitants of these hypothetical alien worlds , I would not encourage such endeavours. Presuming that we will meet an advanced alien civilization, the knowledge-transfer will be a difficult and possibly dangerous process. Mainly because due to the different environments we (will) have different problems – so, the methods to solve these problems must also differ.

Even if the laws of physics and mathematics can be regarded as universally valid, the environment which can give birth to a technological civilization is extremly complex due to the non-linear dynamics of it's processes. And these processes will lead to differrent problems: analyzing the circumstanceas of the babilonian empire will not explain the extinction of the mayan civilization. The nuclear fusion can be realized on the fourth planet of Antares, but difficult to obtain on Sun's third.

On the other hand, the fractal catalytic process is an interesting approach to understand the emergence and evolution of life. But it tells anything about the temporal dimension of the survival of a civilization? The observations of the precedent earthly civilizations are suggesting, that the empires tend to survive shorter periods as time passes: the ancient empires existed millennias, the medieval empires centuries, and so on. Here I consent with Patrick: gnoti seauthon.