Intelligent Life - Aug 7 2021

 

Intelligent Life

Aug 7 2021

Extremophiles

means lovers of extremes,

the living things

that persist despite.

How life finds a way,

and how this makes us think

we must not be alone

in the universe.

Even down here on earth

people endure

and their strength humbles me.

Especially as someone

to whom the accident of birth

has conferred a privileged life.

Especially when it's tempting to think

one's good fortune is deserved;

surrendering to pride

rather than realize

the burden of gratitude

duty to return.

Multicellular animals

in the ocean's deepest abyss.

Bacteria

miles underground

in compressed strata of rock.

Halophiles

in dense salty bogs

that should prohibit any life.

And people who survive

unbearable adversity,

thrive against all odds.

The life force

in a measureless universe

where every star has planets

and 1 out of 4

may very well be habitable;

rocky earth-like planets

with liquid water

the right distance from their star,

the Goldilocks zone

where life is possible.

But intelligence, who knows?

Even here

on this green water-world

so teeming with life

I can't help but wonder.

Do we deserve our beautiful home?

Have we squandered our bequest?

Have we betrayed the struggle

that took billions of years

only to end with us?

I've just finished this brilliant 4-part documentary on BBC Earth called Living Universe about the search for extra-terrestrial life. We think of microorganisms. We picture multi-cellular animals. And from there, we dare to imagine an intelligence not only like ours, but a civilization capable of technology. And then, in our ever hopeful way, a technological civilization that survives long enough to overlap with our own.

I always think of the hubris of our search for intelligent life elsewhere when current events lead one to believe that there really isn't much of it here. Yes, the universe may very well be built for life: life almost everywhere may be inevitable given the inviolable laws of physics and chemistry. But perhaps we are alone in our accomplishment: single-celled life, but no other higher intelligence.

I love how this concludes. That there are alien forms of intelligent life right under our noses: the cetaceans, like squid, octopus, and cuttlefish. Who have no skeleton, a brain distributed through all of their limbs, a brilliant eye that evolved completely separately from ours, and who inhabit a totally different environment. Intelligent, yes; just not technological. And animals with whom we have no common ancestors. They could just have well have evolved on any watery planet, anywhere in the universe. So if, as we see in this case, convergence rules – that all life everywhere will develop in roughly the same way, producing eyes, intelligence, social behaviours, and whatever else – there probably is intelligent life, given a universe of almost infinite time and space.

But frankly, I'm not so keen on the search. I think we should get serious about not trashing the breath-taking diversity of life on earth before setting out to look for life somewhere else.