| Personal background |
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I think that there is life out there simply because there are so many stars in space, there is so much time available in the lifespan of a typical star for life to evolve, and because the elements that make up living things are so very common in the Universe. Furthermore, life has proven itself to be surprisingly resilient with life forms being able to adapt to the most extreme conditions.
However, the follow up question might be 'what kind of life?' I am not sure if there are a lot of highly evolved technological civilizations in the universe; at least not the kind of space faring civilizations commonly portrayed in movies. For an advanced life form to have evolved, it is necessary for the life form to have a strong desire for survival. I believe that there is no way around this. The mechanism of evolution relies on natural selection and natural selection tends to favor species that are better at surviving. This implies that species that rely on intelligence (large brains, complex language, tool use, etc.) to aid their survival will have a tendency to use their intelligence (and eventually their science/technology) to extend their life spans and stop aging. This will essentially prevent them from evolving and they will inevitably lose their evolutionary war with other life forms and viruses.
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| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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We may conjecture that a technological society will be able to keep up in the race using their medical science, but I am not sure if medical science, however advanced, can be a proxy for a species in the evolutionary race. Furthermore, at this point in their advancement, a possible contact with other life forms would present tremendous risk to such a civilization in the same way that the arrival of Caucasians brought deadly pathogens to the new world. For a race of immortals the risk would be magnified a thousand fold. So if there are advanced civilizations out there, I doubt that they would be eager to make contact with other planets.
So I imagine that the history of the universe is full of civilizations that briefly flared only to be extinguished at their apex or to languish on for long periods of time in a semi-dormant low risk states sitting on diminishing resources. My guess is that a typical civilization has no more than a few hundred years after their invention of advanced medical techniques. After that, they conquer aging, stop evolving, and pull into their 'shell' like so many shy snails.
Of course, I could be wrong... |
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