SETI

Those who believe in extraterrestrials are hard to talk to. They are so puppy-eager to believe, for various reasons, that one feels like I used to when discussing Santa Claus with my children when they were toddlers. You can’t argue with “it makes sense that” or “surely in an infinitely vast universe…”

When I was young, still immersed in the fading cloud of my early scientific thought, it was all so simple. Life evolved to become more complex. Complexity required more thinking, and the most complex survived and ruled. Consciousness was the natural apex of a massive darwinian pyramid. Humans and _ by implication _ I myself were the crown of almost inevitable creation. Surely the same steps happened elsewhere.

But very recently all that is wiped away. Maybe life is easy to get started from amino acids and stuff, but necessary conditions may also be rarer than we once believed. Beyond that? Well even the transition to photosynthesis and multicellularity may be really unlikely, dependent on for example, a large moon or a molten core shielding radiation. The steps to a spine or brain are pretty flaky. And dominant dumb species have lasted for millions of years and crush competition unless there is a massive cosmic accident.

More to the point, human consciousness is the result of so many unlikely events _ the latest being ice ages of just the right depth and duration _ that _ well you get the idea.

Perhaps there will be alternative AI intelligence soon, but I think that artificial consciousness is a very long shot. It will happen here, because I strongly suspect the stars are forever empty.