Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist
Mother Nature's
Grand Plan

    1.0   Will Man live forever?

    Ask the ordinary fellow whether humans will live forever on Earth and most, if not all, will reply that he won't. Ask next how
    it is that man will become extinct and you discover that few have really thought about the issue in any meaningful way. The
    first thing that comes to everyone's mind is that we will kill each other with nuclear weapons or succumb to some devastating
    disease. If this fails, we are nevertheless on our way to polluting the air so fast that we will succumb to asphyxiation or to a
    runaway greenhouse. A close fourth is the infallible comet, by which most people really mean an asteroid: they use the
    extinction theory of the dinosaurs as an example.

    The problem with these examples is that they are all things we can do something about. For political and economic reasons
    it is not in the interests of the US or China or Russia to annihilate any of the others. There was probably a much greater danger
    of an all-out nuclear war happening during the Cold War era. Nevertheless, this would not explain why Dimetrodon and T-Rex
    died. We need to find a universal mechanism. Infighting is a universal mechanism, but not of extinction. We can hardly imagine
    two horses fighting for supremacy within the herd of mares causing the extinction of all of them. If you choose pollution or the
    asteroid, some techno-buff will tell you that we will probably invent something to scrub the atmosphere and disintegrate the
    rock with a nuclear weapon before it strikes Earth. I could go on and on with technology antidotes to whatever you come up
    with. The idiots of the Economics Establishment routinely use them to
    parry attacks by the 'sky-is-falling' engineers of energy and oil.

    So you might conclude on second thought that maybe we are destined to live forever after all. The genetic engineers are
    working to eliminate old age. The nanotechnologists are developing assemblers that will crawl through our bodies and
    eliminate disease. We have global demographics somewhat under control, and the UN has been particularly successful
    reducing the birth and fertility rates year by year. So maybe we're just making too much of the intuitive notion that we won't
    live forever.  

    Now I remind you that scientists are almost unanimous in their belief that the Sun is not eternal. It is supposed to burn up
    completely in another 5 billion years. [1] And it is unlikely that we will make it that far. In 100 to 200 million years the Earth is
    expected to enter a runaway greenhouse that will convert us into something inhospitable like Venus. If we are going to talk
    about 'forever,' we should include these factors in our calculations.

    Well then, this means that we will just have to leave the Earth some time before then:

    "Humankind will remain vulnerable so long as it stays confined here on Earth...
      Once the threshold is crossed when there is a self-sustaining level of life in
      space, then life’s long-range future will be secure irrespective of any of the
      risks on Earth (pp. 169-179)" [2]

    If Rees is right, all we have to do is adjust our lifestyles a little and we'll be okay. We have the intelligence to design and build
    the crafts and get out there. We would simply be following Mother Nature's Grand Plan.


    2.0   The Grand Plan

    Mother Nature, it turns out, has her Grand Plan. A living planet like Earth is quite unique, and Man was probably in the cards
    all along. Assuming our calculations are correct, and barring a catastrophic accident, the Sun and our planet are scheduled
    to be around for at least a couple of billion years or more. Compare this against the meager 10,000 years that it took our
    species to develop the advanced, self-directed civilization we have today -- most of which lived and developed exponentially
    in the last two hundred years -- and you get an idea of the unlimited potential ahead of us. The dinosaurs, in contrast, lived
    for about 150 million years and never got past munching leaves and each other. By developing technology at our current
    exponential pace,  we appear headed to achieving powers reserved only to God. With 2 or 3 billion years to spare we
    practically have an eternity ahead of us. What could possibly get in the way?

    It is difficult to foretell the future because we lack knowledge of upcoming discoveries and inventions that may blow the field
    wide open and derail our most carefully crafted predictions. However, let’s give the big picture a try and begin by using a
    molecule of history as a guide. In the middle ages little boys wanted to be knights when they grew up, or archers, or
    swordsmen. Adventure meant going to war, staring at death in the face on a battlefield, and showing off your scars to the
    boys back home if you survived the ordeal. Today’s teenagers role-play similar experiences by squeezing the joystick on
    their video games within the safety of their homes, and the best scars they can boast to friends about are custom designed
    at the mall piercing center. Up until recently, war was the preferred method of conquest. Today, conquering is mostly done
    through investment, diplomacy, and control of the interest rate. Corporations and businessmen rather than warring knights
    rule the Earth.

    We’ve come a long way, no doubt, but then what adventures can future generations look forward to? What will keep us going
    once intelligence solves most of the problems here on Earth?

    The answer is space, the last frontier. Laymen and experts alike have no trouble visualizing our role in Dearest Mother’s
    Grand Plan. The entire universe lies prostrated before us. Why hesitate? We are destined to conquer the stars.

    Indeed, we have already started this process rather timidly, although persistently. We have built rudimentary space vehicles
    and landed on the Moon, designed space stations that enable us to live artificially in outer space for months at a time, and
    sent unmanned spacecraft and robots to explore other members of the Solar System. The next milestone will perhaps be the
    establishment of a colony on a planet, or possibly the Moon. Due to budget constraints, priorities, and payback considerations
    this second stage may take as long as 100 years. The third stage may involve terraforming inhospitable environments of other
    celestial bodies. If successful, the re-engineering of a planetary atmosphere would relieve us of the need to carry artificial
    carcasses around to breathe and to protect ourselves from UV rays, meteors, and comets. This process would likely involve
    extensive sowing of anaerobic systems or genetically engineered entities designed to chemically convert the CO2 atmospheres
    into breathable air. Such inter-generational projects would be carefully administered from Earth until the time was ripe for the
    first colonists to settle in the new world. We would then explore, terraform, and colonize all convertible regions of the Solar
    System. The giant gas planets could be cannibalized for their rich and practically inexhaustible supply of energy and
    asteroids mined for their metal content, both necessary to fuel the expansion. Another promising idea consists of constructing
    self-supporting, orbiting space habitats, capable of sustaining the entire population of Earth if the need arises, for example
    during a period in which we re-engineer our atmosphere. The Solar System could thus be capable of supporting hundreds if
    not thousands of billions of people. Fueled by this explosion, technology would develop to unprecedented levels. Powerful
    plasma-driven rockets, laser driven sailboats, solar wind driven magnetic bubbles, or tethers would gradually replace
    gravitational assist and liquid boosters as the primary methods of propulsion. Eventually we would gain ground on the speed
    of light, and the 6 billion kilometer trip to Pluto could take a matter of hours or days.

    Having developed highly sophisticated technology and achieved social and economic stability, the conditions would be ripe
    for man to make the first long journey. Possibly induced by a mixture of overcrowding, scarce resources, adventure, and
    development of new markets, we would make our first bold interstellar voyage to the nearest star, actually a three-star system
    known as Centauri consisting of Proxima, Alpha, and Beta. The first stage would involve reconnoitering Alpha – the most
    Sun-like of the three -- with unmanned vehicles. This would perhaps be followed by robot expeditions directed to terraform
    a suitable planet, a step geared to pave the way for the first intrepid pioneers. Technological developments would by then
    perhaps enable freezing astronauts in cryogenic chambers and thawing them upon arrival in the neighborhood of Alpha
    Centauri to save humans or post-humanists the agony of a boring trip. A gold-rush style migration would ensue with hundreds
    of adventurous couples making the risky trip across the invisible expanse of nothingness in pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

    With two stars under our control, what could possibly stop human expansion? Having mastered interstellar travel and the
    technology to terraform planets, we would henceforth hop from one star to another until most of the spiral arm two thirds of
    the way from the center of the Milky Way becomes ours. Barring that the life-belt is for some yet to be discovered reason
    constrained within this limited region, there is nothing to impede our rampage across the entire galaxy. Star after star would
    be invaded until, at some point, we would likely encounter another such empire heading our way. Would war break out?
    Probably not. The seemingly unconquerable distances between stars are not there by chance. Distance is Mother Nature’s
    way to ensure that her Grand Plan doesn’t get derailed -- a built-in safeguard that guarantees that intelligence first learns the
    ropes of coexistence before it is allowed to annihilate an inferior civilization with its awesome might, or engage in a war of
    attrition with an equal. Do not underestimate Mother dearest. She is not wise because of learning, but because of infinite
    patience. She requires that humans collectively acquire the experience and emotional stability of God and the patience of
    the Universe itself to use this newfound sophistication wisely. The Grand Plan guarantees this way that there is a perpetual
    melting pot of civilizations.

    Having diplomacy triumphed, we would now proceed to integrate our Internets and copy each other’s technology, merge
    politically, economically and socially, and together embark on a joint venture grander in scope than anything imagined
    before. Driven ultimately by self interest, we would continue together until at some other milestone in our chronology we
    would integrate with yet another empire, and so on until the end of time. We have already seen this picture a thousand times
    in science fiction novels, television series, and movies, and the popularity of these stories indicates that many people either
    wish them to be true or extrapolate the future in like manner. The galaxy is ours. What problem can arise that the intelligent
    mind cannot tackle and solve?


    3.0   Something is not right!

    The Grand Plan would be a remarkable adventure indeed if it weren’t for the fact that most of it will remain science fantasy as
    all the stuff that comes out of Mathematical Physics. We will not even hear from another civilization in what little time remains
    for us on Earth let alone leave the boundary of the solar system in a controlled mission. The Grand Plan gives me an uneasy
    feeling that something is simply not right. If matter cannot surreptitiously pop up from the void like Einstein's idiots believe,
    the Universe has been around forever and not as they say for a few billion years. If there was no beginning, not only is it
    unlikely that we are the only human-level intelligence in the Universe today, but next to impossible that we are the only
    civilization to have ever developed in all of eternity. A proper analysis of this topic should therefore include intelligent life that
    developed 50 billion or 1 trillion Earth-years ago. Why hasn’t someone already conquered the Milky Way? Where are the aliens?
    Are they patiently studying us under their microscopes from afar? Are we the most advanced civilization in the Universe? If as
    Kardashev  proposes, there should be three logarithmic levels of civilizations founded on the amount of energy they have
    managed to harness (planet, star, galaxy), someone from the galaxy level should have already contacted us puny, insignificant,
    backward earthlings who are still struggling at the planetary level with Tegmark-like underdeveloped intelligence. This question
    is known as Fermi's Paradox. Not one relativist at the SETI Institute can give you an answer.

    I will argue here that a controlled, manned, interstellar voyage and the human colonization of another solar system have little to
    do with science. Such events have no chance of ever materializing. They violate logic and the laws of the universe.

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    Last modified 02/27/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Mother Bill
she's got the whole world in her hands...
and pretty soon she's gonna crush it!