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Some Philosophical Implications Regarding the Extent of Life in the Universe

American Association for the Advancement of Science, “Extent of Life” Workshop (DOSER)

Mark Lupisella, November 2003

The search for and discovery of extraterrestrial life, especially a second independent origin of life, raise interesting philosophical challenges in at least 3 interrelated areas:

1. Epistemology 2. Value theory, especially ethics 3. Worldviews

Most of which can be seen in a practical context.

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1.  What will be the criteria for assessing the biological status of a region or entire planet – especially if potentially damaging contamination from a human mission could be widespread?

2.  Can artificial life or other approaches (e.g. “synthetic biology”) help us sufficiently move beyond our terrestrial biases that stem from our one data point limitation? So that we might better understand the search possibility space and potential “exo-ecological” dynamics?

3.  What will be the criteria for discerning an independent origin?

4.  Could the discovery of ETI, vs. ETL, be interpreted to better support a cosmic “law of increasing organized complexity”?

Some epistemological questions: These questions are thought to have important epistemological components because they are in large measure concerned with what and how we know.

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Local 2 caveats?:

GO!

Life No Life Life No Life

Send humans No humans Extensive robotic study

GO! GO!

Fossils

Global

no yes

no yes GO!

GO!

WE STAY “LOCAL”

* ASSESS POTENTIAL IMPACT OF HUMAN PRESENCE!

* CRITERIA FOR BIOLOGICAL STATUS OF LOCALE. HOW MANY MISSIONS? DRILL? HOW DEEP? ETC.

* CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING THE BIOLOGICAL STATUS OF MARS?

EFFECTIVELY

* DO WE NEED HUMANS?

NOT EFFECTIVELY

We have adequate knowledge of planet

S ubstantial (define/quantify?)

Will contamination be local or global?

Determine biological status of locale via precursor robotic missions. How will movement affect contamination?

Few Missions: How many? Where? Drill? How deep?

Many Missions: How many? Where? Drill? How deep?

Pick locations

First order understanding

Assess/minimize contamination due to many robotic missions

To what extent will there be contamination? * Could such contamination compromise indigenous life?

Could such contamination unduly compromise the search for indigenous life forms?

Negligible (define/quantify)

To what extent can / SHOULD / WILL we control it?!

(e.g. How well can we extrapolate from a few missions?)

Assess/minimize potential threats !

Extensive study Assess/minimize potential threats Assess/minimize

potential threats

* Same as terrestrial life

* Different from terrestrial life

PRIMARILY POLICY ISSUES WITH SCIENTIFIC/TECH COMPONENT

KEY PRIMARILY SCIENTIFIC/TECHNICAL ISSUES WITH POLICY COMPONENT Primarily scientific questions

dependency GO!

? ? ?

No Go

HUMAN 1ST DETECTION POLICY (E.G. AVOID DIRECT CONTACT INITIALLY, STUDY REMOTELY FOR TBD TIME, ETC.)

ROBOTIC 1ST DETECTION POLICY

Decision tree for mitigating adverse effects to possible indigenous Martian biota from a human mission!

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Biological Status Criteria

“After just two immobile lander missions, however, it would be foolish to believe that we have enough information to rule out a ‘life on Mars’ hypothesis and risk the extinction of extraterrestrial species.”

- Alan Marshall

So, assuming it’s important to assess the biological status of a locale, region, or entire planet, (for example, perhaps in the case of mitigating contamination effect or conducting certain activities) what will be the criteria for assessing with TBD level of confidence, the biological status of the domain in question?

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“We do not know if we could inhabit Mars and still leave ecological room for an indigenous martian biota. Cohabitation is unsupported by our experience on Earth. Ecological principles suggests that one or the other system would eventually displace the other, the two life forms could not both occupy the same ecological space for long. However, this can only be resolved by careful study and experimentation and it could be that we are able to determine that Earth life on Mars is not inconsistent with allowing an independent indigenous martian life to thrive.”

“It is very unlikely that we would drive to extinction any native Martian microorganisms in the process of extending the habitability of Mars.”

- Chris McKay

Adressing one data point limitation ���&���

“exoecological” concerns

“Artificial Life…can be conceived as a sort of philosophy—the creation and testing of elaborate thought experiments, kept honest by requirements that could never be imposed on the naked mind of a human thinker acting alone. In short, A-Life research is the creation of prosthetically controlled thought experiments of indefinite complexity.”

- Daniel Dennett

"By simulating a kind of life different from that which we are familiar, A-Life scientists seek to explore paths that no form of life in the universe has yet taken, to better understand the concepts and limits of life itself".

- Steven Levy

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“It is possible to imagine a life form that is biochemically identical to Earth life but is genetically different. This would also indicate a separate origin. (Incidentally, genetically different but biochemically identical life, would support suggestions of the universality of the biochemistry in Earth life.)”

- Chris McKay

In response to an email I sent to some folks on this issue, Bruce Jakosky responded:

“My first reaction is that this is an even more difficult problem than you allude to. The last common ancestor of terrestrial life certainly shared the usual characteristics that bind all terrestrial life together--use of RNA and DNA and ATP, and so on. However, if you're willing to go back further, one envisions an RNA world and even a pre-RNA world, with somehow simpler and simpler entities going all the way back to prebiotic chemistry on Earth. I suspect that if you pulled something from the pre-RNA world, it might not share enough of the biochemistry with modern organisms to be recognized as necessarily related to it. If we found something on Mars that had been transplanted early enough, or equivalently if it diverged from terrestrial life during an RNA or pre-RNA world, how would we recognize it as not having come from Earth at a very early time? If it's separated early enough, it may not be possible to distinguish it from an independent origin, especially if subsequent evolution of the martian side allowed a more robust biochemistry that differed from terrestrial biochemistry to have evolved.

Discerning and Independent Origin

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ETL vs. ETI

Paul Davies agreed during a panel conversation that discovering ETI, vs. ETL, could be interpreted to better support the suggestion of a “law of increasing organized complexity” at work in the universe.

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Some questions in the area of value theory might be:

2.1 Independent of the obvious scientific value, what kind of aesthetic and moral value might be given to "primitive" (e.g. microbes) independent life-forms and “panspermic” life-forms? Is this an important distinction?

2.2 If we take a view of ethics in which rational beings are the only moral agents, might the possible existence of rational ET beings prompt the consideration of broader ethical views that might be of interest to them, for example a conservation ethic that extends to non-rational living beings, perhaps as part of a broad environmental/cosmic ethic?

2.3 Is it possible that if the universe manifests a law of increasing organized complexity as part of its nature, that this might be a potential intellectual grounding for what might be thought of as objective cosmic intrinsic value?

2.4 How might the above considerations be reflected in our policies and actions as humans expand into the solar system and beyond?

2. Some value theory questions:

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Martyn Fogg states that the concept of terraforming is inspiring enough to perhaps generate a formal effort toward extending environmental ethics to the cosmic stage.

Robert Haynes, Chris McKay, and Don MacNiven are prompted by the prospect of terraforming to suggest the need for a cosmocentric ethic.

The new context, or “lens”, of space exploration has rightly prompted the consideration of new and perhaps broader perspectives for ethics.

“The prospect of discovering non-intelligent life somewhere in our solar system is also exciting. Unfortunately, in our rush to consider the implications of intelligent extraterrestrial life, we risk overlooking important ethical and theological questions associated with exploration for primitive or non-intelligent life forms. This kind of exploration, conducted closer to our home planet, raises some important questions concerning the responsible human exploration of space.”

- Randolph, Race, McKay

Some value questions context

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Panspermia vs. Independent origin, Value

“Both the scientific and ethical implications of finding life on Mars are much more vast if that life-form represents a second and independent genesis of life.”

- Randolph, Race, McKay

“Thus the most likely result of finding life on Mars is that it would be biochemically and genetically related to life on Earth. In this case I believe that no serious ethical issues arise. We currently share the Earth with many diverse microorganisms including aerobes, anaerobes, thermophiles, halophiles, pathogens and so on. We could do the same on Mars.”

- Chris McKay

“Although the discovery that life had spread, for example, from Earth to Mars or vice versa through a panspermia mechanism, would be extremely interesting scientifically, it would have no significant philosophical or theological implications.”!

- Paul Davies

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Alan Marshall:

“Only perhaps after a millennium of study, when we know how a microbial ecosystem on Mars will react to human invasion, should planning of a manned mission be permitted. How can we trespass, knowing that to do so may mean speciecide?”

“If we consider cosmic and stellar evolution, we can also find an affinity with Martian microbes and fulfill Leopold’s concept of common heritage.”

“A Mars biota will be valuable for scientific reasons, and this to some extent will ensure preservationist policies. But more than that, Martian life is intrinsically valuable.”

“…a plurality of selves in a plurality of worlds (in which each member of the living world is its own essence-less universe with its own schizophrenic and transient laws of reality and its own peculiar set of interactions with other members of the world).”

“As postmodernism respects and celebrates the other (as a disconnected being from oneself) and as humanity has been dissolved (so that every being upon the planet is granted the status of other rather than just human beings) and as nature, too, has been dissolved (so that the members of the ecological world are not represented by a unified concept of collective otherness) then postmodernism might be inclined to celebrate and respect every being with equal fervour, regardless of the abstract unified whole that it was once said to be a member of. Thus, the non-anthropocentric value system may be allowed to proceed without conferring the totalizing or essentializing tendencies of unity upon the natural history of the world.”

Non-interference, con’t “If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if they are only microbes.” - Carl Sagan

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Holmes offers a view that appeals to the formed integrity of a projective Universe in which the universe creates objects of formed integrity (e.g. objects worthy of a proper name) that have intrinsic value and should be respected.

“I plan to conserve the facts under a different value theory, one neither accidental nor anthropic, but one portraying projective nature.” “Systemic nature is valuable as a productive system, with Earth and its humans on one, even if perhaps the highest in richness or complexity, of its known projects. Nature is of value for its capacity to throw forward all the storied natural history. On that scale, humans on Earth are latecomers, and it seems astronomically arrogant for such late products to say that the system is only of instrumental value, or that not until humans appear to do their valuing does value appear in the universe.” - Holmes Rolston III

Robert Haynes points out that Rolston's view appears to conflict with modifying the earth even for the benefit of humans. Rolston's view would call for the preservation of extraterrestrial life and most likely oppose planetary engineering - even for the benefit of indigenous life-forms?

Non-interference, con’t

“However, forward contamination concerns would take on added significance in ways not previously considered. If the newly discovered life-form is unique to Mars or dramatically dissimilar from life as we know it, it would be prudent to reconsider whether future exploration can be done in a way that doesn’t interfere with the continued existence or evolution of martian life.” - Randolph, Race, McKay

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Steve Gillett suggests a hybrid view that combines anthropocentrism as applied to terrestrial activity with biocentrism for worlds with indigenous life. This kind of pluralistic approach to ethics has commonsense appeal.

“I can think of nothing so positively transforming of human consciousness as the discovery, study, and conservation of life somewhere off the Earth.”

- J. Baird Callicott, invoking “weak anthropocentrism”, first suggested by Bryan Norton, which suggests that things that transform and ennoble human nature have enough value to require their preservation.

Other views

“Clearly, I am presenting a personal view: there are no absolute criteria for assigning value to life and diversity or for comparing the value of a human outpost against the removal of an indigenous martian biota. In actuality we may not have to face the dilemma of how to treat indigenous martian life. Nonetheless, we should be intellectually prepared to face this issue and to defer to indigenous martians -however microscopic -and even revive them if necessary and assist them in regaining biological control of their planet. We will be the better for this in both ethical and scientific terms.”

- Chris McKay

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The ecologist Frank Golley has argued that activities in space such as the colonization and terraforming of Mars will be unavoidable since it is consistent with the dominant myths and metaphors of western civilization.

Historically, these dominant myths and the exploration that results from them have not been concerned about the indigenous systems they effect, including the existence of human beings. Is this the kind of action that is unavoidable?

Golley suggests that to turn away from these pursuits would require a fundamental reorientation of our culture.

Anthropocentric views

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Kelly Smith:

“…ethical codes are the product of natural selection for long term stability in cultural systems.”

“…rational beings can interact with either 1) non-living things, 2) living but non-sentient (non-sensing) things, 3) living, sentient things which are non-rational (a loaded term, I know) or, 4) other living, rational beings. … I would argue that we actually have no direct moral obligations at all to things falling into the first two categories and our obligations to those in the third are, in principle, considerably weaker than to similarly situated rational beings. On the other hand, astrobiology also forces us to take seriously the possibility that obligations to living, rational beings may extend far beyond humanity.”

“…my classification is defensible because it depends on properties which are in principle both verifiable and independent of speciesism. This makes them very different from vague appeals to, say, “complexity” of the sort one hears from the biologically naïve.”

!! DRAFT !! DRAFT !! DRAFT !!

THE AUTHOR WILL CATEGORICALLY DISAVOW ALL KNOWLEDGE OF ANYTHING CITED FROM THIS DOCUMENT THAT HAS THE EFFECT OF MAKING HIM SEEM ANYTHING LESS THAN ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT…

“Please note that I make no claim that anything you see below is fully cooked, so please do not hold me too firmly to anything I say. Also, please feel free to pelt me with any and all feedback that comes to mind!”

Anthropocentric views, con’t

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Kelly Smith:

“I am NOT saying we should just plunder alien worlds with abandon. For example, even if we are talking about altering lifeless planets, there are still important (albeit indirect) ethical obligations.”

“I think there might be an interesting argument to make in terms of a cosmic manifest destiny when it comes to space. Failure to exploit resources beyond Earth imposes a cost to humanity. Allowing such “costs to humanity” when a) it is possible to avoid them and b) there is no clear moral consideration of equal force in opposition, is immoral.”

“To put it pointedly, if mars does turn out to be inhabited by microbes, Carl Sagan’s admonition that, “We should leave Mars to the Martians” is not just incorrect, it’s patently immoral!”

!! DRAFT !! DRAFT !! DRAFT !!

THE AUTHOR WILL CATEGORICALLY DISAVOW ALL KNOWLEDGE OF ANYTHING CITED FROM THIS DOCUMENT THAT HAS THE EFFECT OF MAKING HIM SEEM ANYTHING LESS THAN ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT…

“Please note that I make no claim that anything you see below is fully cooked, so please do not hold me too firmly to anything I say. Also, please feel free to pelt me with any and all feedback that comes to mind!”

Anthropocentric views, con’t

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Chris McKay:

“… supplanting an indigenous martian biota is not critical to the progress of human expansion beyond Earth. With some difficulty human expansion can continue without Mars. Human intelligence and drive are large enough and robust enough to move ahead even if Mars is already taken.”

“The ethical issues arise not because of any necessary respect for microbes per se. It is a respect for a second type of life, a second genesis. … I see no ethical basis for assuming that indigenous martian life is of less value and deserving of less consideration than life-forms on Earth especially given that the introduction of Earth life on Mars is not a compelling need but just a discretionary step in the expansion of life beyond the Earth. The incremental gain to humans and life from Earth in displacing indigenous martian life is small in proportion to the loss of a second type of life and a second independent biosphere.”

Balancing values

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Worldviews - context

“The Copernican principle is not established with respect to biology, culture, or ethics. In this context, the question “Are we alone?” is a deep philosophical question. That we must look beyond the Earth to address these questions is clear. In a fundamental way we seek to place the Earth, life, and most important our unique role as intelligent beings on this Earth in the broader context. In the past we have sought answers to these questions from pure logic or through spiritual revelation. Now, for the first time, we can begin a direct investigation that may construct a framework within which we may find the answers to these questions.” - Chris McKay

And what were the odds against life getting started? We still do not know whether life’s emergence is natural, or whether it involves a chain of accidents so improbable that nothing remotely like it has happened on another planet anywhere else in our galaxy. That is why it would be so crucial to detect life, even in simple and vestigial forms, elsewhere in our solar system—on Mars or under the ice of Europa. If it had emerged twice within our solar system, this would suggest that the entire galaxy would be teeming with life. That momentous conclusion would follow provided that the two origins were indeed independent. That is an important proviso: for instance, if meteorites from Mars could impact on the Earth, maybe we are all Martians; conversely, Mars could have been seeded by reverse traffic from the Earth. - Martin Rees

“As I suggest in The Biological Universe, the idea of a universe full of life is more than just another theory or hypothesis; it is rather a kind of world view, which we may call the biophysical cosmology or simply the biological universe.” - Steve Dick

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Worldviews - context, con’t

Sagan story…

“I am an empiricist. On religion I lean toward deism but consider its proof largely a problem in astrophysics.” - E. O. Wilson

“In the end, theology addresses questions of meaning and purpose, and thus questions of our place in the universe . In asking whether we will be “at home in the universe,” in the words of Stuart Kauffman, the answer must be that we do not know, because we still do not know where we fit in the great chain of being. We know nothing about good and evil in the universe in the context of extraterrestrial civilizations. Thus, the meaning and purpose of the universe will not be known until we know more about whether or not there is a biological universe. The famous passage of Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg that “the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless,” did not take into account the possibilities inherent in the biological universe. Surely meaning and purpose in the universe would be quite different if we are its only life rather than one of many sentient races. And therefore theologies would be quite different. Human destiny would be quite different also; if we are alone, it may be our destiny to fill the universe with life.” - Steve Dick

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Does extraterrestrial life exist? (what are the criteria for assessing if we searched enough?) yes no

Cosmically local? (what constitutes “local”?)

Independent origin? yes

yes

yes

yes

no

no

no

no

Dense distribution of life implied? Ubiquity? (is that life sufficiently different?)

Does this imply life is necessary? a cosmic imperative? (Do we have good theory? Complexity, self-organization, etc.)

Panspermia Random or ?

Statistical explanation

Brute-fact

Random or ? Very narrow Conditions?

“deeper” explanation

Pointless Universe Meaningless, pointless, absurd, accident Life is a Diamond in the Rough Life is highly contingent, emergent Minimal assumptions No absolutes. Life is messy. Postmodern existential angst Life is a cosmic joke. This can be liberating/empowering. We’re “Masters of the Universe”, Niche’s “Super Humans”. Us vs. the universe (us vs. entropy) We have only ourselves to look out for each other in an otherwise “hostile” universe. Not consistent with traditional religion. Biggest challenge for sufficiently aware beings may be to cope with this reality.

“Bootstrapped” Universe The universe is “bootstrapped” into the realm of value and meaning via cultural evolution. Life is contingent, emergent We are the universe’s creators and arbiters of value. A different kind of anthropic principle? A Cosmobiocentric view? Not consistent with traditional religion.

Meaningful (and/or Purposeful?) Universe Universe tends toward life and complex systems. Life is intrinsically (I.e. cosmically) valuable. Life/mind? is necessary, inevitable, omnipresent Brute fact: - DeDuve’s Vital Dust? - “Cosmocentric” views (pantheistic?/teleological?) - “At Home In the Universe” Kauffman

Deeper explanations: - Anthropic Principle(s)? - Cosmological selection? - Design?

Random or ?

Life is exceedingly rare and random.

Some cosmic worldview implications regarding the extent of life in the Universe���AAAS Astrobiology ”Extent of Life" Workshop, Nov 2004, Mark Lupisella

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“Man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the universe, out of which he has emerged only by chance.”

- Jacques Monod

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“If life is widespread in the universe, it gives us more, not less, reason to believe in cosmic design.”

“I argue that on the spectrum between chance and determinism (or certainty), the closer to determinism the truth lies, the more reason we have to feel “at home in the universe” (to borrow Stuart Kauffman’s evocative phrase) and the more circumstantial evidence there would be for some sort of meaning, purpose, or design in nature.”

“I think both Monod and Gould are absolutely right to perceive bleak atheism in the scenario that life and intelligence are freak accidents, unique in the cosmos. But the flip side is also true. If it turns out that life does emerge as an automatic and natural part of an ingeniously biofriendly universe, then atheism would seem less compelling and something like design more plausible.”

Paul Davies:

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“No meaning can be given to the idea of a view of the universe from the point of view of an observer who is outside of it or who is not a participant in it.”

“ The laws of nature we observe were not imposed on the universe from outside, but are the result of natural and comprehensible processes of self-organization.”

- Lee Smolin, summarizing some key themes of modern science

“That we may be able to achieve a rational understanding of our universe that requires no outside pilot or observer does not mean that God is nonexistent. It only means that the old idea of an outside creator and knower has served its purpose and may now be relegated to history. But perhaps this is not such a tragedy, because the presence of such a God raised a problem of our alienation either from nature or its creator. Since they were distinct, we had to choose which we were; we could not be both of nature and of spirit. In the absence of such a God, we may perhaps discover a different notion of God, which is not different from its creation. Perhaps this will be a God enough.”

- Lee Smolin

“But the point of your book is very simple: it is just that the whole show of the universe is so extraordinary that even the absence of God would be God enough.”

- Saint Clair Cemin, commenting on Lee Smolin’s, Life of the Cosmos

Lee Smolin:

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“There was God. And God Was All-That-Was. God’s Love overflowed and God said: “Let Other be. And let it have the capacity to become what it might be—and let it explore its potentialities.”

“During the eons before our emergence on Earth, hundreds of millions (if not billions) of species have come and gone, predecessors of perhaps as many as twenty million species still extant, and rapidly being diminished by human action. Theists who believe that the ultimate ground of all existence is God as Creator have to face new questions: Is it permissible to regard these myriads of species, other than homo sapiens, most of them now extinct, as simply byproducts in a process aimed at producing human persons? Or do they have value in themselves and for themselves to God as Creator? The process is so fecund and rich and the sheer variety and often intricate beauty of coordinated structures and functions so great, that surely we now have to escape from our anthropocentric myopia and affirm that God as Creator takes what we can only call joy and delight in the rich variety and individuality of other organisms for their own sake? Certainly the Hebrew scriptures encourage such a view. Psalm 104 depicts the Lord as caring for living creatures and delighting in their enjoyment of their vitality and the conclusion of the Priestly account of creation is “God saw everything that he hade made, and indeed, it was very good.”

“Incidentally we have here the basis for an ecotheology that grounds the value of all living creatures in their distinctive value to God for their own sake, and not just as stages en route to humanity and for human exploitation and use.”

Arthur Peacocke:

“Furthermore, the believer in God as Creator has to view biological evolution through natural selection (and possibly through the other naturalistic processes I mentioned) as simply the means whereby God has been and is creating. There is no prima facie case, as I elaborate later, for postulating any special supposed intervention by God to understand what has been going on.”

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“While we cannot point to a logical proof, intricate collection of cogwheels, or quasi-Darwinian process, that ensured that some ethical requirement (maybe for the existence of a divine being) would be “creatively powerful,” i.e., itself a sufficient ground for the existence of the required object, neither can we point to any proof, mechanism, or process that made all such requirements creatively powerless. And it can be argued that both the power and the powerlessness would be equally simple, no pages of logical deduction or complex causal mechanisms being involved in either case. No benevolent magicians would be uttering lengthy incantations to guarantee that what started as “only” an ethical requirement “became actually able to create something.” No devils would be reciting other spells to thwart “the obviously- to-be-expected tendency for the required to come to exist.”

- John Leslie, commenting on the potential creative power of an ethical requirement

“God is then the fact that the cosmos has an ethical requiredness that is creatively sufficient. The cosmos exists because, as a matter of eternal Platonic reality, it is better that the cosmos exist.”

John Leslie:

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“Finding an independent evolutionary origin of living matter somewhere else in our solar system would, at the very least, discredit the hypothesis that life is an extremely rare cosmic phenomenon, so rare that we have to take seriously the possibility of its having been “seeded” on Earth from a chance meteor impact.”

“Were traces of life to be discovered elsewhere in our solar system today, it would favor the Augustinian idea that the “seeds” of life were implanted in matter from its first appearance. Such seeds could presumably come to fruition anywhere where “water and earth” provided the right environment. On the other hand, such a discovery would challenge the belief that the origin of life on Earth required a miraculous intervention on God’s part. It would do so for two reasons. First, as we have seen, the discovery would strengthen the case for an evolutionary origin of the first life as a consequence of the ordinary processes of nature. Second, those Christians who believe that the first terrestrial life must have had a miraculous origin would be likely to link that life to the economy of earth, to human well-being. Why, in that perspective, would God causally intervene to place simpler forms of life elsewhere?

Ernan McMullin:

“But there are Christians, including some serious philosophers of religion, who, though willing to allow broad scope to evolution, argue that in view of the lack of any satisfactory theoretical account of such key transitions as the origin of the first cell, it is more likely in the Christian perspective to suppose that the Creator in such cases may have intervened to bridge what might otherwise be an unbridgeable gap. I disagree with this approach for reasons that might be broadly characterized as Augustinian. But I think it has to be taken seriously. What prompts it is a reaction to the supposition on the part of many spokesmen for evolution that an evolutionary origin is the only possible way for life to begin, excluding implicitly therefore even the possibility of a Divine intervention. Critics of this line of argument do not necessarily deny that evolution has occurred. Nor do they need to deny that in the long run the gaps they perceive in the current evolutionary arguments may close. But in the interim, they claim a Christian has more reason to believe in the possibility of a miraculous supplementation to cosmic development on God’s part where such supplementation seems to be needed, as it does where the origin of life is concerned. The discovery of an independent development of life elsewhere in our planetary system would pose a serious challenge to this view. It would tend to close the gap, not by filling out the requisite theoretical reconstruction of how the process of origin actually took place, but by suggesting that because the process has occurred twice in close proximity in cosmic terms, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the gap ultimately can be closed.”

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“…contact with intelligent but nonhuman races, may destroy the foundations of their religious faith. They may be right, but in any event their attitude is one which does not bear logical examination—for a faith which cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.”

- Arthur C. Clarke

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“…terrestrial concepts of God and theology are only a subset of the possible.”

“Even if it turns out that intelligence is not abundant, it is clear that we will never return to Wallace’s small universe, much less the anthropocentric universe extant when many of the world’s major religions were born.”

“It may be that God is necessary only from a social or psychological point of view; if that is the case, we may as well have a natural God within the realm of the real world, rather than a supernatural one with attributes so often the source of personal agony, guilt, and religious wars.”

“Whether intelligence is rare or abundant, whether life is of a lower order or a higher order than homo sapiens, human destiny is intimately connected with cosmic evolution.”

“I suggest the time is ripe for us to take cosmotheology seriously, to consider how religions and their accompanying theologies should change in light of what we now know about the universe, and what we are likely to know in the future… It may even be time for an entirely new theology based on a transformed concept of God.”

“No Thomas Aquinas for cosmotheology has yet appeared to reconcile current doctrine with new world views. Nor is it clear that such reconciliation is our primary task. As I have suggested, perhaps we need to move beyond current theology, to step back and ask what we would do if we started over, given what we now know about the universe.”

“Cosmotheology must take into account that humanity probably is not central biologically. Cosmotheology must be open to radically new conceptions of God, not necessarily the God of the ancients, nor the God of human imagination, but a God grounded in cosmic evolution, the biological universe, and the three principles stated above. Cosmotheology must have a moral dimension, extended to include all species in the universe—a reverence and respect for life that we find difficult enough to foster on Earth.”

“Humanity in the year 3000 will undoubtedly be transformed scientifically in ways we can only dimly perceive. Considering the fractious nature of religions and their accompanying theologies today, one can only hope that homo religiosus also will be transformed.”

Steve Dick:

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“Surely if we are alone, then we were meant to play a more noble role than that currently in evidence on our troubled globe.”

- Ben Zuckerman

“A ‘meaningless universe’ is meaningless in a naturalistic vocabulary.”

“Meaning, purpose, and values belong to the realm of human activity and thought. Even if their development might be traced back to our biological inheritance, they are nonetheless the result of the activities and mechanisms characteristic of human society. I find this view, which frees humankind from its role in the cosmological scheme of things and from its dependence on an external source of authority, to be meaningful and liberating.”

- Iris Fry

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•  Connectedness may hold promise for a cosmocentric ethic. The interdependent connectedness of ecosystems has been cited as a foundation for justifying the value of parts of the larger whole, since the parts contribute to the maintenance of the whole.

•  Connectedness itself may be a necessary property of the universe and that the actualization of connectedness requires interaction (or intra-action), or perhaps most fundamentally in an ontological sense, relations. Might this kind of relational metaphysic suggest that the universe has a kind of meaning and purpose to realize its fundamental property of connectedness via relationship, I.e. intra-action and ever increasing degrees thereof?

•  This view might favor actualizing robust intra-action in the myriad forms and processes we see in the universe such as creativity, emergence, complexity, uniqueness, diversity, and other characteristics that are thought to further realize the dynamic intra-active nature of the universe - not necessarily limited only to life. In making choices consistent with this view, humanity might help encourage and propagate life and diversity on Earth and throughout the universe, but all the while balancing with other relations in the universe.

•  Freeman Dyson writes: Diversity is the great gift which life has brought to our planet and may one day bring to the rest of the Universe. The preservation and fostering of diversity is the great goal which I would like to see embodied in our ethical principles and in our political actions.

A role for metaphysics?

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• Most of this treatment has essentially been biocentrically biased, primarily in light of the workshop theme. The universe could have a meaning, purpose, or value that has nothing to do with life - e.g. Dick’s “post-biological universe”? or from Holmes Rolston: “It is less short-sighted but still seriously myopic to value the system only for its production of life, although this is of great moment within it.”

• Meaning and value of life can be reasonably inferred from potentially all implications regarding the extent of ET life, but…

• The kind of meaning and value may differ substantially and can be informed by the details, e.g. value from being accidental/rare (diamond in the rough) or from being a cosmic imperative, which can then critically affect worldviews and actions derived thereof.

• The existence of a second origin of life and its implications for our origins can affect how we understand our relationship to the universe and God and perhaps, then, our role in the future of the universe. But this need not necessarily be the the case. The bootstrapped universe suggests an open-ended evolution of value, meaning, and purpose, unconstrained by and perhaps independent of, broader objective/cosmic value, and largely in the control of rational choosing valuing agents such as human beings who appear to be free to choose just about anything.

Some general thoughts on worldviews