Colonizing the Multiverse

“It is pretty demoralizing to imagine there is an infinite number of Earths dealing with collapse of a world-level industrial civilization, runaway greenhouse, and loss of habitat for life on the planet. On the other hand, it’s inspiring to think that there is an infinite number of planet Earths that produced humans with empathy, compassion, and creativity. On these Earths, humans persist a very long time and humbly share the planet with many other species. On these Earths, there is no abrupt climate change. On these Earths, the demise of inexpensive oil does not spell the end of civilization and the likely demise of all life on the planet.”—Dr. Guy McPherson

Going Dark

By Dr. Guy McPherson

“Be humble, Earthlings.”―Avi Loeb.

MAITLAND Florida—(Weekly Hubris)— March 2021—With her 18 January 2021 review of Avi Loeb’s 2021 book, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth, Elizabeth Kolbert brings the notion of intelligent life beyond Earth to the forefront of sophisticated conversation. Loeb, the chair of Harvard’s astronomy department, co-wrote a peer-reviewed paper based on a 19 October 2017 observation by astronomers at the University of Hawaii. The Hawaiian scientists spotted a strange object traveling through our solar system, which they later described as “a red and extremely elongated asteroid.” Thus did ‘Oumuamua—the Hawaiian word for a scout or messenger—become the first interstellar object detected within our solar system and reported in the peer-reviewed literature. In an interview for the 16 January 2019 issue of The New Yorker, Loeb suggested the object “may be a fully operational probe sent intentionally to Earth’s vicinity by an alien civilization.”

Loeb is no half-wit. He received his PhD at the age of 27. He was tenured after only three years at Harvard and he has authored some 700 research articles and seven books. He is the Frank B. Baird Jr Professor of Science. At Harvard.

This introduction is not intended to glorify the human search for extraterrestrials. A quick look around Earth will convince even skeptics that we are far better at creating a mess than in cleaning up said mess.

Rather than celebrating our conquests, I would like to question their continuation. A short historical overview is followed by a plea for restraint.

Not so long ago, humans believed the watershed was everything. Their world was restricted to a tiny area, and traveling beyond the area was undesirable—even dangerous. But some daring traveler took the leap and discovered a world beyond the watershed.

Rinse and repeat, from the watershed to the continent, from the continent to the world, from the world to the solar system, from the solar system to the galaxy, from the galaxy to the universe. If religious fanatics and others seeking power had not killed a few daring travelers along the way, we would have discovered a lot more a lot sooner. Such is the collateral damage of controlling an empire.

Human discovery represents a continuum, with our part diminishing along the way. The world was large, but we were large, too. Discoveries and our ability to travel made the world smaller. And then the solar system, and so on, so that now we have explained the universe in physical terms and we understand our inconsequential role (and our hubris, which is quite consequential).

Stephen B. Hawking tried to explain the idea of a singularity to the lay public in his dreadfully incomprehensible 1988 book, A Brief History of Time. I suspect this was one of the most-purchased, least-read books of all time. Needless to say, Hawking’s prose failed to provide an explanation convincing to the masses. The bottom line is that universes come and go, and they collapse and arise in events called singularities.

Fast-forward to Russian cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin and his 2006 book, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes. Vilenkin is the Leonard Jane Holmes Bernstein Professor of Evolutionary Science and the Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. He has authored more than 260 publications during his 25 years in the field of cosmology. In other words, his credentials are exceptionally impressive.

In Many Worlds in One, Vilenkin explains that ours is one of many universes—an infinite number, in fact. If you are willing to admit to the overwhelming evidence supporting the idea that our universe is expanding, then Vilenkin will take you on the short, simple, and logical ride to ours being one of an infinite number of universes. We are part of the multiverse. The continuum rolls on far beyond the watershed from a few millennia ago.

Most universes likely blink out as quickly as they arise. They persist only a few nanoseconds, and fail to produce even a single flower. Some universes, however, such as ours, are relatively stable. They persist long enough, and have sufficient initial conditions, that life arises. Eventually, intelligent life arises, if one is willing to stretch the definition of “intelligent” far enough. Count up all these universes, come to terms with the concept of infinity, and you have an infinite number of Guy McPhersons typing these words and an infinite number of you reading them.

This explanation accounts for all matter, and all energy, for all universes, for all time. Thus, it explains our universe, and the universes that preceded ours, and so on, back to infinity ago (and also from now until infinity).

Some of you might be thinking, “Yeah, but what about before that?” If you want to know what came before infinity, then you don’t understand infinity. 

It is pretty demoralizing to imagine there is an infinite number of Earths dealing with collapse of a world-level industrial civilization, runaway greenhouse, and loss of habitat for life on the planet. On the other hand, it’s inspiring to think that there is an infinite number of planet Earths that produced humans with empathy, compassion, and creativity. On these Earths, humans persist a very long time and humbly share the planet with many other species. On these Earths, there is no abrupt climate change. On these Earths, the demise of inexpensive oil does not spell the end of civilization and the likely demise of all life on the planet. 

On the topic of demoralization, I return to Loeb and his desire to “produce synthetic life in our laboratories,” as explained in Kolbert’s review. From there, he imagines “Gutenberg DNA printers” that could be “distributed to make copies of the human genome out of raw materials on the surface of other planets.” By seeding the galaxy with our genetic material, we could, he suggests, hedge our bets against annihilation. We could also run a great evolutionary experiment, one that might lead to outcomes far more wondrous than seen so far. “There is no reason to expect that terrestrial life, which emerged under random circumstances on Earth, was optimal.”

Technophiles take note: I’m not impressed. Rather, this rush to increase the reach of Homo sapiens reminds me of Jeffrey Epstein’s twisted desire to spread his own DNA as widely as possible. The potential to destroy our universe is reason to pause, not celebrate. Humility is a desirable path. Hubris is not.

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