Many exo-planets have been detected. The laws of physics and chemistry are universal. In any environment, energized complex molecules should change randomly until one becomes self-replicating and natural selection can begin but how probable are:
multi-cellular organisms;
central nervous systems;
consciousness;
manipulation;
self-consciousness;
language;
thought;
complex societies;
technology;
stable and enduring civilizations?
In Harvest Of Stars, human personalities are recorded and duplicated. A person is compared to a song sung by many singers and recorded in many forms. Is that a valid analogy? Would you die happy if you knew that you were to be succeeded by a duplicate? I think that it is the only plausible kind of survival after death - and the technology for it does not yet exist.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
We simply don't know, as yet, what kind of life those exoplanets may have. Our astronomical instruments are still too crude for making out the finer details, as of now. I remember Dr. Loeb, in his book EXTRATERRESTRIAL, discussing how some of the next generation of telescopes, built in space, should be so powerful that some of those finer details on the planets of "nearby" stars, should be discovered.
Best of all, of course, would be he invention of a practical FTL drive THIS year, which would enable explorers to go in person to those stars. Real world Grand Surveys, iow!
Frankly, I'm very skeptical about the feasibility and likelihood of both the AIs seen in the HARVEST OF STARS books and the downloading of copies of human personalities into either those AIs or new bodies. But of course I am glad Anderson examined such speculations, whatever doubts he or his readers had about them.
Ad astra! Sean
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