Cosmic Responsibility

I want to quote Poul Anderson's "Outpost of Empire" on intelligent organisms being produced as casually as snowflakes and the same author's Genesis on life of any kind being so rare as to seem miraculous but, of course, I have already done so. See Snowflakes And Miracles.

This issue will recur as more is learned about the universe in general and about exoplanets in particular. Whatever provisional conclusions have been reached could be overturned tomorrow.

A quotation from Brian Cox came across my computer screen yesterday. He thought that unicellular life should be common in the universe and maybe even elsewhere in the Solar System. However, a vast amount of time has to elapse between single living cells and then - consciousness, intelligence, civilization and technology. None of this is predestined to happen. If plants but not animals survive best in a particular environment, then that is all that will evolve there.

If we are alone in the observable universe, that part of reality that is observable by us, then we alone are responsible for preserving meaning and understanding in that part of the universe, a big responsibility. If we wipe ourselves out soon, then it would be good to have learned at least that we were not alone. So, while fearing that intelligence is rare, we hope that it is not.