I also see no reason to suppose that humans will have control over these
developments, past a certain point. Sure, we will try to make these things
very friendly to life and to humans, and it may be in their best interests to
be so. But I can think of all kinds of reasons why none of these developments
would really care about humans or other types of life. I can think of
situations where they would care about other life enough to not displace it
too much, but I can't find any compelling reasons why this should necessarily
happen.
I think some very advanced life forms will eventually emerge through
technology. Life forms far more advanced than current Earth life, in terms of
survivability and in their ability to evolve quickly and exploit energy
resources efficiently. I don't think that current forms of life will really
have much of a chance against these advanced forms.
This actually isn't very disturbing to me -- I sort of think it's a good
thing. Survival of the fittest. We're all for it when we're the fittest.
But how long will that be?
I love life. Not just my life. But Life. The whole concept. Things
mutating and adapting and competing. Weeding out the inferior. The whole
process. I think it's great. I just think that future life may look back on
us the way we look back on pre-cellular life. Interesting, yes. But only the
first step. Just setting things up for the explosion. Ancestral, but still
very primative.
It should be interesting to see how things develop -- for as long as I can
keep up, that is.
- David Musick