In the magazine “Technology Review”, May/June 2008, there was an article entitled “Where Are They? Why I hope the search for extraterrestrial life finds nothing.” Nick Bostrom talks about how, if we find fossils showing some sort of advanced life on Mars, it would mean the end of the human race, in the long and distant future of course.
It says the following.
But I hope that our Mars probes discover nothing. It would be good news if we find Mars to be sterile. Dead rocks and lifeless sands would lift my spirit.
Conversely, if we discovered traces of some simple, extinct life-form--some bacteria, some algae--it would be bad news. If we found fossils of something more advanced, perhaps something that looked like the remnants of a trilobite or even the skeleton of a small mammal, it would be very bad news. The more complex the life-form we found, the more depressing the news would be. I would find it interesting, certainly--but a bad omen for the future of the human race.
The reason for this is a bit complex and relates to a theoretical idea about a “Great Filter”, a sort of limit that evolution needs to pass for life to exist and end up exploring the solar system. Life on Mars would show where the human race is compared to this filter. If we are behind it then we are doomed, but if we are ahead of it then outer space here we come.
So, a theory of a “Great Filter”, based on a theory of how life started, and using a theory about finding life on Mars, means, in theory, the extinction of the human race.
Read from www.technologyreview.com.
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