Discussion What if…

[Captive_Mind515]

What if we're alone in the universe, because everyone else deliberately went extinct?

Maybe they all came to the same conclusion, that this sentience thing is a dead end… goes nowhere, causes lots of unnecessary suffering and is just overall a pretty futile endeavour…

Maybe we're the only life form left in the neighbourhood, because we're the last ones to figure it out?

I never hear any scientists or intellectuals even suggest this as a possibility. I guess it's a very pessimistic outlook. But it would seem to me that we should at least entertain the possibility of it.

Some people say, well most of the planets don't have the conditions to sustain life. This is true, but some of them seem to be very close to having favourable conditions.

And also, it's possible that if another intelligent civilisation did decide on deliberate planned extinction, they might also intentionally destroy their planet to make it permanently uninhabitable in the future. Like a type of scorched earth policy, so no sentient feeling creatures would ever emerge on the planet again.

Just a thought / theory… I know I'm not producing any evidence to back this idea up. It's really just a random brain fart… … but I find it an interesting (if a bit bleak/fatalistic) idea to contemplate…

 

[Hvergelmir]

Survival is a universal selection bias.
Individuals who doesn't survive, doesn't procreate, and won't have their attributes inherited.

Thus, it sounds like a very unlikely development - even more so across multiple species and environments. You'd pretty much need a universal evolutionary pressure, going against and overtaking the pressure to survive. I don't know what such a criticality would look like.

 

[Captive_Mind515]

Survival is a universal selection bias.
Individuals who doesn't survive, doesn't procreate, and won't have their attributes inherited.

Thus, it sounds like a very unlikely development - even more so across multiple species and environments. You'd pretty much need a universal evolutionary pressure, going against and overtaking the pressure to survive. I don't know what such a criticality would look like.

It's a relevant point to make. And I would be inclined to agree with you, if we were talking about a primitive species. Because primitive creatures are almost exclusively just preoccupied with continuing to exist.

But I am referring to a highly advanced species, at least as advanced as us and likely more advanced.

We're the only creature on this planet that has existential thoughts that we know of. And this is a product of our evolution as a species, specifically our superior ability with abstract reasoning.

I would suggest that much of our recent evolution as a species, has overtaken our more primitive instincts just to simply exist/survive. While those instincts are still very much present, we do seem to concern ourselves with much bigger and grander concepts.

If we continue to evolve in this manner, could it perhaps be a natural development that these existential thoughts grow bigger and more important over time?

We could still be at quite a low level of advancement compared to other civilisations… and so much of our time/thoughts/motivations are still caught up in tackling more rudimentary societal problems.

Let's say technology / AI solves most major problems at some point in the future. Now you will have billions of big brained creatures, with very little of substance to occupy their minds. We know what happens even to some individuals, when this occurs… they experience very profound existential dread/crisis… now imagine if this became an issue that was widespread across the whole of society….

I don't think this is a crazy thought. It perhaps looks a bit crazy right now, because there is still an abundance of issues/problems to be solved in society and lots of important things that need figuring out.

I think we might get a taste of this potential future sooner than many people realise, if AI starts wiping out jobs across large sections of society.

They'll probably have to bring in something like a UBI (universal basic income)… but this won't solve the very significant issue of giving these people some sort of purpose to their lives.

Sure, some people will be happy to live some fun hedonistic lifestyle free from the burdens of work.

But I would predict that many people will feel lost and confused in this new jobless world. And that's when these big existential thoughts might start to grow right across human society in a very significant way…

If billions of people are questioning what their purpose is, and their minds have nothing significant to keep them busy or distracted… that's when society could go down a very strange new road that we've never been down before.

Virgin unchartered waters… but perhaps a very natural and predictable development that other more advanced civilisations arrived at in their evolutionary journey…