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…

 

[Hvergelmir]

...could it perhaps be a natural development that these existential thoughts grow bigger and more important over time?

Only up to the point where the benefits outweighs the benefits, right?

they experience very profound existential dread/crisis… now imagine if this became an issue that was widespread across the whole of society… [...] some people will be happy to live some fun hedonistic lifestyle free from the burdens of work.

As long as some manage to procreate, there's an evolutionary path forward - even if it points towards laziness and hedonism.
It could very well be that intelligence is cyclic. That high intelligence creates an environment selecting for lower intelligence, which in turn creates an environment once again selecting for high intelligence.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Even if one species chose to voluntarily go extinct, it wouldn't mean that no other life on that planet would still exist necessarily. What did they live off of? If it's similar to this planet, assumedly billions of other plant and animal species exist alongside them.

Your example would seem to suggest just one single creature evolved to become just one 'superior' creature- that then decided life wasn't worth the effort. If it's similar to here- life's more messy than that. Creatures tend to branch off to become specialised to live in specific environments. Making use of every resource the planet offers. If we all tried to live on land say- we'd be more limited. Creatures presumably unconsciously figured out they might survive if they diversified as to what they ate and, where they lived. There also tend to be more dominant animals than others in each biome, with varying levels of intelligence. Can knotweed choose not to reproduce?

In your example, all the top tier, most intelligent animals would have had to have killed all the ones that came before it presumably.

Or maybe, they were promortalist and decided to play a God card and destroy everything all at once. I wonder how possible that would even be. To wipe out literally all life and prevent it from coming back. Presumably, anything that did survive would simply take over instead and, evolve its own 'superior' race. Maybe it would take millions of years but- still.

I tend to think life is more like an infestation. I imagine- on a planet that can grow it- once it's started it, I imagine it's fairly difficult to stop- from within anyway. Obviously, if the planet is hailed with meteorites or, its sun dies- then I imagine that would be a different matter. It would need to be something overwhelming and quick enough though- that no countermeasures to survive were made.

Even here though- say there is WWIII and nuclear strikes everywhere. Will that wipe out all life? Will it even wipe out human life entirely? As for creatures simply choosing not to breed. Presumably, they will have gone through billions of generations to get to that point still. So presumably- they would have had the same instinctual drives to survive and reproduce. Why would they just stop for everyone? Even the most intelligent people on this planet still sometimes reproduce. So- I don't think it's even always linked to intelligence.

Plus- why assume this other world has all the same problems we do? Maybe it has more abundant sources of energy. Maybe it's peoples evolved to be smarter and more tolerant than us. Maybe they worked out how better to manage everything so life is more harmonious. Maybe they didn't evolve emotions or pain receptors. Maybe they are made entirely of light. It's hard to even imagine how other planets may have evolved their own species or, how their lives may be similar or different to ours.