Life’s Survival

Robert Wheeler

We all agree that the basic goal of life is survival. This means sustenance and reproduction. Even though societies have been concerned throughout known history with belief in some form of salvation or transcendence beyond physical survival, physical existence has been a dominant concern. Physical existence will become even more of concern because science predicts that within about 4 billion years physical existence on Earth will be burned to a crisp, and human life will probably have ceased within in about 1 billion years because of the ultimate global warming. This is when the sun will have expanded and created the ultimate climate change . Most religions also predict a cessation of current human life or change that produces some form of altered existence although dates are not specified. In theology this is known as eschatology.

What will have happened to human life at that predicted time?  Does that mean that life as we know it will not survive? New information coming from theoretical physics, cosmology, psychology, and philosophy is producing new ideas about life, particularly human life, that clouds previous predictions. Is science finding that life may be more than physical existence that will burn to a crisp? Could a form of life emerge that survives this destruction of physical matter or maybe becomes a new creation as proposed in many religions, especially Christianity?

Quantum mechanics that explains nicely observations of sub-atomic particles has opened science to considerations previously reserved for philosophy and religion. The particles observed in our physical environment have been found to consist of forces and sub-particles that in turn consist of energy forms and fields of nebulous nature. It seems that to explain some recent observations something even more basic than this is needed, something such as intelligence, information, or consciousness  This implies that our physical world at its most basic level may be non-physical and consequently not subject to physical destruction. When the sun destroys all physical material on earth, could something remain that possibly would build new particles in a different environment (maybe a new creation)? Could human life evolve to a different form that would survive in a different reality?

Some efforts are already underway by organizations such as the Psychotronic Society and work in fields such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The human organism has evolved through tremendous changes during its known history of about 2.5 million years, and if nuclear war, overpopulation, or some other mishap does not occur in the next billion years it could fulfill religious predictions and surmount science predictions. But, this would require major change in our current culture. Emphasis on obtaining wealth, power, comfort, and entertainment would have to be replaced with an emphasis on constructive development both personally  and  species-wide.