I think humans have to be very careful in their future endeavors. I love knowledge, don’t get me wrong; but sometimes I think that we’re going to destroy ourselves in our ever relentless pursuit of knowledge.
By examining the observations within our own world and our universe, we put together all these rules and theorems that seem to explain everything, and yet, we don’t really know. If science has shown us anything over the last couple centuries, it’s that even when we think we know things; most often we’re not entirely correct, and sometimes we are completely wrong.
What would happen if in the process of terraforming mars we change some dynamic about mars that causes it to become unstable, how might that impact earth? What would happen if while testing options for terraforming mars on the moon we cause the moon to become unstable, how would that impact earth?
Even science understands the vast improbability (in non-scientific terms ‘the miracle’) of the universe producing the earth so finely tuned for biological existence as we know it; I have to admit that I’m a bit concerned that in our desire for knowledge, we are going to cause a catastrophe that will be beyond our control and our technology to suppress.
On the other hand, the curiosity in me says that I think it’s interesting that we’re starting to examine moving outwards into the solar system; according to the Physicist Frank Tipler in his book The Physics of Christianity this is an inevitable goal of mankind, and necessary for survival.
In my mind, it is entirely possible to create manmade structures like a ‘bio dome’ to inhabit planets such as mars; however, I find it unlikely that we will ever change the atmosphere and temperature of mars in such a way that would allow humans to inhabit it as we do the earth today.
I do find it much more likely, as Tipler describes in his book previously referenced that through using principles defined in the Bekenstein Bound and the availability of future computer technologies based on Moore’s Law and the process of baryon-annihilation which he states will be developed in the future to provide an extremely efficient mass to energy conversion, humanity will become digital, and we shall find the ability to download ourselves into a digital framework and travel through interstellar space at the speed of light, at which point we can then live out our existence as a virtual process on a piece of hardware, not requiring any of the current biological necessities that the earth offers.
Sounds like the Wachowski brothers were closer than we imagine! J