One consequence of special relativity is time dilation—the slowing down of time as the observer approaches light speed. You can still find claims that time dilation applies to watches and elementary particles— and, presumably, to circadian and other rhythms in plants, animals, and microbes—but not to human biological clocks. Our species has been granted, it is suggested, special immunity from the laws of Nature, which must accordingly be able to distinguish deserving from undeserving collections of matter. (In fact, the proof Einstein gave for special, relativity admits no such distinctions.) The idea of humans as exceptions to relativity seems another incarnation of the notion of special creation:
In each age the self-congratulatory chauvinisms are challenged in yet another arena of scientific debate—in this century, for example, in attempts to understand the nature of human sexuality, the existence of the unconscious mind, and the fact that many psychiatric illnesses and character “defects” have a molecular origin. But also:
In popular culture, the very opposite position is also embraced, although it too is driven by human chauvinism (plus a failure of the imagination): Children’s stories and cartoons make animals dress in clothes, live in houses, use knives and forks, and speak. The three bears sleep in beds. The owl and the pussycat go to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. Dinosaur mothers cuddle their young. Pelicans deliver the mail. Dogs drive cars. A worm catches a thief. Pets have human names. Dolls, nutcrackers, cups, and saucers dance and have opinions. The dish runs away with the spoon. In the Thomas the Tank Engine series, we even have anthropomorphic locomotives and railway cars, charmingly portrayed. No matter what we’re thinking about, animate or inanimate, we tend to invest it with human traits. We can’t help ourselves. The images come readily to mind. Children are clearly fond of them.
When we talk about a “threatening” sky, a “troubled” sea diamonds “resisting” being scratched, the Earth “attracting” passing asteroid, or an atom being “excited,” we are again drawn to a kind of animist worldview. We reify. Some ancient level of our thinking endows inanimate Nature with life, passions, and forethought.
The notion that the Earth is self-aware has lately been growing at the fringes of the “Gaia” hypothesis. But this was commonplace belief of both the ancient Greeks and the earl Christians. Origen wondered whether “the earth also, according to its own nature, is accountable for some sin.” A host of ancient scholars thought the stars alive. This was also the position of Origen, of St. Ambrose (the mentor of St. Augustine), and even, in a more qualified form, of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Stoic philosophical position on the Sun’s nature was stated by Cicero, in the first century B.C.: “Since the Sun resembles those fires which are contained in the bodies of living creatures, the Sun must also be alive.”
Animist attitudes in general seem to have been spreading recently. In a 1954 American survey, 75 percent of people polled were willing to state that the Sun is not alive; in 1989, only 30 percent would support so rash a proposition. On whether an automobile tire can feel anything, 90 percent of respondents denied it emotions in 1954, but only 73 percent in 1989.
We can recognize here a shortcoming—in some circumstances serious—in our ability to understand the world. Characteristically, willy-nilly, we seem compelled to project our own nature onto Nature. Although this may result in a consistently distorted view of the world, it does have one great virtue—projection is the essential precondition for compassion.
But the simple fact is that we have not yet found extraterrestrial life. We are in the earliest stages of looking. The question is wide open. If I had to guess—especially considering our long sequence of failed I would guess that the Universe is filled with beings far more intelligent, tar more advanced than we are. But of course I might be wrong. Such a conclusion is at best based on a plausibility argument, derived from the numbers of planets, the ubiquity of organic matter, the immense timescales available for evolution, and so on. It is not a scientific demonstration. The question is among the most fascinating in all of science. As described in this book, we are just developing the tools to treat it seriously.
What about the related matter of whether we are capable of creating intelligences smarter than ourselves? Computers routinely do mathematics that no unaided human can manage, outperform world champions in checkers and grand masters in chess, speak and understand English and other languages, write presentable short stories and musical compositions, learn from their mistakes, and competently pilot ships, airplanes, and spacecraft. Their abilities steadily improve. They’re getting smaller, faster, and cheaper. Each year, the tide of scientific advance laps a little further ashore on the island of human intellectual uniqueness with its embattled castaways. If, at so early a stage in our technological evolution, we have been able to go so far in creating intelligence out of silicon and metal, what will be possible in the following decades and centuries? What happens when smart machines are able to manufacture smarter machines?
Perhaps the clearest indication that the search for an unmerited privileged position for humans will never be wholly abandoned is what in physics and astronomy is called the Anthropic Principle. It would be better named the Anthropocentric Principle. It comes in various forms. The “Weak” Anthropic Principle merely notes that if the laws of Nature and the physical constants—such as the speed of light, the electrical charge of the electron, the Newtonian gravitational constant, or Planck’s quantum mechanical constant had been different, the course of events leading to the origin of humans would never have transpired. Under other laws and constants, atoms would not hold