The Universe is under no contract to make us happy.
Does the standard Lambda-CDM model of cosmology make us happy? At best, its content is a mixed bag. It started in a Big Bang but could have been more satisfying if it lasted forever. The matter budget contains a mix of particles, 85% of which is unknown and labeled dark matter. The ordinary matter we are made of accounts for 5% of the current mass budget, like a tiny freckle on the face of the Universe. We wouldn’t exist without the dark matter keeping memory of the initial seeds of density perturbations that grew gravitationally to make galaxies like the Milky-Way, inside of which stars like the Sun formed, next to which debris disks fragmented into planets like the Earth.
The emergence of life on Earth is undeniably a happy moment. But next to Earth we find the warning sign of Mars. A recent study of a Martian meteorite NWA7034, nicknamed “Black Beauty,” indicates that Mars had liquid water flowing on its surface from hydrothermal systems as early as 4.45 billion years ago. Hydrothermal vents and hot springs gave rise to the earliest forms of life on Earth. But around the middle of its lifespan, 2–2.5 billion years ago, Mars lost its liquid water reservoirs and became the desert it is today. This was not a happy moment for life forms that may have existed on the Martian surface. But the Universe was under no contract to make Martians happy.
Despite the tragedy of our possible next-door neighbors, we are obviously happy that Earth gave birth and maintained complex forms of life. But a new study published in the scientific journal Science, compiles the latest 485-million-year history of Earth and reveals that the global mean surface temperature varied between 11 to 36 degrees Celsius with the latest point representing the coolest million-year period across this history. It appears that even the Earth is under no contract to make us happy. A billion years from now, the Sun will boil off all liquid water reservoirs and turn the surface of Earth into a desert.
The sobering reality is that we must struggle in order to survive in a seemingly hostile cosmos. The success of this struggle is a source of happiness. Science and technology provide tools for our survival. When terrestrial conditions deteriorate due to a looming catastrophe, the survival of humanity would necessitate building an artificial space platform, a modern technological analog to Noah’s Ark which was constructed by Noah to save life from a major flood event. Interestingly, the quoted dimensions of the biblical Ark, 134 by 22 by 13 meters, are comparable to the estimated dimensions of the first recognized interstellar object, 1I/`Oumuamua.
In summary, life is a struggle for survival. Intelligence is key for analyzing the risks and employing a suitable strategy for alleviating them. Our natural intelligence served us well over the past few million years. However, it is limited by the number of connections employed in the neural network within our brain. Artificial Intelligence (AI) could carry us farther.
The recent success of DeepSeek in developing a cheaper and better “mixture of experts” architecture of their open Large Language Model-R1, is fascinating. It illustrates how innovation stems from constraints. The established AI Goliaths were taken by surprise by the “sling-and-stone” tools of the young David.
During a 90-minute interview by NPR yesterday, the host asked me what the young `Avi Loeb’ was like. I replied that he was the same as I am today. It is a great privilege for me to remain curious and not pretend to be the adult in the room who knows the answers in advance without seeking evidence. We tend to imagine, through wishful thinking, a reality that flatters our ego. But in order to stay happy, we should not take it personally when we realize that Earth is not at the center of the Universe, or when we imagine that better scientists may have lived on exoplanets. Given the hundred billion Earth-Sun systems in the Milky-Way galaxy alone, their existence and struggle for survival is an ordinary claim that requires ordinary evidence. Finding them and learning about their struggle for survival would make us happier. We are all in the same boat, floating through a hostile cosmos.
Given that the NPR interviewer asked me how I handle personal attacks regarding my search for extraterrestrial artifacts through the Galileo Project, I explained that everyone who knows me personally is highly supportive. The fiercest critics are people whom I have never met. Many of them are jealous of the generous financial support and media attention that the Galileo Project receives. I learned to avoid mud wrestling in order not to get dirty. Overall, I feel much happier than Socrates who in 399 B.C.E. was punished to death by the Athenian court on charges of corrupting the youth. Athens was under no contract to make Socrates happy. But the legacy of his struggle inspired happiness in the hearts of many people over the past 2424 years. Who remembers his critics?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.
