Last night, I participated in a panel discussion at Harvard University, moderated by the guru Deepak Chopra, in the company of the scientists Dava Newman, Stuart Hameroff and Leonard Mlodinow. The topic was cliché: “Are we alone?”
Deepak started the conversation by asking for my take. I explained that it would be arrogant to assume that we are alone given the trillions of billions of stars in the observable Universe and at least 64 billion times more of them beyond our cosmic horizon. The key is not to have an opinion but to search for our cosmic partners. A new approach that Harvard’s Galileo Project pioneers involves an observational search for objects of extraterrestrial technological origin in the Solar system. Astronomers discovered the first interstellar objects over the past decades and admit that objects like `Oumuamua are of a type that had been never seen before. We should check whether among the natural rocks flying near Earth there are objects similar to our own space trash, including the Tesla Roadster car launched by SpaceX or the five interstellar probes launched by NASA. There are also unidentified anomalous objects reported by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to discuss these in an upcoming congressional hearing.
Dava expanded the discussion to the search for primitive life in the solar system and exoplanets. Stuart introduced consciousness as the distinguishing feature between primitive and intelligent life, and mentioned the theory he developed with Roger Penrose to associate consciousness with quantum entanglement of neurons in the human brain.
In his 1992 song titled “Anthem,” Leonard Cohen wrote: “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” In a week, I am scheduled to speak alongside Roger Penrose at the world’s largest philosophy and music festival, titled: “How The Light Gets In”, in London. If the opportunity arises I have quantitative questions to ask Roger about the decoherence time of quantum entanglement in the human brain.
During yesterday’s panel, Leonard Mlodinow, who co-authored with Stephen Hawking the books “A Briefer History of Time” and “The Grand Design,” noted that Hawking was worried about the existential threat from aliens, because “we do not know whether they are vegetarians.” In response to that, I said: “If they are intelligent, they will avoid us.”
Of course, some may regard aliens as science fiction. Deepak noted that in comparing science to fiction, fiction is sometimes closer to the truth. I agreed with Deepak and noted that our imagination is limited by our terrestrial experiences, whereas most of the cosmic real estate lies beyond Earth and the first two thirds of cosmic history occurred before the Sun formed. We are late to the party and we are not at the center of the dance floor. Why would we imagine that we are alone without checking vigorously for other participants?
Deepak summarized the panel discussion by focusing on the theme of continuous creation in the Universe that might have preceded the Big Bang and will continue in our future. Inspired by his words, I pointed out that a technological civilization which knows how to create a baby universe in the laboratory, merits the job description of God and can recreate the cosmic circumstances that led to its existence, just like a baby that matures to become a parent. Each generation gives of quantum-gravity scientists may give birth to the next generation, without end. The answer to the question: “Who came first: the chicken or the egg?”, is “neither.” Before both of them, there was something else. Perhaps a smarter kid on our cosmic block knows what it was.
After the event, I told Deepak that our mutual friend, Meera Gandhi, would like to organize a public event with the two of us. Deepak was delighted to hear that. When I informed Meera, she wrote humbly: “With gratitude for our friendship, even though your mind must be billions of neurons more intelligent than mine.” I replied: “Not at all. Wisdom and happiness are not measured by the number of neurons. Many neuron-rich brains in academia are not wise, nor happy.”
Here’s hoping that alien brains surpass ours, not only in the number of neurons they possess but also in their ambition to spread wisdom and happiness among the stars. The issue is not whether they are vegetarians, but whether our primitive brain — which is used to zero-sum conflicts, will be open-minded enough to accept a more fulfilling lifestyle in the cosmos.
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. His new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2023.
