Among Other Things, a Theological Solution to the Fermi Paradox

Abstract

People avoided the issue of death because the goal seemed too elusive. Why create unreasonable expectations? We’re now at a point, however, where we can be frank about it. The leading project of the Scientific Revolution is to give humankind eternal life.

—Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

I. INTRODUCTION

Everyone knows that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. Everyone knows this even though Saint John, on Patmos, did not say so: he names only the fourth. Now, it seems that he did not need to name the first, second, and third: we already knew their names—for Pestilence, War, and Famine had been tormenting us since the start.

In any generation, everyone—no matter how wealthy, no matter how powerful—had to fear pestilence, war, and famine. Let us consider, for example, the Roman Empire during the reign of Justinian I. Having reconquered Africa from the Vandals—and trying to reconquer Italy from the Ostrogoths—the empire was hit by a famine. Next, the Sassanid Empire invaded, sacking Antioch. Then, the empire was hit by a plague, which struck even Justinian.

We know now what those of the time did not. The famine was caused, apparently, by dust thrown into the air—whether by the impact of a comet or by the eruption of a volcano. The plague was caused, apparently, by Yersinia pestis, which would also cause the Black Death.¹ At the time, of course, it seemed that these events were unpredictable: if the emperor himself—with his wealth and his power—was not immune, then what hope was there for anyone? It seemed obvious that plague, war, and famine would continue to torment humanity so long as there were human beings. The Apocalypse would merely concentrate this torment to a point. Only afterward—only when there were a new heaven and a new earth—would the torment end.

So, we waited a while—but, eventually, we got tired of waiting. So, we started building that new heaven and that new earth ourselves. This is, at any rate, the interpretation of Eric Voegelin, who calls this process “immanentizing the eschaton”; while doubtless an oversimplification, it does seem to capture something crucial about modernity—specifically, that it was at root a spiritual revolution.² Charles Taylor seems to argue similarly, calling this process “Reform”; it was, as he notes, more successful than anyone had any right to predict.³

Building a new heaven and a new earth meant, in no small part, taking the field against our tormentors: we dedicated ourselves to the natural and social sciences, learning that neither pestilence nor famine nor war was entirely unpredictable. Now armed with this knowledge, we started to win:

Most people rarely think about it, but in the last few decades we have managed to rein in famine, plague and war . . . For the first time in history, more people die today from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined. (Harari, 2017, 1–2)⁴

Perhaps our most dramatic victories have been against Pestilence—most of all, against smallpox. Probably, it was smallpox which caused the plague that hit the Roman Empire during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus; probably, it was smallpox that killed Lucius Verus.⁵ Imagine trying to explain to either of them that, since their time, humanity has eradicated smallpox.

Far less dramatic—but far more consequential—have been our victories against Famine. A century ago, there were 1 billion of us. The earth could have fed maybe 4 billion—and probably fewer than that: there was only so much fixed nitrogen with which to fertilize our fields. Today, though, there are 8 billion of us. Now the earth feeds us, on average, more than we ought to eat. All of this is so—for better and for worse—because, a century ago, Fritz Haber discovered how to make fertilizer out of thin air.⁶ Imagine trying to explain that to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus!

Initially, it may seem absurd to discuss our victories against War. Was the twentieth century not one of madness—of trench and tank warfare, of chemical and nuclear weapons? Was not the First World War followed by the Second? Now, the modern state, which unleashed violence without, simultaneously leashed violence within; in other words, it has what Max Weber calls a “monopoly on violence.”⁷ Paradoxically, owning nuclear weapons has meant—because of mutually assured destruction—the end of trench and tank warfare.⁸ Of course, we may someday be so mad as to use our nuclear weapons; in the meantime, though, violence between states does not look like it did when the Goths, Vandals, and Huns overran the Western Roman Empire—or, for that matter, when the Sassanids overran the Eastern Roman Empire. If “War” names unpredictable violence, then our victories against War have been no less dramatic than those against Pestilence and no less consequential than those against Famine.

Of course, these many victories leave on the field the fourth Horseman. After approximately a century, a healthy human body simply fails. In other words, one not slain by Pestilence, War, or Famine is nonetheless slain by Death.

It is tempting to say that Death is dissimilar to his brethren, that he cannot be slain. It is tempting to say, in other words, that death is an inevitable part of the human condition. Of course, it was tempting to say that pestilence, war, and famine were inevitable parts of the human condition—tempting, that is, until our many victories over them.

We have not yet slain Death. But would anyone bet on him? Sure, it may take another hundred years. Or it may take another thousand. But what is that to those on the brink of immortality?

II. AN INTERLUDE FROM THE PAST

Four thousand years ago, literature was invented in order to tell the story of King Gilgamesh of Uruk. When his friend Enkidu dies, the story goes, Gilgamesh knows that he too is doomed to die—and so he vows to slay Death. He journeys into the underworld and meets Utnapishtim, who was granted immortality for his piety—but Utnapishtim reveals to Gilgamesh that the gods do not intend to grant immortality to anyone else. Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, but it seems that he is now without his earlier restlessness: we human beings are doomed to die, he knows, but nonetheless we live so long as what we have done endures—whether in stone or, relevantly, in story.

Since the days of Gilgamesh, every generation has warned its sons and daughters that the quest for immortality is folly—that, rather than fight the inevitable, it is better to take joy in what Death cannot slay. For some, this means taking joy in the knowledge that one will be remembered by family and friends; for others, it means taking joy in the knowledge that one has built something enduring. For others, it means coming to identify with what is eternal—that is, with truth, goodness, and beauty.

Of course, some generations do not listen to the warnings of their parents. They suppose themselves wiser. Ours is one such generation:

For men of science, death is not an inevitable destiny, but merely a technical problem. People die not because the gods decreed it, but due to various technical failures—a heart attack, cancer, an infection. And every technical problem has a technical solution. (Harari, 2015, 267)

In his Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari calls the quest to discover this technical solution—that is, to slay Death—the “Gilgamesh Project.” In his Homo Deus, Harari notes that this quest preoccupies many of us—especially those of us with more than average wealth and power:

An increasing minority of scientists and thinkers . . . state that the flagship enterprise of modern science is to defeat death and grant humans eternal youth. Notable examples are the gerontologist Aubrey de Grey and the polymath and inventor Ray Kurzweil . . . Such dreams are shared by other Silicon Valley luminaries. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has recently confessed that he aims to live for ever. (2017, 24)

Of course, others have confessed the same. For all of the good that it did them.

Two thousand years ago, King Ying Zheng of Qin invaded and conquered Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu, and Qi. Having done this, Ying Zheng was now more than a king; appropriately, he started styling himself the first “emperor”—literally, “huangdi,” or “heavenly god”—of Qin. Less than ten years later, he started styling himself an “immortal”—literally, “zhenren,” or “pure person.” One can imagine his thoughts: sure, he probably told himself, previous generations told their sons and daughters that the quest to live forever was folly—but that was, so to speak, in the days of Gilgamesh. Such humility served humanity, perhaps, in those pious times. Now science has replaced superstition; in these times of disruption, neither humility nor piety serves us. Sure, most men and women are still doomed to die. But I, Ying Zheng, have more wealth and power than anyone alive—indeed, than anyone who has ever lived! Surely death is merely a technical problem with a technical solution. Surely I, Ying Zheng, need not die!

The First Emperor of Qin set his alchemists the task of making him immortal. They gave him elixirs that were mostly mercury, which then killed him.

It does not seem irrelevant that Ying Zheng was ruthless. Certainly, he was as totalitarian as the technology of his time allowed him to be. Sometimes this was arguably to the profit of his people: he standardized both the script and the currency—and, for that matter, completed the Great Wall. Other times, though, it was certainly to the loss of his people: he burned most of the books that told of a world prior to his conquest—and buried alive those scholars who refused to submit to him. Again, one can imagine his thoughts: to liberate humanity—or, at any rate, to live forever—one has to move fast and break things.

III. TRANSHUMANISM

Today, the quest of Ying Zheng to live forever seems ridiculous. It is tempting to conclude that, in the centuries to come, the quest of de Grey, Kurzweil, and Thiel will seem no less ridiculous. But this is, it seems to me, a temptation that we ought to resist. For they have what Zheng did not: they have the biology that eradicated smallpox, the chemistry that made fertilizer out of thin air, and the physics that wrought our nuclear deterrent—all of which are yoked, as Harari notes, to capitalism. No doubt many of the avenues of research of de Grey, Kurzweil, and Thiel will seem as ridiculous in 2,000 years as the mercury elixirs of Zheng seem today.⁹ Yet is there really any doubt that, sooner or later, our science—yoked to our capitalism—will solve this technical problem? After all, why would it not?

The story of Zheng—who was an emperor, but who was not an immortal—ought to make us cautious. But induction indicates that humanity—having slain Pestilence, War, and Famine—will slay Death as well: there are three down—and only one to go.

By this, I do not mean that we will become literally immortal—that is, will come to exist by our essence: no matter what we do, we remain bound by time and space—and so able to suffer gain and loss in our interactions with other matter. In other words, were we to slay Death, we would still die were we to get hit sufficiently hard, for example. However, we would not die automatically, so to speak—would not, in other words, die of what was once called “old age.” Rather, with our science, we would have come to understand the human body much better; while it would doubtless continually degrade, our understanding would allow us to repair it indefinitely—or, at any rate, for many centuries. Compare the way in which a car, though it continually degrades, can be repaired—and have broken parts replaced—indefinitely: anyone who argues that the car is not technically immortal because it can be blown up—and because, eventually, the heat death of the universe will mean no more oil changes—would be missing the point!

Again, we ought to be cautious. For one thing, we may slay ourselves with our science—with our nuclear weapons, for example—sooner rather than later. For another thing, it may be that there is something about death that renders it a more than technical problem. But there seems no reason to assume this. After all, is the human body not merely biochemistry? In other words, is the human body not merely an extraordinarily complicated machine?

In any case, will we not discover in time how to copy ourselves onto silicon? Perhaps we will doubt that anyone is really there in those copies—will doubt, in other words, that there are ghosts in the relevant machines. Nonetheless, those machines will tell us that they bear our ghosts—and, probably, we ought to trust them! In any case, my ghost runs at the moment on carbon—that is, on my body; is this any less mysterious than it running on altered carbon—that is, on silicon?¹⁰

If our desire is for that which is desirable without qualification—if, in other words, what we really want is not to live forever but rather to live fully—then slaying Death would not do a lot.¹¹ But this is precisely what our faith teaches. If our faith is correct, then we ought to admit that we are animals—that, in other words, the death that we are tempted to interpret apocalyptically is merely an aspect of our animal condition and so not to be fought tooth and nail. In short, we ought to cultivate humility.

IV. AN INTERLUDE FROM THE FUTURE

Seventy years ago, Enrico Fermi noted that, while the stars ought to be home to many technological civilizations, ours seems to be the only one: so far as we know, none other has indicated its existence to us in any way. So . . . where is everybody? In his book of that name, Stephen Webb argues that, though the stars are nearly countless, nonetheless the many barriers that each must overcome in order to host a technological civilization—the evolution of prokaryotes, the evolution of eukaryotes, the evolution of animals, and so on—mean that we should expect only one technological civilization to exist. No surprise that it is ours!

The most provocative suggestion of Webb is that, even when the other barriers are overcome, nonetheless language may not evolve. For all we know, animals are common, while rational animals are rare—if, by “rational animals,” we mean animals who talk as we do:

Ludwig Wittgenstein once famously remarked that “if a lion could talk, we would not understand him.” It is easy to see the philosopher’s reasoning: lions must perceive the world in ways quite alien to us. They possess drives and senses we simply do not share. On the other hand, the statement is all wrong. If a lion spoke English, then presumably English speakers could understand him—but the mind of that lion would no longer be a lion’s mind. The lion would no longer be a lion. Humans talk; lions do not. (Webb, 2002, 223)

If our physics, chemistry, and biology ever allow us to slay Death, then certainly those same physics, chemistry, and biology would allow us to sail the stars. (We may engineer vessels to take us as we are—or, for that matter, re-engineer ourselves so as to make our sailing less taxing. Indeed, we may do both.¹²) Now, there seems no reason to assume that none of us would do so. (I probably would!) Sailing the stars, what—or, better, whom—would we find?

As a philosopher, I do not know. As a theologian, though, I suspect that we would find animals who are like us in some sense—but without the brokenness that drove us to sail the stars. They would be, I suspect, rather like elephants and whales: they would shout for joy and sorrow, they would even be aware of themselves in some sense, but they would not talk—not, anyway, linguistically. (What is Wittgenstein’s lion—an animal that can talk, albeit not in a way in which we can understand—but a trumpeting elephant or a singing whale?)

Perhaps this gives elephants and whales too much credit. Imagine that, sailing the stars, we met animals who were like us in every way but sin—animals who could talk, in other words, but who were not turned against themselves as we are. They would live, it seems, nearly as the other apes live: in every generation, they would work and play, they would bear sons and daughters, but they would not be restless as we are—and so they would have no civilization, technological or otherwise. Such animals would die—as do all animals—but the knowledge of this would not torment them; in other words, death would not be apocalyptic for them.

The better we managed to explain to these animals why we had come, the more confused they would become: why in the world, they would ask, would anyone want to sail the stars? (Why, for example, do I?) Were we honest, we would admit to them—and thereby to ourselves—that we are broken: we are alienated from the earth, from one another, and from ourselves. We would admit, in other words, that within us is an insatiable desire—though we would never admit for whom.

When those animals finally understood—assuming that those unfallen can understand such things—they would react with pity. Then, they would try to quarantine themselves. Lest our restlessness somehow spread to them.

V. CONCLUSION

In their Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett joke about the retirement of one of the Four Horsemen:

Pollution . . . had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old boy had known what opportunities the future had held (Gaiman and Pratchett, 2006, 271).

Harari, rather more serious, also speaks of that retirement:

Biotechnology enables us to defeat bacteria and viruses, but it simultaneously turns humans themselves into an unprecedent threat. The same tools that enable doctors to quickly identify and cure new illnesses may also enable armies and terrorists to engineer even more terrible diseases and doomsday pathogens . . . The era when humankind stood helpless before natural epidemics is probably over. But we may come to miss it (2017, 14).

The point, I guess, is this: our science allows us to slay Pestilence, War, and Famine—but that same science generates threats to us that are no less terrifying.

It would be pointless, probably, to try to construct a new list of Horsemen. For one thing, our physics, our chemistry, and our biology each threatens us in many ways, not one: our chemistry, for example, threatens us both with pollution and with obesity. For another thing, every threat seems quaint in light of the following threat: when I was born, it seemed fairly likely that we would slay ourselves with nuclear weapons—but, now, it seems far more likely that we will slay ourselves with climate change. When I die, no doubt, we will long for the day when climate change was the most serious threat to our survival!¹³

If this is so, then perhaps the question of this paper is moot: perhaps humanity will not live to slay Death. Perhaps we ourselves, sooner rather than later, will concentrate our torments to a point: perhaps we ourselves will birth the Horsemen that slay all of us.

Will we do so? As a philosopher, I do not know. As a theologian, though, I worry.

REFERENCES

Footnotes