RANDOM MUSINGS

Seventy-five thousand years ago, a volcanic eruption called Toba in Indonesia almost wiped out humans leaving just two thousand humans, our proverbial Adam and Eve, to populate the Earth. Two humans are almost identical DNA wise, in contrast to chimpanzees where any two of them would have more genetic variation than found in the entire human population. Humans have intelligence which allows them to handle calamities and disasters. 99.9% of all animal species in the past have become extinct and humans are under no less pressure. The extinction can come from human made disasters like nuclear wars, accelerated global warming, or by Earthbound microbial epidemics. Ice ages, super-volcanoes like the one at Yellowstone National Park, meteor or cometary impacts from space are always threatening Earth and its species to a mass extinction. In the really long run, assuming humans do survive, the Sun itself will die in about 5 billion years forcing humans to leave the Solar system. Faced with a hostile threatening environment, organisms inevitably meet one of the three fates. They can leave, they can adapt to it, or they will die. Environmental adaptation far into the future is an impossible task, hence humans either have to leave Earth or perish.

In this book, the great author, scientist, and film-maker Michio Kaku explores the present technology and its implications for the future of humanity. Carl Sagan thought that we should become a two-planet species. There should be a back-up for Earth in the event of it going down due to any reason. We have looked at the stars since millennia and wondered,’Can we ever build a home in the stars? Do we have the technology with us?’ Michio Kaku says yes. It is a possibility and perhaps a necessity too. Our technology is taking off by extra-ordinary rapidity and it is just possible to speculate a bit on the trajectory it is likely to take.

Science-fiction writers like Asimov speculated a multiplanet species, and given the right amount of patience and science, it is a distinct possibility of the future. The discovery of exoplanets-Earth type planets-in the galaxy has made the prospect of settling in far-off places hopeful. For the present, we can look at our immediate neighbourhood to escape and start colonies. The Moon, Mars, the asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter hold promise in our onward march of science and its applications.

Scientific revolutions come in waves simulated majorly by physics. The first wave was the theory of mechanics and thermodynamics which led to the steam engine. The second wave was electro-magnetism which had far reaching ramifications in the form of electricity, dynamo, radar, radio, and TV-technologies which took us to the moon. The third wave was quantum physics of the twenty-first century which made possible the supercomputer, internet, modern telecommunications, and the ubiquitous chip. The fourth wave of the future would be Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. Our descendants may colonize distant lands in the Universe using technology undreamed of by us. A stage may come for faster-than-light speeds and even consciousness travel without the need of a body. These may be in the ambit of science fiction today, but the potential of science and technology is tremendous to make our wildest dreams into a reality.

Tsiolkovsky was a visionary Russian scientist who said, ‘Earth is our cradle, but we cannot be in the cradle forever.’ He laid the physics and mathematics of rockets. Robert Goddard followed this, aptly called the Father of Rocketry, to design the first rockets. The public and media ridiculed him for his failed attempts. It was interesting The New York Times carried an apology in 1969 after the moon landing, two decades after Goddard died, stating, ‘…a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.’ Wernher Von Braun was a German born scientist who later migrated to the USA. He built fierce rockets called V2 based on the work of previous scientists for Hitler causing a havoc to the British enemies. Von Braun had a troubled relation with the Nazis; and Hitler came close to eliminate him. He was later responsible for putting the most advanced American satellite in orbit for the first time. However, the first space explorations, unmanned and manned, were to the credit of Russians who raced ahead, at least in the first phase. Despite huge costs, Americans went ahead with the moon landing programme and they were the first there against stiff competition from the Russians. After the initial enthusiasm, space exploration took a backseat due to the simple reason of extreme cost. The public and the governments resisted the idea of public funding for something which did not seem to have any practical use. It takes $1000 to put a pound of anything into a near Earth orbit. To put anything on the moon and Mars, the respective figures are $100,000 and a million dollars per pound! No wonder space exploration cooled down.

Now, with the advancements of technology and the interests of private parties, it has taken an upward swing. Dashing billionaire entrepreneurs, bold astronauts, cutting science is paving another chapter in the story of outer space. This book excitedly takes us on that route. Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon are investing hugely in space programs to make it cheaper and finally shift humanity to outer space. The first step is to go back to the moon. Technology today and of tomorrow like AI, self-replicating robots, nanotechnology, 3-D printers would one day create a self-sustaining moon base, which in turn would be a launch pad for distant missions. The moon might just become a recreational center and a tourist stop for the public as the scientists go beyond. Communication from the moon is also not difficult.

Four belts orbiting the sun is the picture of our solar system. The innermost belt of rocky planets consists of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. The next is the asteroid belt between Mas and Jupiter; beyond that is the giant gas belt of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Then finally, there is a Kuiper belt consisting of comets. Surrounding all these belts is spherical cloud of comets called Oort Cloud. In fact, the Oort Clouds- running for huge distances- of one solar system overlaps with similar clouds of another solar system.

Water and oxygen are the essential ingredients for life as we know. Mercury and Venus are beyond habitation and so are the gas belt planets. However, Mars hold the biggest promise of terra-farming. Technology may allow us to colonize Mars on a huge scale. It looks impossible to the layperson, but our entrepreneurs and visionary scientists do not think so. By the turn of the century, manned missions to Mars might become a routine affair. The challenges are many, the risks are complex, and costs may look prohibitive today. However, the author pictures a narrative where it is inevitable. An exploding human population, depleting resources, increased longevity with humans looking at immortality, and the pressure of facing natural disasters would be the strongest motivators to move beyond Earth. The first place would be Mars. Asteroids exploitation for minerals and setting up bases is another plan of many business people and scientists in the meantime. Asteroids will come to use in the future to stabilize Earth’s orbits and face the fury of any objects threatening to destroy us.

The giant planets Jupiter and Saturn are not habitable by any means, but their planets hold promise to support life. Europa, a moon of Jupiter and Titan, a moon of Saturn show some evidence of ice and water. They are potential places for colonization. Beyond the solar system are the Oort clouds with trillions of comets at unfathomable distances. A stage may come when these comets become stepping stones for further exploration of the distant stars. The author says we may learn from the voyages of Polynesian islands thousands of years ago where instead of trying to make one extended journey across the Pacific, with potential to end in a disaster, they went island hopping, spreading across the ocean’s landmass one at a time. This might just be the strategy as we explore the far-out realms of space with an eye to even colonize and set up habitations. The primary goal of the twenty-first century in the meantime is terraforming Mars. The author shows us in an exciting chapter how this might be possible with the use of science and technology.

Artificial Intelligence which implies programmed robots is a top-down approach. The programmers would design the software and the machine would take commands and respond as per the internal software program. But, the powers are highly restrictive. A chess playing robot may not be able to walk on the street amidst a crowd and get your cup of coffee from a restaurant. In contrast, learning machines is a down-to-up approach where the machine learns as new information feeds into its system. Life depends on the self-replication capacity of DNA which has two miraculous properties allowing this. One is the tremendous amount of information it can hold, and second is its capacity to reproduce. Robotic technology finally wants to do something similar and a stage may come when using nanomaterials and matter in the local environments, robots may self-replicate. This may be an important step in our exploration of space. Our biology is extremely frail to take up the challenges of outer space environments; and robots may fill in this space. The final goal would be self-aware robots.

The author proposes an interesting space-time theory of consciousness. Consciousness is a process of creating a model of oneself using multiple feedback loops in space, society, or time to carry out a goal. Animals, plants, and even machines can be conscious in this model. The smallest unit of consciousness might be found in a thermostat or photocell employing a single feedback loop to create a model for itself in terms of temperature or light. A flower may have ten units of consciousness as it has ten feedback loops measuring water, gravity, light, and so on. The loops can be grouped according to the author in certain levels of consciousness.

Flowers and thermostats would correspond to level 0. Level 1 consciousness includes that of reptiles, fruit flies, and mosquitoes which create models of themselves regarding space. Level 2 involves social animals whose feedback loops relate to their pack or tribe and produce models of complex social hierarchy expressed as emotions and gestures within their group. Humans are different from animals because we understand time too. Level 3 perhaps as we can analyze the past to plan for future in a non-instinctual manner. These levels mirror the development of the mammalian brain from back to front, the ancient to the modern. The pre-frontal cortex is the most forward component of the brain and the most recently evolved too. This area gives the Level 3 consciousness of humans. In this schema, the present-day machines are at the lowest rung of Level 1 consciousness based on its ability to locate their position. Hence, it will be some time before robots acquire Frankestenian properties to destroy humankind as is so popular with our science fiction writers. Quantum computers hold the key to explore the universe. The future of computers is quantum computing capable of using a single atom. In principle, quantum computer may give us the ability to exceed human intelligence. Quantum-fueled conscious machines may help us to establish and maintain an intergalactic civilization, the author speculates optimistically in a far future scenario.

A major problem for building spaceships is the energy source for the machines. Long voyages need energies on enormous scales. Energizing a star ship would be a focus of science in the future. Laser-propelled nanoships and solar sails using sunlight are being developed by scientists in the labs. Specific impulse is the thrust of the rocket multiplied by the time over which the rocket fires. The author gives the specific impulses of various rockets of the future. Conventional fuel rockets have specific impulse values of 250 to 400. In contrast nuclear fission rockets and ion engines have values of 1000 and 5000 respectively. Way in the future, plasma engine rockets, nuclear fusion rockets, nuclear pulsed rockets, and finally antimatter rocket would have far higher specific impulse values. Antimatter rockets have values between 1 million and 10 million. These engines along with solar sails and ramjet fusion rocket which have potential values of infinity would be the guiding powers to the far reaches of space.

Ion engines take a gas, strip its atoms of electrons to convert them into ions which are then accelerated in an electric field. Fusion rockets use the process of fusing hydrogen atoms into helium and generate energy-the same process used in the sun. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. However, the author is excited about the fifth wave technologies like antimatter engines, light sails, fusion engines, and nanoships which may open ‘new horizons for star ship design.’ Ramjet fusion engines scoop up hydrogen from space, of which there is an unlimited supply, and these would be fuel for a fusion machine on the ship itself to generate energy. These will have no need for any energy source on Earth and it is non-polluting too. Space elevators may just become a possibility as scientists are giving it a serious thought. Similarly, faster than light travel may one day be realised using warp drives, wormholes, Alcubierre drives, and negative energies, all of which are allowed by the physics as we know today. This chapter on the future of star ship rockets is my personal favourite as the author takes us on a roller-coaster ride.

100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, 100 billion stars on average in each of them, and each star having at least 2 planets around it, the possibility of life holding planets appear enormous. Astrophysicists are in a race to discover more of exoplanets-Earth like planets. It is amazing how science and technology is doing what was an unthinkable a few centuries before. Dimming of the respective star’s light as viewed from the Earth and Doppler shifts are used to detect the presence of exoplanets. The ambitious project finally is to detect the presence of life or intelligence emanating from one of the exoplanets. Or find a habitable planet for settlement in the far future. However, the surprising thing about our solar system is that it truly looks unique in the arrangement of planets. We are special at least here. Otherwise, the grand universe is always humbling us into insignificance.

The arrangements of small planets in the closest orbit, the giant planets at a distance, the asteroid belt, and the near circular orbits of the planets is really an oddball arrangement when compared to other solar systems. Jupiter at the right distance has prevented rogue meteorite attacks on earth threatening mass extinctions. Apart from planets around stars, there are rogue planets, the strangest celestial bodies according to the author which wander the galaxy without orbiting any particular star. These may hold life too.

In the search for other planets and adventures of outer space, our biological bodies are not sufficiently equipped in terms of quality and quantity. There is a search for immortality going on. Biological immortality may be difficult, but the race is on in the form of external drugs and internal genetic manipulation to alter the ageing process. Long voyages would be based on long lives of humans who would stop seeing long distances as an obstacle. Similarly, long lives would create pressure on the resources too in ways unimaginable to move outside the confines of Earth to colonize other worlds. Digital immortality may well be the future of travel. The entire human brain may be transferred to a chip and these chips can be transported to far distances. At an appropriate place, these chips may construct bodies for itself.

This raises certain philosophical questions, of course. What is the ‘you’ and who is the ‘I’? Is the brain or soul just information? Does carrying the brain circuits to a far-off place mean transporting the person itself? The Human Brain Project of the Swiss trying to create a computer program that can simulate all of brain’s basic features using transistors instead of neurons is a baby step in this regard. Another step called the BRAIN initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) is trying to unravel the neural structure of the brain itself, cell by cell, to map the entire neural circuitry. Each single brain with 100 billion neurons and 10,000 connections of each single neuron to its neighbours, this project is ambitious and is a tribute to the never-say-never attitude of human beings!

The author then takes us on the path of ‘transhumanism’ which advocates technology to enhance our skills and capabilities. Surviving on distant worlds, altering the human bodies mechanically and biologically is a necessity and not a choice for transhumanists. The philosophy is that human body is an imperfect product of evolution with various shortcomings in terms of its physical and mental capabilities. The transhumanists want to use technology to smoothen the quirks of evolution and make the human body a perfect piece, capable of flying, having super strength, capable of uploading huge information into the brain, transferring skills and abilities, and so on. There is an active work in neurology to finally give rise to a ‘brain net,’ the next stage in the evolution of the internet. The brain net will have the capacity to transfer entire emotions, feelings, sensations, and memories.

Biotechnology and its manipulations of the genetic structure is an important component of transhumanism. The ultimate goal of all these technologies would be to create an immortal ‘post-human’ capable of travelling vast distances and settling in far off planets even in harsh conditions. An alien from an advanced civilization would be perhaps part biological and part cybernetic. Some scientists like Paul Davies think that biological intelligence is only a transitory and fleeting phase in the evolution of intelligence. An extra-terrestrial intelligence is most likely to be post-biological, and this has far reaching ramifications for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence).
Of course, transhumanism and post-humanism has interesting moral and ethical issues at stake. Technology still is far off, but the discussion of these scenarios is very contemporary. The definition of humanity is at stake according to some authorities.

The author puts forward the ‘caveman or cavewoman principle’ which puts a limit on how far we will want to alter ourselves. Modern humans evolved 200,000 years ago, and over all these years the fundamental desires have remained the same. After our basic needs are met, we place a high value on the opinions of the peers. We want to look good especially for the opposite sex. We want admiration from friends and society and hence may hesitate to alter ourselves too radically, especially if it makes us look too different from the people around us. Hence, the author says, ‘It is likely that we will only adopt enhancements if they raise our status in society. So though there will be pressure to enhance our power genetically and electronically, especially if we go into outer space and live in different environments, there may well be a limitation on how much alteration we desire, and that limitation will help keep us grounded.’

Finally, he talks about advanced civilizations and how Kardashev ranking may classify them. Nikolai Kardashev was a Russian astronomer who ranked civilizations on the basis of energy consumption, despite differences in cultures, politics, history, and language. A Type I civilization utilizes all the energy of the sunlight which falls on its planet. A Type II civilization utilizes all the energy its sun produces, and a Type III utilizes the energy of the entire galaxy. Carl Sagan proposed a way to rank civilizations by information. Here a Type A civilization would consume a million bits of information, and a Type B ten times that number or ten million bits. The progression goes like that till a Type Z with a capacity to handle an enormous 1031 bits of information. The classification of alien civilization is a favourite theme of the author which he talks about in almost all his books. It is in fact a blueprint for the advancement of our own civilization. On Kardashev scale we are 0.7 and on the Sagan scale, we are a Type H.

The most difficult transition is from here to Type I as we acquire nuclear weapons and issues of global warming, bioterrorism, wars, and epidemics threatening to destroy humanity. The author speculates that many civilizations in distant planets may have simply folded up before advancing to the Type I. The greatest risk is in this transition. The first Type would be world without geographical boundaries and a humanity speaking unitedly for the planet. Type I would lay the foundations of inter-planetary travel and settling in far off lands. A Type II would be virtually immortal. A Type III civilization might accomplish a faster-than-speed travel.

Assuming we progress into advanced civilizations and colonize distant galaxies, the author raises an interesting point as to how far humanity will diverge as a species in the future if the DNA is not too drastically tinkered with. Our DNA mutates at a rate of 1% change over 1.5 million years. Any two humans chosen at random differ in their DNA content by 0.1%. Our DNA clock shows that different branches of humanity started separating about 150,000 years ago, and this agrees with the actual origins of humanity. Hence, the author concludes that even if we remain a Type II civilization for 100,000 years travelling at sub-light-speed rockets, branches of humanity despite losing contact with one another, there would be a divergence of only 0.1% in their DNA content. This implies that different human settlements will differ no more than any two humans on the Earth today.

Our core personalities have not changed since the last 200,000 years and is unlikely to change in the next 100, 000 years as we look to conquer space. Laughing, crying, and getting thrilled at similar situations cuts across all barriers of race, language, and culture. Common social values like kindness, generosity, friendship, thoughtfulness, sympathy for the poor binds people across space and time. Inward characteristics like curiosity, innovation, and the urge to explore is a common feature amongst all human groups. Humans are likely to remain the same in the far future and in far off lands in these respects unless we become more machines than human- a speculative scenario for the present.

The final dream of scientists and science fiction writers would be transfer the human brain information and laser port to distant locations. The material body would be completely done away with. The Human Connectome Project is an ambitious effort to map the entire brain. A day may come when this might be possible, and this is certainly the best way to travel to the farthest realms of the universe. Finally, the author who is a string theory proponent says that a humanity might even escape to other universes even before it dies trillions of years from now. String theory predicts the existence of many universes and it might be the future of humanity.

The book is a phenomenal ride as it takes us on a ride to the future of humanity using science and technology. Though he looks outward into the space, the book constantly raises fundamental questions about humanity and the inner self. What is the ‘I’ finally which wants to go outward? Humanity has all the reasons to be united as genetics prove strongly and it is clear that a leap into space and other worlds can only take place if we unite on the Earth. That does not seem to be happening at all now. We are fighting at an increasing pace and there is no hint of unity occurring. The presence of terrible destructive power in the hands of few countries and a few people is a constant threat to the world. Science can be invigorating, science can be humbling, science can be progressive, and science can be terrifying. It is the last aspect we need to take care of in the onward march of humanity. There will be no regrets in buying this magnificent book and that is a promise.