Ecocosmology & Cosmic Surprises

SuperNova-1987-A

The universe is not so stable that it is free of surprises.

So when we consider the ramifications of the tenets of the science of Ecocosmology, in the sense of vast amounts of time, we should remember that the uncertainty principle instructs us not to become complacent just because there is a seemingly vast amount of time within which we may pass "The Test".

The planet Jupiter took a surprise hit on 7/20/09, and thanks to an amateur astronomer who discovered the impact, professionals monitored it closely.

It was a bit odd that it was exactly 15 years from the last observed impact by a comet, and a bit odd that only an amateur first noticed it.

The earth has also taken hits over the eons like Jupiter did that have wiped out much of the life then in existence on earth.

Today official government programs watch for near earth objects which could cause catastrophe on the earth, and have some rudimentary theoretical proposals to try to stop an asteroid or comet impact on the earth should the need arise.

Tenet 3(e) of Ecocosmology says that the universe requires life forms to develop space travel in order to find new home worlds as their sun or star dies out, and that they must keep doing so until their "final morph" takes place.

Thus, even if The SETI Institute was successful and found a species of intelligent life that wanted to communicate with us, that would not do away with our requirement of passing "The Test" ourselves, nor would it remove their requirement of passing "The Test" themselves.

The movie "Knowing" depicted in a science fiction manner, what one species who had evolved to the point of developing sophisticated space travel would think about some of our human endeavours and behaviours, and what they might do if they knew our sun was going to surprise us soon with our utter destruction.

The lesson of that movie was that they only saved the innocent who would not be a danger to them some day.

Then they continued on with their own evolution because even they had not yet passed "The Test" by evolving into a species that no longer relied on stars that would eventually die out.