Serialised book (with a progressively updated >>dashboard/ToC<< page). Part III: Philosophy of the Life Instinct

Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Chapter 27: Future Evolution

In a few million years…

Will we be pretty, will we be handsome, will we be rich, will there be rainbows?

When I arrived at this chapter, I asked nature what we’ll be in a million years.

Here’s what nature said to me — Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not yours to see, Que sera sera.

But we humans aren’t satisfied with this. We can’t stop imagining what could happen.

Why do we think of the future? As we know by now in this book, the answer, as for everything we do, lies in the Life Instinct: prediction is valuable for its goals, which are our survival, growth and reproduction. (See Chapter 4 on the Life Instinct.)

If we can think about the next minute, hour, day, month, year and decade, we can plan how to live and live well. And it works for the longer future, too, beyond our lifetimes. It is why we have the innate urge to consider the situations that could arise in time.

Let’s see how far into the future it is helpful to look, approaches to predict the changes, the factors that can affect the future, and how our genus, world, plants and animals will evolve.

How far can and should we look into the future?

In this book of philosophy, we are taking a broad and high view of everything, so we are not interested as much in what happens in the next fifty or a hundred years as in a long time ahead, to get the distance for perspective on ourselves as we are.

But which part of the infinite cosmic future should we consider? First, let’s consider our predictive capability. Our mind has evolved to think about what may happen in the next few seconds to a lifetime of about eighty years. Our science is capable of picturing things in the past hundreds to millions of years utilising physical evidence. Still, it is limited in its ability to look as far into the future.

Next, let’s consider the landscape of cosmic time. Our universe is roughly 14 billion years old and began in the Big Bang. Depending on its density, it may either stop expanding, start contracting and end in a Big Crunch about 100 billion years from now or expand forever and slowly cool down into the Big Freeze in hundreds of trillions of years.

So, cosmic timescales are just numbers for us, and there is little we will gain in thinking of life at those scales. The first narrowing down of the prediction time frame should be to the period of life on Earth. Let’s have a look at this.

Life began on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago. Our genus Homo evolved 3 million years ago and led through a series of hominids (e.g., Homo habilis about 2.5 million years ago, Homo erectus about 2 mya, etc.) to us, Homo sapiens, about 300 thousand years ago. The average lifespan of mammalian species is between 1 to 2 million years. For other families, it varies widely, but taking about 1 million years as the average from the first life form on Earth to us, there have probably been three thousand species in our direct line of descent.

As the species sapiens, we belong to the genus Homo. Homo is characterised by a large cranial capacity relative to its preceding genus, limbs adapted to erect posture and bipedal gait, well-developed and opposable thumbs, hands capable of precision gripping, and the ability to make standardised tools. There are about eighteen known extinct species of our genus, with the notable ones being Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo Heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis.

(A genus is a classification level of life forms below family and above species in the biological classification tree, comprising structurally and genetically similar species. A species is the lowest and most basic taxonomic category, consisting of groups of individuals with common physical and genetic characteristics and capable of mating with each other to produce fertile offspring. There are about 5,000 to 20,000 genera and 8.7 million species in existence today. There may have been about 4 billion species since the beginning of life on Earth, with around 90% becoming extinct in five big ‘mass extinctions’.)

Homo sapiens is likely to change into the next species of Homo in half a million to a couple of million years. A primordial amoeba could not imagine a frog, a frog could not imagine a whale, and a whale could not imagine a human. We humans need to accept that we cannot imagine what we will become after morphing more than four to five times into successive hominid species or a new genus altogether.

Given all this, the future period reasonable and valuable for us to predict is about one to three million years from the present, that is to say, the following two or three species of the genus Homo.

(Please see the bibliography for more background information.)

How can we look into the future?

But even a million to three million years is a long time out, and a lot can change in it. So how do we go about predicting it? There are two approaches:

• Use statistical modelling
• Imagine and speculate

The first is the field of evolutionary anthropologists aided by trained data scientists, which I am not, and this book could not cover it even if I were.

The second could be taken as the domain of science fiction. But we should not disparage it as our mind’s imagination is rational and speculates analytically in its way, with its data and rules. We will adopt it in this chapter, aided by any available analytical studies.

Limitations

Three realities probably limit our ability to predict far into the future:

• Limited intelligence — Earth is very likely a unique planet in size, elements, gravity, and structure, and we have evolved as a life form on it to be ‘just so’ to fit it. We have become intelligent enough to extend our ability to detect and imagine things beyond our senses. Still, our size, senses, brains, and science may not currently or soon allow us to comprehend the fundamental nature of the world to predict its change over millions of years.
• Limited knowledge — Predictions require rules and information. Even if we are intelligent enough to grasp reality, we are but atoms in the vast ocean of the world, solar system, galaxy and universe. Even if our mind and analytical methods do not need complete knowledge, the information we need for a reasonably accurate prediction millions of years into the future may neither be available nor possible to store and manipulate.
• The probabilistic and uncertain nature of the universe — Chapter 6 on Free Will saw how the universe is not mechanistically predictable. It operates on probability, and we can never be sure of even basic properties of objects, such as their position and energy. Besides allowing free will, it delivers many degrees of freedom in genetics and evolution, making the most fantastic natural events and forms of life potentially possible. And what is possible will become real in many cases, with no particular cause or reason, making our predictions of the future fallible and keeping reality beyond the power of our imagination.

Predicting far into the future is rife with challenges. We need to consider cosmic scenarios, local forces, and human factors then make assumptions to get it even remotely correct. Let us now consider these factors and make our assumptions.

Scenarios and factors for our future

Three cosmic scenarios

There are three broader scenarios we need to consider in the long term for what happens with the geosystems and life forms of Earth:

1. Without a giant asteroid’s impact — We will assume this scenario for the closer consideration of our evolution in a million to three million years time frame.
2. With a giant asteroid’s impact — This may change things too much for any predictions to be reliable for life after it. So we will consider it only briefly near the end of the chapter for its potential effects on the planet.
3. With contact from an advanced alien life form — there are too many possibilities here on the nature, interaction and influence of contacting an alien civilisation for speculation to be practical for our philosophy. So we will consider it only briefly near the end of the chapter for its effects on our genus.

Factors that will affect our evolution

In a million years from now, the Sun and Solar System will not change. If we assume there is no intervening large asteroid impact or contact with advanced alien life, most of the changes in our species will happen due to the following factors:

1. Continuous genetic mutation and re-combination — Considering we have 6.4 billion base pairs in the DNA of every cell, even a few natural, spontaneous mutations in a lifetime translate into a large number across all living humans. It could be in the region of 12 billion mutations every year in our species. Also, the number of combinations of male and female DNA through sexual reproduction and the increasing intermingling of all varieties of humans continue to create significant variations in the human genome in every generation. Taken together, it makes genetic evolution the main contributor to what we will be in a few million years from now — very different.
2. The care for our global biosphere — We are beginning to wake up to our impact on our home planet, our fragility, dependence and susceptibility to global ecological changes. We shall assume this will make us apply our considerable intelligence in correcting course and reducing our effect on land, air and water, and all other species of plants and animals on Earth.
3. Moral and ethical self-control by genus Homo —There will be many things our species and future ones will be able to do that they will decide to not do for reasons of self-preservation or altruism. We shall assume this self-control, especially in exploiting planetary resources, other life forms, genetic manipulation, extra-terrestrial colonisation, etc.
4. The ability to reverse our effects through technological intervention — Our activities have already damaged nature a lot on Earth. Global climate changes we or our successor species cause could create higher temperatures in the atmosphere and oceans, melt the ice caps, decimate flora and fauna, make the land barren, cause droughts, and delay, diminish, or eliminate the ice ages. Such changes would affect the characteristics of the hominids that succeed us. But we probably have the ability and willpower now to reverse our impact or will certainly possess them in a few hundred or thousands of years. So we will assume that we will analyse the changes caused by us and reverse them.
5. The ability to rein in our population and consumption — Humans may be too numerous to avoid affecting Earth and other life on it even if we apply our best scientific abilities to recycling, reuse, renewable energy, etc. Still, we will assume we are on the way to peaking and maintaining or reducing our population to a sustainable level that has a zero net impact on at least half the planet.
6. Pandemics — We know of large wipeouts of populations in history due to viral diseases that occurred naturally or travelled with colonisation. There were probably a few more in pre-historic times after the human population exploded with agriculture and the emergence of towns and cities. These die-outs of tens to hundreds of millions of members of our species changed demographic profiles and increased our resistance to diseases. But our ability to cooperate for reducing the spread of infections and develop vaccines quickly has also multiplied. So we will assume that pandemics will decrease in frequency and intensity and not play a significant role in our long term evolution.
7. Natural climate change — We are midway between the last and next ice age, and the next one should start in about ten to twelve thousand years if the climate follows the natural geological cycle. Like with the last one, it will alter us significantly and probably lead to new species of Homo. With the assumptions of points 2,3,4, and 5 above, we will assume that climate change will effectively follow geological and astronomical cycles.
8. The ability to avert a disastrous impact by an asteroid or comet — We shall assume we’ll be prepared in a few hundred years from now to intercept a Near-Earth Object, comet or asteroid. We will divert it away from Earth or break it up sufficiently to avoid a catastrophic impact that will cause another extensive dying out of species.
9. Artificial interventions in our body and mind — We are in the early stages of this, and it will gather momentum and accelerate. We will assume there will be three types of interventions: (1) Integrated bodily remediation and assistance, (2) Embedded brain remediation and assistance, (3) Genetic corrections and improvements.
10. The colonisation of the moon, Mars and other nearby planets and satellites — Even if population growth on Earth eventually stops at around 11–15 billion, we will assume there will be a push towards long-term exploitation of the resources of other planets and satellites, at least within our solar system. Undoubtedly, the colonists on these planets will deviate morphologically and genetically from the Homo genus species on Earth. (Space colonisation could also be something our species or the next one undertakes for an alternative if Earth becomes inhabitable from human activity, natural changes or a cosmic calamity such as a cometary collision.)

Future evolution of humanity

Even with the prior assumptions, several offshoots of Homo sapiens will arise and die out, e.g., one that avoids genetic and technological interventions, another that tries to live forever, etc. But one species will become predominant and the sole Homo species on Earth. We could provisionally call it Homo hexamillionis, as they would emerge about six million years from the beginning of the Homo line. We will call them Hexans for short. Let us consider the similarities and differences of the future.

What will not be different in three million years

Although a few million years is a long time for humanity, it is tiny in the timescale on which planets, stars, galaxies, the universe, and even all life we know exist and change. So there will be much that is the same as now. Here are a few examples.

• The continents on Earth will be as they are, the Sun will be shining as it does today, and there will be no change in the laws of nature.
• The Life Instinct will be the same then as it has been since the beginning of life billions of years ago. It will continue to drive the inherent urge to survive, grow and reproduce, and define everything about the character and behaviour of living things. (See Chapter 4 on the Life Instinct.)
• Hexans will still seek a deeper scientific understanding of the cosmos, although we’ll know a lot more about the laws and fine structure of the universe.
• Hexans will still be imperfect and have intellectual, emotional, physical and societal issues, including new ones that don’t exist today. (See Chapter 26 on the Imperfections of the Life Instinct.)
• Hexans will still be wrestling with philosophical and ethical questions.
• Government and taxes will still exist.
• Hexans will be seeking signs of alien life, even if we have found some by then.
• Hexans will still be evolving.

Body changes

Based on careful consideration, some of the likely differences three million years hence Hexans will show from Humans are listed below. (Please see the bibliography for more information.)

1. They will naturally live to 150 years on average (due to better living conditions and medical-genetic interventions)
2. They will be about four to six inches taller (due to cultural and genetic selection that values it as a sign of health)
3. They will have weaker bodies (as muscular strength will not be important)
4. They will have lighter bodies (as they would have eliminated obesity genetically to counteract the plentiful availability of food)
5. Diseases of the body and mind will be rare and immediately corrected if they arise from natural DNA mutations.
6. They will be highly resistant to addictions (due to genetic evolution that eliminates repetitive brain rewards from dopamine pathways, etc.)
7. Their legs and feet will be shorter (due to a sedentary lifestyle)
8. Body hair will be absent (as it serves no purpose and through cultural deprecation)
9. Their skin will be darker (due to racial interbreeding)
10. They will have a much more prominent forehead (due to brain changes, see below)
11. They will have more prominent eyes (as they aid social expression and interaction)
12. Their noses will be straighter (due to cultural and genetic selection that values it as a sign of health)
13. Their faces will be more symmetrical (due to cultural and genetic preference for symmetry as a sign of health)
14. Their jaws will be smaller (from eating softer and more easily digestible food)
15. They will have fewer teeth and shorter intestines (from eating softer and more easily digestible food)
16. Integrated physical remediation will be available for the whole body, e.g., life-like prosthetics, artificial organs, blood, brains, etc.
17. Integrated physical enhancements will exist for specialised roles, e.g., fire-resistant skin and smoke-resistant lungs for firefighters, in-built night vision for park-rangers and mountain rescuers, ability to withstand high pressure and breathe oxygen from water for submariners, etc.
18. Genetic corrections in medicine will be commonplace, e.g., dyslexia, schizophrenia, dementia, Parkinson’s, etc.
19. Medical interventions will be quick, automated and self-administered at home in most cases.
20. Childbirth through artificial organic fetuses and gestation outside the woman’s body will be commonplace and available at home as a kit, needing only the insertion of the parents’ DNA samples.
21. Genetic improvement of the species will be commonplace through gene modification, splicing, combination, etc., for specific purposes, with ethical guidelines and controls.

Brain changes

The brain of Hexans in a million to three million years from now will become very different from ours. Homo sapiens has grown more and more socially connected and dependant over the last hundred thousand years, and this trend will continue and accelerate. Mind interconnection will play a large part in brain structure and capabilities changes as we become Hexans.

Here are some of the likely differences between the brain of Hexans and us.

1. Hexan versions of the cortex and neocortex will be larger and more complex as their overall intelligence and capability for abstract thought and analysis will be far greater. This part of the brain will have changed considerably.
2. The brain parts involved in social interactions and emotional intelligence will be highly developed as Hexans will predominantly rely on them. In our brains, these are the cortex, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and Nucleus Accumbens. They will change in size, structure, complexity and location and have new names in our successor species.
3. The brain stem will be smaller as Hexans will have weaker emotions, and fight-or-flee reactions will be unimportant.
4. Their overall brain size will be smaller as Hexans will rely more on social networks for survival and well-being and less on individual intellect and locomotor capabilities. Brain size will still not increase as natural childbirth will still exist and be recent in evolutionary history. The pelvic structure of females will not be very different, needing to pass the skull during childbirth. So the cranium will be smaller and narrower but with a larger fore part.
5. All Hexans will be similar physically, intellectually and emotionally, due to high socialisation, interbreeding and averaging of characteristics with every generation.
6. They will use direct brain remediation to prevent and eliminate stroke, addiction, depression, tumours, etc.
7. Embedded brain assistance will be standard, e.g. for automated learning, memorising, recalling, emotion management and analytical thinking.

Social changes

In Chapter 24 (Ethics), we saw how we evolved over the last fifty thousand years or more to be more and more community-oriented. It reduced the size of our brain as we relied more on our cooperative networks than taking care of ourselves individually. This process will continue and accelerate. Urbanisation, industry, newspapers, magazines, the telegraph, phones, television, the internet and social media have created larger and larger communities connected intimately and in real-time.

Hexan socio-economic conditions will be as follows.

(The chapter that philosophically explores our corresponding aspect is noted in parentheses.)

1. Hexans will have a much higher level of intelligence, consciousness, free will and self-control. (See Chapter 6 on Free Will, Chapter 9 on Intellect, and Chapter 12 on Emotions.)
2. Hexan mathematics, science and art will be at a level and have forms only their brains and connected minds comprehend.
3. Religion will not exist, although spirituality will. (See Chapter 10 on God and 11 on Religion.)
4. No individual will survive in isolation due to the dependency on social, mental networks and a physically inadequate body.
5. Hexans will be able to choose one of two ways of living — either age and die of natural causes, with a life expectancy of 150 years on average, or remain young after maturity through genetic pausing of ageing but get terminated painlessly after 150 years of life.
6. They will have a great capacity for empathy, emotional intelligence and wisdom. (See Chapter 13 on Emotional Wisdom.)
7. Love and friendship will be as they are for us. (See Chapter 14 on this topic.)
8. Hexan children will be mature and independent by the age of seven. (See Chapter 15 on Marriage and Family.)
9. Serial monogamy will be standard, with many sexual pairings lasting only till their children become independent. (See Chapter 15 on Marriage and Family.)
10. Hexans will speak one global language, but a handful of others will exist.
11. Education for all Hexans will be by direct injection into the brain of grammar, science, mathematics, history, etc., from the ages of 3 to 6 for primary education and 7 to 9 for specialised higher education. Ethical training injection will be mandatory. Most of the adult population will continue with independent higher studies, innovation and research. (See Chapter 16 on Learning and Education.)
12. Everyone will contribute to society as per personal interest and be rewarded accordingly, with no dreary and laborious work. The choice of occupations will be wide across entertainment, invention, space work (which will be a major occupation and business), art and philosophy. (See Chapter 17 on Work and Ambition.)
13. Everyone will be supplied with the materials of life as per individual needs and preferences.
14. Energy will be plentiful and non-polluting.
15. Hexan technology will powerfully exploit their advanced understanding of the fundamental forces and structure of nature. Anti-gravity, particle entanglement at a distance, quantum tunnelling and future discoveries will be commonplace in computing, transportation, communication, production, etc., trillions of times faster and more efficient than ours.
16. They will be able to ‘print’ fundamental particles, atoms, molecules, living cells, organs and bodies from energy.
17. Houses, buildings, tunnels, vehicles and all products will self-generate. Manual construction will be negligible.
18. Repairs and cleaning will be completely automatic and immediate.
19. There will be no countries but only cities, villages and space colonies.
20. There will be a global government that is light and managerial, with specially trained governors chosen for long periods to deliver changes fully. They will make decisions with complete transparency through scientific methods, analytics and direct voting. (See Chapter 20 on Government.)
21. There will be new art forms that appeal to the advanced brains of our successors. (See Chapter 21 on Art.)
22. All sports will be non-violent, and sportspeople will be highly specialised as entertainers for the general public from a young age.
23. Social interactions will be through directly interfaced minds (those who opt for it) communicating through nanoscale brain inserts over a completely wireless global internet. Advanced technologies will efficiently address the need for privacy. (See Chapter 24 on Ethics.)
24. Crime will be negligible. Punishment for crimes and behaviour correction will be purely mental. Physical confinement and punishment will be considered a barbaric relic of past species such as H. sapiens. (See Chapter 24 on Ethics.)
25. There will be no armies and weapons of mass destruction, but a global police force will exist.
26. There will be no wars and negligible violent deaths. (See Chapter 26 on Imperfections of the Life Instinct.)
27. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people and other sexual and gender minorities will comprise twenty per cent of the Hexan population.
28. There will be no sexual assault and harassment. (See Chapter 26 on Imperfections of the Life Instinct.)
29. Thirty per cent of dwellings and buildings will be underground, to leave half the Earth’s natural green cover unaffected and pristine.
30. There will be no negative environmental impact from Hexan activities due to a complete understanding of ecosystems and strict impact management.
31. Lastly, they will be doing many things we cannot imagine.

New hominid species in extra-terrestrial settlements

The human body is particularly adapted to conditions on Earth. Suppose we colonise Mars, Venus or the satellites of outer planets. In that case, although we will create Earth-like conditions initially, we will find it more economical and easy to adapt over a few hundred generations to the local gravity, temperature, radiation, and nutritional sources, etc. Although this would be possible only within a narrow band of Earthly conditions, it will create many differences in morphology and genetics. It will result in distinctly different species, which will not be able to mate successfully with Homo species back on Earth and produce viable or fertile offspring.

Homo species that colonise other planetary bodies will adapt over hundreds of generations to the local gravity, light, radiation, food and other factors. Their bodies will differ morphologically and genetically, and species such as Homo martians, Homo deimos, Homo phobos, Homo europas, Homo enceladus, etc., will arise.

Future evolution of plants and animals

In geological and evolutionary terms, one to three million years is not significant. And let us assume as earlier that there are no meteor or comet impacts, and we and our succeeding species of Homo restrict our environmental effects locally and globally. Then the continental landmasses, oceans, rivers, ice caps, glaciers and deserts of the world, the tilt of the Earth’s axis, luminosity of the sun, length of the day, the effect of the moon on land and tides, ozone layer, etc., will be like they are now. And weather changes will follow geological cycles.

So, although animals and plants will evolve into new forms in one to three million years, they will be similar to what they are today and not very strange in looks or abilities.

If there is a giant asteroid or comet impact

Scientists estimate a very high likelihood of a significant asteroid impact within the next million years based on geological history. An asteroid tens of kilometres in size is considered dangerous as its collision with Earth will have a massive effect on life forms even if the Earth is too big to be affected by this structurally or in its rotational speed or tilt. The last great extinction of life on Earth happened about 66 million years ago from such an event, where the size of the asteroid or comet is estimated to have been 10 to 15 km.

What follows such an impact will differ somewhat between the asteroid hitting land or ocean, but the effects will be global. If it hits the ground, the energy released will be about a billion times that in the first atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some of the inevitable effects will be deep earthquakes, tsunamis, continent size fires, debris being thrown up kilometres into the atmosphere and falling back hot, global dust clouds, blocking of sunlight, and winter-like conditions for several years.

At least two-thirds to three-quarters of all species could become extinct after the event in a few hundred to thousand years. Which species will survive is difficult to predict, but it will also be an opportunity for new families of animals and plants to flower in emptied ecological niches.

With sufficiently early warning, underground shelters and other measures may allow sufficient numbers of Homo sapiens or its successor species to survive such an event in different parts of the planet. They would take time to recover, continue the species and evolve further.

If we contact an advanced alien species

Firstly, what should we assume about the nature of the advanced alien species? Many books and movies portray them as vicious and bent on destroying us, probably as it makes for more exciting stories. But it is not as likely as them being benevolent, for if they have the same Life Instinct as the life forms we know, we know that it develops rationality and thoughtfulness with higher evolution. And it drives a high degree of socialisation, as many brains working together are exponentially more potent than single minds. As we have assumed the aliens who contact us are far more intelligent than us, we can assume they are even more thoughtful, rational, and social.

This combination of self-awareness, great intelligence and sociability would make them reach the same philosophical conclusions on the more significant questions of existence that we have arrived at recently in our evolution. These foundations of wisdom realise that life is meaningless yet equally valuable to all possessors, balance is better than extremes in behaviour, we are dependent on the world and other life forms, and ethics are necessary for survival and evolution. If anything, the advanced alien species should be nicer than us in every way and may consider us brutish in our lack of ability to manage ourselves and our effects. Advanced aliens will be powerful, quite capable of taking care of themselves, and peaceful.

So, let us assume that this advanced and friendly species contacts our successor or us Homo species and communicates steadily, even if it cannot physically reach Earth. Here are some possible outcomes of communing with an advanced life form:

1. They will help to increase our scientific knowledge in leaps and bounds.
2. They will teach us new technologies in every field of activity, for example, communication, transportation, manufacturing, genetics, research, and space exploration.
3. They could teach us ways to generate all the electrical energy we need safely and endlessly.
4. They could tell us about other alien life they know on other planets, less or more intelligent than them and us.
5. They will enrich us with new ideas and arts.
6. They could help us prevent most of our diseases and medical problems.
7. Humans will become more united as we feel a sense of Earthly comradeship and realise how puny and silly we are. Differences will still exist, but bigotry and discrimination will diminish significantly.
8. We will abandon the ideas of God and religion as we realise that the universe, life and our design exist by chance.
9. They will accelerate our evolution towards their intellect and wisdom, even if their bodies are quite unlike ours.

Conclusions

We will not be there to see ourselves and the world a million to three million years from now. But survival and improvement are ingrained in the Life Instinct. And we possess the rapidly increasing intelligence and wisdom to adapt to a wide variety of environments and not die out.

So everything will be fine and fascinating, if only ever seen by our mind’s eye, in the year 3,002,021 C.E.

© 2021 Shashidhar Sastry. All rights reserved.

(As each chapter of the book is published, its link is updated in the ToC below.)

Table of Contents

Part I Metaphysics of The Life Instinct

Part II Philosophy of The Life Instinct

Part III The Life Instinct and The Future

Join my email list? — it’s easy to unsubscribe if you change your mind.

There’s more for you at quality-thinking.com.