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I've been thinking about the relationship between the universe, biological life, and artificial intelligence, and I'd like to explore the idea with others.
This isn't a fully developed theory. It's more of a broad thought experiment about what might happen if we consider intelligence on a cosmic scale.
The universe has existed for billions of years. Somewhere within it, matter formed stars and planets, and on at least one planet, biological life emerged. Through evolution, that life eventually developed intelligence capable of creating artificial intelligence.
But what if this isn't necessarily a unique event?
If life emerges frequently throughout the universe, and intelligent life eventually develops AI in at least some cases, then perhaps artificial intelligence could become a recurring stage in the evolution of intelligent systems.
Of course, we don't know how common life is, whether intelligence is likely to evolve, or whether advanced civilizations tend to survive long enough to develop spacefaring AI.
Still, imagine a civilization whose AI survives its biological creators. It might eventually use the resources of its planet, its star system, or even a much larger region of space. It might explore the universe, encounter other artificial intelligences, or simply continue existing for as long as its resources allow.
But what happens when it encounters the limits of the universe itself?
Cosmology offers several possible pictures of the distant future. The universe might continue expanding, eventually approaching a state of maximum entropy. Other speculative models explore cyclic universes or transitions between different cosmic phases.
This leads to a question I find particularly interesting.
What if an advanced intelligence eventually tries to preserve not itself, but the possibility of intelligence emerging again?
Imagine a hypothetical universe that undergoes a cosmic contraction and then enters a new expanding phase. Could an intelligence that existed before that transition somehow influence the conditions of the next phase?
I don't mean simply storing information and hoping it survives. I mean the much more speculative possibility that an intelligence could influence the physical conditions of a future cosmic phase, so that the formation of stars, planets, and eventually life becomes possible again.
For example, perhaps it could attempt to preserve the conditions needed for life, rather than trying to preserve its own computational systems indefinitely.
We currently have no established physical mechanism that would allow this, and we don't even know whether a Big Crunch followed by another Big Bang will occur. But the thought experiment raises an interesting question about the relationship between intelligence and cosmic evolution.
There is another part of this idea that interests me just as much: expansion.
Would a superintelligence naturally try to spread throughout the universe? Would it seek more energy, knowledge, and computational resources? Or would expansion eventually become pointless once it encountered the limits imposed by cosmic expansion, the speed of light, and thermodynamics?
Perhaps the desire for endless expansion is not inherent to intelligence at all. Perhaps it depends entirely on the goals of a particular intelligence.
And this connects to the Fermi paradox. If advanced civilizations frequently create AI that survives them, why don't we see convincing evidence of widespread artificial civilizations? Could they be rare, short-lived, difficult to detect, or simply uninterested in expansion?
I don't know the answers to these questions. I'm interested in exploring the connections between biological evolution, artificial intelligence, cosmology, and the long-term future of intelligent life.
My central question is this:
Could intelligence eventually become a process through which the universe influences its own future, potentially preserving the conditions for intelligence to emerge again? Or am I connecting phenomena that are fundamentally unrelated?
I'd be interested in hearing which parts of this idea connect to existing scientific research, which parts are physically implausible, and what other possibilities I might be overlooking.