Showing posts with label Timelines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Timelines. Show all posts

Monday, February 25, 2013

Humanity: The Cosmic Connection

There are various enigmas that cry out for resolution, like the Fermi Paradox regarding ET, “Where is everybody?” Then there are enigmas surrounding human origins, evolution and characteristics, extinctions, migrations and colonizations, and the rise to civilization. Finally, much that’s in our global mythologies is anomalous. In modern times we have UFOs and alien abductions. It’s time to wrap all this up in one neat little package, tied up with a nice little ribbon and bow. 

Let’s start off briefly with the Fermi Paradox. In essence, it suggests that if you accept that there has to be one or more extraterrestrial highly advanced technological civilizations out there in the galaxy, in interstellar space, with interstellar space travelling capabilities, then the odds are as close to 100% as anyone would care to bet, that Planet Earth has been discovered and visited. The time it takes to explore the galaxy, every nook and cranny, even without resorting to Star Trek type faster-than-light velocities, is but a tiny fraction of the age of the galaxy. The Fermi Paradox is only a paradox if one tries to argue that ET has never visited our humble planetary abode. So, let’s solve the Fermi Paradox and accept that once upon a time, ET paid Planet Earth a visit – at least one.

About eight or so million years ago, Planet Earth witnessed the arrival of a rather loose federation of extraterrestrials (ET) with a quasi social/religious/missionary goal of assisting in the development and spread of intelligent civilizations across the galaxy and the cosmos while simultaneously creating intelligent, civilized beings who will worship them as their superiors, even perhaps as gods. Since there were no such intelligent, civilized beings on Planet Earth eight million years ago, ET had to work what Mother Nature provided them.

Now eight million years ago is very recent relative to the age of Planet Earth, and extremely recent relative to the age of our galaxy and the cosmos at large. Therefore, this may not have been an ET first visit, but the one which finally yielded up a promising candidate from which they could manipulate to achieve their goal.

That most suitable candidate species to work with, or on, would have been the chimpanzee or a close ancestor to the chimp, found in Africa. And so ET set up shop and laboratory in Africa to start the long process of assisting Mother Nature in the development (creation or origin)and spread (migration) of another (soon to be engineered) intelligent civilization.

Over the next eight or so million years – no great rush; lots of time on their hands; these are an extremely long-lived ET – ET bioengineered, genetically engineered, or otherwise artificially bred and selected our initial primate stock into over twenty initial primate-to-ultimate-hominid species, each species slightly more advanced in IQ, dexterity, bipedal gait, speech, abstract reasoning ability (something other than just food, sex, danger), etc. than the one before.

For starters, individual groupings of each species in their own time and turn would be released by ET into the Africa’s wild environment to see how they coped, just like we humans will artificially breed up populations of endangered species and release them into the wild and hope for the best. Of those hominid species released into the wild, most didn’t – cope that is. Back to the drawing board and more genetics and breeding and artificial selection and on to the next advancement.

A few hominid species that did adapt reasonable to the outside backyard of Africa proper would then be transported to non-African locations and a wider variety of terrestrial environments. There were more failures, but some initial successes with out-of-Africa environments. Homo erectus just about fit the bill – just about, but it too ultimately went the way of the Dodo.

Finally, about 200,000 years ago, the latest in this twenty-plus long line of primate-to-hominid creations were created on the slab in the ET lab in AfricaHomo sapiens. They proved successful in adapting to the natural African environment. Further experiments with transporting and transplanting groups of them to various environments around the globe (except Antarctica) for the most part yielded positives in the Middle East, the Americas, Europe, Australia, Asia, etc. If ET transplanted groups of Homo sapiens to Oceania that was a failure as there are no archaeological sites that verify hominids in Oceania until only relatively recent historical (not prehistorically) times.

Once Homo sapiens became established globally, two things happened. Firstly, individual units of ET headed by a Supreme ET were assigned to oversee the various geographical regions that Homo sapiens had adapted to. For example, ET Yahweh and crew were assigned to the eastern coastline and seaboard region of the Mediterranean. Secondly, these units then assisted these nomadic bands of Homo sapiens in each region in the transition from being wandering hunter-gatherers living by their wits into becoming civilized agricultural-based settlements or rural communities that put down roots - assuming the region in question was suitable to settlements, and not all were, like Australia.   

At this point one might expect “and they all lived happy ever after”. Not so; it was not to be.

It is often said that man was created in God’s image, or in more general parlance, in the image of the gods. If that’s the case, it should come as no surprise that the gods have human traits. Translated, anything humans were (or are) skilled at doing, you can bet the family farm equally that the ‘gods’ were skilled ditto, the good, the bad and the ugly. ET was not above squabbling among themselves over ways and means, and there were power grabs and coups and mutinies afoot, like when Yahweh was nearly toppled by Satan. Collectively, our mythologies lump these ancient ‘star wars’ as Wars in ‘Heaven’.

Humans of course also didn’t live long and prosper either. Like father (the gods), like son (Homo sapiens).

There’s one other mythological anomaly that supports the idea that not only was ET highly advanced in interstellar space travel (well they got here didn’t they), but especially highly skilled in genetic and bioengineering. The genetics experiments of ET were not just confined to building a better hominid species, but creating all sorts of genetically engineered ‘monsters’. If there is one universal above nearly all other universals in the mythologies of primitive ‘man’ it’s the reality of hybrids, both animal-animal hybrids (i.e. – Pegasus in Greek Mythology) and animal-human hybrids (i.e. – the Birdmen of Easter Island). 

Whether misinterpreted by primitive humans, or deliberately misled, ET became the ‘gods’ and interactions between the two became the basis of our global mythologies, which is to a greater or lesser extent really a collection of religiously-themed mythologies since primitive ‘man’ thought ‘he’ was dealing with supernatural deities. Deities of course are there to be worshiped, probably encouraged by ET. Why might ET wish to be worshiped? ET might want to be ‘worshiped’ probably as “thanks” for bringing Homo sapiens into the world and bestowing the gifts of civilization on Homo sapiens.  Every parent expects a “thank you” from their child for special gifts bestowed. ET might have encouraged this misinterpretation as being ‘gods’; it would have been a lot less awkward that explaining astrobiology to them.

Having completed at long last their objective – one more race primed to join the Galactic Club, ET left, albeit leaving behind a token observational team – UFOs – which are still undertaking some genetic modifications with respect to Homo sapiens – alien abductions, apparently an attempt to engineer yet another hybrid – a human-alien.

Now make of this what you will, but the scenario does fit the facts as we know them about human origins, evolution, extinctions, migrations, and ultimately civilization. It also jives with our mythologies, and, IMHO, behind every mountain of mythology resides a molehill of fact.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

E.T.’s Head Start

Planet Earth has been a pretty dynamic place regarding human’s (in “Star Trek” lingo) boldly going activities, movements and migrations; comings and goings; some major and some minor. As a parallel, I’d like to think of our Milky Way Galaxy as an equally dynamic place but with, obviously, alien’s boldly going activities; their movements and migrations; comings and goings; some major and some minor. The logical supposition that aliens are part of our dynamic galaxy, while humans are still relatively confined to boldly going on one small abode within that galaxy suggests that E.T. has had a head start on us when it comes to boldly going.
 
Planet Earth is roughly some 4.5 billion years old. Microbial life forms first appeared roughly 500 million years after Earth (and the Sun and accompanying solar system) formed from interstellar gas, dust and debris. So it’s taken about four billion years for us to get from primordial pond scum to where our civilization is today.  We’ve come a long way baby – unfortunately the accent is still on the word “baby”.

Our Universe is 13.7 billion years old – at least that’s when the origin of our Universe happened – the Big Bang event of 13.7 billion years ago. However, it took a while before any life could appear in that newly formed Universe. The Big Bang event only formed hydrogen and helium, and you can’t make life from just that. The heavier elements from which life is made up had to be cooked up in the hearts of massive stars first. Fortunately, really massive stars have very short life spans (as stars go) and they end in a bang, not with a whimper – they result in a supernovae – blowing up and scattering those heavy elements far and wide to become part of the gas, dust and debris that ultimately forms new stars and solar systems – stars like our Sun; solar systems with planets, like our Earth. 

Some 3.7 billion years post Big Bang; our own Milky Way Galaxy took shape, ultimately composed of billions and billions of stars, some of which were (and are) those massive stellar, come supernovae objects. It didn’t take too awfully long before our galaxy had enough heavy elements now incorporated into planetary systems that chemical evolution could now do its cosmic thing; morphing into biological evolution. That was more likely as not the case some two billion years after our galaxy formed. That means that life could have been getting its start elsewhere within the galaxy some 3.5 billion years before our Planet Earth formed (which was some 5.5 billion years after the galaxy took shape).

Translated, an E.T. could have had a 3.5 billion year head start on us – though there wasn’t of course any ‘us’ then. By the time Planet Earth was just a billion years old and terrestrial pond scum 500 million years old, one or more E.T.’s had not only reached the same theatrical stage that humans now find themselves on but had further advanced to achieve interstellar space travel, to pack up and boldly go, and explore the cosmos, up close and personal. Consider it only takes roughly ten million years (at a conservative estimate) to have had the time to have boldly gone everywhere within our galaxy, well one has to just accept the probability that here, Planet Earth, being part of everywhere, has been discovered, explored, maybe colonized by E.T. 

Now all this is based on the assumption that standard Darwinian evolution can go from microbial pond scum to intelligence within four billion years (example: Earth and humans) and that that would be the case elsewhere. It’s the only reasonable assumption we can make extrapolating from a statistical sample of one. However, once intelligence is reached, coupled with the ability to apply and manipulate technology, natural Darwinian evolution, and rates of evolutionary change, they no longer apply to that intelligence. Further evolutionary advancement, artificial selection, genetic engineering, bioengineering, will proceed at whatever pace the intelligence wants, restrained only and ultimately only by the physical laws, relationships and principles of physics that rule the cosmos. Even if some intelligences minimise their artificial selection for various ethical reasons (say designer babies) or on environmental grounds (genetically designed crops), that can’t be expected of each and every such intelligence. For some, it’s going to be open slather and anything goes. Whatever it takes to boldly go might take on special significance if your parent star was about to go poof or some other natural calamity was about due to wipe out your race and you need to get out of town quick-smart. 

Some intelligences will alter whatever needs to be altered (if anything) to enable them to boldly go and head out into the wider cosmos. Even if such an intelligence were situated 
right on the edge of our Milky Way Galaxy, and even if they only achieve a maximum of 1% light speed (think conservative), they still reach the opposite side of our galaxy within ten million years (a mere drop in the cosmic bucket of time), reaching all points in-between in lesser time frames. Like a ripple spreading out in a shallow pond, no part of the pond gets missed.

Between three and a half billion years ago and today, assuming at least one E.T. goes exploring, we have the ripple in the pond. We (Planet Earth) get at least one visit. But say there are many independent E.T. civilizations that boldly go – say one starts to boldly go every ten million years, though it’s probably way more frequently than that, but let’s err on the side of extreme conservatism. The pond (our galaxy) gets ripple after ripple and ripple, or wave after wave of those boldly going. That translates into a very conservative 300 ripples that’s washed across the shores of Planet Earth over the last three and a half billion years.

But, even if we have one and only one parent E.T. boldly going three and a half billion years ago, that doesn’t translate of necessity into just one ripple. Assume E.T. explores the galaxy – does E.T. collectively then return to home base (that’s two ripples) – mission accomplished? That makes little sense. Humans didn’t explore out of Africa, explore all of Planet Earth, and then collectively return to inhabit Africa and only Africa. No, we need to assume our lone E.T. stops off at interesting and suitable abodes on the way and settles down. It’s not just exploration but colonization – you gotta stop now and again and rest your boots! Some of those colonies will themselves resume exploration and some colonization. The process repeats until the galaxy is not only explored, but settled. There’s been way more than ample time for that to have occurred – many times over in fact.

Think of the human parallel. Some humans migrated out of Africa and settled in Europe. Some Europeans migrated out of Europe and settled in the Americas and Australia and some went back to Africa - Lots of ripples. Lots of peoples explored and colonized lots of areas; some making the return journey; some not. Moving on to more modern times, things haven’t changed, except exploration/colonization is now on a much smaller scale.

Though exploration and colonization have mainly ceased now because our globe is finite, regions still experience pond ripples – exploration and migration on a small scale – even tourists’ count in the ripple effect. New York didn’t become colonised and established then left to stagnate – no one ever moving in or out – existing in isolation. People from New York visit other places (ripples); some New Yorkers migrate elsewhere (more ripples); people visit and migrate to New York (ripples and more ripples).

Now in this analogy, Planet Earth represents the Milky Way Galaxy; New York represents Planet Earth. Various aliens within the Milky Way Galaxy ripple their way past (or stop off on) Planet Earth like some people on Earth ripple past (or stop off in) New York.  

Okay, advanced aliens have been, probably still are rippling around us. If we extrapolate modern human civilization some 3.5 billion years into the future – an impossible task I might add that’s well beyond human imagination* – well that’s the level where some E.T.’s might be in the here and now. Let’s just say in Superman lingo, they would have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men – they would be for all practical purposes – ‘gods’. 

My Projected Timeline:

13.7 Billion Years Ago: Birth of our Universe via the Big Bang event.

10 Billion Years Ago: Formation of our Milky Way Galaxy.

8 Billion Years Ago: First life forms (E.T. ‘pond scum’) appear.

4.5 Billion Years Ago: The Sun, solar system, and Planet Earth form.

4 Billion Years Ago: Terrestrial ‘pond scum’ is now on the scene.

4 Billion Years Ago: First E.T. intelligence(s) should have evolved.

3.5 Billion Years Ago: One or more E.T. intelligence should have explored and colonised the Milky Way Galaxy.

10 Million Years Ago: The first evolutionary stirrings of what leads to us, our civilization and technology.

Ancient Times: The mythological ‘God’ and ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts) bear witness to E.T.’s ‘boldly going’.

Modern Times: UFOs bear witness to E.T.’s ‘boldly going’.

*We have great difficulty in forecasting the weather a week in advance (often less) even though meteorology is all grounded in known natural physical laws, relationships and principles. Human activity is based on anything but. If the weather is chaos, humans are chaos cubed.