Is the universe actually alive? Astrobiologist suggests aliens are all around us
Could the entire universe actually be alive – with super-intelligent aliens hidden all around us, pulling the strings?
It’s certainly a very, very odd idea – but Caleb Scharf, Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University says it could explain some of the weirder mysteries of our universe.
Scharf – in an article in Nautilus – suggests that an alien civilisation could have become so advanced that the living creatures ‘upload’ themselves into computers, and ‘live’ in the dark matter throughout the universe.
‘Perhaps hyper-advanced life isn’t just external,’ Scharf writes.
‘Perhaps it’s already all around. It is embedded in what we perceive to be physics itself, from the root behaviour of particles and fields to the phenomena of complexity and emergence.
‘In other words, life might not just be in the equations. It might be the equations. If you’re a civilization that has learned how to encode living systems into different substrates, all you need to do is build a normal-matter-to-dark-matter data-transfer system: a dark matter 3D printer.’
The idea could explain why dark matter seems to behave so mysteriously – and why we have never been contacted by aliens.
Scharf says, ‘Perhaps the mismatch of astronomical models and observations is evidence not just of self-interacting dark matter, but of dark matter that is being artificially manipulated.’
