The very long view of life

With SO many natural and resource crises facing mankind -- global warming, high energy prices, shortages of raw materials -- do we really need to worry about what life might be like a million years from now? But as new technologies emerge and our understanding of the universe grows, it is inevitable that futurists will try to project what lies ahead.

It would be nice to report that "Year Million: Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge" -- 14 essays written by scientists, computer experts, mathematicians and fiction writers -- provides a fun escape while reaffirming to readers that we will survive our immediate woes. Alas, the authors generally worry how we must begin planning for the destruction of Earth, the collapse of the sun and the eventual cooling of the universe. No need to cancel your weekend plans, though, because it seems that predictions of "Year Million" are in large part based on events that will occur billions of, if not a trillion, years from now.

While not all the authors agree on how humans and our planet might evolve, several, such as Steven B. Harris, Robert Bradbury and the easier-to-read Wil McCarthy, predicate their overlapping essays around chopping up most of the solar system to build and fuel a super-massive computer -- called a Matrioshka Brain, constructed from a yet-to-be invented material called computronium. "Would anyone really tear the planets apart?" Bradbury writes. "Many will object, 'How barbaric.' But, as history tells us, different cultures have different values."

Ground-up Jupiter would be used to construct nested spheres built around the sun to capture its energy. This idea was originally laid out by physicist Freeman Dyson, who is the most referred-to progenitor by the authors. Humans would either live on the spheres or more pragmatically be uploaded as "software" into the enormous Matrioshka Brain. Because of its relatively small mass, Earth could be left around as a sort of global museum, suggests Harris. Whether minds merge into one super brain or remain independent entities connected by a massive galactic Internet remains open to debate.

If the reader finds the idea of living inside a giant computer unpalatable, turn to Rudy Rucker, who believes we will continue to breathe air but mentally communicate through microscopic machines using nanotechnology. In "The Great Awakening," Rucker refreshingly defends life as we know it and argues against turning us into mere raw computing power.