III. Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

I. Our EarthMost Distinction: A Rarest Planetary Confluence of Life in Person Favorable Conditions

Way, M. J.. et al. Large-scale Volcanism and the Heat Death of Terrestrial Worlds. arXiv:2204.12475. NASA Goddard, Carleton University, Ottawa and NASA Ames researchers pile on with still another deleterious factor in occurrence in early Hadeon and Archean eras and on to today. Not only do meteors pound the planet, a vicarious degree of eruptions from inside the Earth can have a serious impact and influence on life, pluck and luck.

We argue that more so that meteor impacts, volcanos have played a critical role in the long-term habitability of Earth as a cause of mass extinction events.. We estimate the likelihood of effects that could drive a planet into an extreme moist or runaway greenhouse inhospitable states. In one approach, we make a conservative estimate of the rate at which sets of near-simultaneous LIPs (pairs, triplets, and quartets) occur in a random history statistically the same as Earth's. We find that LIPs closer in time than 0.1-1 million yr are likely; significantly, this is less than the time over which terrestrial LIP environmental effects are known to persist. (Excerpt)

Webb, Stephen. If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens-- Where is Everybody? New York: Springer, 2015. The entry is a second, award-winning edition of the British physicist’s 2002 volume with the same Fermi paradox title. Since huge advances have been made since, especially about myriad exoplanets, 25 more possible answers have been added to the original 50 as to why amongst billions of galaxies, each with billions of solar systems, there are as yet no overt signs of extraterrestrial civilizations. The work is also seen as an update to Rare Earth (2003) by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee whence celestial, geologic, and evolutionary stages that need to happen or be passed through (Lineweaver) pile up even more, such as just the right degree of asteroid impacts.

While an argument has long been the immense number of chances, by this further winnowing out (Morbidelli, Pliat-Lohinger, Tinetti, et al, herein) an auspicious resolve may begin to dawn upon us. The new additions are in a long chapter that sums up the author’s conclusion – They Don’t Exist! Here is an awesome 2010s finding as Earth’s evolution and history enters a critical phase of emergent personsphere self-sapience, of intentional peaceable sustainability or runaway nuclear, ecological devastation, indeed much a cosmic and planetary self-selection of Kinder or cinder.

Weinberger, Alycia. Building Planets in Disks of Chaos. Sky & Telescope. November 13, 2008. Reviewed in the Exoearths section, this article by a Carnegie Institution of Washington, DC astronomer is also noted here, along with “Planetary Peculiarities” by Ken Croswell in the September S. & T., “Are Super-Sized Earths the New Frontier” by Ray Jayawardhana in the November 2008 Astronomy, and other such postings, because the latest celestial research conveys how stochastic and variable are the occasions, orbits and kinds of myriad terrestrial worlds. We human beings have the rarest of opportunities to therefore choose Earth as a fruitful abode of future, peaceful, sustainable, life and mind, a child of the expectant cosmos.

Zenil, Hector. Reprogramming Matter, Life, and Purpose. arXiv:1704.00725. This is a prognostic paper by the Karolinska Institute “computational natural scientist” (see his HZ website) about temporal and spatial implications of this nascent algorithmic revolution. After a wide survey, an intrinsic Reprogrammable Nature is conceived and described which forms, evolves, and flourishes by way of universally iterative mathematical programs. With an inadequate explanation of random mutation-selection set aside, as this genome-like source code (although not yet recognized as such) may just now pass to humankind’s literate cognizance, a wondrous new phase of beneficial, creative rewrite and advance of life, mind and materiality is upon us. But we note again that this unexpected acumen still requires an encompassing phenomenal ecosmos so as to provide an animate integrity, sensible explanation, and familial destiny.

Reprogramming matter may sound far-fetched, but we have been doing it with increasing power and staggering efficiency for at least 60 years, and for centuries we have been paving the way toward the ultimate reprogrammed fate of the universe, the vessel of all programs. How will we be doing it in 60 years' time and how will it impact life and the purpose both of machines and of humans? (Abstract)

Today we have literally taken the calculating power of a small region of the universe, living and inanimate, and used it to perform our very own calculations. Imagine what we will be able to do in the future if we manage to become more efficient at exploring and harnessing the sources of the Sun’s and the Earth’s energy. This minor deviation from the otherwise regular computational course of the universe may look small at the cosmic scale, but it is a huge accomplishment that may end up reshaping the universe itself, and even creating other universes. (10) We are just starting to scratch the surface of the many possibilities that universal computation has opened up for the future in the way of reprogramming matter and life. And our current efforts to reprogram it actively contribute to shaping the final computational fate of the universe itself. (12)

Zhang, Fan. A dynamical systems perspective on the celestial mechanical contribution to the emergence of life.. arXiv:2408.10544.. The author has a physics Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology where his Thesis title was Tools for the study of dynamical spacetimes. He is now at the Institute for Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University. As the Abstract says, his research seems to suggests that variable solar phenomena need be additionally factored in.

Biological activities are often seen as entrained onto the day-night and other celestial cycles but origin of life studies have mostly not accounted for these seasonal and lunar environs. We argue that this may be a vital omission, because the replication behaviour of life represents temporal memory in the dynamics of ecosystems, such as precursors to abiogenesis and onto evolution. In short, life may precariously rest on the edge of chaos, which may implicate periodic celestial mechanics. Such considerations, if pertinent, would also be consequential to exobiology, e.g., in regard to tidal-locking properties of potential host worlds. (Excerpt)

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