A Thought Experiment About an Asteroid

Imagine the movie disaster scenario of a huge asteroid approaching the earth. In this case, however, assume that there is nothing we can do about it. The earth is doomed and within a few months all higher forms of life will be destroyed. What would we do? How would we feel?

Overwhelmingly, we would turn to our families and the people we care about, almost always with regret that we had not taken more time to demonstrate our love to them. The entire world would have the insight that people close to the end of their lives have: What matters most are the people who love us and whom we love. A collective cry would spread over the planet: “I wish I had been more loving to those around me.”

Some would spend time thinking about the significance of our species as a whole. We would search for meaning in the 100,000 years or so that homo sapiens has existed. We might ask: Is it a disaster for the universe that the human species is about to become extinct? We would realize that our extinction is no more disastrous than the extinction of intelligent species on other planets, an event that may have already occurred many times.

Could we leave behind something meaningful? For example, we might consider trying to communicate with intelligent civilizations and to contribute our scientific achievements to them. However, our scientists would tell us that the vast distances of the universe mean that other civilizations will probably never hear from us. Even if they receive our signals millions of light years from now, they will probably be so far advanced that we can teach them nothing.

The most likely audience for whatever lessons we could teach is the future intelligent species that might evolve on our own planet if anything is left of it. Perhaps we could bury books deep in the earth to give this civilization a head start on scientific advancement. But is that all we would have to leave behind? Is our technology our greatest achievement? Couldn’t we teach this future species something about a way of living that is most meaningful?

Perhaps we would hit upon the same insights in reflecting on our species that we do in reflecting on our own life: What is most important is to love others in our world. But we are also likely to have the same reaction about how well we have lived up to this principle. We would consider what our collective human community has done, how it has used its vast resources, what our governments spend time doing, and what motivates us to vote for political candidates. We would surely have our regrets.