Do We Have a Moral Obligation to Seed the Universe with Life?

Humans always need to tamper with nature, it makes people like this (theoretical scientists who have little actual grounding in Natural History) feel more important. We need to save the universe and seed it with life! Only a fool tamper with something that he admires. Stand back, be mostly silent, and enjoy it like an adult.

no humans=no moral mission. Problem solved.

Geez, I hope not. Look how screwed up we are.

We should probably be quarantined here on our planet to prevent us from contaminating the rest of the universe. Sounds like a really bad idea to me.

Judith got it. Without life, there is no morality,and thus no moral obligation. Problem solved.

Humans failing to measure up to the standards humans set for themselves is a reason they shouldn’t spread?

Interesting.

I’ve already contributed to seeding things with life plenty as a teen.

There is no question that it is our moral duty to relieve pain and suffering on this very planet we are now living on. Let’s focus on that before worrying about the rest of the universe.

How about, “hell no!”?

Sounds like Songs From Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke.

Frankly I think the question is moot. The universe does not care if there is life. I want to see humanity survive the planet Earth, yes, probably because I’m wired that way, but I really don’t care about microbial life. Life for life’s sake is kind of uh… meaningless?

Also sounds like the Blish story “Surface Tension” (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Tension_(short_story) ). Wonderful read.

The good things humanity has accomplished deserve to be perpetuated. I would hate to think some advanced, benevolent intelligence in another galaxy failed to try to survive by seeding the universe. AFAIK, we qualify (since we’re the only intelligence we know).

The moral obligation part of the argument is irrelevant. Life (whether we speak of microbes or humans) is compelled by its nature to multiply and spread; that’s what it is and that’s what it does. And it (and we) will continue to do so. By, say, a thousand years from now we will have developed the technology to spread our seed to other places Out There. By the time the Sun goes kablooey billions of years hence, we will no doubt have colonized the far reaches of our galaxy, and the far reaches of our galaxy will do the same to this place.

This, of course, assumes we don’t all die via global warming or a massive asteroid collision or somesuch in the next several centuries…

man there are a lot of snobbish losers commenting on this post.

“let’s not send organisms to barren rocks because the rocks are better off barren.” how about “No”. rocks don’t care, and don’t forget, rocks are boring. i love science but rocks are BORING. let’s put some monsters on those rocks. why? because we can. the arrogance of our species? sure, “we think we’re so great” well yeah, we’re pretty super awesome last time i checked. we have rockets and stuff, dolphins are great, but we have rockets. “we shouldn’t play god.” why not? there is no god, so it’s pretty much an available position. there might as well be a giant sign hanging on the universe that says “now hiring: god” let’s terraform mars. seed europa with life, and pump our fists frantically while yelling “YEAH!”

morals are subjective, there is no wrong and right, so let’s do what is awesome. because it’s awesome.

What if scientists did that and another planet thought it was biological warfare and retaliated on our planet?

Plenty of life out there already without our help. Not to mention the fact that it’s entirely moot. We’re hundreds of years away from this question having any practical significance.

I believe that man is the only physical intellectual life created. The universe with its many stars will be settled by intellectual being from the mother seed, “Earth”. The technology that will cause this to come into being cannot come from man until war is removed from the Earth. And, death by the hands of man is no longer reasoning for solving issues. Then will that technology be released to man. Death and Hell will not leave the Earth until man has resolved this issure. Lee Ferry, http://www.leeferrysbestbook.com.

they should make a planet with dinosaurs and name it Dinotopia!! XD

I believe it is imperative that we seed life wherever we can as soon as we can. I think those that are opposed to this idea are simply not looking at the larger picture. Certainly, we as a species have many many failings. But observe the great good that we are able to accomplish when we set ourselves to do it. We must assume, for our own good, that we will continue to grow and learn, to make mistakes and also learn to fix them, as we have done for thousands of years. To learn to use our environment to the best of its ability, but without damaging it beyond its ability to repair. Seeding the planets with the basic life forms needed to allow the development of a compatible ecosystem will be a way of paying back our own creation, whether deliberate or not, and adding to the amazing and immense beauty of the universe. What a glorious gift to give. And in time our descendants will travel to where we planted and discover wonders we cannot have imagined. If God does exist, he would be pleased that we valued his gift to us enough to give it to other worlds.

I have never seen such a concentration of misanthropes. Some commenters are so misanthropic that they have read things into the article that aren’t even there, just so they can tell us how awful we are. Just like a human, to sprinkle microbes on sacred barren rocks, defiling the whole universe. With such a cancerous, sinful infestation, if the universe had any brains it would hit us with the biggest asteroid it had around. Until that happens, we should probably sit around and feel guilty, and hopefully die, I guess.

Then we could monitor them during their technological adolescence. I am thinking we could show up in spaceships that can flee at high speeds when detected. We would be immensely evolved an look like aliens to them. Hay, wait a minute!

panspermia = space bukakke

I agree with coldfish, this is an awesome idea. Those in the “boo humans r teh suxxor” crowd are whining for no reason, TFA is suggesting seeding the cosmos with microbes not humans. Also the microbes that would be sent would probably not destroy any native microbes that they came across as those microbe would have had years to develop and evolve in their own habitat while ours would be engineered by humans and computers trying to approximate what the enviroment is like on some distant rock. This person should set up a nonprofit in order to pursue this. Seed the near galaxy with microbe rockets and space sails.

Humanity is a cancer upon this earth; we reproduce for the sake of reproduction and kill our host in our wake. Not that I’m not diggin’ my role as cancer in sneakers (or would ever wish harm on my fellow man), but there is NO need to to make it an intergalactic phenomenon.

Boy, this one prompted a lot of comments. My opinion is “seed” = infest.

A few people now have referred to infestation rather than seeding. They are somewhat synonymous, except that infest has a negative connotation. Now, whether life exists or not is of no moral consequence in itself. Life is not good or bad, just a process. So, it seems to me that these “infestation” people are for some reason anti-life. They prefer a lifeless universe, or at least believe we should somehow not effect or manipulate the universe and let it roll on as if we didn’t exist? Or maybe they fear our seedling microbes would somehow displace native life, which is evil when humans do it, even unintentionally. Of course, if panspermia or extinction is caused by anything other than humans, it isn’t evil, just natural, eh? A strange morality that seems to set us outside of the natural world, and excuses all actions except those made by humans, who’s actions can not be in any way explained by natural processes, but must have been chosen by free will with some malevolent sinful intent. I find that a pretty depressing world view.

The act of creating life is a gift that the beneficiary enjoys as they see fit. We’re getting hung up on the idea that we can’t control the direction of life as it rolls forward in the flood of time. Since we can’t then it’s better not continuing life? What unspeakable presumption. And very authoritarian, I might add.

Each of you has parents who in some form or another made the decision for you to exist here on earth. They set no conditions on your existing. They knew you could become a monster or a god or maybe just an animal, but all the same their decisions gave you that choice.

As well to say that nobody should have children because one of them may be the next Hitler. They may also become the next Gandhi, the next Voltaire, the next Helmuth Hübener.

That’s the point. You get to choose who you are. So will they.

-Incidentally, Helmuth Hübener’s life story was an interesting one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_H%C3%BCbener

I think the whole thing reeks of arrogance. In the cosmic sense of things, what makes Earth life so darned special anyway? What gives mere humans the right to go dinking around with other planets and such?

Shannon hit it on the head – do we want to convert “empty matter” into “conscious matter”. This has nothing to do with morality, and nothing to do with spreading “humans”.

It’s a question of wether or not we want to seed LIFE in it’s most basic forms, allowing it to progress and evolve into something more complex. It’s about wether we want to generate AWARENESS. And I think we should. I do think we need to be careful not to interfere with planets that may already have simple life, but should we seed “dead” empty worlds? Hell yeah! The Universe could use more opportunities to become self-aware, although it does already have mechanisms in place to do this… but we can still help Of course, we should focus on our own problems here on Earth first… especially since we’re driving ourselves to extinction…

something more to consider is that while everyone is responding on the idea that we as humans are the plan for this new planet, consider we are not. Everyone reading this blog should go to the popular science website and look under technology and then robots. The gov. is spending billions on creating robots that can think and feel and make choices, they are the potential beings for any new planet found, and they are what is being sent out to space to see if it can survive. So dont worry fellow humans neither you or your children have a role in the coming future. Think about all the technology wonders we know about- you think the government isn’t decades further in their advancements? Right. They can and are doing things that everyone should be thinking about. If we are going to preserve life then its time society came together without the government and found a way to coexist. The government is taking us where they want us group by group and nobody says a thing til their group is confronted. Future planets- lets worry about our planet and our people. No jobs, teachers laid off- no relief money for Katrina- but billions to build robots for some hopeful future life. What a joke.