THE GESTATION OF HUMANOID LIFE

Imagine that our solar system is one large living body. Its matter and energy constituting a being capable of bringing forth new life. Now imagine that Earth's atmospheric envelope is the uterus of that being. Imagine that humankind, as a whole species, is a developing life form within that uterus. 

As I awakened this morning, I had this thought. As individual human beings, we develop from cells to organized cellular systems to embryo and fetus in the womb. We each replicate our species' history of evolution in that development. Those of us who do survive independently have completed a gestation process, which is absolutely necessary for our healthy development outside the womb. 

Perhaps the human species will indeed evolve to be born as an independent life form off Planet Earth. However, like each single human gestation, the full term of human species' gestation must be fully realized for that emerging humanoid species to be healthy enough to withstand life outside Earth's protective incubator. There is no newborn ICU waiting for us in Space.

I speculate that our gestation as a species may already be in the fetal stage. This means that we may indeed begin to approach our eventual form as a unified and outward-directed species. It also means that we may essentially resemble an 8-week fetus, totally vulnerable to extinction but resembling its eventual form. 

How might technology fit into this analogy? Well, like drugs and mutation developing in a gestation of one human being, technology in our human species' gestation could well function as a positive mutation/adaptation or a malicious cancer or toxin. Social media could eventually develop into a cohesive force that makes our developing species stronger and more resolute in things which matter to us as a species. Nuclear power could be a malicious cancer which eventually aborts us. Petrochemical energy could choke our oxygen supply and lead to a miscarriage.

Yuval Noah Harari's vision of personal human evolution toward the android seems quite logical. But, in terms of the gestation of an entire species to be delivered as a functional force in Space, it seems to lie in a far off future. Today's identity obsession is a virus which may well retard our development as a species. And, adding the android component to our species as a luxury of the wealthy minority, may well retard our development as a united species. 

If human beings have the ability to evolve as a peaceful and united species on a healthy Earth for millennia to come, an independent humanoid species may be born into The Universe. That humanoid species might well actualize the portrayal of humans in Star Trek and other more optimistic examples of science fiction.