Ebook The Astrobiological Landscape: Philosophical Foundations of the Study of Cosmic Life (Cambridge Astrobiology), by Milan M. Cirkovic
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Astrobiology is an expanding, interdisciplinary field investigating the origin, evolution and future of life in the universe. Tackling many of the foundational debates of the subject, from discussions of cosmological evolution to detailed reviews of common concepts such as the 'Rare Earth' hypothesis, this volume is the first systematic survey of the philosophical aspects and conundrums in the study of cosmic life. The author's exploration of the increasing number of cross-over problems highlights the relationship between astrobiology and cosmology and presents some of the challenges of multidisciplinary study. Modern physical theories dealing with the multiverse add a further dimension to the debate. With a selection of beautifully presented illustrations and a strong emphasis on constructing a unified methodology across disciplines, this book will appeal to graduate students and specialists who seek to rectify the fragmented nature of current astrobiological endeavour, as well as curious astrophysicists, biologists and SETI enthusiasts.
- Sales Rank: #4313061 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cambridge University Press
- Published on: 2012-07-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.72" h x .63" w x 6.85" l, 1.55 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 274 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"... written in a language and at a level that is accessible to other astronomers and astrobiologists ... Best of all, the book ends with twenty pages of notes and twenty-one pages of references. Just for this wonderfully comprehensive bibliography of the philosophy of astrobiology, this book deserves to be on the shelf of any astrobiologist's library."
Guy Consolmagno, Meteoritics and Planetary Science
"Ćirković's book is not an astrobiology textbook with facts and worked examples, but is probably the best book on the philosophical implications of life in the universe, in the universe."
Charles H. Lineweaver, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres
About the Author
Milan M. Ćirković is a research professor at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, (Serbia) and a research associate of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. He received his PhD in Physics from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, his MS in Earth and Space Sciences from the same university, and his BSc in Theoretical Physics from the University of Belgrade. His primary research interests are in the fields of astrobiology (Galactic Habitable Zone, anthropic principles, SETI studies, catastrophic episodes in the history of life), astrophysical cosmology (baryonic dark matter, future of the universe) and philosophy of science (future studies, risk analysis, observation selection effects, epistemology). He co-edited the anthology Global Catastrophic Risks (2008), is the author of two other monographs, has written about 200 research and professional papers and has translated several books, including titles by Richard P. Feynman and Sir Roger Penrose.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Room for Speculative Science?
By Doctor Moss
Astrobiology, to many, is a discipline in search of content -- it is, at least given where our knowledge is today, inherently speculative. But there is plenty of ground for speculation, and, in this book Cirkovic takes pretty full advantage of it.
There are two principal themes developed throughout the book. The one that provides what I think is the most fertile base for speculation in astrobiology is Copernicanism. Copernicanism, like astrobiology itself, comprises a mixture of principle and evidence. The principle is similar to the "cosmological principle" -- roughly, we do not occupy a special or privileged position in the universe.
As a principle, it expresses a working hypothesis -- the hypothesis that when we find answers to questions about the origin of life on earth, life elsewhere, or the details of cosmological structure, those answers will not reveal that our own position in the universe or perspective on it is unique or privileged in some way. If life happened here, it can happen elsewhere. If there is a temperate planet here, with abundant water, there will likely be others. Potentially, if one universe has come into being, others may as well. I think, in practice, the hypothesis is rough-edged -- it is applied to subject matter as deemed appropriate -- although formal definitions have been put forward.
Some facts bear out the hypothesis. The sun is not an unusual star, in either its behavior or its position in our galaxy. The earth's position is not particularly special either, in our solar system. Other stars have planets, some orbiting within their suns' "habitable zones". Nor does life seem to demand an especially narrow set of environmental parameters, as it thrives, at least once it gets going, in thermal vents and permanent ice.
It's questionable, though, whether Copernicanism will be borne out in full. We simply don't have the evidence. Cirkovic makes an analogy between the speculative status of cosmology in the first half of the twentieth century and the state of astrobiology now. He quotes Fred Hoyle's statement at the time that cosmology was a science of "two and a half facts".
Cosmology, though, bloomed with the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation and its interpretation as a relic of the origin of the universe. Finally, there was evidence of the universe's origin, with what has turned out to be a wealth of data to be explained.
Astrobiology stands in need of such a watershed discovery. Obviously that role could be filled by the discovery of life that has independently developed somewhere other than on earth. Then we would know that biology at least is not unique to earth. Intelligence, at least of the kind we recognize, would hopefully follow a similar course of discovery elsewhere.
The second theme of Cirkovic's book, "continuity", similarly straddles principled assumption and fact. He argues that the lines between living and non-living matter, and between intelligent life and non-intelligent life, are not sharp. Again, there is evidence to support the principle as a working hypothesis, but the strength of the theme is in its function as enabling speculation. If there is such continuity, then the discoveries of organic material elsewhere make it easier for us to optimistically infer the likelihood of life elsewhere. And life may shade continuously into intelligent life as well.
Speculation is never comfortable in science, when it is carried out on such a broad scale. Cirkovic defends both his optimism about life in the universe and his very engagement in scientific speculation about it. He doesn't subtitle his book as one concerning "philosophical foundations" in order to dissociate what he says from science proper -- in fact, he looks to work in the philosophy of science and epistemology to rein in and structure speculative thought -- it's as if the scientists need the philosophers in order to provide rational boundaries for their speculations.
I find Cirkovic's speculation within bounds perfectly "scientific". I think scientists who embrace speculation are refreshing. Sometimes I think it is a shame that it is only the renowned scientists, like Freeman Dyson or Stephen Hawking, who seem to have a license to speculate. Scientists who engage in too much speculation without such a license risk censure. But without speculation, how would disruptive, Kuhnian-type revolutions in science happen? How would we even generate the questions that cosmologists asked one hundred years ago, or that astrobiologists ask now?
I should add something about the readability of Cirkovic's book. This isn't a breezy, popular book about life in the universe. For that, there are plenty of other candidates -- Grinspoon's Lonely Planets, Ward and Brownlee's controversial Rare Earth, or Impey's Talking About Life (a set of interviews with scientists in the field) -- those are just a few. Cirkovic's writing is not so fluid and easy as a popular writer's would be -- he has more the style of a scientist writing for other scientists.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Through a glass, darkly...
By Paulz
The newly-emergent field of astrobiology is now rapidly accelerating in view of the increasing number of exoplanets discovered, explorations of the Mars Curiosity Rover and ever-expanding discoveries in cosmology. The field presents challenges to almost every discipline in the sciences and humanities, and in time may invite us to re-assess and `transgödelise" (in the sense of Penrose's Shadows of the Mind) all frontiers of human knowledge. Elegantly-written, cogently-argued and deftly-evidenced, 'The Astrobiological Landscape' is a reasoned, unbiased account of the history and current status of the field that adequately reflects the extent of this challenge, combining, as it does, insights from most of the relevant physical sciences (cosmology, astrophysics, evolutionary biology, ecology etc.) and their philosophical underpinnings, with echoes from mythology, poetry and the arts. Such a synthesis reflects the transcultural impact any future discovery of extraterrestrial life may have on the peoples of Earth. The book may not exactly be `easy reading' for all, but considering the complexities of the subject, the author has done very well (in my opinion) in keeping the essential and unavoidable technicalities well within comprehensible bounds in accord with Einstein's dictum of `keeping everything as simple as possible - but for God's sake (or at least that of a determinate universe's initial boundary conditions) no simpler'. Thus it does serve, as the publishers of the Cambridge Astrobiology Series claim, as a book written `at a suitable level for graduate students and researchers ... and ... accessible to scientists working in a range of disciplines".
Beginning, in the Introduction, with a discussion of the meaning behind H. P Lovecraft's story 'The Colour out of Space', the author proceeds through a brief history of cosmology, a discussion of selection effects, the anthropic principles (WAP, SAP, FAP and CRAP), the `Archipelago of Habitability', the extents and limits of Darwinian evolutionary principles, problems relating to the `Rare Earth hypothesis, a critique of current SETI strategies, the nature of `intelligence', advanced macroengineering and the `neo-Copernican synthesis, concluding on an `upbeat' note along the lines of Iris Fry's 'The Emergence of Life on Earth' (2000) and James Gardner's 'The Intelligent Universe' (2007). I was rather glad (personally) to see the rehabilitation of Teilhard de Chardin's work in this context - I have always felt that the inner significance of Teilhard's vision (in its later, trans-terrestrial form) might become increasingly apparent at a later stage in our history.
Particularly to be commended are the author's excursions into mythology, literature, poetry and the fine arts, all of which serve to underscore the essential catholicity of the subject (and of the author's approach). Failing to integrate these dimensions, or approaching the topic from a single `hard science' perspective only leads us into the kind of anthropocentric errors that have always plagued it, and which the author has been particularly careful to avoid. For those who might wish for a deeper treatment of specific issues, the wide range of topics is complemented by a fully adequate reference section. This book is, after all, a `map' of the current astrobiological landscape, and does not claim to be a compendium of research on the topic.
From the exoplanets so far discovered, statistical estimates suggest that there may be as many as 10,000,000, earthlike planets in the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ). Moreover, the studies of Lineweaver and colleagues (2001, 2002, 2003, 2007) on the GHZ suggest that 75% of these worlds may be older than the Earth by an average of 6.4 ± .9×10^9 years - so that if any advanced technological civilisations (ATC's) exist among them, they would be ~ 1.8 ± .9 ×10^9 (around two billion) years more advanced than us. We may very well be `new kids on the block' - which might go a good part of the way towards explaining the Fermi Paradox. From the perspective of such an ATC, all our pontificating speculations about `supercivlisations', `anthropic principles' (and the Fermi Paradox itself) may well resemble nothing more than bacteria on a Petri dish speculating about the fall of the Roman Empire.
A key theme of the book (and of Ćirković's writings in general) is that of exactly what we expect to find `out there'. Are we only looking for `mirrors' of ourselves, as the astronaut Gibarian says in Stanisław Lem's 'Solaris' (1961)? Ćirković cites other works of Lem, in particular 'Summa Technologia' (1964, 1967) and 'Fiasco' (1987) to suggest that at our current level of technological and psychological development, any encounter with an ATC would end in a `fiasco' in terms of any possible `mutual understanding' (as Lem puts it in an interview printed in the Polish edition of 'Solaris'). This is the main theme of 'Solaris' (the novel, NOT either of the films!) and of 'His Master's Voice' (1968) as well as of 'Roadside Picnic' (1971) by the Strugatsky brothers. The greatest barrier to astrobiological advance would appear to be humanity's `species narcissism'. If we cannot even resolve the communication system of dolphins (an idea some still find absurd, despite the fact that we share the ecology of the planet, our C-H-O-N-P-S-based biochemistry and our DNA substrate with this species), however are we supposed to understand the communications of alien civilisations? Hence the author's (and the present reviewer's) reservations concerning current SETI strategies.
The main `quibble' I would have with the book is that the claimed `selection of beautifully presented illustrations' is rather sparse - and all in black-and-white. While I greatly appreciate the Magritte reproductions (The Beyond (L'au-delà, 1938) is almost spine-chilling - and would be so much more so in colour) as well as the rather whimsical illustrations of S. Popović, I would have liked more photographs with the striking, compellingly alien quality of that on the cover (a Martian sunset). This is of course, the publishers' fault, not that of the author. The communication of a subject with such strong potential appeal as this would be greatly enhanced by the use of appropriate illustrations. It cannot be sufficiently stressed how important it is in STEM teaching (science, technology and mathematics) to communicate a `sense of wonder'. Einstein, after all, was motivated by a dream of riding on a beam of light - not by how well Relativity would do on the `market'. What more entrancing subject for children than the real possibilities of alien life? But while this book may not exactly be suitable `for kids', it is certainly to be recommended for those who teach them.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Passionate defense of the mission of astrobiology, maybe too saucy at times (3.5 stars)
By A. J. Sutter
This book isn’t the exercise in applied analytic philosophy one might expect on the basis of its being published by Cambridge University. Rather, it’s a fierce and at times flowery defense of the enterprise of astrobiology, and especially of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), by one of the more prolific and imaginative members of the SETI community. Critics of either of those fields get a pretty sharp drubbing from the author (MMC).
SETI and, to a lesser extent, astrobiology are some of the areas of scientific inquiry most influenced by literature: until we actually meet an alien life form or an ETI (which may be “postbiological,” @174), science fiction remains one of the best resources for imagining different scenarios. I thought MMC made good use of this literature throughout the book, and I also enjoyed the use of of paintings by René Magritte to illustrate the difficulties of distinguishing the natural from the artificial when it comes to identifying just who the ETs are, if we ever do encounter them (Chap. 8). Still, I thought there were many topics he didn’t address, such as the nature of a civilization, that would be appropriate in a more thorough philosophical approach to this topic.
The writing style is quite different not only from usual philosophical writing but also from usual scientific writing, and was something of an obstacle for me. I admire MMC’s skill given that apparently English is at least a second language for him. But the tone has a sort of Edwardian ornateness about it, e.g. there is a philosophical dialogue with a character called “Simplicio,” on more than 20 occasions various people are called “distinguished” something or others, books are often “remarkable” or the objects of some other adjectival hyperbole, and paragraphs often have a circuitous flow. It became very tiring to get to the nub of what MMC was trying to say: maybe because I went out to brunch on the weekend I read it, I couldn’t help thinking that the book’s insights were hidden under way too much Hollandaise sauce.
The book includes a very extensive and useful list of references in addition to endnotes. The index, though, is not so helpful: e.g., to find “postbiological” you’ll need to know the name of an author who pursues this topic (Stephen Dick, under ‘D’), because there isn’t anything about it under ‘P.’ And shame on the folks at CUP: Bad enough that they couldn’t recognize the gibberish Greek “quotation” from Thucydides (@41; it is utterly meaningless as printed, and would have botched the original even had it been spelt correctly), they should have at least been suspicious about whether the Latin expression “Hic Rhodes, hic salta!” was really an “old Greek saying” (@107). (In fact it’s the author’s mangling of Karl Marx’s mangling (“Hic Rhodus, hic salta!”) of Hegel’s uncomprehending quote of Erasmus’s Latin translation (“Hic Rhodus, hic saltus!) of a line from one of Aesop’s fables, which was in Greek.) In sum: if you can tolerate its excesses, the book will help you find a lot of the more thoughtful literature on astrobio and SETI.
[POSTSCRIPT: You can find a more soberly written and more thorough philosophical analysis is David Lamb's "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (Routledge 2001). It lacks the imaginative touches of MMC's book such as reference to paintings, and lacks the more recent references you can find in the book under review -- but it also lacks MMC's intrusive cheerleading for "transhumanism." Ultimately Lamb was more helpful to get me up to speed about some of the key philosophical arguments in astrobiology.]
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