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Proyecto Visión 21

New issues and studies challenge the limits of our normal thinking

Every week, when I review the most important news of that week and when I think about a topic for these columns (that I began writing almost seven years ago), I experience that indescribable sensation of having accomplished nothing, and not even having paid enough attention to whatever is happening around me.

I experienced that sensation again last week, this time mixed with my unfulfilled desire of expanding the horizon of my thoughts, when I read three story apparently taken from some sci-fi movie, but now happening in the real world. The stories were about exopolitics, astroethics, and time travel.

The Exopolitics Institute defines exopolitics as “the study of political institutions and processes associated with extraterrestrial life.” I have to confess I am not quite sure there is intelligent life on this planet, but I am glad somebody is spending time and money to study exopolitics.

This is not a new issue, but the story was about the growing number of people from all over the world and all ways of life wanting to get a diploma in exopolitics.

The other story was about astroethics, that is, the possibility that our civilization is the only one in the universe (or in this region of the universe), and therefore it will be up to us, humans, to “sow” life on other planets. Such an endeavor will require the development of a panbiotic ethics, that is, an ethics based on the respect of all forms of life.

This is not a new subject either. But a recent story written by Dr. Michael Noah Mautner, a professor of chemistry at The Rockefeller University in New York, reignited the debate about the right or the responsibility we humans may have to “export” life to other planets.

Finally, Dr. David Lewis Anderson, an American physicist, gave a series of interviews during the past three months about time travel, indicating that perhaps the technology for time traveling already exists and analyzing the consequences time travel could have for our civilization.

So, while most of the inhabitants of this planet spend our days facing daily and unavoidable challenges (like surviving yet another day), some privileged people spend hours and hours thinking about issues that impact our planet, our galaxy, and our universe in the dimensions of both space and time.

Far from complaining about the work those privileged minds to, I am thankful for that work, because their thoughts and ideas take us out of our everyday life and give a new dimension to our daily problems, forcing to think.

For example, how can we interact with aliens from outer space when we can’t even interact with aliens from a different country? If we sow life on another planet, how long it will take before we want to control and exploit it? And who will control time travel?

There are days when I feel my mind is too small to deal with such big issues. And there are many days when I am thankful that’s the case.

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