Astrobiological landscape: a platform for the neo-Copernican synthesis?

Abstract

We live in the epoch of explosive development of astrobiology, a novel interdisciplinary field dealing with the origin, evolution and the future of life. The relationship between cosmology and astrobiology is much deeper than it is usually assumed – besides a similarity in the historical model of development of these two disciplines, there is an increasing number of crossover problems and thematic areas which stem from considerations of Copernicanism and observation selection effects. Such a crossover area is both visualized and heuristically strengthened by introduction of the astrobiological landscape, describing complexity of life in the most general context. We argue that this abstract landscape-like structure in the space of astrobiological parameters is a concept capable of unifying different strands of thought and research, a working concept and not only a metaphor. By analogy with phase spaces of complex physical systems, we can understand the astrobiological landscape as a set of viable evolutionary histories of life in a particular region of space. It is a notion complementary to the classical concept of biological morphological space, underscoring the fact that modern astrobiology offers a prospect of both foundational support and vast extension of the domain of applicability of the Darwinian biological evolution. Such a perspective would strengthen foundations upon which various numerical models can be built; the lack of such quantitative models has often been cited as the chief weakness of the entire astrobiological enterprise.

A lander mission to probe subglacial water on Saturn׳s moon Enceladus for life

“…In contrast to the orthodox notion of contingency-driven evolution, the novel hypothesis of cosmologically extended convergent processes lends predictability to the astrobiological endeavor [26]. Within the "astrobiological landscape" [27] or "hyperspace" [28] of biological complexity certain solutions of life in dealing with environmental pressures are favored and thus emerge in a convergent manner across planetary biospheres, much like dynamical systems are tending to evolve towards physical attractors. Therefore, astrobiologists should be able to constrain the nature of extraterrestrial life by studying convergent evolution on Earth.…”

Reconfiguring SETI in the microbial context: Panspermia as a solution to Fermi's paradox

“…The human SETI has three components. These include capacities (i) to collect cosmic-scale information, (ii) to process collected information using the appropriate exploratory apparatus (a techno-science like method), and (iii) direct the reaction on the cosmic scale with the hope of establishing contacts with similar non-local civilisations within a communicable range (Ćirković and Vukotić, 2013). These capacities are replicated by the planetary-scale microbial system, such as the bacteriosphere (Slijepcevic 2020).…”

Natural Intelligence and Anthropic Reasoning

“…This leads us to consideration of the concept of true observers. The SETI programme implies that true observers must be human-like observers: those observers that can (i) perceive local and cosmic-level information through natural sensorium and man-made technologies, or equivalents, (ii) reflect on the sensory inputs with the help of the accumulated explanatory apparatus (a techno-science like method), and (iii) direct its reaction on the cosmic scale through, for example, emitting and detecting signals in space using appropriate technologies with the hope of establishing contacts with similar non-local civilisations that share temporal and spatial coordinates within the range of the signal (Ćirković and Vukotić 2013). 6 Again, the AP position is clear.…”