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196 By contrast, science essayist James Gardner proposed a_ biology- centered model in which the emergence of life and intelligence are key thresholds in the reproductive cycle. The universe, he claimed, is in the process of transforming itself from inanimate matter to animate matter. Its anthropic qualities can be explained as incidental consequences of an enormously long cosmic replication cycle; the appearance of cosmic design could emerge from the operation of evolutionary forces operating at unex- pectedly large scales. Gardner called his concept the Selfish Biocosm—selfish in the same metaphorical sense as the selfish genes proposed by evolutionist Richard Dawkins. Like genes, the universe is focused on the overarching objective of replicating itself; life and intelligence provide the means. Once life has arisen anywhere, its sophistication and pervasiveness will expand inexora- bly and exponentially until life’s domain is coterminous with the boundar- ies of the cosmos. Gardner thought that human and higher-level intelligence would be essential to scaling up biological and technological processes to the stage at which they could exert an influence on the cosmos. The emergence AL ben hee Oe 5 a ee of transhuman intelligence is a necessary precondition for cosmic engineering. Although he saw the universe as imbued with emergent properties of consciousness and intentionality, Gardner warned that it eventually will focus on its own set of objectives. Those objectives may turn out to be dis- turbingly alien; the persistence or advancement of humans is not foreor- dained. Nor is there any apparent reason, apart from altruism, why a supremely advanced community of minds at the end of time would bother to create a new baby universe they would never be privileged to inhabit.* Mallove had suggested earlier that the reorganization of the universe by life may already be underway. We can imagine artificial changes taking place that we simply have not recognized. (Finding evidence of astroengineering might be an indicator of such work being done by others.) Intelligent life may be the emergent catalyst for universe creation; Humankind might be among a handful of civilizations just beginning to realize their potential to change the course of cosmic history. If universes reproduce with the help of intelligent life and if each version of space-time passes on some of its characteristics to its off- spring, those that allow highly ordered states of matter will multiply faster.*° Physicist J.D. Bernal had proposed in 1929 that, by intelligent organiza- tion, the life of the universe could be extended many times. The ultimate outcome might be the conscious universe outlined by physicist Gerald Feinberg in his 1968 book The Prometheus Project. Your present author and others speculated further about this idea with articles in specialized publications during the 1970s and 1980s.*” Thinking Outside the Box