Brin summarizes a number of possibilities but doesn't seem to be able to eliminate some that are impossible, and still others that are exclusive of each other.

If Brin really did the math rather than copying someone else's work he will conclude that interstellar travel is impossible to survive. Anything alive that attempts to traverse interstellar distances will not be alive upon reaching the destination, regardless of the speed of travel.

But what about interstellar probes? Ok. But I'm in favor of the Assumption of Mediocrity, as he calls it. After exploring a tiny fraction of the galaxy, we will simply get bored with it. It will be like going to a beach, counting and cataloguing the characteristics of every grain of sand. Whether we find life or not, it will become a ludicrous waste of energy and resources, and time. I mean seriously, how much different are grains of sand from each other really? The time lag for going about this preposterous "exploration mission" would increase with each new star system we explore.... hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy. And if reaching new stars is a waste of time and resources, consider that there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, the distance to each of which renders interstellar distances meaninglessly small. What a waste it would be to explore all THAT !!!

Nevertheless, the universe seems to support life. Life evolves. The process of evolution seems to support traits that increase the population of a species. Increases in population lead to more diversity, and complexity to survive all the variety of niches and threats to survival that are thrown at a species by the tides of natural forces. Increased population means increased energy consumption, whether food energy or other. Increased consumption leads to resource depletion and competition. Nature selects those that survive these depletions, to repeat the cycle and eventually suffer the same fate.

But life does not end. It regenerates. And yet life cannot escape a solar system. So what gives? Brin mentioned the word "Transcendence". If the universe is ultimately boring, then we must transcend it. Both satisfy our curiosity, and our need to survive the next resource pinch. That is where I think we are headed. There are alot of things we AREN'T doing that maybe we should, before it is forced on us by nature.

We have transcended other species. And there are already humans alive that are sufficiently superior that they will be the ancestors of every human being on earth in a few thousand years. Everyone else is a dead end. Onwards up the ladder, an infinite stratification of hominid evolution. In the distant future things like quantum mechanics will be obvious to children who have not yet learned to speak, just as things are obvious to our children that are not so obvious to other lower species, like dogs and cats. They will probably have lost interest in exploring the universe beyond a certain limited distance (enough to know, and no further).

I expect any life elsewhere in the universe to follow the same evolutionary trend. Maybe it has already happened here on Earth. What does advanced, transcendent life look like?

Maybe the dinosaurs aren't extinct. Maybe that layer of Iridium isn't from an asteroid impact. Look it up, Iridium has special qualities. Maybe some we aren't aware of......

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