for H sapiens might be in two parts: 1) the scientific/tehnological quest emeregent from the European Enlightenment would be handed over to an artilect culture, which after growing bored and irritated with earth would establish a more permanent and analytically coherent culture in the asteroid belt or somewhere. 2) H sapiens, now an anticlimax species, would just slough off the remnants of activities they had proven to be inadequate at handling, and drop back to a neo-Neolithic type of culture, good for arts and crafts only. This proposition comes from looking at consequences of the civilizational collapse now at its mid-stage.

Of course we could speculate about what the artilects might offer archaeic carbonic life mentally able to go through a rigorous preparation. Perhaps an upload of some kind. But there would be no "return trip", just an almost instantaneous absorption into the internal life of that new culture (which might well rapidly self-destruct).

As for the life of seals, etc., well what is the volume of uncommittted cortex in these creatures? Yes, "creature status" in an ecological niche is the Edenesque condition of primeval life beautiful for Romantics with self-conscious minds to contemplate, but Nature goes on pulsing and pushing at boundaries. Our 1500 cc brains are one result of that. The anguish and pathos we feel is an unending predicament, and there will be suffering.