The argument for the existence of life in different places in the universe can lead to endless and aimless (but fascinating) speculation. Why assume that aliens so far advanced technologically are still bound by the chains of aging bodies? As we see our own technology advancing, and our minds becoming ever more entangled with digital devices, we can envision a kind of transhuman future whereby our mind’s essence, what we (loosely) identify with our inner self and memories, becomes immaterial, soullike, tethered to reality through information alone. In his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke speculated that aliens would have broken away from carbon-based and robotic machine structures so “that the mind would eventually free itself from matter (…) and if there is anything beyond that, its name could only be God.”

       This is where astrotheology begins, as we envision aliens as the techno-version of godlike creatures, with the obvious subtext that one day we are going to get there too. So, not only is their technology magic to us, but their very existence becomes equivalent to a supernatural presence — omniscient, omnipresent, and undetectable by our feeble human senses and machines. Such aliens are indistinguishable from gods inhabiting the heavenly realm, being as elusive as countless deities have been throughout human history. They exist only in that intangible dimension of faith.

Marcelo Gleiser. The dawn of a mindful universe: a manifesto for humanity’s future. HarperOne, San Francisco (CA) (adapted).