Adam Hibberd
Let me tell you all a story. It is the story of life and its purpose. I ask you to bear with me here as Project Lyra and 'Oumuamua will make an appearance eventually - I promise.
Many of you will be familiar with the idea that the universe might be some kind of living organism, not all that different from the organisms we know of on Earth - it isn't actually new to science and has been propounded by various scientists in various forms over the years. I shall christen this living entity our 'organism-universe'.
If one contemplates this notion then it is not all that much of a stretch to postulate that there is some over-arching 'super-universe' which our organism-universe inhabits - just like organisms on Earth obviously inhabit the Earth and therefore our universe.
There may even be in this super-universe other organism-universes, either competing with ours or alternatively cooperating with ours, just as life-on-Earth is a massive ecosystem of living entities competing and cooperating with each other. (I must add here that with life-on-Earth cooperation manifests both between members of social groups of a particular species, and between the individual cells, of which multi-cellular organisms are composed.)
In fact we can further view these competing/cooperating organism-universes as PARALLEL UNIVERSES. I must reitierate that such parallel universes have been suggested in various fields of science including quantum physics for example.
So if we take this massive leap, that the universe is analogous to an organism on Earth, are there any further similarities? Does this organism-universe reproduce for instance? Does it even have a genetic code equivalent to DNA?
I propose here that it does, and indeed that the equivalent of the genetic code in our universe would be the fundamental laws of nature (FLN) themselves. Note that exactly how DNA dictates the structure, composition and behaviour of an organism on Earth, the FLN also dictate the entire structure, composition and behaviour of the universe as we know it. That makes sense, but will our universe also reproduce? If so, how?
Reproduction requires the replication/reading of DNA. But how would this happen in our organism-universe to the FLN? Yet there is indeed a mechanism and this is where humans come in. You see humans are in fact attempting to do precisely what our organism-universe to which we belong, wants us to do - through the application of scientific enquiry we are attempting to hone in on the FLN.
But let us now take a step back and have a look at what we are saying here.
Many might say that science is just a subsidiary pursuit that certain humans like to engage in and that some humans even dedicate their lives to. But could it be that this is the very reason for the human species to have evolved in the first place? Is the purpose of humanity to understand, read, interpret and replicate the FLN so that it can then spawn new organism-universes, in just the way that life on Earth reproduces by replication and sequencing its DNA?
As evolution acts on variation here on Earth, occurring through random mutation of DNA sequences, similarly is it the case that humanity will never know precisely the FLN? For instance there will always be uncertainty in our scientific understanding of the exact values of the 'Cosmological Constants' and so there will be variation in the children universes which humanity generates.
Let us say then our purpose is to do precisely this - by investigating, exploring and studying our universe, we shall eventually be able to understand the FLN in order to allow our organism-universe to reproduce.
This is where 'Oumuamua comes in.
You see there is some evidence that 'Oumuamua has a very low 'beta-value' - which means a low mass to surface-area ratio. This would explain the non-gravitational force which was found to influence its motion as it sped away from the Sun as being actually SOLAR RADIATION PRESSURE (similarly sails on Earth have a low mass to surface area ratio to harness pressure from wind for propulsion).
What's more this low beta-value would also explain the closeness of 'Oumuamua's interstellar velocity to that of the LOCAL-STANDARD-OF-REST. To cut a long story short, a low beta-value would enable 'Oumuamua to be entrained in gas and dust clouds floating around the Milky-Way Galaxy, through processes similar to drag on Earth.
Let us imagine millions of low beta-value 'Oumuamua's floating around the Milky-Way, and for that matter other galaxies, all of which have been generated in galactic nurseries (we have yet to discover and identify) and whose express purpose is to motivate any extant intelligent and technologically-advanced civilization - such as our own species - to send a mission to follow it (Project Lyra) and in so doing expand its scientific knowledge so that the FLN will eventually be understood allowing our organism-universe to reproduce.
If this is the case, the realization of Project Lyra - and those who have been involved in it - takes on an importance far beyond any of humanity's historical exploits to date.
In short: are these 'Oumuamua-type objects the equivalent of hormones?
I'd like to say more and there is more to say but for the moment I shall leave it there.
By the way, I have discovered that 'Oumuamua followed a trajectory which MAXIMIZED its chances of discovery by Earth-based telescopes, go to my presentation here: