THE MOVIE 2001 AND THE EVOLUTION OF MAN

How does the real year 2001 live up to the brilliant predictions of the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey"?  Some recent discussion in Astrobiology focuses on all of the details that were necessary for the evolution of humans.  This places a new light on the Monoliths in the film.   These are alien machines that help the evolution of man.  Given our understanding of man's origins, is there room -- or need -- for such help?  This article describes a physics colloquium at Indiana University based on an introductory science course "The Physics of Extraterrestrial Life and Death" (physics.indiana.edu/~life).  I invite comments and criticism.

Note, you can view some video clips of the Movie 2001 here.

In the 32 years since the appearance of Arthur C. Clarke's and Stanley Kubrick's brilliant film, "2001: A Space Odyssey", much has been written about the movie's predictions of space stations, moon bases and super computers.  But what about the film's depiction of alien machines, the rectangular Monoliths that shepherded the evolution of man?  A Monolith, 4 million years ago, made apes more intelligent.  This was the dawn of man.  Then in 2001, the movie finds another Monolith on the moon near the crater Tycho, starting the next stage of man's evolution.  The plot has confused viewers for more than a generation. The movie still raises crucial questions when real-life scientists attempt to confront really big issues about humans in this universe.

Now that we really are in the year 2001, there have been dramatic changes in our understanding of three great events -- the Big Bang that created the universe, the origin of life on earth, and the evolution of humans and their intelligence.  Many scientists want to know where to concentrate their wonder. Some had focused on the origin of life. Now many scientists are taking a more balanced view of these three interrelated miracles.  For example, the evolution of man seems to involve a large number of details working out just right.  These developments in Astrobiology, the study of life in the universe, shine new light on the movie 2001 and its Monoliths.

So how does our real year 2001 live up to the brilliant predictions of the movie?  First we will examine real-world space exploration.  Then we discuss artificial intelligence and the movie's Hal 9000 supercomputer.  Finally, we consider the evolution of Man.  What room --or need-- is there for outside agents such as Monoliths?
 
 

2001 versus NASA

In a famous scene, the movie flashes forward four million years from the dawn of man to near earth space in 2001.  This occurs as a newly intelligent ape throws a bone into the sky.  We then see a space station, a shuttle and a flight to a large moon base.

The planet Mars, however, does not appear.  The movie was released in 1968, which was a low point in Mars exploration.  Early Mariner spacecraft flew by the planet, without going into orbit, and only returned a few crude television images.  These showed a cratered and apparently dead world.  This may explain why Mars is not in the film.

Shortly after the movie was made, the real-life Mariner 9 went into orbit about the red planet while it was enveloped in a global dust storm.  When the dust cleared, Mariner 9's images revolutionized our view of Mars.  The Viking Landers followed and now the Mars Global Surveyor has just finished a detailed mapping of the planet.  Today, we have abundant evidence that Mars was warmer and wetter in the past, with liquid water on the surface.  There could well have been primitive life on Mars in ancient times.  Our present view of Mars is much more interesting than it appeared in 1968.

In April 2001 another Mars spacecraft is scheduled for launch.  The craft carries gamma ray and infrared spectrometers to map the mineral and chemical composition of the surface.  It can also search for hydrogen, presumably from water, just below the surface.  Many of the scientists involved in the mission were greatly influenced by the movie.  As a result, the craft is named 2001 Mars Odyssey.

In contrast to Mars, our moon seems much less interesting.  The movie's large bases and plentiful human activity have not materialized.  Indeed, it has been almost 30 years since men last walked on the moon!  This baffles some Russian scientists.  "You had those wonderful moon rockets and then you just stopped.  We never understood why you just stopped."

The space station, in the movie, is under construction, has Russians and Americans on board, and accommodates tourists.  In reality, our space station Alpha is under construction and has Russians and Americans onboard.  The first space tourist, a former NASA engineer, could visit Alpha soon aboard a Russian rocket.

These similarities are superficial.  The space station in the movie is far grander than space station Alpha.  Likewise, the movie's routine shuttle flights are a far cry from our primitive space shuttle.  Clearly the movie's space vision was much more optimistic than what we have achieved.

How did Arthur C. Clark get the future details so wrong?  He didn't do so badly.  His job, as a science fiction writer, was to make a reasonable extrapolation.

The question is not what Clark got wrong.  Instead, what did NASA get so terribly wrong?  One answer is the space shuttle.   The shuttle was supposed to make access to space cheaper, but instead, it made space more expensive.  It is ironic that the shuttle is so expensive to operate that NASA does not have the money to replace it with something cheaper.

The shuttle just barely works.  It is very complicated and cannot fly often.  In short, the shuttle looks and acts exactly like a rocket ship designed by a government committee.  As a result, the shuttle's problems have restricted manned space flight.  Furthermore, shuttle cost overruns have led to the cancellation of many unmanned missions using conventional rockets.

A few Saturn 5 moon rockets from 1968 could launch a manned mission to Mars.  Today we don't have a booster for such a flight.

The shuttle's cost has destroyed many of our space dreams, even modest and reasonable ones.  We have failed to live up to the movie.
 
 

HAL versus Microsoft

According to HAL, "No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information.  We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error."  In the film, HAL then runs amok and kills four of the five astronauts onboard the Discovery spacecraft.

Building a complex computer system that is reliable is extremely difficult.  Making the hardware reliable is relatively straightforward -- one can simply add redundant components.  However, debugging the complex software is a fundamentally hard problem.

Microsoft recently developed a new version of its operating system called Windows 2000.  This large project required enormous resources.  The vast majority of these resources was used for debugging.  Nevertheless, not even Microsoft has claimed: No Windows computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information.  We are all, by Microsoft's definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error.

There may be a solution to debugging very complex software.  However it is drastic.
 

HAL's memory banks are disconected because of his errors.

To debug a program, we test the code till a problem is found, we make a possible fix and then repeat the process an almost infinite number of times.  This takes a very long time because there are so many possibilities to test.

The solution is to run many tests simultaneously on lots of different computers.  Furthermore, when faced with many possible changes in the code, the fastest way is to test several modifications at once.  This procedure becomes very close to Charles Darwin's survival of the fittest algorithm for biological evolution.   Nature makes random mutations of her genetic code, tests them using survival of the fittest, and then repeats the procedure for billions of years.

For example, the LINUX operating system was developed and debugged in an open parallel fashion that is similar to biological evolution.  LINUX development required only very modest official resources and may be a model for how complex computer systems will be developed and debugged in the future.

Before we leave HAL, let's look at five definitions of intelligence suggested by the movie:
(1) Intelligence is how man won the evolutionary lottery.  It made us most fit to survive.  Man used intelligence to keep from getting "voted off the island".
(2) Intelligence is what was given to man by the Monoliths.  This gift makes man qualitatively different from other animals.
(3) Intelligence may involve an ideal Platonic form of pure reason.  HAL is so intelligent because he calculates/ reasons so well.
(4) Intelligence is what the Monoliths have.  Their capabilities so exceed HAL's that he may have gone crazy just thinking about them.  Alien artificial intelligence seems doubly spooky.  Perhaps artificial intelligence is doing badly by computer some simple things that humans find easy.  Alien artificial intelligence could be doing by machine some things that humans find hard.
(5) Intelligence is what the Monolith makers have in spades.  Robinson Crusoe was so scared to find a footprint on his island because this implied he was not alone.

Are the Monoliths God, or an agent of God?  The Pope has praised the movie.  Presumably, this is what he had in mind and it may be a consistent interpretation.  However, a precursor short story to 2001 "The Sentinel" by Clark clearly involves an alien machine.  Furthermore, the Monoliths' rectangular shape suggests artificial objects rather than super natural beings.  No, the Monoliths are probably not God.  However HAL is, perhaps, the Devil.

Therefore, the discovery of a Monolith implies the existence of very intelligent Monolith makers.
 
 

Monoliths versus Astrobiology

How can we understand the origin of life and the evolution of man?  What room is there for outside interference from the Monoliths?  Or is such interference needed to explain man?

For a long time scientists and philosophers concentrated on the origin of life, in terms of astronomy, physics and chemistry. Everything in the lifeless universe was seen as a manifestation of physical laws. These laws were first propounded in an organized way by Isaac Newton and then refined in recent years with quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Many people thought the dead universe was completely explained by physics.

Similarly, many things after the origin of life came to be explained by evolution. A human being is extraordinarily more complex, sophisticated and capable than the first primitive life. Nevertheless, the all-powerful concept of evolution seems to be up to the task, based on the idea of survival of the fittest. Random mutations occur and those which help an organism survive will lead to more offspring.

History undoubtedly will judge Albert Einstein a great scientist with his crowning achievement, the General Theory of Relativity, which is both profound and profoundly beautiful to scientists. However, many people believe Charles Darwin towers over Einstein because evolution is a far more fundamental truth about nature than Relativity or any other single physical law.

Survival of the fittest can explain how a primitive cell grew more complex, acquiring a separate nucleus and then evolving to multi-celled organisms.  Ultimately, these evolved to reptiles, mammals and primates, and -- finally -- humans.

Indeed, Darwin's theory of evolution demands that life evolve. The evolution of man seems to be explained by the competitive advantage of intelligence. If intelligence helps an organism survive, then evolution will favor mutations that increase intelligence.

Is evolution really enough to explain Man? Or is something more needed? In the movie 2001, the monoliths pushed man to evolve. However, if we assume that evolution is enough, then before life everything was physics. After the origin of life, much is explained by evolution. But the origin of life remains unexplained.

This single quantum leap is not explained. It is not clear how chemical reactions, by themselves, could produce a biochemical system of such incredible complexity that it became alive. That is why so many scientists concentrate their wonder on the origin of life.

However, this view is changing rapidly. Life arose quickly, perhaps just as soon as physical conditions allowed it. Our planet has been populated with living things for at least the past 3.8 billion years.  Furthermore, almost every place on earth is teeming with life, which can be found in hot springs well over 100 degrees centigrade and deep underground.

Life may arise whenever conditions permit liquid water, because water is the singularly efficient solvent for a great many chemical reactions. The physical conditions for liquid water -- the temperature is not too low or too high and the atmospheric pressure is not too low -- can be found in many places in the universe outside the earth.

Furthermore, what happened relatively quickly on earth may also be likely to have happened elsewhere. Therefore, life -- at least primitive life -- may be widespread in the universe. The origin of life, while still an apparent miracle, may be a very common miracle. This alone would mean that earth is not an extraordinarily special place in the universe.

Consider the Big Bang. This great explosion created a remarkable universe. If you change any of the initial conditions, even slightly, the universe would be very different -- and probably lifeless.

For example, if the amount of matter was less than that in our universe, gravity would not be able to clump gas clouds into galaxies and stars.  Alternatively, if the amount of gravity was greater, gravity would cause the universe to quickly collapse.  It would end in an inverse Big Bang, known as the Big Crunch, long before we would have had time to evolve.

Similarly, the interactions between protons and neutrons have to be just right to allow nuclear reactions in stars to produce the chemical elements needed for life.

One can't help but marvel at the universe that the Big Bang created. So many things were just right. Indeed, some believe the universe was created for life. Therefore, the miracle is not just the origin of life but also the creation of a universe that made the chemical elements and the physical conditions for liquid water and life. To produce the conditions for even one life form, the Big Bang appears to have created a universe with conditions to allow life in many places.

Evolution and the origin of man could be what make earth so special. It has been 400 years since the Catholic Church punished Galileo for removing the earth from the center of the universe. Now some scientists are trying hard to put the earth back at the center, at least in terms of the higher forms of life.

Evolution takes an extraordinarily long time. Perhaps this is because of the random nature of the initial mutations and because organisms at intermediate stages of evolution are almost perfectly adapted to their environments. On earth, it took at least 3.8 billion years to go from the first primitive life to man. During this time a great many things could have gone wrong -- but did not.
Climate changes that are relatively modest, at least by astrophysical standards, could kill all life. For example, an out-gassing of additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to a runaway greenhouse effect, making earth too hot for life. This apparently is what happened on Venus.

Alternatively, there could be a runaway ice age and a "snowball earth." Indeed, scientists believe that the earth was deeply frozen in a gigantic ice age some 7-800 million years ago.  This was before the evolution of large multicelled organisms.  Had this snowball earth occurred later, it might have killed all higher forms of life.

We have evidence that Mars was warmer and wetter in the past, with conditions that may have supported primitive life.  However, the climate did not last.  Mars today has a very thin atmosphere that likely leaves the planet too cold and dry to support life.  Therefore, even if primitive life started on Mars there may not have been enough time for it to evolve intelligence. If there ever was any life on Mars, it appears to have been doomed from the start.

Many details about earth, which appear superficial, may actually be crucial for the evolution of man. For example, tides created by our large moon help maintain the orientation of earth's spin axis and stabilize the climate.  The spin axis of Mars has changed orientation over time because of gravitational perturbations from the other planets.  This has led to drastic changes in climate.  [Note, the two Martian moons are much too small to raise significant tides.]
 
 
 
 

FIG. 1. The obliquity (in degrees) versus time.  The obliquity is the angle between the spin axis of a planet and the plane of its orbit around the sun.  This angle is responsible for the seasons.  The obliquity of Mars (lower) changes because of gravitational perturbations from the other planets.  This can lead to large changes in climate.  The obliquity of earth (top) is protected, in part, because of tides from the moon.  Computer predictions for the last 5 to 10 million years are shown.  Figure adapted from W. R. Ward in "Mars", eds. H. H. Kieffer, B. M. Jakosky, C. W. Snyder, and M. S. Matthews, Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson 1992.
 
 

Gravity from the giant planet Jupiter helps shield earth from a deadly comet and asteroid bombardment.  A comet is much more likely to strike Jupiter than the earth.  Indeed, in 1994 comet Shoemaker Levy 9 collided with Jupiter and produced gigantic explosions, leaving black spots on the planet that were larger than the earth.   Without Jupiter to protect us from bombardment or the moon to stabilize the earth's spin, man might never have evolved.

We are just beginning to find planets around other stars.  About 50 nearby stars are now known to have planets.  Unfortunately, we cannot yet detect most planets the size of earth.  However we can detect some large Jupiter mass planets.  Therefore, even if we can't see an earth like planet directly, we can ask: if another "earth" is present, will a massive "Jupiter" in a large circular orbit shield it.  The answer is often no.  Many massive planets have been found with very small or eccentric orbits.  These new planetary systems are quite different from the solar system and suggest that our solar system may be very rare.

Our star -- the sun -- is just right. If the sun were more massive it would burn hotter and run out of nuclear fuel before man could evolve. Alternatively, if the sun were less massive, a habitable planet might have to be so close to the sun that tides would lock one side of our planet to always face the sun.

Were Monoliths or other outside interference necessary to speed up evolution?  It may have been closer than we previously thought.  Man has taken four billion years to evolve.  However, the sun is growing hotter as it burns hydrogen into helium in its core.  The sun is now some 25% brighter than when life started.  In less than another billion years the sun may be too hot for life on earth.  Who knows, perhaps without the Monoliths we never would have made it.

In short, lots of things broke just right to allow the miracle of man's evolution. Did something like the Monoliths arrange all these details, or are we just extremely lucky?

The end of the movie 2001 purports to show the next step in the evolution of man. It is hard to imagine a qualitatively new stage in our evolution, and therefore -- not surprisingly -- this is the hardest part of the film to understand.

The conditions that allow high forms of life probably are extremely rare. Man may be all but unique in the universe.  This gives humans extraordinary responsibilities and possibilities for the future.  Man's destiny may be to colonize the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy may be full of primitive life but not other higher life forms.  Nearly alone in the Milky Way, it may take us millions of years to colonize it -- but that is just a tiny fraction of our galaxy's history.

The race to colonize the galaxy may be underway.  During the race, we may leave machines to watch over and help others.  If we are leading the race, we could become monolith makers.  But if we are trailing, we may be just another bunch of apes, perhaps but one of many helped by the Monoliths.

The movie 2001 has held up so well over the last 30 years because of its remarkably undated presentation of a near future with space stations, moon bases and super computers. However, the movie has become a classic because of the provocative way it deals with some really big questions about man in the universe.  In the real year 2001, scientists continue to wonder at the Big Bang and the remarkable universe it created. This universe may teem with primitive life.

Considering all of the things that went just right to allow the evolution of man, scientists can't help but wonder: Was it all just incredible dumb luck?

Or did we have some kind of help, such as from the Monoliths?