Jaime Green’s The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos traces the history of our understanding of what and where life in the universe could be, from Galileo and Copernicus through to our current tracking of exoplanets in the ‘Goldilocks zone’, where life akin to ours on Earth might exist. Along the way, Jaime Green studies insights from a long tradition of science fiction that uses imagination to extrapolate and construct worlds, in turn inspiring scientists and their research.
Bringing together expert interviews, cutting-edge astronomy, philosophical inquiry and pop culture touchstones ranging from A Wrinkle in Time to Star Trek, The Possibility of Life delves into our evolving conception of the cosmos to pose an even deeper question: what does it mean to be human?
We speak to author Jamie Green to find out more…
The Possibility of Life is ostensibly a book about extraterrestrials, but really it seems to be about our understanding of what it means to be human. How do you see these two subjects intermingling?
On the one hand, yes, it would be scientifically important to know about alien life – it would have huge impacts on biology, chemistry, our understanding of the origin of life. But it also is clearly a subject of huge fascination for laypeople outside the sciences. And I think that’s because alien life would give us a whole new context within which to understand ourselves – life on Earth and humanity specifically. Why are we the way we are? What about us is universal, what is specifically human? What sort of cosmic community might we be a part of? What are the different ways for life and societies to be, the possibilities toward which we might try to shift our trajectory? And – and this comes up often in fiction – what would aliens think of us? What would we look like through their eyes, from their perspective?
When we talk about extraterrestrial life, we talk about a life that is recognisable to us as humans. How does fiction help us imagine possibilities beyond our own chemical make-up?
Sci-fi loves imagining versions of life that don’t require the basic chemistry of life on Earth – mainly carbon and water. This opens up the possibilities for the kinds of planets that could host life, which we feel like increases the odds. And it just makes alien life feel extremely alien. Besides, isn’t it hubris to assume that since life on Earth is built one way, all life should be the same? But it turns out that water and carbon have really specific properties that make them excellent at what they do – water as a solvent, and the way ice can float; carbon for its ability to be the backbone of long and complex molecules. So that may be universal. But also, the search for life has to start somewhere, and if we don’t know what an alien’s strange chemistry might be, we’d have no way to detect us – unless it could send a signal or wave.
What sparked your fascination with aliens and space?
It goes back as far as I remember. My dad loves space and sci-fi and my grandfather (on my mom’s side) was an engineer and a gardener, and I think the two of them led me to love science and stories about science. My dad taught me the constellations and got me into Star Trek: The Next Generation when I was eight; my grandfather taught me to ask questions to understand the natural world. As I got older, I loved reading sci-fi and learning about science. Carl Sagan’s work was also huge for me – Contact and Cosmos, the twinned fiction and nonfiction projects that both get at this sweeping, romantic love of space and science and our search for knowledge. It’s always been something I’ve loved, and as I’ve grown up and into my life as a writer, it thrillingly became something I can write about, not just to understand but to share with others and shape with my own curiosities and ideas.
Most books about extraterrestrial life focus on the chances of there being life ‘out there’. What makes The Possibility of Life different?
There are so many books – and scientific papers, and debates! – about the odds of alien life. Of course we want to know that so we know how to direct scientific funding. It’s a big part of justifying the search. And we also want some sense of security. But those are impossible questions to answer – we can just approximate and guess. I wanted to approach the question differently, asking “what if” instead of “whether or not.” If there are aliens, what might they be like? If we were to
make contact, how would that affect humanity? And that opened up the conversation to all of the imaginings in science fiction, just as valid and meaningful, and interesting, as the scientific visions – and the fascinating things we can learn by putting the science and fiction together.
What would be your dream scenario for life in other worlds?
Of course I want there to be lots of life on other planets. I want the proof to be definitive, to find chemical traces and alien cells and to get signals or messages from intelligent beings on other worlds. But as for whether I think those definitive signs are possible… researching this book made me less sure. But it also made me less dependent on the possibility of life beyond Earth for wonder, or for that sense of kinship. The more I learned, as I was writing this book, about how amazing and unlikely life is here on Earth, the more this world started to feel like enough for me. Whether we’re part of a galactic community or the only thinking minds in the cosmos, life’s existence is hugely meaningful either way.
The Possibility of Life: Searching for Kinship in the Cosmos by Jaime Green will be released on 20 April 2023. Order your copy here.
