The German science-astronaut Ulrich Walter describes in his book "Zivilsationen im All" that under specific conditions life can develop on a planet. The sun the planet is circulating about must not be much bigger or smaller than our sun, because otherwise planets cannot develop an ecosphere.

Ulrich Walter - Credits to Nasa.

The planet itself must not be much bigger or smaller than our earth, the distance to the sun must not be much longer or shorter than the distance between our own earth and sun.

It should have a big moon which stabilizes its axis and causes stabile zones of climate over millions of years, so evolution can take place. A Jupiter-similar planet should be present in the system which works as a vacuum cleaner and directs the comets and asteroids flying around on it, because of its gravity, and so prevents disastrous strikes at the planet which could knockout whole civilizations. Summary copyright F.Hornischer

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Ray Kurzweil: Scenery of development. Steps of development on a planet. Credits to Kurzweil Industries 1) It comes to evolution of living beings, means selfreplicating forms of matter and energy on a planet. 2) It comes to evolution of living beings who produce technology.

This is the continuation of the evolutionary process which brought up the technology creating species at all, in a different way.

3) It comes to dataprocessing- also in technology, not only in the nervous system of the species concerned >> this accelerates the development of further technologies.

4) The Law Of Accelerating Returns says: with the exponentially increasing order time accelerates exponentially, that means, the periods between the important events become shorter. So it comes to an exponential increase of the capacity of computertechnology, the exponent of the technical growth is much higher than the exponent of the species >> so computertechnology will be forced to overhaul very fast the species who had created it.

5) The next and inevitable step is the unification of the species with computertechnology which the species originally has invented.

There will be computers, partly created by imaginations of the creating species. On the other hand computertechnology will be increasingly implanted and integrated in the bodies and brains of this species. At last it comes to the complete fusion of the species with the technology created originally by the species.

There is the risk of selfdestruction before the unification by

a) atomtechnology

b) unlimited reproduction of selfreplicating nanobots growing like a cancer ulcer.

c) softwareviruses and viruses which are active at the genetic level of the original species. Visitors from space have left unification with computertechnology probably behind them. Cause of their visit could be watching and getting information, the search of knowledge.

The meaning of intelligence for the universe.

Intelligence will finally dominate the forces of the universe. Our descendants will early recognize an asteroid that would collide with earth and shoot it down. Intelligence cannot eliminate the laws of physics, but manipulate them according its needs. Condition is that intelligence reaches a certain level of development. The intensity of intelligence on earth is rather small. It depends on the intensity of data processing. The human brain can carry out 2 problems in a second per cubicmicrometer. The mass of brain of all living men is only a 100 billion part of all earth mass. Nanotubes will have a much higher intensity of data processing. The mass of earth is only a very small part of the whole mass of our solar system, the intensity of data processing in the solar system except earth is zero. On the other end of the spectrum there is intensity of dataprocessing in nanotubes- also this is not the upper limit- there is no upper limit for intensity of dataprocessing!

The Law Of Accelerating Returns says: also the common intensity of dataprocessing increases exponentially. Computer today have much more output than computers built 10 or 20 years ago, and there are 100 of millions today >> so the intensity of dataprocessing will increase to the billionfold during the 21st century.

Intensity of intelligence is narrow connected with the intensity of dataprocessing. Intensity of intelligence here on earth and in our solar system will increase exponentially.

Summary copyright F.Hornischer

"The same applies for our galaxy and the whole universe. Probably our earth is not the only planet where the semen of intelligence opens and is growing on all the time. Finally this exploding intelligence will be a force, comparable with the big forces of the universe. Intelligence will not be able to eliminate natural laws, but it will know how to take away from their effects. So how the universe will end? In the big crunch? In the eternal drifting away of burned out and dead suns? Or is there a third alternative? I am convinced: The fate of the universe depends not primarily on how forces and masses will act in universe, or if there is maybe antigravity, or if Einsteins so- called cosmological constance is valid. The fate of the universe is something we must decide about later, a decision which when the time has come we will make with much more knowledge and intelligence than is available for us today."

Copyright Ray Kurzweil: The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. Paperback 2000

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