Is it necessary to build giant starships so that humans can fly out of the solar system and into deep space?

Almost all science fiction movies and TV shows depicting starships in the distant future are giant, and humans live in them just like in a big city, almost the same as on land. So, in the future, do humans really have to use such giant starships to go into deep space?

My answer is: not necessarily. The giant starship is likely to be just a transitional product, and the ultimate starship will develop towards miniaturization.

Why do I say this? This is based on a view I have always held: the ultimate goal of evolution for humans and any civilization in the universe is to destroy their own physical form and ultimately exist in the form of consciousness or energy in order to gain a longer survival period or even immortality.

This is not something I am making up here, but:

Scientists are already working on this.

Several well-known scientific institutions, such as Google's research on digitization of consciousness; Neuralink, the brain-computer interface company under scientific giant Elon Musk, is conducting research on consciousness uploading; Russian tycoon Dmitry Itskov is conducting the "Modern Avatar" project and research on uploading consciousness to virtual humans, etc., are all attempting to preserve and transfer human consciousness through modern technology, thereby achieving immortality at the level of human consciousness.

These research institutions all declared that in the next 40 years or so, their research will achieve major breakthroughs, and humans will no longer need to rack their brains to repair and save their damaged bodies.

If humans can really separate themselves from their bodies, the way people exist and the resources they need will undergo a radical and subversive change. The biggest change is that without the constraints of the body, people will no longer need to consume large amounts of food, and will no longer need water or air to sustain life. Moreover, they will exist in an invisible way in machines. So why do spacecraft have to be so large?

Science fiction movies and TV shows don’t even consider human evolution and upgrading

I have said in the past that many science fiction writers and some descriptions in science fiction films and television do not take into account the overall comprehensive upgrade of human civilization or extraterrestrial civilization. They only consider how spacecraft and some equipment are becoming more and more advanced, and in many aspects they still reflect common things in modern life.

For example, the protagonist is still the same as he was thousands of years ago, and his ideology is still full of emotions, intrigues and deceptions. Things like the dark forest and chain of suspicion are completely a reflection of the selfish nature of modern humans. When fighting, except for a few advanced equipment such as laser weapons, it is still the same as the ancient fighting style of cold weapons, with swords, spears and halberds.

If it is still like this after hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years, then what progress has this society made? Therefore, this kind of science fiction can only be used for entertainment and should not be taken seriously.

The upgrade of any civilization must be accompanied by the evolution and upgrade of the civilization itself, and various equipment and facilities are constantly improved and upgraded according to the changes of the civilization itself. If we ignore the important and only think about the upgrade of equipment technology, but fail to see the changes in human beings themselves, how can we see the future?

Therefore, my assumption is that if humans do not become extinct, 5,000 years later, human civilization will be upgraded to the second-level civilization of the universe. At that time, humans will no longer be bound by the flesh and will live in various spaces in the form of consciousness. Depending on the level of science and technology, human consciousness may exist in computers or in artificial intelligence.

But these computers or artificial intelligence entities may no longer be in human form, because the human body has disappeared, and there is no need to imitate the clumsy appearance of ancient people. What will they look like? I can't tell you clearly now, probably every era has its own fashion trends.

Can consciousness die?

I think so, because consciousness also needs energy to maintain, and time will also leave marks on the particle level, and perhaps aging will occur. But at least it is much longer than the current human lifespan, no longer measured in decades or hundreds of years at most, but in thousands, tens of thousands, or even tens of thousands of years.

There should also be rules in such a society. For some conscious beings that violate the rules, perhaps the highest punishment is the dissipation of consciousness and the disappearance of the soul forever. This may be the death penalty of that era.

When will humans be able to break free from the shackles of the flesh?

I am optimistic about the evolution of humans leaving the body, but I am not blindly saying that it will be realized soon. Those high-tech companies claim that they can achieve consciousness uploading in 40 years, I think this is a bit too optimistic. Even if there are some breakthroughs, they may be very elementary. It should be a relatively long process for humans to evolve and upgrade to leaving the body, which is not something that a first-level civilization can achieve.

According to Kardashev's three-level civilization theory, scientists have calculated that human civilization is still at level 0.73. It will take another 200 years to achieve level 1 civilization, and another 5,000 years to achieve level 2 civilization.

I estimate that when humans reach level one civilization, which is 200 years from now, there may be some breakthroughs in the study of consciousness. However, the true realization of consciousness completely independent of the body should only begin to mature gradually after achieving level one civilization.

Such huge starships are designed for humans who exist in physical form now, and are the transitional products of humans' upgrading to level 1 civilization and the early stage of level 1 civilization. For example, the United States has a 100-year starship plan, which is to build a 50,000-ton starship in 100 years from now and fly out of the solar system.

In the middle and late stages of the first-level civilization, that is, three or four thousand years later, the proportion of human consciousness will become larger and larger. Especially for those who travel in deep space, in order to reduce the consumption of starships and extend the life of travelers, they will definitely exist and travel in an ideological way.

The miniaturization of starships is a trend in the middle and late stages of a first-level civilization.

In the middle and late stages of the first-level civilization, starships began to transition towards miniaturization. By the late stages of the first-level civilization and the early stages of the second-level civilization, starships had already achieved miniaturization.

The starships at that time may be as big as Musk's current starships, and they will be able to carry thousands or even more intelligent entities that exist in the form of ideologies. These conscious entities exist in various devices and can control the equipment and starships at any time. When they arrive at the destination planet, they can use local resources to manufacture the necessary products.

The only resource these conscious entities need to survive is energy. This energy may be drawn from their own fusion matter, directly from the stars they pass by, or from antimatter, dark matter, and dark energy.

This is why I said earlier that the giant starships in science fiction movies may or may not exist in the future. To be precise, it is very likely that giant starships will appear first, and then gradually become smaller, and finally realize the subject consciousness of deep space navigation and the miniaturization of starships.

Many of you may think these statements are very strange, even more bizarre than the Arabian Nights. But this is the trend of scientific development. Let us think about the people thousands of years ago. If they traveled to the modern times, wouldn’t what they saw be even more bizarre than the Arabian Nights? Take the spell “Open Sesame” in the Arabian Nights for example. At that time, “Open Sesame” was a myth and a fantasy. Now, which one is not more powerful than the other, voice control, light control, fingerprint control, and iris control?

So, what I said is true, believe it or not. Welcome to discuss, thank you for reading.

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