Problem 1: Survive better than other mammals So, what are the biggest challenges humanity will face if we survive into the far future? We cannot say how (or if) they will be overcome (I will make some guesses) but we can be confident these threats to our existence are coming. And the classic paper on the topic is Freeman Dyson’s 1979 paper on life in open universes, which outlined likely or possible existential catastrophes that could threaten life far into the future, from the death of the Sun to the detachment of stars from galaxies. Rees took a cue from theology, in which “eschatology” is the study of ultimate things such as the end of the world. This approach can be described as “physical eschatology” – a term coined by the astronomer Martin Rees for using astrophysics to model where the Universe is going. Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?.Similarly, we can use known astrophysics to predict what will likely happen across the Universe as it expands. We can be confident that there will be a total solar eclipse in the UK on 23 September 2090 because the Moon, Sun and Earth move in stable, predictable orbits with very minor disturbances, and the laws of gravity are now well-tested. However, not everything is as chaotic as the weather: even predictions very far ahead are sometimes possible, especially in astrophysics and cosmology. Can we actually say anything about the far future? If we can’t predict when it will rain next month, forecasting billions of years hence might seem impossible.
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