Assalamu Alaykum,
I have two questions.
Is believing in the existence of technologically superior extraterrestrial intelligences permitted in Islam?
Is trying to find and contact technologically superior extraterrestrial intelligences (e.g. by working at the SETI Institute) permitted in Islam?
These “technologically superior extraterrestrial intelligences” would not be like the aliens in all of the Hollywood movies, they would be far more powerful.
They would be technologically so far ahead of us that they could potentially do some or all of the following things (sorted from most likely to least likely):
- Completely blow up a planet or a star with one single bomb (e.g. antimatter bomb).
- Create stars and planets and perhaps also seed life on planets.
- Have armies of trillions of extremely intelligent and powerful robots.
- Engineer structures bigger than our planet (e.g. Jupiter brains) and bigger than our Sun (e.g. Dyson spheres, matrioshka brains).
- Have uploaded their consciousness/soul into machines (e.g. super-advanced computers, Jupiter brains, matrioshka brains) to achieve immortality.
- Teleport instantly anywhere in the universe by using wormholes.
- Travel in the past and change the timeline.
I have two questions.
Is believing in the existence of technologically superior extraterrestrial intelligences permitted in Islam?
Is trying to find and contact technologically superior extraterrestrial intelligences (e.g. by working at the SETI Institute) permitted in Islam?
These “technologically superior extraterrestrial intelligences” would not be like the aliens in all of the Hollywood movies, they would be far more powerful.
They would be technologically so far ahead of us that they could potentially do some or all of the following things (sorted from most likely to least likely):
- Completely blow up a planet or a star with one single bomb (e.g. antimatter bomb).
- Create stars and planets and perhaps also seed life on planets.
- Have armies of trillions of extremely intelligent and powerful robots.
- Engineer structures bigger than our planet (e.g. Jupiter brains) and bigger than our Sun (e.g. Dyson spheres, matrioshka brains).
- Have uploaded their consciousness/soul into machines (e.g. super-advanced computers, Jupiter brains, matrioshka brains) to achieve immortality.
- Teleport instantly anywhere in the universe by using wormholes.
- Travel in the past and change the timeline.