life may independently originate in multiple places in our cosmos. In that case, unambitious civilizations simply become cosmically irrelevant, with ever-larger parts of the cosmic endowment ultimately being taken over by the most ambitious life forms. Natural selection therefore plays out on a cosmic scale and, after a while, almost all life that exists will be ambitious life. In summary, if we’re interested in the extent to which our cosmos can ultimately come alive, we should study the limits of ambition that are imposed by the laws of physics. Let’s do this! Let’s first explore the limits
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