<-- Leonardo da Vinci Syndrome | Transhumanist Terminology Index | Liquidentity -->
At some point in the
future, the
universe that we live in will
end in some manner. Perhaps in the
big crunch, as the universe collapses upon itself. Or it might be due to
the heat death of the universe, as all matter and
energy becomes equally spread out in its lowest
possible state, where nothing can be done.
The Linde Scenario is a scenario for the continued survival of intelligent life beyond this point. As the universe will be dead, it implies a method of life being able to travel to a new universe, whether created by them, or a naturally existing one. It doesn't necessarily imply that traveling to these new universes be done only when this one is dying, but that the travel is simply a method that would avoid that problem.
Obviously, this is all talk and speculation. It is based on Linde's chaotic inflation cosmology, a theory that states that new universes are continually spawned. The proposed method involves creating wormholes, then sending them to another universe - often a baby universe, which is theorized to be created when a black hole pinches off part of the parent universe.
This scenario offers and interesting perspective on the Fermi Paradox. One possibility is that by the time that technology reaches the level to allow interstellar travel, the civilization might be able to do something like this. Thus, they could create their own universe for themselves, and thus leave the parent one alone for other civilizations to develop in peace.
But on the other hand, what would prevent a civilization with a strong urge to colonize as much as possible from travelling to as many universes as they can? If there are huge (or even infinite) numbers of universes, don't the odds become so great that another civilization somewhere would start entering other universes, and that they'd quickly spread so much that we'd see one of them? (This suggests a low likelihood that the ideas presented here are feasible, and that perhaps the theories are flawed.)