Notes on Extinction and Existence

The idea of human extinction implies the death of all human beings, including those who would think this idea and bear witness to its reality. In so far as extinction implies the negation of all thought (including the thought of extinction), contradiction is built into the idea of human extinction. Yet both philosophers and science-fiction authors alike have speculated at length on the possible or probable extinction of humanity. Taking Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain as a departure point, the essay explores the idea of human extinction as a philosophical problematic.