The zoo hypothesis assumes, first, that whenever the conditions are such that life can exist and evolve, it will, and secondly, there are many places where life can exist (i.e. that there are a large number of alien cultures in existence) [1]. It also assumes that these aliens have great reverence for independent, natural evolution and development. In particular, assuming that intelligence is a physical process that acts to maximize the diversity of a system's accessible futures,[2] a fundamental motivation for the zoo hypothesis would be that premature contact would "unintelligently" reduce the overall diversity of paths the universe itself could take.