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Rethinking ET "Civilizations"
Posted by Mac Tonnies, Wednesday, April 02, 2008 at 06:55 AM by Mac Tonnies
When scientists address the possibility of contacting extraterrestrial intelligence, they generally use terms in keeping with our own (necessarily limited) experience. Consequently, we're treated to expansive speculation about the agendas of ET civilizations. But why the typical assumption than ETI will necessarily take a readily comprehensible form? After all, the galaxy might be governed by novel forms of intelligence that challenge conventional definitions of government, economics, and even personhood.
To be sure, terms denoting some form of alien "civilization" make speculating about the nature of ETs easier -- usually by implying that even the most technically savvy aliens, despite cultural differences, will be fundamentally comprehensible to present-day humans. But it's a big universe. If we achieve contact --whether through the discovery of artifacts in our solar system or by happening across a telltale signal -- there's no promise the senders will hail from any sort of familiar social structure. Indeed, it's not unlikely that an alien intelligence "merely" a few thousand years ahead of us would completely defy comparison to terrestrial institutions.
I've always been frustrated by the prevailing assumption that aliens will eschew interstellar travel in favor of radio transmission due to the presumed cost of space travel. While aliens might suffer from constraints posed by limited access to resources, the notion of "cost" is rooted in our own brief, limited experience as social primates. We humans might bemoan the seemingly prohibitive price of manned spaceflight, but a more far-sighted intelligence might possess vastly different priorities. Spared the hurdle of terrestrial economic imperatives, I would expect aliens to prove surprisingly resourceful.
Contemporary discussion about a "post-scarcity" economy predicated on molecular manufacturing begs theorists to re-evaluate the likelihood that ET intelligences will conform to the models conceived by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan. For instance, instead of communicating with groups of like-minded beings, we may find ourselves in the midst of solitary god-like beings with only tenuous ties to their biological forebears. Allegiance to a community might turn out to be a uniquely human trait.
If galactic civilizations are indeed exceptional rather than the norm, much of SETI's operative wisdom will demand reinvention. For example, we may have to dispense with realistic hopes of happening across Sagan's "Encyclopedia Galactica." Likewise, we may never be invited to "join the club" -- not because we're not deserving, but simply because there's no club to join in the first place.
Ultimately, I'm haunted by a vision of a Cosmos inhabited by forever-roaming AIs who have long since jettisoned the quirks and baggage forged during their ancestors' brief tenure as biological beings. Some of these wandering minds might be quite indifferent to the antics of emerging technological civilizations such as our own. Others, possessed of infinite patience, might choose to observe.
But the ones who want to play are the ones that interest me most of all.
Mac Tonnies
7 Comments:
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Posted by Joseph H Guth PhD
April 08, 2008 at 10:25 AM
When Aliens Call
Regarding the subject of whether an alien message received by a governmental research project would be released to the world's peoples, none in the current SETI blog discussions has addressed the more likely possibility that the message could be one that alerts us to the fact that the aliens themselves are of an aggressive or militant nature or simply looking to conquer new worlds for food sources, additional living space or other needed resources. This has been the most common theme of science fiction since it began over a century ago. If a civilization is compelled to develop interstellar space flight, it has an instinct to survive and propagate. If it has those instincts, then it would have developed both defensive and offensive weapons, tools and tactical knowledge just as Man and other life forms on earth have done. Darwinism would be at work anywhere in the universe. If that were the case, we should be holding our right hand out in friendship and reserving our left hand for possible defense with a very big stick. In any case, it has been very imprudent of us to have been broadcasting our presence to the universe over the last 100 or so years through the radio and microwave spectrum without considering and preparing for this possibility. We should be watching any potential alien explorers or conquistadors from a well-concealed location to see what their real intentions are before we attempt to contact them. Only after assurances that they are benign and not bringing any alien infection with them should we actually establish communications and contact with them. Otherwise our world’s civilizations should be invisible to the rest of the universe.
It is true that most governments would have more reasons not to share such information with their populations than reasons to actually do "the right thing". But when have governments ever done the very best for those who live under them? Never. It would be foolish in the extreme if the peoples of the world continued to think that nation identities, national boundaries, national economies, national histories, ethnicities, languages, racial differences, organized religions and other human constructs that keep us divided and at odds and pitted against each other would continue to exist unchanged into the indefinite future. The world is finally crowded enough like an overgrown Petri dish as per Thomas Malthus for globalization to bring down all of these dividers one way or the other. And one of the overriding ideas and needs that most people intrinsically feel is a need to have themselves respected, recognized and their voices heard. That is human nature. That is the underlying psychological reason for the idea of a pure democracy.
When a group of people come together to live in close cooperation, ground rules must be established. Those ground rules are like Rousseau and Locke's Social Contract. Each gives up some of their own power of self determination in exchange for a harmonious and just way of working together, enjoying the rewards of joint efforts and balancing their own self-interests against the interests of the greater good. Outlaws and outliers are “culled from the herd” through law enforcement and judicial review. In such a Utopia, all finally gain the maximum benefit of being a part of the greater group’s efforts. Each can specialize in their work and contributions and have access to the same from all others. That is where globalization, education and economic development is directing us to evolve. Wars and mass conflicts will cease once the benefits of peace outweigh the short term gains of continued competition, conflict and conquest. The efforts of the majority would be constructive rather than the historical sad mix of constructive and destructive cycles.
Population control will be mandated to keep everything in balance with our energy and resource supplies, and with our ability to perform end-product recycling. It will keep Man in balance with his finite living space. But that will only happen if either all of those divisional institutions fall or are cast by the wayside or if a strong enough uniting reason comes from elsewhere. Space is unimaginably immense. Most stars are now thought to have material bodies and planets revolving about them. The laws of probability counsel us to expect that life, and in particular, intelligent life will have sprung up in uncountable numbers of places. The currently developing future-view is that there are limitless numbers of alien races out there and not all of them are friendly. Thus it behooves us to begin working on getting rid of those dividing institutions as quickly as possible to clear the way to our next stage of development, a democratically-run society based on one-world identity, one-world government and one-world economy. National currencies will be replaced Knowledge breeds success, fear and ignorance breeds failure. Education and philosophical doctrine is the delivery system and a peaceful world with the ability to survive, prosper and defend itself from external threats is the prize.
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Posted by Cassie
April 08, 2008 at 09:58 AM
Hi waldir,
You can subsribe to an RSS feed. Go to the main page of the blog and look on the left-hand side under the morefocus articles box.
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Posted by WMBear
April 04, 2008 at 09:31 PM
And speaking of cost, Mac, for what the U.S. occupation of Iraq hascost -- upward of one TRILLION dollars by conservative estimates, we could have mounted a humanned expedition to the Alpha Centauri system (assuming it has one). And this includes developing a propulsion system to get us up to a reasonable fraction of the speed of light....
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Posted by Michael
April 04, 2008 at 08:57 AM
I agree with the point of view that considering the ET question by relating it to our human priorities and abilities would be and has been a mistake. A understandable mistake, but a mistake non the less. We can't begin to understand an intelligence that might be thousands or even millions of years older than our own unless we believe that evolution proceeds in exactly the same way throughout the entire universe and brings forth all sentient beings with what we know as human characteristics. I do not subscribe to that thinking any longer.
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Posted by waldir
April 04, 2008 at 08:10 AM
Hi, I like this blog, and was wondering... could you set up a rss/atom feed?
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Posted by benjob
April 04, 2008 at 03:42 AM
As we discover more about our universe and the subatomic world, it seems more and more unlikely that an advanced civilisation would communicate via radio signals.
The concept of instant transfer of information over any distance by bypassing our traditional view of space is revealing itself. Once achieved it would be like comparing transfering a message to a friend on horseback or by calling them on a mobile phone.
Maybe we need to retune our search.
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Posted by Lyle
April 03, 2008 at 08:40 AM
I can't help but think of numerous Star Trek episodes, or even the works of Arthur C. Clarke, and the variety of "non-humanlike" entities they proposed, such as gaseous beings or entities that have evolved beyond our understanding.
But I also cant help thinking about how close this comes to our own belief in God, who may just turn out to be such an entity....
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