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Contemplating Aliens - Part I
a year ago
Several good friends have asked me about my views about aliens. I spoke about Ludwig Wittgenstein a few years ago and I applied his ideas from his 1950s book “Philosophical Investigations” to aliens. Wittgenstein’s argument was this: “If a lion could speak, we could not understand him”. Wittgenstein argued that it wasn’t merely language which was a problem: even a highly intelligent lion wouldn’t be capable of communicating properly with humans, because his entire way of being and his world of ideas are completely different from us humans. You can see this problem in the way how we portray aliens: we always portray them basically as strange looking humans. They might look like lizards or insects, but their minds are always very similar to ours. Wittgenstein argued that this way of looking at alien other lifeforms is completely wrong: we have absolutely no evidence that intelligent lions (or aliens from other worlds) would be even in the slightest similar to us. The main cause of this problem is our inability to comprehend the existence of non-human intelligences. Actual aliens would most likely be so extremely alien (pun intended) in their way of seeing the world so that even speaking the same language wouldn’t work at all, because they would use the human language in a highly abstract way, which would make little to no sense to us humans.
I even noticed this problem when I tried to discuss religion with a good friend from Japan. Neither of us was truly capable of understanding what the other meant. My friend tried to explain to me what the “Kami” are, but as far as I understand it, the “Kami” aren’t gods at all, even though “gods” are the common translation for them in English. Our problem is that concepts such as the “Kami” and the Buddhist “Nirvana” can’t be accurately translated into other languages. The closest thing which we have in the West is Greco-Roman mythology, so we just use it as a way of interpreting Shintoism (the native religion of Japan, which is actually a loosely connected collection of old folk beliefs and only ever became a more-or-less unified religion during Japan’s nationalistic late 19th century), but this already shows our clear limitations in this regard. My friend expressed confusion about Christ’s role in Christianity and the implications and concepts of the holy trinity. If even two humans (from the same species) struggle so deeply when it comes to conveying things and concepts (and history is filled of different groups being confused by other groups and not being capable of understanding them at all (to give a historical example: Atahualpa was given a Holy Bible, he was told that this was the “word of God”, he took the Bible, listened to it and when he heard nothing, he seemingly thought that this was a joke and threw the Bible on the ground, thus deeply offending the Spaniards and their leader Pizarro), what can we expect from the clumsy communication attempts between humans and much more distant aliens? Maybe humans (or aliens) would commit acts which could be seen as deeply offensive by the other party, thus something seemingly harmless in the eyes of one civilization could be considered a declaration of war by the other (there’s an episode in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” called “Justice” from the first season, one of the kid characters of the “Enterprise” visits the planet Rubicun III to socialize with the alien teenagers. He breaks a law (by breaking a greenhouse) and is sentenced to death. The crew of the Enterprise struggles with the fact that this act is a vile contravention of the laws of the local culture).
I’m a lifelong science-fiction fan and I have read a multitude of different books about the speculative evolution of extraterrestrial life. The following text of course wasn’t written by a biologist, but by a historian who looks at the subject more with the eyes of an archeologist and philosopher than from the perspective of a xenobiologist or a paleontologist (a little reference to Dougal Dixon whose books I loved as a child).
My question is this: what can we guess about extraterrestrials? I mean by using logic, because logic is the only deductive method which we possess to discuss and assess potentially existing aliens.
I have several (possibly foolish) assumptions about intelligent extraterrestrial species:
- Locomotion: our potential aliens will most likely possess the ability of locomotion (in other words: they can move on their own). Maybe they can walk, crawl, swim or fly or maybe all of these abilities combined. Whatever their method is, they can move from one place to another.
- Reproduction: they can propagate their own species, whether through mating or asexual reproduction or possible even artificial means. Aliens most likely have methods to increase their biomass (the number of members of their respective species).
- Combat abilities: it’s highly likely that extraterrestrials will possess some mechanism of self-preservation and/or protection. Even if they are defensive methods (like a turtle’s shell or a frog’s poison), they will have mechanisms for survival.
- Adaptability: both biologically as well as mentally. We can assume that a living organism (possible also artificial ones) have the ability to adapt to different environments. All observed lifeforms on Earth possess a (limited) ability to adapt to new environments (we humans for example have formed different races through evolutionary pressures for the survival in different regions). We have no reason to doubt that extraterrestrials might have similar abilities, though we have to be careful when arguing about the means of adaption, since we can’t be sure if these are natural or artificial methods.
- Sensory organs: a biological (or artificial) system which can be used by the organism to gather information about its surroundings/environment. The ability to see, hear and feel (though we can’t be sure if aliens actually “see” like us or if they can even “hear”, they might be almost deaf like snakes for all we know).
- Mathematical knowledge: I deliberately say mathematical knowledge because math is required to solve even very basic problems (like building a good bridge, keep track of your farm animals or controlling the amount of food required for a feast), science doesn’t exist without mathematics at all. An alien civilization might not have our equivalent of philosophy or even art, but they require a decimal system to calculate and construct complex structures and machines (even if we assume that they completely lack the concept of social sciences).
- Engineering abilities: the aliens must possess some form of organs (or other, possibly artificial bodily extensions) which can be used as tools. We humans have thumbs, our thumbs alone give us a massive advantage over the vast majority of mammals on Earth. Even exotic lifeforms like flying “whales” and intelligent “snails” would require some extensions of their bodies which can manipulate their surroundings.
- Culture: it’s very likely that aliens will have their own culture. Now, when I say “culture”, I don’t mean Mexican food, Japanese martial arts or German folk music, I’m talking broadly about specific aspects of their regionalized customs, their way of living and existing which are entirely unique (this can include things like basic assumptions about life or even how one walks or acts or rests).
- Unity and social cooperation: it’s plausible that aliens (if we assume that they don’t possess some hive mind like insects or the Borg from “Star Trek” and aren’t made-up of one single, gigantic organism ala Stanislaw Lem’s “Solaris”) have some form of social cohesion and unity. Social customs and social cooperation are required to build highly complex societies and structures (though we can assume that some very highly advanced societies might have machines who can easily be controlled by few, or maybe a quasi-anarchistic state of “isolated loners” (creatures who rarely if ever interact with others and who have no clear social hierarchy, scorpions come to mind), thus making our concept of the “social contract” basically meaningless).
I also believe that we should ignore several Hollywood tropes which are extremely dominant in the area of contemplating the existence of potential alien lifeforms:
- Aliens are weird looking humans: There’s absolutely no reason to assume that aliens are even in the slightest similar to us as far as the mind goes. We in fact can’t even fathom non-human minds, which should tell you sufficiently about our extreme limits in this area.
- Aliens are subjects to Earth-like forms of evolution: there’s nothing which suggests that biological evolution on other planets would work similarly like evolution on Earth, meaning that aliens might not have organs or abilities which our organisms on Earth have. Several biologists have argued in the past that telepathy can’t exist because the evolutionary pressures on Earth haven’t produced it in several billions of years of terrestrial evolution, therefore it is impossible and can’t exist (this is however rooted in bad logic, not reason. Self-aware consciousness didn’t exist for billions of years as well, yet it exists now in us humans. I don’t know if telepathy could evolve naturally or not, but the idea that it is impossible that organisms send electrical signals from one brain (possibly with the help of technology) to another doesn’t strike me as physically impossible or even as especially extraordinary). This trope presupposes that all life-supporting planets in the universe are identical, which is nonsense, all Earth-like exo-planets which we found so far are considerably different from our Earth. Even slight changes in gravity and pressure as well as atmospheric gases would produce entirely different ecosystems than those on Earth.
- Aliens have human moral views: this idea is extremely dominant in science-fiction. Many science-fiction authors simply assume that aliens have modern Western moral views, which seems highly implausible. Most humans on Earth disagree massively on very basic topics (like sexuality, war and economy), so we have no reason to believe that aliens from other planets would have even remotely similar views. It’s in fact possible that aliens might not understand our moral systems at all. Maybe everything which is beneficial to them is good and everything which isn’t beneficial would be considered bad (animals show behavior which is somewhat similar, they do whatever is good for them without ever showing regret when it comes to destroying their competition, what if aliens have similar forms of behavior?).
- Alien intelligence can fix everything: This trope implies that extraterrestrial intelligence is so extremely advanced that our alien visitors can easily bridge all gaps and help them to perfectly understand us and even learn our languages within seconds or minutes. The problem with this trope is that its authors misunderstand what intelligence actually is. Intelligence isn’t magic, it’s merely the ability of a creature’s mental capacity to solve tasks.
- Aliens care about human social customs: Many people have criticized ufologists for their views that aliens would abduct people. They say that aliens would obviously (ala Star Trek) come to Earth and introduce themselves by landing in front of the White House to start diplomatic relationships with us. But is this realistic? I mean chimpanzees and gorillas are smart animals who have complex social structures. Do we humans really care about this? Do we even care in the slightest? I mean do we try to introduce ourselves by sending human ambassadors to the apes? No, we shoot the ape we want and take it to our lab. We don’t care that the animal doesn’t agree with us or not. We want to study it, so we do it. They are not our equals, so why would we care about their lack of consent? We could easily wipe out all apes if it was our wish. Give the order and the Congolese army will firebomb all places where gorillas live. They would be all gone within a week. This power difference alone should show you how unrealistic a reconciliation between humans and much more advanced aliens would be. I hope that you don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that flying saucers are abducting people regularly (I believe that many of these UFO reports are bizarre to say the very least), all I’m saying is that the ufologists have a valid point: there’s no reason to assume that aliens wouldn’t study humans from far away and that they wouldn’t abduct some from time to time (if we assume that they have the ability to reach us).
- Aliens are always more advanced than humans: This trope is dominant in many sci-fi stories, but it might not be true at all. Intelligent aliens might actually be vastly inferior to us in a wide range of fields as far as technology goes. What if aliens are self-aware but they (for whatever reason) have never developed the scientific method? There were hundreds of civilizations on Earth, yet only one single ever developed the scientific method. So how likely is it that all intelligent alien civilizations would do the same? Can we even assume that the scientific method is something common? What if the scientific method is something very exotic and we humans were lucky that one of our own civilizations invented it? Also, consider the limits which the different environment of an alien world would impose on its inhabitants: intelligent underwater creatures for example would have a hard time to develop electronic technology, same goes for flying beings who dwell in the cloudy atmosphere of a Venus-like planet (I’m suggesting Venus because Venus’s higher atmosphere is one of the most Earth-like environments in our solar system, a human could possibly survive there, but he would also require a breathing apparatus of sorts, because humans can’t breathe the toxic gases).
I even noticed this problem when I tried to discuss religion with a good friend from Japan. Neither of us was truly capable of understanding what the other meant. My friend tried to explain to me what the “Kami” are, but as far as I understand it, the “Kami” aren’t gods at all, even though “gods” are the common translation for them in English. Our problem is that concepts such as the “Kami” and the Buddhist “Nirvana” can’t be accurately translated into other languages. The closest thing which we have in the West is Greco-Roman mythology, so we just use it as a way of interpreting Shintoism (the native religion of Japan, which is actually a loosely connected collection of old folk beliefs and only ever became a more-or-less unified religion during Japan’s nationalistic late 19th century), but this already shows our clear limitations in this regard. My friend expressed confusion about Christ’s role in Christianity and the implications and concepts of the holy trinity. If even two humans (from the same species) struggle so deeply when it comes to conveying things and concepts (and history is filled of different groups being confused by other groups and not being capable of understanding them at all (to give a historical example: Atahualpa was given a Holy Bible, he was told that this was the “word of God”, he took the Bible, listened to it and when he heard nothing, he seemingly thought that this was a joke and threw the Bible on the ground, thus deeply offending the Spaniards and their leader Pizarro), what can we expect from the clumsy communication attempts between humans and much more distant aliens? Maybe humans (or aliens) would commit acts which could be seen as deeply offensive by the other party, thus something seemingly harmless in the eyes of one civilization could be considered a declaration of war by the other (there’s an episode in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” called “Justice” from the first season, one of the kid characters of the “Enterprise” visits the planet Rubicun III to socialize with the alien teenagers. He breaks a law (by breaking a greenhouse) and is sentenced to death. The crew of the Enterprise struggles with the fact that this act is a vile contravention of the laws of the local culture).
I’m a lifelong science-fiction fan and I have read a multitude of different books about the speculative evolution of extraterrestrial life. The following text of course wasn’t written by a biologist, but by a historian who looks at the subject more with the eyes of an archeologist and philosopher than from the perspective of a xenobiologist or a paleontologist (a little reference to Dougal Dixon whose books I loved as a child).
My question is this: what can we guess about extraterrestrials? I mean by using logic, because logic is the only deductive method which we possess to discuss and assess potentially existing aliens.
I have several (possibly foolish) assumptions about intelligent extraterrestrial species:
- Locomotion: our potential aliens will most likely possess the ability of locomotion (in other words: they can move on their own). Maybe they can walk, crawl, swim or fly or maybe all of these abilities combined. Whatever their method is, they can move from one place to another.
- Reproduction: they can propagate their own species, whether through mating or asexual reproduction or possible even artificial means. Aliens most likely have methods to increase their biomass (the number of members of their respective species).
- Combat abilities: it’s highly likely that extraterrestrials will possess some mechanism of self-preservation and/or protection. Even if they are defensive methods (like a turtle’s shell or a frog’s poison), they will have mechanisms for survival.
- Adaptability: both biologically as well as mentally. We can assume that a living organism (possible also artificial ones) have the ability to adapt to different environments. All observed lifeforms on Earth possess a (limited) ability to adapt to new environments (we humans for example have formed different races through evolutionary pressures for the survival in different regions). We have no reason to doubt that extraterrestrials might have similar abilities, though we have to be careful when arguing about the means of adaption, since we can’t be sure if these are natural or artificial methods.
- Sensory organs: a biological (or artificial) system which can be used by the organism to gather information about its surroundings/environment. The ability to see, hear and feel (though we can’t be sure if aliens actually “see” like us or if they can even “hear”, they might be almost deaf like snakes for all we know).
- Mathematical knowledge: I deliberately say mathematical knowledge because math is required to solve even very basic problems (like building a good bridge, keep track of your farm animals or controlling the amount of food required for a feast), science doesn’t exist without mathematics at all. An alien civilization might not have our equivalent of philosophy or even art, but they require a decimal system to calculate and construct complex structures and machines (even if we assume that they completely lack the concept of social sciences).
- Engineering abilities: the aliens must possess some form of organs (or other, possibly artificial bodily extensions) which can be used as tools. We humans have thumbs, our thumbs alone give us a massive advantage over the vast majority of mammals on Earth. Even exotic lifeforms like flying “whales” and intelligent “snails” would require some extensions of their bodies which can manipulate their surroundings.
- Culture: it’s very likely that aliens will have their own culture. Now, when I say “culture”, I don’t mean Mexican food, Japanese martial arts or German folk music, I’m talking broadly about specific aspects of their regionalized customs, their way of living and existing which are entirely unique (this can include things like basic assumptions about life or even how one walks or acts or rests).
- Unity and social cooperation: it’s plausible that aliens (if we assume that they don’t possess some hive mind like insects or the Borg from “Star Trek” and aren’t made-up of one single, gigantic organism ala Stanislaw Lem’s “Solaris”) have some form of social cohesion and unity. Social customs and social cooperation are required to build highly complex societies and structures (though we can assume that some very highly advanced societies might have machines who can easily be controlled by few, or maybe a quasi-anarchistic state of “isolated loners” (creatures who rarely if ever interact with others and who have no clear social hierarchy, scorpions come to mind), thus making our concept of the “social contract” basically meaningless).
I also believe that we should ignore several Hollywood tropes which are extremely dominant in the area of contemplating the existence of potential alien lifeforms:
- Aliens are weird looking humans: There’s absolutely no reason to assume that aliens are even in the slightest similar to us as far as the mind goes. We in fact can’t even fathom non-human minds, which should tell you sufficiently about our extreme limits in this area.
- Aliens are subjects to Earth-like forms of evolution: there’s nothing which suggests that biological evolution on other planets would work similarly like evolution on Earth, meaning that aliens might not have organs or abilities which our organisms on Earth have. Several biologists have argued in the past that telepathy can’t exist because the evolutionary pressures on Earth haven’t produced it in several billions of years of terrestrial evolution, therefore it is impossible and can’t exist (this is however rooted in bad logic, not reason. Self-aware consciousness didn’t exist for billions of years as well, yet it exists now in us humans. I don’t know if telepathy could evolve naturally or not, but the idea that it is impossible that organisms send electrical signals from one brain (possibly with the help of technology) to another doesn’t strike me as physically impossible or even as especially extraordinary). This trope presupposes that all life-supporting planets in the universe are identical, which is nonsense, all Earth-like exo-planets which we found so far are considerably different from our Earth. Even slight changes in gravity and pressure as well as atmospheric gases would produce entirely different ecosystems than those on Earth.
- Aliens have human moral views: this idea is extremely dominant in science-fiction. Many science-fiction authors simply assume that aliens have modern Western moral views, which seems highly implausible. Most humans on Earth disagree massively on very basic topics (like sexuality, war and economy), so we have no reason to believe that aliens from other planets would have even remotely similar views. It’s in fact possible that aliens might not understand our moral systems at all. Maybe everything which is beneficial to them is good and everything which isn’t beneficial would be considered bad (animals show behavior which is somewhat similar, they do whatever is good for them without ever showing regret when it comes to destroying their competition, what if aliens have similar forms of behavior?).
- Alien intelligence can fix everything: This trope implies that extraterrestrial intelligence is so extremely advanced that our alien visitors can easily bridge all gaps and help them to perfectly understand us and even learn our languages within seconds or minutes. The problem with this trope is that its authors misunderstand what intelligence actually is. Intelligence isn’t magic, it’s merely the ability of a creature’s mental capacity to solve tasks.
- Aliens care about human social customs: Many people have criticized ufologists for their views that aliens would abduct people. They say that aliens would obviously (ala Star Trek) come to Earth and introduce themselves by landing in front of the White House to start diplomatic relationships with us. But is this realistic? I mean chimpanzees and gorillas are smart animals who have complex social structures. Do we humans really care about this? Do we even care in the slightest? I mean do we try to introduce ourselves by sending human ambassadors to the apes? No, we shoot the ape we want and take it to our lab. We don’t care that the animal doesn’t agree with us or not. We want to study it, so we do it. They are not our equals, so why would we care about their lack of consent? We could easily wipe out all apes if it was our wish. Give the order and the Congolese army will firebomb all places where gorillas live. They would be all gone within a week. This power difference alone should show you how unrealistic a reconciliation between humans and much more advanced aliens would be. I hope that you don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that flying saucers are abducting people regularly (I believe that many of these UFO reports are bizarre to say the very least), all I’m saying is that the ufologists have a valid point: there’s no reason to assume that aliens wouldn’t study humans from far away and that they wouldn’t abduct some from time to time (if we assume that they have the ability to reach us).
- Aliens are always more advanced than humans: This trope is dominant in many sci-fi stories, but it might not be true at all. Intelligent aliens might actually be vastly inferior to us in a wide range of fields as far as technology goes. What if aliens are self-aware but they (for whatever reason) have never developed the scientific method? There were hundreds of civilizations on Earth, yet only one single ever developed the scientific method. So how likely is it that all intelligent alien civilizations would do the same? Can we even assume that the scientific method is something common? What if the scientific method is something very exotic and we humans were lucky that one of our own civilizations invented it? Also, consider the limits which the different environment of an alien world would impose on its inhabitants: intelligent underwater creatures for example would have a hard time to develop electronic technology, same goes for flying beings who dwell in the cloudy atmosphere of a Venus-like planet (I’m suggesting Venus because Venus’s higher atmosphere is one of the most Earth-like environments in our solar system, a human could possibly survive there, but he would also require a breathing apparatus of sorts, because humans can’t breathe the toxic gases).
I share your feelings of loss, I love these old stories and I'd love to see Flash Gordon fight Ming's robots in Mongo's Jurassic forests, but the unfortunate truth is that alien life is most likely not similar to life on Earth. I wrote to a professor of astrophysics. What we know about possible alien life is purely speculative and based on unknown variables, but the chances of them being remotely similar to us is basically impossible, because no planet mirrors Earth exactly. This means that it’s basically impossible that alien life would evolve under circumstances like our own. Things like different atmospheric gases, pressure and gravity could – despite the planet being extremely Earth-like – produce life which is entirely exotic, because natural selection couldn’t walk the same path like it did on Earth.