This article is probably a bit off topic for this blog, but it does present a point that I feel has been profoundly missing from all types of conjecture and discussions about alien races. That life in the universe may be quite horrific and deadly for us, sort of like that proposed in the movie “Alien” or “Predator.” This theme is used extensively in many science fiction stories, movies and TV shows. Even Star Trek, as enlightening as it is, shows the teaming galaxy to be full of threatening alien races, many of whom are also star faring, just like the Federation of Planets. Of course, then we get bombarded by episodes of Star Wars, which shows us how even a highly advanced galactic wide culture often succumbs to wars, rebellions, assassinations, planetary genocide, tyranny and many of the ills that plague our world today, only amplified through a more advanced technology. In fact it would seem that in these stories, people are the same as they have always been, only the technology has changed.
Now to add to all of this speculation comes Stephen Hawking, who warns us not to talk to aliens, because if they ever found out we were here, they would come to plunder, rape, pillage and kill us, perhaps even causing our extinction. I guess he is saying that we should shut down our attempts to contact intelligence life through the SETI program because a successful contact could be quite disastrous for us.
I will quote the article in which Stephen Hawking made his opinions known, which will be a series of TV programs about his life’s work, called “Stephen Hawking’s Universe.” You can find it here.
“He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: ‘We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.’
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is ‘a little too risky’. He said: ‘If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.’”
OK - so now one of the greatest minds in the 21st century is proposing that intelligent star faring people whose technology had achieved the nearly impossible feat of traveling the vast distances of outer space would act like the Scandinavian Vikings or the Mongolian Golden Hoard, peoples who existed on our planet over a thousand years in our past. If we stupidly contact them, and they learn where we are located, then they might come to plunder, destroy and murder instead of parley. The contagious image of Star Trek’s “Borg” come to mind.
However, I have this theory about how technology affects the mind and culture of a people, and that the more advanced the technology, the more refined the culture.
One might conclude that there isn’t much difference between the way we are today, and the way our ancestors were two hundred or three hundred years ago. The technology has certainly changed, but the people haven’t seemed to have changed that much. But on further examination, you can find that the culture has changed quite a bit as well. Even in the 19th century, it was a popular pastime to attend a public execution. In the 18th century those who were punished for serious crimes, such as treason, would be hanged, eviscerated and emasculated, and then beheaded, with the rest of the body cut into four parts (called Drawn and Quartering). Even the guillotine caused a massive spurting of blood once the head was cut off. Common folk who attended such executions usually found them to be quite entertaining, seeing the suffering of another person (who was usually a stranger) as just a form of high amusement. Today in the West, prisoner executions are no longer public events, and even the methods used have to be considered humane so that they don’t cause undue suffering. This would have been seen as absurd by our ancestors.
Many countries in Europe have outlawed capital punishment altogether, showing how much has really changed. One could also point to the fact that human life seems more dear in many cultures and countries than what it was just a couple of hundred years ago. Things have changed, and it is probably quite true that due to advances in technology, medicine, politics and social awareness the sanguine tendencies of our ancestors have been evolved out of the post modern world. This is not saying that terrible things can’t occur, they do! It’s just that we are no longer as tolerant of carnage, suffering and humans behaving like beasts as we were a few hundred years ago.
I would assume that if our world does indeed survive and is able to continue the evolution of technology and culture for the next few hundred years, the world might not even possess nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction at all. The world of the 26th century might actually be one that is peaceful and have eliminated all of the more terrible consequences of human existence, such as war, famine, disease, poverty, lack of opportunities, etc. Perhaps even natural disasters could be determined and mitigated before they even happened. Certainly the world would have a balanced population of human beings living in near perfect harmony with the earth. Of course, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. It would be the only way of living, where the human species had found and developed survivable niches in the world that were sustainable. I may be speculating on what the future would be like, but we are facing a lot of transformative issues in the current age, and if they can be resolved, we may very well build for ourselves and the remaining flora and fauna on this planet an ecological utopia. If we fail to do this, then we will kill ourselves off and all of the life on our planet long before we will develop to the point where we could migrate off of it.
So what I am proposing is that there is a balance between technological development and social and spiritual evolution of a given species. In this equation, technology may be running ahead of the social and spiritual development, but ultimately, all of these factors merge together to dramatically change human nature over time. The human race will probably discover that it must change socially, psychologically and spiritually at a greater pace than at present if we are to survive the next several hundred years. If we do survive, then we will have found a certain level of cultural and spiritual enlightenment to go along with our highly advanced science and technology.
To be a star faring race, we would have to evolve our science and technology perhaps more than a thousand years in the future. It might take even longer to overcome the limitations of relativity and quantum mechanics and discover how to travel through some kind of manufactured worm hole. The energy required to accomplish this task could not be generated on this planet, so we are talking about harnessing the power of a star itself. If you could imagine what our various cultures and the race of humanity would be like a couple of thousand years in the future, it might even be conceivable that we could have genetically altered ourselves, or we might be in the stages of becoming a collective conscious mind, having merged through the artifice of machine intelligence and vast neural networks. Certainly, we would have become nearly god-like in our capacity to understand the past and map the future, having the knowledge to even re-engineer the planet to be like it was before the advent of mankind. I would imagine these beings, if we could still consider them as such, to be benevolent, omniscient and evolved to levels of consciousness that only the greatest yogis or saints could have ever imagined.
Even a completely alien race propagating a totally alien technology would still have to go through these stages of conscious and social evolution that we are facing, regardless of how different they are from us, or how different is their planetary environment or genetic source. A race that had achieved the almost miraculous level of technology required for becoming star faring would also have acquired a commensurate degree of conscious enlightenment as well. If we made contact with such an advanced race, they would certainly function on a level of being that would be far beyond us. It would a like comparing a lower primate to a human being, except that the human being would completely exalted in regards to consciousness. They might choose not to communicate with us at this time, which would be wise and far sighted. Or they might decide to guide and aid us, but only in the most unobtrusive manner. What they wouldn’t do is invade our planet and plunder and destroy our civilization. While there may be alien civilizations in the galaxy that are barbaric (besides our own), they would also lack the ability to travel the stars. They would be stuck on their own world, or at most, in their neighboring planetary sphere until such a time that they would have advanced to much higher levels of technology and civilization. If they survived and didn’t succumb to self-immolation, then they would be far removed from their barbaric past.
Therefore, with these thoughts and theories in mind, I believe that we should encourage the funding and development of SETI, since if we did succeed in contacting a star faring race, they would be our salvation - like the coming of the gods in their chariots of fire.
Now to add to all of this speculation comes Stephen Hawking, who warns us not to talk to aliens, because if they ever found out we were here, they would come to plunder, rape, pillage and kill us, perhaps even causing our extinction. I guess he is saying that we should shut down our attempts to contact intelligence life through the SETI program because a successful contact could be quite disastrous for us.
I will quote the article in which Stephen Hawking made his opinions known, which will be a series of TV programs about his life’s work, called “Stephen Hawking’s Universe.” You can find it here.
“He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: ‘We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.’
He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is ‘a little too risky’. He said: ‘If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.’”
OK - so now one of the greatest minds in the 21st century is proposing that intelligent star faring people whose technology had achieved the nearly impossible feat of traveling the vast distances of outer space would act like the Scandinavian Vikings or the Mongolian Golden Hoard, peoples who existed on our planet over a thousand years in our past. If we stupidly contact them, and they learn where we are located, then they might come to plunder, destroy and murder instead of parley. The contagious image of Star Trek’s “Borg” come to mind.
However, I have this theory about how technology affects the mind and culture of a people, and that the more advanced the technology, the more refined the culture.
One might conclude that there isn’t much difference between the way we are today, and the way our ancestors were two hundred or three hundred years ago. The technology has certainly changed, but the people haven’t seemed to have changed that much. But on further examination, you can find that the culture has changed quite a bit as well. Even in the 19th century, it was a popular pastime to attend a public execution. In the 18th century those who were punished for serious crimes, such as treason, would be hanged, eviscerated and emasculated, and then beheaded, with the rest of the body cut into four parts (called Drawn and Quartering). Even the guillotine caused a massive spurting of blood once the head was cut off. Common folk who attended such executions usually found them to be quite entertaining, seeing the suffering of another person (who was usually a stranger) as just a form of high amusement. Today in the West, prisoner executions are no longer public events, and even the methods used have to be considered humane so that they don’t cause undue suffering. This would have been seen as absurd by our ancestors.
Many countries in Europe have outlawed capital punishment altogether, showing how much has really changed. One could also point to the fact that human life seems more dear in many cultures and countries than what it was just a couple of hundred years ago. Things have changed, and it is probably quite true that due to advances in technology, medicine, politics and social awareness the sanguine tendencies of our ancestors have been evolved out of the post modern world. This is not saying that terrible things can’t occur, they do! It’s just that we are no longer as tolerant of carnage, suffering and humans behaving like beasts as we were a few hundred years ago.
I would assume that if our world does indeed survive and is able to continue the evolution of technology and culture for the next few hundred years, the world might not even possess nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction at all. The world of the 26th century might actually be one that is peaceful and have eliminated all of the more terrible consequences of human existence, such as war, famine, disease, poverty, lack of opportunities, etc. Perhaps even natural disasters could be determined and mitigated before they even happened. Certainly the world would have a balanced population of human beings living in near perfect harmony with the earth. Of course, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. It would be the only way of living, where the human species had found and developed survivable niches in the world that were sustainable. I may be speculating on what the future would be like, but we are facing a lot of transformative issues in the current age, and if they can be resolved, we may very well build for ourselves and the remaining flora and fauna on this planet an ecological utopia. If we fail to do this, then we will kill ourselves off and all of the life on our planet long before we will develop to the point where we could migrate off of it.
So what I am proposing is that there is a balance between technological development and social and spiritual evolution of a given species. In this equation, technology may be running ahead of the social and spiritual development, but ultimately, all of these factors merge together to dramatically change human nature over time. The human race will probably discover that it must change socially, psychologically and spiritually at a greater pace than at present if we are to survive the next several hundred years. If we do survive, then we will have found a certain level of cultural and spiritual enlightenment to go along with our highly advanced science and technology.
To be a star faring race, we would have to evolve our science and technology perhaps more than a thousand years in the future. It might take even longer to overcome the limitations of relativity and quantum mechanics and discover how to travel through some kind of manufactured worm hole. The energy required to accomplish this task could not be generated on this planet, so we are talking about harnessing the power of a star itself. If you could imagine what our various cultures and the race of humanity would be like a couple of thousand years in the future, it might even be conceivable that we could have genetically altered ourselves, or we might be in the stages of becoming a collective conscious mind, having merged through the artifice of machine intelligence and vast neural networks. Certainly, we would have become nearly god-like in our capacity to understand the past and map the future, having the knowledge to even re-engineer the planet to be like it was before the advent of mankind. I would imagine these beings, if we could still consider them as such, to be benevolent, omniscient and evolved to levels of consciousness that only the greatest yogis or saints could have ever imagined.
Even a completely alien race propagating a totally alien technology would still have to go through these stages of conscious and social evolution that we are facing, regardless of how different they are from us, or how different is their planetary environment or genetic source. A race that had achieved the almost miraculous level of technology required for becoming star faring would also have acquired a commensurate degree of conscious enlightenment as well. If we made contact with such an advanced race, they would certainly function on a level of being that would be far beyond us. It would a like comparing a lower primate to a human being, except that the human being would completely exalted in regards to consciousness. They might choose not to communicate with us at this time, which would be wise and far sighted. Or they might decide to guide and aid us, but only in the most unobtrusive manner. What they wouldn’t do is invade our planet and plunder and destroy our civilization. While there may be alien civilizations in the galaxy that are barbaric (besides our own), they would also lack the ability to travel the stars. They would be stuck on their own world, or at most, in their neighboring planetary sphere until such a time that they would have advanced to much higher levels of technology and civilization. If they survived and didn’t succumb to self-immolation, then they would be far removed from their barbaric past.
Therefore, with these thoughts and theories in mind, I believe that we should encourage the funding and development of SETI, since if we did succeed in contacting a star faring race, they would be our salvation - like the coming of the gods in their chariots of fire.
Frater Barrabbas
The trouble is that Hawking is way too late - the reptilians are already here!
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, I can't agree with you that technological progress will always lead to societal evolution, any more than I can imagine what "societal evolution" might mean to completely alien creatures. The thing is, I think Hawking errs in the opposite direction and there's also no reason to assume that aliens will automatically be hostile.
Funding SETI is a great idea because if we someday detect alien signals and can decipher them we'll be able to get some idea of what sort of beings really are out there. Then we can make an informed decision about whether or not communicating with them is a good idea.
@Ananael Qaa - Regardless of how alien a culture is, it still has to go through certain tests in order to become a star faring race.
ReplyDeleteThe first threshold, of course, is Element 92, also known as the Uranium Barrier. It is very likely that if a planetary civilization does not learn to peacefully work out their differences (between same species groups or nation-states) that their world will be destroyed by nuclear weapons.
The next threshold is ecological collapse, due to pollution and overuse of planetary resources. This will require a planetary wide cooperation in order to effectively resolve.
Then, astrological close encounters, or what is called the Nemesis Extinction Factor - which is the requirement for civilizations to be able to eliminate potentially destructive asteroids and comets. This will require a level of planetary cooperation and the pooling of resources that would cause a planetary civilization to further override nationalism and nation-state differences.
Perhaps the greatest barrier to becoming a star faring race is to master what is called Plank Energy, which is 10 to the 19th power billion electron volts, which is what's required to create portals into hyperspace. This much energy could only be wielded by a race that had not only conquered their planet, local solar system and even a large portion of the galaxy (using sub-light speed travel), but would also require an understanding of physics that could be considered as much mystical as scientific. Such a technological leap could only be accomplished by a civilization that would have been around for as much as a million years or more - therefore having matured vastly beyond anything that we could comprehend today.
So my argument is that such a race of star faring people, however alien, would have undergone evolutionary pressures that would be uniformly analogous to all civilizations. Those that managed to survive and thrive for such a long time would be godlike compared to us, and therefore, they would have a level of respect for intelligent life that is far beyond our own.
Keep in mind that it's likely that many civilizations destroy themselves or are destroyed as they attempt to progress. This is why I believe that the SETI program has failed so far to find any proof of an advanced civilization as near a 100 light years away (in all directions). So any civilization that would be encountered by a truly advanced star faring race would therefore consider it to be a most precious commodity, to be preserved and aided or very carefully avoided. Just my two cents, of course.
There's also the possibility that such a race would put emotions aside and favor practicality over empathy. This machine-like perspective might lead to acts we would consider cruel, but to them would simply be part of an equation in favor of their goals. They wouldn't need to be evil, just coldly practical. Also, in that practicality, they may even have subdivions within their own species - technocrats, worker drones, etc. - that may also seem cruel to us, but be of practical usage th them.
ReplyDeleteIt comes down to what filters we see through when we approach such possibilities. Ultimately, such races may have such a completely different culture and psychology that they may be even more alien than we ever imagined.
Perhaps the greatest barrier to becoming a star faring race is to master what is called Plank Energy, which is 10 to the 19th power billion electron volts, which is what's required to create portals into hyperspace.
ReplyDeleteThat is, if "hyperspace" even exists. It's more science fiction than science fact. Or are you talking about something like a wormhole drive? If so, again, no "hyperspace" - you just tunnel from one point in the universe to another instantly.
My suspicion is that we're going to get some sort of "warp drive" that will work for interstellar travel long before we'll ever be able to much with wormholes. We're getting closer to understanding gravity all the time and a functional warp is really just gravity manipulation combined with some sophisticated software to shape space appropriately.
Keep in mind that it's likely that many civilizations destroy themselves or are destroyed as they attempt to progress. This is why I believe that the SETI program has failed so far to find any proof of an advanced civilization as near a 100 light years away (in all directions).
I'm of the opinion that the reason we haven't detected any signals is that a 100 light year radius isn't really that big compared to galaxies and the like. In that area I believe we've found one marginally earthlike planet and a whole lot of "super-Jupiter" type gas giants. So there aren't a lot of places for a would-be alien civilization in the first place at that distance.
The problem with hypothesizing that technological alien civilizations in our galaxy that are millions of years older than our own is that SETI hasn't picked up any of their signals as of yet. Earth sends out EM radiation like a dwarf star thanks to all of our electronics and communications technology. The data is much more consistent with alien races being closer to us in terms of technological development - at least closer than millions of years more advanced. We've been sending out radio signals for about a hundred years, and if an alien race has been doing so for even four or five hundred years they still wouldn't have reached us if their planet is on the other side of the galaxy.
It comes down to what filters we see through when we approach such possibilities. Ultimately, such races may have such a completely different culture and psychology that they may be even more alien than we ever imagined.
That's similar to my thought as well. Since we've never encountered aliens who evolved completely independently from us we have no idea how parallel their evolution might or might not be. In some ways I would think aliens that were a lot like us might be more dangerous - for example, if they have similar enough environmental requirements that they might be interested in colonizing our planet.
Have you considered the fact that there might be civilisations out there that have evolved past the need of technology, no matter how advanced it might be? And that they had achieved a state of consciousness so advanced, that they would be able to travel any distances and interact with anything out there in a way that would resemble us using the body of light, in pathworking for instance. But in a more advanced way, like they would be able to make themselves instantly appear in physical form anywhere, if they wanted to. Yeah it might seem preety far fetched, but i don't rely solely on science to understand the world around me. I'm fact, I rely more on intuition and imagination when it comes to stuff like aliens. First of all because of the the narrow horizon in which scientists view things and second, because we might have already been contacted, but no one would have the interest of letting the public know that.
ReplyDelete