More than once on this blog, I've mentioned the possibility of making contact with an alien race. I've discussed the unlikelihood of them visiting us, and I've discussed the different methods by which we might cross the unimaginable distances of space to make contact with them. Part of my fascination with this subject is the common idea of what life from another planet might be like, as well as confirmation that we're not alone in the universe. Aside from these things, however, I also believe that real, verified contact with intelligent life beyond this planet would have a revolutionary impact on the human race.
We harbor a dream that some day we will put aside our differences with one another, end our senseless wars, and begin working together towards common goals. Somehow, though, this dream keeps slipping away. The practical purposes for war became obsolete a long time ago, but yet the fighting continues. Wars were once fought for the expansion of territory and sometimes even for survival itself. This is no longer necessary in the way that it once was, but we still find reasons to take up arms again each other. It's as if we are compelled to keep fighting as an end unto itself and we need to fabricate excuses to perpetually sustain the conflict. I guess we just like to kill each other. I believe that contact with an alien race might be the one thing that could finally bring us together.
We seemed to have the concept of "us and them" hardwired into us. We seem unable to conceive of an "us" without a "them" to contrast it to. As long as we exist on our little blue island, isolated from the rest of the universe, we focus on the differences between each other. We gather into a group on this side of the line by virtue of things that set us apart from the people on the other side of the line. Yet, it's the existence of the line that enables the drawing together of the group. Without the line, we remain scattered and disconnected, forming smaller groups and engaging in petty conflicts. A clear, deep line drawn broad enough can bring focus and unity to smaller squabbling groups.
My fellow Americans will remember how September 11th seemed to briefly bring the country together. Some people thought it was our common grief over the tragedy that united us. I believe it was something a bit more basic. That incident drew a deep line, and the terrorists who committed those atrocities were on one side of the line, and the rest of us were on the other. The minor differences we had focused on between each other suddenly seemed small in the face of this larger divide. We gathered together against a common enemy. We nodded to one another. We were "us"; they were "them." It seems to be in our nature that we can't have one without the other.
Contact with intelligent extra-terrestrial life would draw a line across the cosmos itself; one deeper than we have ever known. We wouldn't necessarily have to see them as an enemy, although quite honestly, it would help. It might be enough just to see them as different. Only by aliens occupying the role of "them" can there be an "us" that unites all of humanity. Of course, it would nice to believe that we could reach a level of enlightenment where we could look past the differences of all beings. One might suggest that such a dichotomy would only expand the same old problems to a higher level. The yearning for world peace would be superseded by a yearning for galactic peace and then by universal peace. I agree. But what are you gonna do?
Excellent text! Go on a friend ... Your thoughts are very interesting!
ReplyDeleteThanks.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure aliens would do anything other than wipe us out, based on being a pest to their peaceful movement. We would be the galactic version of termites, devouring everything we could because we can. I think you mentioned this in an old post that there is no need for them to visit or befriend us, simple because we have nothing to offer them. No substance to enrich their own existence, therefore, they look at us much in the same eye as some French aristocrat once frowned over the lesser people, before the French Revolution. I think we have yet to be invaded because they know we are going to kill ourselves sooner than later so why bother.
ReplyDelete"I think I wouldn't mind being a pet for higher intelligence extra-terrestrials. Go ahead and ask me why."
ReplyDelete"Why?"
"Because I think it would be fun to learn what they would consider acceptable behavior. Plus I like to have my tummy rubbed."
Sorry, couldn't resist it. Sheldon is so freaking awesome. Anyway, I don't think Extra-Terrestrials are ever going to come visit us. They aren't stupid. They know that if they showed up we would try to destroy them with our inferior technology. Humans wouldn't give them a chance to say what they wanted or needed.
We being humans. Not me. If I ever met and Extra-Terrestrial I would have better things to say than, "OH MY GOD! ALIENS MUST DIE!"
I thought Independence Day did a good job of showing this, the whole earth coming together as a common "them" surfaced. Funny theme in movies I have noticed. The majority of Alien movies have us finding some last ditch means of beating them. Meanwhile, zombie movies often end with the zombies winning. How arrogant are we as a species that we believe super advanced space beings who can overcome the limits of lightspeed could be beaten so easily and braindead subhumans could still do the job of kicking our collective butts? I look forward to meeting our alien overlords.
ReplyDeleteLove this post!!
ReplyDeleteAnd while I also would love to believe that something like that could truly unite us after all these long centuries of fighting like a bunch of kindergartners over the cool toy. Deep down I sometimes think that if 'they' showed up or were somehow discovered that we would still show off our ugly nature and remain divided somehow. There's just too much of a history of us being selfish and immature unfortunately.
"You'll remember how September 11th seemed to briefly bring the country together." These words appear to be addressed to a US audience, which would be taken for granted if you were writing an article in your local newspaper. If you think that way, what need of aliens from outer space? You already have the "us and them" which can be conveniently written as "US and them". Me, I'm one of them. Except that I think I am one of "us" and my neighbours, mostly from Pakistan and stuck in a 1960 time-warp when they came to this town in search of factory work, are "them". I don't need to scour outer space to find intelligent beings whom I don't understand (partly because my neighbours still don't speak English).
ReplyDeleteI can't get into this excitement about aliens from outer space, even if they are microbes. I think the whole thing is a harmless hobby for scientists when they are not trying to save the world from the mess they have helped bring about.
The scientists I revere are those who have contributed to formulating the Anthropic Principle in its various forms (weak, strong, participative, final etc): Carter, Wheeler, Barrow, Tipler etc. As I understand it, they argue that we live in a very unlikely universe, for it necessarily has the conditions for evolving creatures like us. Yes, necessarily. Everything we see has us as the observer. We can never catch sight of any scene which does not have us as the observer.
As our unlikely universe multiplies all the unlikely coincidences which bring about the possibility of intelligent life, we can come to realize that it takes a huge universe (about the size of the one we have) to create this particular test-tube of intelligent life called Earth.
This makes more sense to me than the argument I mostly hear, that it is such an unimaginably huge universe that there must be life on millions of planets. That is like saying "Because I found a golden needle in a haystack, it proves there must be more, if only I could find them."
@Chanel: Indeed. One of my early posts was about people's idea that if there were aliens they just naturally assume they would be visiting us, as if we're the most important thing in the universe.
ReplyDelete@Charlie: Yeah, Independence Day did kind of hit a similar chord. As for the common theme in movies, there are to others in the same vein which are equally annoying: The main character succeeds where all others have failed, just by virtue of being the main character, and the "love conquers all" sort of thing. You know, like when a person is told that they have a choice; they can save the world or the person the love. They choose the person they love, and of course the world is fine and everyone lives happily ever after, yada, yada, yada.
@Rancher Mom: Unfortunately you may be right. Still, we can only hope that we might grow up one of these days.
@Vincent: Whoops. You're absolutely right. I wrote as if addressing a strictly U.S. audience. I certainly wouldn't consider the English to be "them" though, especially not in the September 11th scenario. I was talking about how that incident united Americans against the terrorists, not against the rest of the world (Bush did that :) ). I guess I was thinking more exclusively of my fellow Americans at that moment, perhaps demonstrating my own point by revealing that I might be a little more narrow minded than I like to believe. At any rate, I meant no offense.
As for the Anthropic principle, I have heard that, and it could be right. This could be it. On the other hand, it could be that the circumstances accounting for our existence aren't as unique as we think.
Part of me tends towards a middle road on the idea. I think that perhaps life is abundant, but intelligence is rare, at least intelligence as we think of it in human terms.
I can just hear the conversation in the alien ship orbiting our planet now...
ReplyDelete"Hey, we could go down there and steal all of their.... no, it's all gone. We, we could harvest all of their... nope, they destroyed all of that. Well we could just take all of their... no, those are all contaminated. Hey Dewey! Whattaya say we try Mars instead?"
If they start watching our TV shows, they might just get the Hell away from us as fast as they can. In fact, that may be our best line of extra-terrestrial defense.
ReplyDeleteSnookie is a great deflector shield.
ReplyDeleteWhat did Will Smith say? "You think they traveled a million light years to get here and now they're going to pick a fight?" or something like that. It's actually one of the only logical statements in that movie. But maybe I'm one of the yearners and only want it to be that way because I can't see any other option.
ReplyDeleteThoughtful post. Thanks.
It Just Got Interesting
@Scott: Ha, crossover comments.
ReplyDelete@Brent: Well, I don't necessarily mean that we'd have to get into a war with them. Just being aware of their existence and their difference to us would bring an increased solidarity among humans. I also have strong doubts about them ever having any real reason to come here. I think it's more likely that we might finds signs of life out there, minding their own business, maybe even as unaware of our existence as we were of theirs.
Well, we already have aliens in our midst: for example spiders and snakes. We can't say they bring increased solidarity because we cannot compare our solidarity with them as against our solidarity without them.
ReplyDeleteWe do have the legend of St Patrick banishing the snakes from Ireland. If your theory is correct, the sense of solidarity would have decreased after their banishment.
So I think your theory is correct. The Irish are a peace-loving people, but having no alien snakes in their midst has reduced them to sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants.
Funny, but I did specify "intelligent" life, something on our level or above. I doubt that finding dolphins on Europa would unify us in contrast to these "others".
ReplyDeleteErm, yes. I am thus proved to be one of the less intelligent.
ReplyDeleteHuh?
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying that I don't think the us & them dynamic kicks in unless you're dealing with beings on a comparable level with one another. I'm not sure that we could think of goats as "them."
But, as you say, we don't really know because the goats are already here and we take it for granted that they walk among us.
I think human beings are incredibly egotistical on the whole. Either we're the only intelligent life in the entire universe, which has hundreds of galaxies within it, or if there are extra-terrestrials they would be insanely curious about Earth and want to visit and or destroy it because we are a threat to them.
ReplyDeleteIf they ever did show up they'd probably have something to teach us. Their technology would obviously be more advanced than ours. We can't travel from planet to planet yet. It would take years.
Some of my favorite "Alien Contact" stories involve the aliens using our divisions against us - like Europeans did in Africa in the 1600's. Different Earth factions conspire to come out ahead of the others and the true winners are the aliens.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why these are my favorites. It seems kind of weird now that I think of it.
Never saw those. Sounds like some smart aliens.
ReplyDeleteFrom Vincent Mulder, just checking if this will reach you, was v. glad this site still visible
ReplyDelete