Where Are The Aliens?
Some interesting perspectives on intelligent life in the universe
Hello reader,
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Back to today’s topic: extraterrestrial life.
Have you ever wondered if there are other forms of intelligence in the universe? And no, you can’t say “Yes, I could feel them during my LSD trip”.
Debating about the existence of these alien life forms is one of those topics that are both the subject of intense research/philosophy as well as bro-science + intellectual masturbation.
I found some thought-provoking meditations on the existence of intelligent life, why they haven’t shown up yet, and what first contact might be like in the writings of Carl Sagan. Here’s some of the good stuff:
Through some probabilistic calculations, it seems that there’s a good chance we’re not alone in the universe (there are a hundred billion planets like ours). So why hasn’t anyone shown up yet? There could be many ways to answer this.
It may be possible that there are some physical constraints to achieving the speed of light in spaceflight. Or it might be that no civilization can avoid self-destruction as it enters the phase of technological adolescence (think nuclear and bio-weapons). Or maybe they’re observing us like we observe tiny bacteria in the petri dish, not bothering to poke them and establish “contact”. All possibilities are fascinating.
But there’s another interesting idea. If a sufficiently advanced civ has already built the technology to achieve immortality, it may no longer feel the need to venture out into the cosmos because it no longer has those basic urges like territoriality and power-seeking for self-preservation! These urges, at their base, spring out of our survival instincts. But may they not disappear if the problem of survival no longer exists?
Let’s say that isn’t the case, and we do bump into some outsiders. Sci-fi likes to paint scary scenarios of battles and clashes. But there are 2 errors with those storylines. One is that they’re likely to be far ahead of us in technological capabilities (which is why they showed up first, and we didn’t). Secondly, the encounter will likely not be violent because if a civ has truly reached such an advanced stage of techno-development, it has most likely learned to live without destroying itself.
Fears of a violent encounter may be reflections of our own primitive thinking, a dark memory of our brutal first encounters in the history of our species. We can’t cast off the specter of the horrible stuff that happened when the Spaniards encountered the Aztecs, or what the Americans did with Native Indians.
Getting in touch with another form of intelligence can be very rewarding, for it’ll reveal a new way of life- and we might have so much to learn from their philosophy, religion, art, music, politics, and law. Most critically, it will snap us out of the idea that what we know is the only and best way to structure our reality. So instead of waiting, humankind must research and send out missions to discover intelligent life.
In such a mission, even a failure will be a success. If concerted efforts fail to reveal anything, it’ll show that intelligent life is exceedingly rare in this gigantic universe- and that every single life is so precious that we should do everything we can to prevent it from going to waste via wars, murders, greed, and jealousy.
Thanks for tuning in, folks. If you liked this, you may also enjoy other thought-provoking articles like:
Some far from heard but most practical opinion on alien life. Truly fascinating to even think!