Amateur Megalomania

Are we ready to accept the idea of alien intelligent life? We’ve toyed with the idea in the popular culture for at least fifty years, and most people have probably given it serious thought in the last ten years. You would think that when (okay, ‘if’) the announcement does come, most would nod their heads and move on with life.

But I don’t think most people really have considered the ultimate ramifications of such a discovery. I don’t think I’ve even given it the full consideration that it deserves, beyond the simple desire to see it happen at some point in my life.

What will it mean to us?

There is little doubt that it will mark the most fundamental shift in our paradigm. As of that moment, time will be divided into two passages, ‘before’ and ‘after’. But I think that will only be realized after the passage of a considerable amount of time. In the years afterward, people will not view the announcement with such a perspective. It will be big news, but inside of six months, we will be discussing the BUSH LIES once again.

But what would it ultimately mean to us in terms of culture, society, religion, and practical life?

I’m going to establish some conditions that seem likely for our First Contact. I don’t believe they are going to show up in DC and say ‘Klaatu barada nikto’ on the South Lawn. I don’t think they are going to talk to us directly. We will discover indirect evidence; the presence of radio transmissions or some sort of analog. It will be decades or centuries before we actually manage to get their attention. Alternatively, they have heard our transmissions and are either ignoring us, or preparing their own response and it even now is heading our way.

They will be intelligent, and that will mean communication is possible in some form. I don’t believe that it is possible for intelligent life to exist in a form that prohibits communication. If we cannot find a way to talk, or even understand that we are being spoken too, then we aren’t going to classify such life as intelligent. In order to recognize intelligence, we must recognize some form of communication accessible to both species. By that classification, ants are not intelligent, but whales and dolphins are. At the worst, our communication attempts will be as if we are speaking with dolphins, or alternatively, we are the dolphins trying to understand the humans.

So given those conditions, what does it mean to us?

Theology.

The religious impact is enormous. Maybe not to the Buddhists or Hindu, but the western and middle east monotheistic faiths will have trouble. All of these faiths have been built around the concept that God has created the earth and all life. Those texts establish that we are made in God’s image, and God’s message has been given to us. If the aliens do not look like us, and do not have an analog to our own religions, with easily identifiable similarities or messages, then the human religions are suggesting that we are the chosen people of God. The aliens are heathen, much as the native Americans in the time of Columbus. It is then incumbent upon the faithful to convert the heathen, or in the notable case of Islam – kill them.

Those that look deeper into their faith will discover the inherent inconsistencies exposed by the discovery of alien life. God makes no mention of other life, which means that either God has kept knowledge from us, or has offered incomplete gospel. I don’t have a problem with that, but many people will. The pragmatist will simply assume that the Word of God is not complete. But those that consider the sacred texts as handed down by God rather than written by man will be puzzled over God’s exclusion of other life in the creation story, or the assertion that we have been given the Truth.

I honestly believe most faiths will adapt to the new reality and find interpretations that will patch any holes in the books, but in my view, to do so is to acknowledge that the structure of the faith is more of a man-made construct than any direct creation of God.

Should the aliens have a direct analog to any of the major faiths, with similar figures and stories, then I’m going to have to consider conversion! But that’s another paper.

Cultural questions.

Humans are programmed with our own sense of self-importance. We have always enjoyed a position of dominance on the earth, as a species. Suddenly, in the larger scope, we aren’t going to be the center of the universe anymore. It’s easy to see examples of how this could affect us. All through history, inferior cultures and weak nations have constantly rebelled and struggled against the perception of oppression. Humans don’t like to be on the bottom, and if the aliens are advanced to the extent that we feel inferior, we are going to resent them. There isn’t much we can do about it, but the human psyche will be bruised by such a discovery.

We will quietly plan for the time when we will supplant them in terms of power, wealth and technology. We will fear them, hate them, and plot against them, at least in private. Publicly, we will do what most cultures have done in the past – smile, and learn.

Should we be the more advanced, the impact will be moderated. We will look upon them as provincials, and ‘alien chic’ will be a new fashion, just as all things tribal have become fads in the past. Perhaps the NYT will advocate an entitlement program to uplift their standard of living.

A question of resources.

Mike brought this one up, but I don’t think it will be a major issue. At least for centuries, or even millennia. While we have a natural drive to grab everything we can, even if we can’t use it immediately, the practical realities dictate that this isn’t possible. Postulating our First Contact conditions, there will be no need to compete for resources. And even if we had the technology to fight, that same technology would open up the resources of our own solar system. Those resources will last us for thousands of years, even with a population one hundred times our current size. And that’s just one system.

But there will still be questions of military confrontation at some point in the future. It will be vital for us to continue developing weapons, and one of the most important projects in the days after First Contact will be discovering ways to kill our new neighbors. That is the proper thing to do. Plan for war, enjoy the peace. There’s no other way. Even if that war is thousands of years in the future, we must prepare for it.

As unlikely as it is that we will compete for resources, nothing is certain. The presence of new neighbors creates a near certainty that the universe is littered with intelligent races. We don’t become just one of two, we become one of millions. Who knows where the threat lies, and when it will come.

While it is true that interstellar war is a ludicrous concept, even with our wildest imaginings of technology, there is always the unknown. In the words of Rumsfeld, we don’t know what we don’t know, so we must prepare.

All intelligent species will inherently be hostile in nature. You cannot evolve intelligence without the stimulus of hostility. Herbivores do not need to be smart, as plants are generally docile prey. We have our brains for one primary purpose – killing things. We need to be smarter than our prey, smarter than the brute force of our environment, and smarter than the neighbors that wish to kill us in our Paleolithic past. Aliens will have the same stimulus in their past, or they won’t evolve intelligence in the first place.

Therefore, it is essential that we acknowledge the reality of a hostile universe. We must prepare for wars beyond our comprehension, because one day we must fight them.

There are plenty of other considerations worth exploring, but I have some meetings today and lack the time. If we can stimulate some discussion, I’d like to keep going with it.

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Filed under: Religion