Intelligent aliens may or may not exist. They may be too far
away for us to contact. There are myriad possible reasons for why we haven’t
made First Contact. I offer one more: a knowledge threshold. What if aliens are
aware of the human civilization, but waiting until we reach a certain threshold
of scientific or cultural knowledge before they intend to make contact? This
isn’t an original thought on my part. It’s been the subject of many science
fiction stories.
What could that threshold be? Perhaps it is related to
physics. Humans are working hard to figure out what hypothetical dark matter
and dark energy might be. These postulates can be measured and even quantified,
in a sense, and yet there is still not an understanding of what they truly are
and of the relationship to our more common matter and energy.
The other big question in physics concerns particles. Work
with the Large Hadron Collider is attempting to advance human knowledge of
elementary particles, such as the Higgs boson. Perhaps this scientific inquiry
will lead us past the knowledge threshold? Aliens might be concerned that their
scientific knowledge is far in advance of ours. Perhaps we need to be at the
right level of knowledge to be able to handle further truths about our
universe?
The threshold could also be the biological-machine divide. Human
science is developing new machine devices to assist the human body. At some
point those devices could lead to bionic humans, at a point far beyond what we
experience now. Discoveries could also eventually lead to machine intelligence-
human intelligence housed completely in a machine. One could also call this
virtual life. These things seem like the stuff of science fiction, but they are
quickly becoming reality.
There could be another type of threshold: civilization
maturity. Let’s face it- humans are rather raw beings: we battle each other, we
kill, we tear up the natural environment and we treat other creatures on our
planet poorly. We still have a tense situation with nuclear weapons. We have a
long way to go in maturing as a human society. Perhaps aliens are simply
waiting for us to grow up?
The dangerous thing about threshold speculation is that it
is never-ending. We could use this as an excuse for why we haven’t made First
Contact and that could go on for however long we wanted. It may simply be
another human coping mechanism. I think many of us long for extraterrestrial
contact.
It’s easy to find comfort in excuses. I’ll put my trust in
the scientific process being carried out by the folks involved in the Search
for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI. I donate regularly to the SETI Institute, which has suffered setback after setback from budget cuts and
defunding. If you believe in the scientific effort to search for signs of
extraterrestrial intelligence please consider making a donation. Action is always
more powerful than speculation.
4 comments:
Civilization maturity seems like a reasonable explanation for non-public contact.
There is another principle of non-contact: the ability to maintain a diverse universe. If contact and free interaction were made with every civilization, the entire known universe would culturally/intellectually tend toward homogenization. Limiting contact allows for preservation of diverse cultures. Think about what rules you would set for yourself if you were to travel among the stars and interact with other planets and civilizations. Would you impose your values? Would you simply hand over your advanced technology? These are tough questions, and it is reasonable to assume that civilizations that do travel among the stars have pondered and attempted to resolve such questions before coming here.
Civilization maturity seems like a reasonable explanation for non-public contact.
There is another principle of non-contact: the ability to maintain a diverse universe. If contact and free interaction were made with every civilization, the entire known universe would culturally/intellectually tend toward homogenization. Limiting contact allows for preservation of diverse cultures. Think about what rules you would set for yourself if you were to travel among the stars and interact with other planets and civilizations. Would you impose your values? Would you simply hand over your advanced technology? These are tough questions, and it is reasonable to assume that civilizations that do travel among the stars have pondered and attempted to resolve such questions before coming here.
I agree anon...that's a perfectly logical reason for the lack of contact. And of course that's the problem with speculation: we can come up with a whole number of plausible explanations for why alien first contact has not occurred...including questions of whether intelligent life is to be found anywhere near us. I guess we won't know until scientists have done their work in finding evidence.
oh, and thanks for the comment. There have been a number of thoughtful comments lately.
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