A fascinatingly disturbing thought

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Last days of the Rise & Fall of Civilizations month, and here's this vid that I watched.

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Everybody knows who Neil deGrasse Tyson is. So straight to the point. Here he shares a "fascinatingly disturbing" thought about this coveted encounter with an alien intelligence...

So let's make a comparison. See, our DNA differs by just 1-2% from that of chimps, who are the closest species to ourselves in terms of intellect and physiology. And yet we're immensely more intelligent than chimps. The whole difference is contained in those 1-2%. We're so intellectually superior that we're even able to ask ourselves questions (and even find some answers!) about the way the Universe is made and how it works. For instance you probably could train an adult chimp to use a couple of signs as something like a language, and that's as far as their cognitive and communication capabilities are stretching. Meanwhile, a 2 year old kid already knows more words and has a grasp of more concepts than the most intelligent specimen of "chimphood". This is just how we've evolved, we're genetically inclined to learning fast, and learning many things.

And now let's imagine one day we're visited by aliens from another advanced civilization, far superior to ours. Let's assume they differ from us just by 1-2% in their DNA, but in a direction opposite to the chimps. The question is, how much more intelligent would they be, then? Wouldn't we look like primitive brainless chimps in their eyes? For their 2 year old kids, working with fundamental concepts of cosmology and using sophisticated scientific techniques would be like a kid's game, quite literally. Whereas these things are still posing a huge challenge even to our most brilliant geniuses. For them we'd be just a mere part of the background, part of the local wildlife of this place and little beyond that. OK fine, we could build some big structures and we can certainly exploit our environment to a point where we can actively affect it, often to our own detriment. But elephants can, too. And herbivorous herds! Also otters. Even the tiny termites, etc. So that's all you got, humans? You're not even Type I civilization, what's so interesting to see here? That's what they'd think of us.

But that's not the disturbing part. That's actually the funny part. Let's now recall how human explorers have dealt with the local wildlife in a new place. And I'm not talking about the scientists who first stepped into uncharted territories, but the colonizers who stepped in after them. They'd either ignore the local wildlife if they deem it harmless and useless to them... or they'd rather take whatever precautions they deem appropriate in order to avoid putting themselves at risk of attack from said wildlife. Or they'd exploit it for their practical purposes if it seems useful for them. But in neither case they'd care much about what it thinks, wants or needs. And certainly they wouldn't attempt a thorough communication with it. (Of course I'm aware that I might be looking at this from a too human-centered POV and underestimating the possibility of a vast diversity of mentality and approaches to foreign life systems that may or may not exist throughout the Universe).

That said, one of the geniuses of our time, Stephen Hawking could be right. Maybe it's not very recommendable to announce our presence in this corner of the cosmos so "loudly", by sending messages in a "bottle" like the Voyager with phonograph records in it. Because the probability that we'd be detected and visited by advanced aliens who are not-so-friendly, is logically many times higher than the chance that they'd turn out to be "saviors" and "teachers" with purely philanthropic intentions. No, they'd most probably be conquerors. It's not that we lack precious resources that they'd covet, starting with water and going through all the rare metals we've got. And they'd surely want to use those - at our expense. Even the very planet we live on could be a precious rarity throughout space, and they might want it for themselves. We could be more of an obstacle rather than subject of curiosity for them. Let's remember what happened to the Aztec when Cortes realized that they had gold. Or the Inca, after Pizarro's visit.

So let's be more cautious before we hasten to rejoice from he thought of a potential interplanetary visit. We never know where it'd lead us...

(courtesy: telemann)

As far as communicating with those visitors... It's too naive to believe that such a thing is even possible. I mean, when we meet with a chimp and we try to hold a conversation, what usually happens?

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

That assumes that extraterrestrial civilizations would understand the concept of surveillance the way we do and would have advanced their surveillance technology along the same evolutionary axis like we have. I.e. it's still a too human-centric view on the issue.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I think the technological tree would spawn remote surveillance before it spawned space exploration.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Also, it's possible our first contact may not be with intelligent species but rather the unintelligent or less than intelligent agents of that species.

Just like we send out probes and advanced teams, they may send out automatons or some type of worker creature may stumble upon us.

Would a Pacific Islander circa the 1850s understand that Siri is not an actual woman that lives in a phone? We may not understand the complexity of what we encounter.