The Russell Stannard Questions: Life

The following questions (Q) are taken verbatim from those poised by Russell Stannard in his 2010 book The End of Discovery [are we approaching the boundaries of the knowable?]; Oxford University Press, Oxford. I consider these typical of the sorts of modern Big Questions that are part and parcel of the philosophy of modern science, especially physical science.

My answers are based mainly with the thought of our being in a Simulated (Virtual Reality) Universe that has been constructed by one or more Supreme Programmers. However, some of the answers apply regardless of what the nature of our ultimate reality is.

Q. Why is the universe life-friendly?

A. The universe is both bio-friendly and not bio-friendly. 99.999% (add a few more 9’s here) of the cosmic environment is decidedly bio-unfriendly and would snuff you out so quick-smart you wouldn’t know what hit you. Of course the cosmos is also bio-friendly otherwise you wouldn’t be here reading this. If you reject a supernatural explanation, that leaves coincidence, a multiverse, or software. Coincidence is stretching things since there are just so many dials that have to be set to a very narrow range. The multiverse appeals to probability statistics – think of those millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters one of whom will type “Hamlet” word-for-word – eventually. That leaves software, or in other words a Supreme Programmer programing our universe in a bio-friendly way. 

Q. Is there extraterrestrial life, and if so, how do we humans stand in comparison as regards intellectual capacity?

A. Given the vastness of the cosmos, and the sheer number of galaxies in the observable cosmos, and the numbers of stars per galaxy with associated solar systems and the number of planets per solar system not to mention possible rogue/orphan planets and how interstellar cosmic organic chemistry associated with life is, well, cosmic, etc., you would have to be pretty brave to bet the family farm arguing Planet Earth being the proverbial cosmic IT when it comes to life. Even going up the chain from the origin of life ‘living’ molecules to unicellular life to multicellular life to intelligent life to technologically advanced life forms and advocating extreme difficulty in getting from one step to the next step on up the line, there must be – if you’re a betting person – millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations throughout the cosmos and a goodly number in our galaxy too. Further, we humans are the new boys on the block, so the odds are that any other extraterrestrial intelligences will have been around way longer that we have, and thus have evolved greater intellectual capacity that we have yet achieved. However, the interesting bit is that once intelligence is achieved, natural selection gives way to artificial selection, and part of that artificial selection might ultimately be the transition from biological intelligence to artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence which will further evolve via artificial selection as machine intelligence designs ever better machine intelligences.



Astronomers On E.T.

The bulk of books, articles, documentaries, written and presented on the subject of life in the universe are by professional astronomers. However, much of the subtopics that make up the broad-brush picture have nothing to do with professional astronomy. As such, readers interested in the subject need to be highly critical when astronomers wax lyrical about extraterrestrial life as most what they pontificate about is personal, not professionally based opinion.

When it comes to the subject of extraterrestrial life, exobiology or astrobiology, the profession most oft associated is that of the astronomer*. That should be nonsense as the focus should be on the word “life” or “biology” not on the word “extraterrestrial”, “exo” or “astro”. I’ve often said that when it comes to UFOs, for example, astronomers are out of their league because the subject of UFOs is not a proper astronomical subject for astronomers to professionally study and thus comment upon in a professional capacity. Astronomers, being human and all that entails, do not always draw a line in the sand between what they believe professionally through academic study and research and what they believe personally, without benefit of academic study and research.  

The only astronomer who ended up making a serious professional study of UFOs, in fact employed as a consultant to the USAF on UFOs – astronomical at first, hence all facets – was the late J. Allen Hynek, so he’s qualified to wax lyrical. What’s interesting is he started off sceptical on the bona-fides of the field, but came around to the opinion that UFOs were serious scientific business. 

The turf of astronomers starts at the top of Earth’s atmosphere and goes outward bound from there, although I’d maintain that things like meteorites are the realm of mineralogists; Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) and the ‘Face’ on Mars and other dynamic visible features on planetary and satellite ‘surfaces’ are more the turf of meteorologists, geologists, and maybe even oceanographers (i.e. – Jupiter’s moon, Europa).

WHAT ASTRONOMERS CAN, SHOULD, CANNOT AND SHOULD NOT COMMENT ON REGARDING EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE

Probability of Extraterrestrial Life: Astronomers can tell us roughly how many stars there are per galaxy and what kind of stars they are and how many galaxies there are in the visible universe and roughly what the average solar system might be like, it’s components and constituents, but that’s as far as it goes. When it comes down to whether life arises and evolves on any of these extra-solar planets up through and including intelligence and technologies is an exercise better left to biologists and anthropologists.

Extra-Solar Planets and Planetary Systems: Astronomers are doing an outstanding job in discovering planets orbiting around other stars than just our Sun. They can pretty much estimate, maybe guesstimate, their size and orbital characteristics. They can also determine what the atmospheric constituents are – if any. However, what precisely that composition signifies – constituents perhaps in chemical disequilibrium suggestive of biomarkers – is an analysis best left to chemists and biochemists.

Origin of Life and Panspermia: Astronomers have no academic bona-fides that enables them to wax lyrical on these topics. Maybe terrestrial life originated on Earth; maybe it came via spores (or some such) from outer space (panspermia), but that’s not a subject that’s part and parcel of astronomy, even if extrapolated to abodes somewhere out there.

Transition from Simple (Unicellular) to Complex (Multicellular) Life: Any pontificating on this subject by astronomers is pure and simply their personal opinion. Astronomers would be pissed if evolutionary biologists got press coverage for commenting on the astrophysics of Black Holes, yet astronomers seem to feel capable of practicing biology, as long as it’s called extraterrestrial biology, astrobiology or biology in outer space.

Evolutionary Rise of Intelligence, Technology and the Longevity of Civilizations: Any such speculations are best left to anthropologists as these topic fall way, way, way outside of the realm of academic astronomy.  

Life Not As We Know It: Any speculation on alternative biochemistries (substitute silicon for carbon; ammonia for water; etc.), in fact the entire definition of what life itself is, is best left to biochemists and related disciplines.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): Professionally, astronomers seek out photons – visible light photons; radio photons, microwave photons, gamma-ray photons, infrared photons, ultraviolet photons, etc. Astronomers have a good handle on what naturally originating photons are like and what they can tell us about astronomical objects. Thus, astronomers should be able to spot anomalous photons – artificially originating photons with the accent on the artificiality. If astronomers spot unnaturally emitted photons then the odds are rather good that they have found an extraterrestrial intelligence, an intelligence that has the ability to emit artificially produced photons – like radio signals, optical (laser) signals, etc. Of course there have been false alarms. Pulsars were first thought to be artificial signals; ditto some quasars; and there were those who thought they had picked up radio broadcasts from Mars in the early years of the 20^th Century. However, once astronomers have detected anomalous photons and unanimously concluded they came from an extraterrestrial technological civilization, then any extrapolation from that is out of their bailiwick and resides more with anthropologists, linguistics experts, and other social science academics. 

First Contact: While there are lots of terrestrial examples of first contact, astronomers aren’t historians, sociologists or anthropologists and thus shouldn’t professionally speculate as being all-knowing on the subject of extraterrestrial first contact.

AREAS WHERE ASTRONOMERS NEED TO REALLY BUTT OUT

Visitors from Outer Space: Astronomers are qualified to tell us about the vastness of the cosmos and the immense distances between stars and our neck of the woods. But, the ability of advanced technological extraterrestrial civilizations to transverse those distances is a matter for engineers not astronomers.

Unidentified Flying Objects: UFO crashes in general and Roswell (July 1947) in particular falls way outside the province of professional astronomy (unless such a ‘crash’ can be positively identified as an impacting meteorite). Yet astronomers feel quite capable to wax lyrical on the subject. However, any opinions expressed by astronomers are really personal, not professional ones, and have no more validity than comments by Joe and Josephine Citizen.

UFO abductions, or abductions by ufonauts (the ‘greys’), fall outside the province of professional astronomy and are more properly the province of mental health professionals.

Government programs associated with investigating UFOs, UFO censorship or cover-ups fall outside the province of professional astronomy. Astronomers aren’t experts in national security matters, defence protocols, political science and other associated areas that deals with intelligence operations.

Close Encounters of any kind including geophysical, physiological, electromagnetic, ground trace cases, fall outside the province of professional astronomy.

Analysis and commentary on UFO films and photographs fall outside the province of professional astronomy.

Analysis of radar returns from UFOs, a rather technical and complex matter, tends to fall outside the province of professional astronomy even though radar has been used to probe some of the planets and satellites of our solar system, and thus their ground topography which puts such data in the realm of the geologist in any event.

Alien motivations (i.e. – why don’t they land on the White House lawn, etc.) fall outside the province of professional astronomy. At best this is a matter for psychologists and anthropologists and sociologists, though when it comes to what motivates an alien or alien culture neither is anyone else really qualified for that matter.

The only intersection between astronomy and UFOs is where assistance is required in ruling in or out astronomical bodies (the moon, planets, stars, meteors, etc.) as the cause or unlikely cause of a UFO sighting event. Or, perhaps where statements by so-called ‘contactees’ contradict known astronomical data. Otherwise, UFOs are the province of meteorologists, experts in optics and atmospheric optical phenomena, psychologists, etc.  Yet astronomers wax lyrical on all facets of the UFO phenomena as if all things UFO were exclusively part and parcel of their turf.

So 99% of what astronomers do (like Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth Shostak, and Donald Menzel) when pontificating about UFOs, are in reality spouting off personal opinions, not professional or professionally related (i.e. – astronomical related) factual knowledge.

Ancient Astronauts: Astronomers are not archaeologists, anthropologists, historians or usually conversant with mythologies, and thus should steer clear of anything to do with the subject of “ancient astronauts”.

Associated Facets:

Crop circles fall outside the province of professional astronomy, even though IMHO crop circles have probably nothing to do with ETI.

The animal (wildlife and livestock) mutilation phenomena fall outside the province of professional astronomy.

Ball lightning and other associated anomalous lights (like the Australian Min-Min Lights) fall outside the province of professional astronomy or astronomers who are not geophysicists.

Again, any commentaries by astronomers on these issues quasi-associated with ETI are, when all is said and done, when crunch comes crunch, are personal, not professional commentaries.

* And if not the astronomer then physicists. In fact the bulk of material dealing with life in the universe is penned by physical scientists, not biological or life scientists or naturalists. When I did a course in the subject of life in the universe, SUNY @ Stony Brook, it was of course taught by an astronomer, Tobias C. Owen, who has since co-authored along with Donald Goldsmith an entire textbook on the subject “The Search for Life in the Universe” (third edition - 2001).



Extraterrestrial Robots: Part Two

When you think of extraterrestrials, you probably think of ET, Mr. Spock, Klaatu, Yoda, Klingons and Romulans, the Blob, Martians with heat rays, Alien vs. Predator, the Sontarans, or perhaps the ‘Greys’ of UFO lore. However, if you really had an extraterrestrial close encounter of the up-close-and-personal kind, I’d wager the odds are far greater that you’d be shaking ‘hands’ with something more akin to Robby the Robot.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE CYBORG: ARTIFICIAL BODY BITS & PIECES

We’re already on the way with the merger of man and machine; the natural with the artificial.

Head & Neck: There’s dentures; teeth fillings; eyeglasses; hearing aids; the bionic ear; the bionic eye; speech synthesisers; metal skull replacement head plates, etc.

Waist Up: We’ve implanted pacemakers; heart valves; artificial hearts; arm prosthetics; artificial shoulder, elbow and wrist joints; artificial kidneys (via kidney dialysis); and the iron lung.

Waist Down: At the very least there are artificial hip, knee and ankle joints; leg prosthetics, peg legs; and leg braces.

General: You wear clothes (replacing fur, feathers and scales); you wrap yourself in a heating blanket; you ‘wear’ your car in that you wrap it around you (or bicycle, skateboard, roller skates, etc. – they become a part or extension of you); the mobile/smart phone is an obvious example of the merger of flesh and machine, and one where all too often it’s the technology controlling the user, not the user controlling the technology. People use walking canes/sticks; walkers; and wheelchairs, some motorized and some so integral or inseparable to their users or ‘wearers’ that they jointly appear to be a virtual cybernetic entity – think of the most famous or widely known case history cosmologist-astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and his wheelchair come quasi-life-enhancing system, though that pales compared to the environmental suits worn by astronauts – moon walkers or EVA space-walkers – or deep-sea divers. Then there is plastic surgery.

What’s Next: Common in various medical situations are drips that via gravity ‘feed’ patients with their necessary drug, energy and other required vitamin/mineral supplements. That suggests to me that one can bypass the entire digestive system (teeth, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine) by just having a one-way artificial valve that connects the outer skin surface with the bloodstream and that all body nutriments in the required amounts custom designed for the needs of any specific individual be injected directly into their bloodstream via this valve on an as-needed basis.

But the ultimate will be the desire or need to eliminate all flesh-and-blood bits-and-pieces, thus all diseases (including ageing) and injuries associated with flesh-and-blood, by keeping the only bit that’s really necessary – the mind – and recreating the wetware contents as software, downloaded into hardware within a nearly immortal plastic and steel ‘body’.   

EXPLANATIONS RELATED TO ANCIENT ASTRONAUTS AND UFOs

What might extraterrestrial robotics help explain when it comes to ancient astronaut theory and the UFO phenomena? A few items come to the fore.

Dragons are universals in human mythology. All cultures have dragon-lore. Anytime there is a concept that cuts across all societies, one needs to sit up and take notice. Dragons, for example, aren’t a one-off, confines say to ancient China. Dragons are frequently represented as the go-between the ‘gods’ (ancient astronauts or extraterrestrials) and humans. Given their ‘fire-breathing’ nature and ability to fly, it’s not inconceivable that dragons were really real, but not flesh-and-blood creatures but high-tech extraterrestrial devices of an aerial nature.

Hybrids, either human-animal or animal-animal (like dragons) are another example of a universal in human mythology that needs some coming to grips with. Though I’ve postulated that mythological hybrids, like say the Sphinx, might have been products of alien genetic engineering, it’s not that easy to say graft on a pair of wings on a horse (i.e. – Pegasus) and have it fly. There’s a lot of anatomical infrastructure that needs to be addressed and redesigned in order to make that happen. If these hybrids were mechanical or robotic, that avoids a lot of messy genetic mucking around with flesh-and-blood.  

UFOs and the Greys: So, might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an extraterrestrial artificial intelligence (ETAI)? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ETI. For all of their outward spindly appearance, they seem to be far stronger than their physiology would give them credit for. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot as well as being totally emotionless. When it comes to age, all seem to be the same age; there’s no sign of aging or age differentials. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. Natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to robotics or artificial intelligence (AI), including their outward appearance.

One other factor in favour of the UFO being a representation of ETAI instead of ETI is that some UFOs have been observed, eyeball and radar, to make manoeuvres that no squishy flesh-and-blood body could withstand but would be of little consequence to silicon chips. 

SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a logical evolutionary development that supersedes Natural (biological squishy) Intelligence housed in wetware. Once AI takes the reins, there’s no putting the genie back into the bottle and AI just goes from strength to strength. Assuming technological civilizations can last relatively lengthy periods of time, odds suggest most of a civilization’s timeline will be of the software variety relative to the wetware variety.

Though there’s no theoretical impediment to wetware crisscrossing, exploring and colonizing the galaxy, there’s even less, way, way less theoretical impediment to software doing the same, especially if software supersedes wetware relatively quickly and thus has a greater timeframe in which to accomplish this. If they don’t find you coming from one direction, they will find you coming from the opposite side since the odds are great that there are lots of advanced robotic civilizations out there.  

Since humans are the new boys on the old galactic block, we’re way, way, way more likely to have been discovered (probably hundreds of times over) by extraterrestrial civilizations hundreds, thousands, even millions of years our seniors. The odds are vastly in favour of such a discovery or rather discoveries by alien others, especially robotic alien others since robots are more likely to have a long-term existence and ease in boldly going.

Thus, there is quite some theoretical credibility to the concept of ancient visitations by ancient (robotic) extraterrestrial astronauts. That being the case, there is also quite some theoretical credibility to the concept of modern visitations by modern (robotic) extraterrestrial astronauts. There are some facets of the ancient astronaut and the modern (UFO) astronaut hypothesis that are better explained by robotic software than flesh-and-blood wetware.



Extraterrestrial Robots: Part One

When you think of extraterrestrials, you probably think of ET, Mr. Spock, Klaatu, Yoda, Klingons and Romulans, the Blob, Martians with heat rays, Alien vs. Predator, the Sontarans, or perhaps the ‘Greys’ of UFO lore. However, if you really had an extraterrestrial close encounter of the up-close-and-personal kind, I’d wager the odds are far greater that you’d be shaking ‘hands’ with something more akin to Robby the Robot.

When it comes to UFO entities, ancient astronauts, and aliens in general as depicted in sci-fi films and television; even short stories and novels, for the most part they presented as normal squishy flesh-and-blood organisms, even if they have green blood, pointed ears, antenna, or are living rocks, like “Star Trek’s” Horta. Even “Doctor Who’s” Daleks are partly squishy; ditto the Cybermen also of “Doctor Who” fame.

However, I suggest that for the normal picture of all things extraterrestrial substitute flesh-and-blood (natural CHON – Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen – or related) for artificial constructions made from silicon and steel. Call them robots or androids or just plain artificial intelligence; call them Data (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”) or HAL (“2001: A Space Odyssey”) or V’Ger (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) or Gort (“The Day the Earth Stood Still” – and by the by, in the original short story, it was the robot that was the master and in charge, not the flesh-and-blood alien Klaatu). And who can forget R2-D2 or 3CPO (“Star Wars”). So, IMHO, if you have an up close and personal encounter with an ET, it’s not going to be with biological intelligence but with technological or artificial intelligence.

Extraterrestrial or terrestrial, our sci-fi films are full of intelligent machines or robots, from “I, Robot” to “Futureworld” and “Westworld” (where nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong) to “Cherry 2000” to “The Stepford Wives” to “Saturn 3” to the “Bicentennial Man” to the entire “Transformers” series. Today it’s sci-fi; tomorrow it’s science-fact.

Several reasons suggest why.

THE RISE AND RISE OF THE MACHINE

Any scientifically advanced alien society will sooner or later invent the computer or equivalent. Once invented, you can’t put the genie back into the bottle. Machines are gaining the upper hand here at Terra Firma and have been ever since humans came up with the idea of a tool. If you doubt this, ask any typical teen/young adult to do without their mobile/smart-phone and/or tablet; ask a housewife to forgo the programmable microwave oven, her vacuum cleaner or programmable dishwasher; ask a househusband to hand over the remote or the keys to his new red sports car with state of the art GPS and other computer programmable accessories (necessary therapy for those suffering from male menopause). And where would NASA be without all those robotic space probes to the Moon and planets (some of which have to have a rudimentary degree of intelligence since radio commands from Earth can take quite some considerable time to reach the planetary rover)?  Even if one excludes non-programmable ‘dumb’ machines and machine technologies like clothes dryers, coffee makers, lawn mowers, and radar, the number of ‘smart’ machines – super computers, PCs, tablets, smart-phones, etc. is getting damn close right now to the human population. One can even buy today robotic toys, ‘pets’ and even companions for the very sick, elderly, outcasts or lonely. Can sex with robotic partners be far behind?

Computing crunch power increases by order of magnitudes faster than biological wetware crunch power (Moore’s Law). Human intellectual capacity hasn’t increased very much, if at all, over the past 50,000 years or so – our IQ has flat-lined. Machine intelligence, though off to a slow start all those 50,000 years ago, is however increasing at an exponential rate. The lines have to cross eventually; sometime. The crossover point is tipped for the not too distant future and probably within the lifetime of most viewers reading this. Computer programs can already beat you every time at chess and a host of other games besides. 

Unlike humans, computers can link up to form a super-computer (recall the film “Colossus: The Forbin Project”) otherwise known today as the Internet. Or, in other words, eventually an artificial intelligence can merge with another artificial intelligence to create a mega artificial intelligence, which in turn could merge with another mega artificial intelligence, and so on.

As noted above, there will come a time when machine intelligence, artificial intelligence, surpasses biological or wetware intelligence. That will become a point where computers will become intelligent and self-aware enough to pass the Turing Test – that’s where someone cannot tell the difference between a human or a computer answering questions in an interview type of scenario.

Once wetware becomes dependent on software, intelligent self-aware machines call the shots and they are in control. Whether this human-machine relationship remains a symbiotic one or not is not that relevant since the relationship will not be 50-50. Recall the “Terminator” films!

The increase in artificial intelligence will ever increase faster and faster, especially when intelligent machines can themselves design their own next generation and the generation after that all in a matter of days, hours, and minutes. And reproduction is not an issue. ‘Asexual’ robotic reproduction is a given – one machine builds a copy, or more likely as not, a better copy of itself, and as many as deemed necessary, especially if they are sent out into the cosmos to ‘boldly go’ where probably lots of other robotics probes from other civilizations have gone before. See below.

In the timeline of any technologically advanced alien society, odds are great that the bulk of that timeline will be represented by artificial intelligence relative to wetware or biological intelligence.

Most alien societies will be not just dozens, hundreds, thousands of years in advance of human society, but hundreds of thousands to millions of years more advanced. That is to say, most alien societies will be artificially intelligent societies; robotic societies if you will.

When it comes from getting from somewhere out there (wherever that is) to here (Planet Earth), robotic ‘life’ forms have all the advantages.

They have, for all practical purposes, robots or intelligent computers or artificial intelligence (for lack of a better word or phrase) would have a lifespan measured in such timeframes as to make any interstellar travel equivalent to humans taking a leisurely stroll around their local park. There’s no need for energy intensive interstellar velocities even remotely approaching the speed of light. The galaxy has been around long enough to allow for exploration (and colonization) hundreds of times over at even expansion rates one percent light speed. 

They (robots again) have no need for all of the cumbersome and weight enhancing luxuries of what humans or biological entities would require for interstellar journeys: life-support basically in the form of artificial gravity, an atmosphere, heating, food and water, waste recycling technologies, privacy requirements, sex, entertainment, etc. Any saving in weight is a saving in energy. Robotic ‘life’ forms could cross the galaxy (or just go from star A to star B) in what for all practical purposes one could describe as shutdown or sleep mode.

Why would artificial intelligences (AI) boldly go in any event? Any intelligences designing AI must exhibit a mastery of science and technology. In order to achieve that they must exhibit that trait we call curiosity. That trait, instilled into AI, or intelligent wetware downloaded into silicon chips, would exhibit curiosity. What’s over that hill translated into a cosmic setting is what’s beyond that star and the one beyond that, etc.

One flaw in advocating a pure form of robotic intelligence boldly going is that one could argue instead that it’s the original biological entities who need to boldly go, but that’s easily accomplished if their wetware in an organic housing (i.e. – their skull) could be downloaded as software in a metallic housing. That humans could download their mind into a computer has been suggested and advocated by many as a technologically feasible way to achieve virtual immortality. By the by, that human wetware downloaded as robotic software, that feasibility has been suggested as being possible within this century, not millennia down the track.

We’ve made a start already!

To be continued…



First Contact: ETI vs. ETAI

Science fiction and predictive science ‘fact’ scenarios about human-alien First Contact are usually based around flesh-and-blood meeting and greeting flesh-and-blood, even if the blood colour is red meeting green. For the sake of thrilling sci-fi audiences, First Contact is often depicted as meeting and beating (to a pulp) flesh-and-blood by flesh-and-blood. There are far more sci-fi and predictive science ‘fact’ scenarios that explore alien invasion relative to a friendly and diplomatic “take me to your leader”. However, a way more likely First Contact scenario is alien silicon-and-chips meets/greets/discovers human flesh-and-blood.

Thanks to the movies, we probably all know what ET stands for. Then there’s ETI which is ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. I’m going to introduce here a new acronym, ETAI, or ExtraTerrestrial Artificial Intelligence. 

Any and all assumptions about extraterrestrial intelligences have to be based on terrestrial intelligence, since we don’t have any sample, to date, of ETI. I’m going to ignore ‘ancient astronauts’ and the UFO issue (for the moment) in the context of this essay since not everyone reading this will be comfortable with that being evidence for actual ETI. 

Human intelligence (HI) has been around for several millions of years. Modern human intelligence, as per Homo sapiens, has been around for only some 200,000 years. While there’s little doubt human IQ has increased over those millions of years, it certainly hasn’t improved much more over the past 200,000 years. Translated, increases in brain power, neuron connections, IQ, grunt grey matter processing power, problem solving abilities, call it what you will, while maybe sure, is also damn slow! Biological evolution doesn’t tend to operate in the fast lane.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has only been around several generations, if that, but increases in artificial ‘brain’ power, neuron (silicon chip) connections, robotic IQ, grunt silicon chip  processing power, problem solving abilities by machines, call it what you will, is equally a sure thing, but damn fast, in fact exponentially fast. Biological evolution is not applicable here.

The unavoidable upshot is that sooner or later, the two lines, slowly increasing levels of human intelligence and very rapidly increasing levels of artificial machine intelligence, are going to intersect. You can bet the family farm on that. It’s a sure thing. In fact the current intersection or crossover date is projected to be on or about the year 2020. However you attempt to define artificial intelligence, the grunt processing power of silicon chips, well it’s doubling roughly every 18 months or so. Translated, your PC, or laptop, in 2013 is way more powerful and ‘intelligent’ than the computers and computing ‘intelligence’ that served the Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Interesting questions start to come to the fore immediately after those two lines, HI (human intelligence) and AI (artificial intelligence) intersect and thereafter. That Chinese curse about ‘interesting times’ may well make itself felt. HI is not likely to be comfortable when AI starts making off with the Nobel Prizes.

One question that comes to mind is whether or not AI will start to direct its own AI evolution, or will AI remain in HI hands?

That most obvious question is who will be in control once AI surpasses HI and keeps surging ahead by ever greater leaps and bounds? Let’s be optimistic and say that humans will retain control over their machines, a scenario that runs counter to many a sci-fi scenario, even some non-fiction futuristic projections.

Okay, so AI will do the bidding of HI. One, of many, AI applications, already well and truly demonstrated, is that AI can boldly go where no HI can go, at least in the foreseeable, even relatively long-term future. We launch AI probes and rovers to Mars and elsewhere in the solar system, not HI. Why? Several reasons come to mind that reflects among other factors NASA’s mantra of “cheaper, faster, better”. Space maybe the final frontier, but it’s also a very dangerous frontier as Apollo 13 adequately demonstrated. There were mishaps and anxious moments as well with both the Mercury and Gemini space programs. Space is also a very deadly frontier as we saw with several Space Shuttle disasters. Russia has suffered human loses too in its space program.

Space is a realm with extremes of temperature, radiation, and gravity; space flight has relatively slow velocities required for the distances needed to be covered, and long durations of voyages all conspire against sending HI deep into space relative to AI. AI just doesn’t need expensive and massive life support (temperature, water, food, waste disposal, etc.) systems, in space or anywhere else for that matter, and if AI crash-lands and bites the dust, well that’s way more acceptable than the demise of a human(s) who tried to boldly go.

Economics frequently rule the roost, and it costs just a fraction to send AI out there in boldly going territory relative to HI. That applies equally well to interstellar voyages of exploration as it does to interplanetary exploration, which is what our generation is concerned with. But, there will be human generations to come, the stars will beckon, but since the difficulty of sending HI to the stars relative to AI is massive, well the initial (at first) envoys to the stars will be terrestrial AI.

Humans in near or deep space may still be popular fare in the cinemas and sci-fi novels, but the romance has gone away when it comes to reality and the general public who has to foot the bill. Contrast all those utopian visions from the 50’s, 60’s even 70’s of humans living in space by the year 2001 – massive space stations (O’Neill Colonies); colonies on the Moon even men on Mars. Contrast the ‘futuristic’ space settings of “2001: A Space Odyssey” (the movie) with what became 2001’s reality. No contest. You’ll see that the idea of humans in space somewhere along the line went down the gurgler. Were it not for the geopolitical and military rivalry between the USSR and the USA (the Cold War), there probably to this very day would not of have been lunar exploration other than by remote controlled unmanned probes and rovers. Near Earth orbit would have been as far as humans had boldly gone. I mean just as soon as America had proven it had won the space race to the Moon, the plug was pulled and the final three Apollo Moon missions abandoned. It was a case of buying the Rolls Royce then keeping it in the garage because you couldn’t afford the gasoline for it, or rather the taxpayers didn’t want to pay for the additional gasoline. After the first couple of Moon landings, the public complained when their daytime TV soap operas got interrupted to cover the later Apollo Moon missions.

The initial hype about the Space Shuttle proved to be just that – hype – and now even the Space Shuttle is gone. So, it’s little wonder we’ve turned to cheaper, better, faster space probes with (at this stage) rudimentary AI. If aliens experienced a parallel scenario, perhaps they turned to AI as well, especially when interplanetary voyages morphed into interstellar ones and the difficulty factors increased exponentially.

So in keeping with parallels between humans and ET, we have to assume that ETI will also be developing ETAI and that ultimately ETAI will eclipse and surpass ETI and ultimately ETI will instruct ETAI to be their envoys to the stars since ETI will face the same interstellar obstacles that HI does.

One other point, HI has only been around for about 200,000 years, several million if you wish to acknowledge human intelligence before Homo sapiens were evolved in Mother Nature’s philosophy. Now contrast that to the age of our galaxy which is at least ten billion, up to perhaps thirteen billion years old. What odds that HI is anything other than the new intelligence on the galactic block? Translated, ETI is way more likely to find us, than we are of finding them, or, more likely as not, for reasons noted above, ETAI will find us first.

The final part of the equation is that there’s more than enough time for any one of ETI’s ETAI to be anywhere and everywhere. ETAI can be mass produced. ETAI might even reproduce themselves using natural resources found in space. There could be dozens of ETAI probes around each and every star in the galaxy, and billions more between the stars just cruising and boldly going. The time it would take ETAI to explore every nook and cranny of the galaxy, even at a crawl (say 1% light speed), is just a tiny fraction of the age of our galaxy. Lastly, why Earth? Earth is interesting real estate since Earth has a biosphere, bound to attract the attention of an ETAI probe, and of course Earth doesn’t have a Star Trek cloaking device so we can’t hide from any potential ETAI surveillance.

So, if aliens come knocking, might they actually be an ETAI instead of a flesh-and-blood ETI? 

Now I’ll continue to ignore the ‘ancient astronaut’ issue since none of us were around back when ‘ancient astronauts’ were alleged to have been around, but we’re all a part of the UFO generation; those bona-fide unidentified UFOs that have been associated with ETI for well over six decades now. Perhaps, given the above logic, they should be identified with ETAI instead, since it’s just about inevitable that if you accept even one ETI, and then you accept their nearly inevitable ETAI, and given that HI are the new boys on the galactic block, then… Well you can easily fill in the ‘then’ for yourselves, but it boils down to the fact that humans are way more likely to be the discovered than the discoverer.

So, might the UFO ‘greys’ actually be robotic or an android ‘life’ form, an ETAI? Well, why not?  I’ve yet to read any account that proved the ‘greys’ were functioning flesh-and-blood ETI. No one has seen them bleed or have bruises or scars; No arm or leg casts suggest no broken bones, not even a limp; nor have there been reports of sniffles and sneezes; they certainly look asexual and even act robotic as if on autopilot. An artificially intelligent ‘life’ form could take on just about any outward appearance its designers wanted it to have. As hinted at above, natural biological evolution and natural selection are totally irrelevant when it comes to AI, including their appearance.

Now there’s one obvious objection to our generation being the UFO generation. It’s that it would be a super ultra extraordinary coincidence that our generation would be the generation to be on the receiving end of a First Contact visit from ETI or ETAI. But there’s nothing that actually requires that. ETAI might have been hovering around our solar system for untold millions of years. Perhaps there was an initial ‘First Contact’ between ETAI and the dinosaurs, which for obvious reasons went unrecorded in terrestrial geo-history. Rather thwarted in getting a reasonably intelligent response from T-Rex, out ETAI just cooled their silicon chip heels and waited, and waited. Then humans turned up (somewhat interesting) and eventually those humans came up with really advanced technologies (very, very interesting).

So, in conclusion, all up it’s probably going to be way more productive to do SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) in the near Earth environment if for no other reason than they (ETAI) are just as likely to be around here as ETI will be lounging around their home stars, and searching near here is searching in a lot less space, and as we all know from the inverse square law, the closer your object, the stronger the signal you’re likely to get. Less is more; stronger is better.

When Religious Aliens Come Knocking: Part Two

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, come in all manner of shapes and sizes at least according to science fiction authors, TV produces, filmmakers and even scientists. We have to rely on them since we don’t yet have an alien on the slab in the lab for verification. Our potential aliens also have all manner of philosophies and intentions – invasion and sex usually dominate. But what about religion: their existence and impact on our religion and of greater importance, their religion’s impact on us. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

When it comes to ET, the traditional Hollywood image, often reinforced by some scientists, is that when the aliens come calling, it will be with ray-guns blasting away (like in “The War of the Worlds”), unless they are sneaky like in “Village of the Damned” plus sequel “Children of the Damned”, or “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (several versions). Justification for depicting ET as nasty is often given based on terrestrial histories of invasions and conquests. A warfare scenario pessimist is hardly ever disappointed; a peace scenario optimist frequently is.

But let’s look on the bright side. ET arrives and there’s not a ray-gun in sight. It’s the dawn of a new and enlightened era! But let’s substitute their ray-gun replacing it for their extraterrestrial religious text, a text in which ET worships the Almighty Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes (or in Hollywood fare, “The Blob”).

Okay, so based on religious tolerances (or lack of same) as expressed within and by terrestrial societies, what can we expect from ET? When it comes to a religiously inclined and pushy ET, well that’s hardly ever mentioned as a possible scenario, but ultimately it’s really terrifying, in a potential sort of way. A fanatical religious ET vis-à-vis an invading ET, is perhaps a more likely ET and what we may really need to worry about is that they’ll come in peace alright, but as fervent missionaries to spread the word that their version of a supreme being [the Almighty Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes] is the only true version of a supreme being and that all of us terrestrial heathen, pagan infidels had better see the error of our untrue faiths and convert to their extraterrestrial theology quick-smart.

More likely as not ET won’t be Jesus-like and certainly won’t allow themselves to be nailed to a cross (or a higher-tech version); they will probably be more along the lines of the Conquistadors or perhaps akin the Inquisition, or even worse Koran-thumping Islamic extremist-types. After all, they have to be very, very strongly motivated to come out to our neck of the boonies, and they are going to want favorable results, or else. All hail the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes!

Now here’s a very rough translation and commentary on the first few bars (it’s also an opera) of ET’s “Holy eBook of Slime and Ooze”. It goes something like this:

“Once upon a time the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes, ejaculated and gave rise to the Holy Ooze and the Holy Ooze was without form and the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes felt that this was how it should be and everything was Almighty fine. And that ended the First Great Cycle of Cycles.

On the Second Great Cycle of Cycles, Ms. Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes took her less than better half partner, the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes to task for creating a Holy Oozy Mess and told her less than better half, the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes to clean it up, or else! And so it came to pass that the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes swept the Holy Ooze all under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet. 

But the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes wasn’t through with His creation, and under cover of the Cosmic Night, He played with His toy biochemistry set and infused animation into the Holy Ooze that had been swept under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet. And that was the Third of the Great Cycles.

The animated Holy Ooze multiplied in an Oozy sort of way and expanded outwards, ever outwards from under the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet and the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes was Almighty pleased and totally up Himself with His skills. And thus was concluded the Fourth Great Cycle of Cycles. 

On the Fifth Great Cycle of Cycles, Ms. Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes, totally fed up with her less than better half, packed her Heavenly Duffle Bags and left the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes for even greener pastures. She moved in with the step-brother of the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes. His name was the Greater Greener Slime Being, who, unfortunately had fallen from Grace [mutiny I believe] and had been stripped of his Almighty Supreme title and status – such are the fates in family disputes and Wars in Heaven between rivals for power.” 

And it goes on and on and on from there, over ten eBook volumes worth that kind of make the Bible read like a short story. But in a bit of a twist, a role reversal, the underdog, the Greater Greener Slime Being ultimately triumphs and comes out on top to become the new Almighty Greater Greener Slime Supreme Being. Well after all the Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes really was a bit of a twit.

 The former Greater Greener Slime Being and the former Almighty Great Green Slime Supreme Being, Lord of All That Oozes’ Ex – His more than better half – together, it is prophesized, will have a child who ultimately will become the role model for, obviously, “The Son of the Blob”, who is to grow so blobby that His massive gravity will prove enough to cause the Heavenly Cosmic Carpet and all that it contains (life, the universe and everything) to roll up in on itself and turn into a singularity. It will be the End of Days, the Cycles of Cycles – the Big Crunch will have arrived! If I recall correctly, that Last Great Cycle is numbered somewhere over the million mark of all things Cyclic. Amen.

Although you’d hope that advanced alien beings would have long since out-evolved such religious nonsense, that’s not a given. That missionary scenario is even more frightening than them coming here with their ray-guns blasting away IMHO. So if those extraterrestrial evangelists come knocking at your door, with tales about the Holy Ooze, or the Almighty Greater Greener Slime Supreme Being, be afraid, be very afraid!

When Religious Aliens Come Knocking: Part One

Aliens, as in extraterrestrials, come in all manner of shapes and sizes at least according to science fiction authors, TV produces, filmmakers and even scientists. We have to rely on them since we don’t yet have an alien on the slab in the lab for verification. Our potential aliens also have all manner of philosophies and intentions – invasion and sex usually dominate. But what about religion: their existence and impact on our religion and of greater importance, their religion’s impact on us. 

There has been an awful lot of ink spilled over many, many a decade on the question of what the discovery of an advanced extraterrestrial civilization would mean for terrestrial religions, especially the Big Three – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. That’s mainly because the Bible (and associated texts) make no mention of ET, and thus human beings are the one and only apex of God’s creations. Discovery of ET would throw that alleged apex into more than just a bit of theological confusion.

However, theologians tend to make light of this and suggest along the lines that there’s an awful lot of real estate out there, and since God can do whatever He damn well pleases, well maybe He populated some of that real estate with one or more extraterrestrial societies. I mean the Bible doesn’t mention Antarctica or penguins. The discovery of both didn’t upset the religious applecart, so why are aliens relevant to vie for Biblical space and commentary and why should they, if they exist, upset the religious applecart?

In short, one answer boils down to, is everything out there in parallel with everything down here, at least as far as the big three monotheistic faiths go? Do all planets with intelligent aliens have extraterrestrial Adams and Eves that muck up their alien Gardens of Eden and get the boot? Do all alien civilizations have sin, a flood, a Chosen People, a Promised Land, etc? 

Now apparently the biggest of the big theological question is, assuming the existence of ET civilizations, is whether or not Jesus (assuming the reality of a Jesus of course – not a given) visited these worlds and got subjected to the ET equivalent of The Cross. Did Jesus have to hitch a ride on interstellar spaceships in order to get to all those other sinful other-worlds, assuming those other-worlds are sinful other-worlds?  Methinks the questions are as similar to how many angels dance on the head of a pin!

IMHO, the odds that our religious histories in broad-brush form would happen on each and every other-world housing an extraterrestrial civilization is so remote as to not be worthy of even two seconds of pondering. 

Okay, so if UFOs land on the White House lawn tomorrow, or radio astronomers detect obviously artificial radio signals from an extra-solar other-world planet that’s home to ET, big deal. Church attendance will probably not alter greatly, at least after the initial shock. If those of the monotheistic faiths embrace all of humanity as equals, then it’s not a huge step upwards to embracing extra-solar ‘humanity’ – ET – as equals as well. 

But, and this is a very real but, what if our advanced aliens are not just technologically advanced aliens, but theologically  advanced aliens, who in fact have a theology that bears no similarity with any terrestrial theology! Then what? Might ET take a leaf out of our religious histories and violently preach their version of hell, fire and brimstone to us? What leaf you ask? 

The basic reality is that members of the trilogy of major monotheistic religions (and lots of minor ones as well) have in the past wished, and continue to wish, to impose their beliefs by any means fair or foul (usually foul) on anyone and everyone else. If fact, all too often those wishes were turned into reality.

If one had to list all of the atrocities inflicted on various cultures by Christian missionaries, including the abduction and indoctrination of young children, well let’s just say comparisons with the Nazi Third Reich regime wouldn’t be all that inappropriate. From across Africa to the Pacific Islands and points beyond, it was the Christian duty of the faithful to force-feed if necessary their religious doctrines to all those thus far spared monotheism fanaticism. And it wasn’t just a matter of polytheistic to monotheistic conversion, it was the absolute and total destruction of anything and everything part and parcel of their ‘pagan’ traditional beliefs that had to be eliminated, so much so that most of the culture, say of the Aztecs and the Incas, have now been lost forever – thanks due to God, or rather His ever faithful representatives.

Then throw in the Inquisition, the Crusades, and all manner of Holy Wars and God’s Old Testament reign of terror has been taken to heart by the faithful whose duty is to see that it is ‘to be continued’ and on, and on, and on it goes. Your option: be a living Christian; or a dead pagan. Well there’s an exception to that – the last of the Inca emperors was given this option: a relatively quick and easy death as a born-again Christian, or a very slow and very painful death as a pagan. Needless to say Christianity won out yet again. Belief in God can be very persuasive when you’re faced with being burned at the stake as an alternative.  

Albeit more civilized today, the indoctrination goes on. It might be religious fanatics picketing in front of abortion clinics or forcing public schools to delete Darwinism (Darwinian evolution) from their curricula and replace it with Creationism or Intelligent Design (you’d think that had been settled once and for all with the 1925 Scopes Trial). It often takes the form of all those televangelists knocking your socks off and all those religious billboard signs warning you of this, that and the next sinful thing. Then of course there are those ever pestering Bible-pushing Christians knocking at your door, eager beavers telling you how much God loves you, but in return for a donation He’ll love you even more!

But take note, its God the singular, not gods the plural. I mean is it a God / Jesus Bible-thumper who bangs on your door or is it an Osiris / Odin / Quetzalcoatl / Zeus, etc. person who disturbs your peace and quiet, trying to convert you to the wisdom of polytheism? Did I hear you say God / Jesus? I thought so. Despite the fact that the Bible isn’t a legal document like a search warrant or a summons, it nevertheless seems to give Bible-pushers carte blanch to do whatever they please, as long as the Bible tells them it’s okay to do it, like chewing your ear off (not literally of course) with tales of hell, fire and brimstone and trying to scare the shit out of you into making a donation to the cause. 

If there were any polytheistic cultures who tried to ram their gods down the throat of other cultures I’m not aware of them, which is not the same as other cultures assimilating the gods of another culture. As an example, there ultimately proved to be an amalgamation of ancient Greek and Egyptian deities. Ramming has been the ‘divine right’ and privilege of monotheistic cults and examples, including all of the very graphic details, would fill an encyclopaedia. Would aliens perceive their having a ‘divine right’ to ram their theology down our throats? Yes, if our own history is an example. If God is on your side, you can do no wrong!

In the history of our terrestrial civilization, there have been lots and lots of refugees. Many are economic, escaping poverty by chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow away from their homeland where it never rains (thus no rainbow). Some are political. Some are for racial / racism reasons. A fair share of all refugees, past and present, are religious refugees, an obvious example being the Pilgrims that migrated to the United States of America before there was such a name as the United States. So the issue of religious freedom, or freedom from having someone else’s religion rammed down your throat, is not trivial.

To be continued…

Seven Alien Misconceptions Revisited: Part Two

The scientific community and the general community tend to have differences of opinion over the topic of extraterrestrial life, especially intelligent extraterrestrial life with advanced technological capabilities. The scientific community tends to be ultra conservative; the great unwashed are way less critical since they get their news and views from the tabloids and sci-fi programs. Perhaps the middle ground is a more viable option than either side’s extremely conservative or uncritical point of view. 

An article titled “7 Huge Misconceptions about Aliens” by Natalie Wolchover has appeared recently on several websites including Space.com; Life’s Little Mysteries (prime site); and the Huffington Post (abridged to just five). It’s all about how scientists view the existence and nature of advanced ET as opposed to the more common perceptions of the great unwashed. The following comments are my addressing of the common misconceptions raised. Let’s see if I agree or disagree with the verdicts, and most important, why. Oh, of course the “THEY” referred to is our intelligent and technologically advanced ET. 

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

THEY WON’T EAT US: Agree

Alien biochemistry wouldn’t be absolutely identical to our biochemistry. So, we might as well be as indigestible to them as cellulose is to us. We’d give them the equivalent of an alien tummy ache. That aside: if aliens arrive from there to here, then presumably they know how to produce ‘artificial’ food supplements – produce their nutritional requirements from raw materials. I mean there are no supermarkets or fast food joints along the interstellar highway. Of course if aliens have master-chefs, well perhaps they might like to take a human or two and sauté them up in a super-duper alien stew. There’s an awful lot of missing persons who forever seem to remain missing! So where on (or off) Earth is Jimmy Hoffa, the crew of Flight 19, Glenn Miller, the crew of the Mary Celeste, or for that matter the entire Ninth Roman Legion? Joking aside, if humans are a food of last resort, well then, the cosmos is way more resource impoverished than I would have thought possible. 

THEY’RE IMMUNE TO EARTH’S BACTERIA: Agree

Alien biochemistry wouldn’t be absolutely identical to our biochemistry. Our biochemistry isn’t 100% identical with the biochemistry of other terrestrial species. And thus, 99.9% of the diseases that afflict one species can’t be passed onto another species. My cat sneezes – I don’t catch their cold. I sneeze – my cats don’t catch my cold. I can’t catch Dutch Elm Disease; Elm trees are pretty safe from all the germs I carry around and about with me. So, the odds ET will catch terrestrial diseases and vice versa are pretty damn slim. But, another reason is that presumably ET is pretty skilled when it comes to medicine. If there was any chance Earth’s microorganisms could infect ET, well ET would have tested for that in advance and done the proper procedures to nullify any potential threat. The “War of the Worlds” scenario and resolution is ultimately bovine fertilizer. 

THEY DIDN’T PUT US HERE: Disagree

Why would aliens ‘create’ humans? Why do humans ‘create’ slavery or jobs or employ beasts of burden, even if mechanical, perhaps ultimately robotic? The ultimate answer: to get someone or something else to do the bloody hard work! If you vacation at a resort, you expect to be waited on hand-and-foot. Well, when Mr. ET arrived on this third rock resort, ET wanted to be waited on hand-and-foot too; and worshiped to boot. You’ll find lots of references to that in various cultural mythologies. So, ET created humans, not from dust or clay or even ribs but from manipulating pre-existing primate stock via their advanced knowledge of artificial selection breeding techniques. Humans too know all about artificial selection – how many unnatural breeds of dogs have we created? Is there a single domesticated plant or animal we haven’t in a sense ‘created’? When you stop and think about it, don’t humans too come in ‘breeds’ (only we call them races). 

THEY WON”T COME IN PEACE: Disagree

Many a scientist has warned that we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves (that’s already too little and too late a wish) or seek out aliens. We might wish aliens to exist, but we must be careful what we wish for. A lot of that is based on all the examples of terrestrial exploration. The discovered are not usually treated well by the discoverer. Cue case histories of the American Indian, the Aztecs and Incas, the Australian aborigines, and all manner of other invasions perpetrated by one or more nations / cultures / peoples against another. All of our actual exploitation histories are reinforced by hundreds of Sci-Fi films and TV shows that suggest in no uncertain terms that when aliens discover Earth, Earthlings are up shit creek!

Ultimately, these sorts of terrestrial doings and undoings have two basic root causes – resources are one such cause. You need more land because you need expansion room for your ‘fruitful and multiplying’ population, and/or the natural resources found there. Perhaps however, if aliens can again get from there to here, then they already have the resources of the Milky Way Galaxy under their ‘thumbs’ – assuming thumbs of course – or at their fingertips (or should that be tentacle-tips?). Earth has nothing to offer in terms of additional real estate, water, energy, minerals, etc. that can’t be found closer to their home turf.

The second root cause is someone else, some other nation or nations is/are perceived as a threat. The threat(s) you perceive maybe military, maybe political, maybe cultural or maybe religious. If you deem yourself in the stronger position, you may decide to hit first, hit hard and hit often. If your next door neighbor is no threat to you and has nothing of value you want, you’re going to tend to just live and let live. Well as far as any technologically advanced aliens are concerned, this here third rock and inhabitants is no threat to them and has nothing of value they can’t acquire closer to home at vastly less effort and expense.

“Independence Day” and a thousand clones of that plot element are highly improbable in the extreme. Highly improbable is not of course the same as impossible. 

But, and why is there nearly always a but, it’s within the realm of possibility that there might be those aliens who parallel those humans who don’t mind sticking a knife in your back just because they derive great kicks and great pleasure out of doing so. No motive other than sadistic pleasure and a sense of being ‘king of the hill’. But then again, perhaps there’s also an interplanetary extraterrestrial police force to help curb the enthusiasm of such alien backstabbers.

Now what’s never mentioned, but really terrifying, and perhaps more likely and what we may really need to worry about is that they’ll come in peace alright, but as missionaries to spread the word that their version of a supreme being(s) is the only true version of a supreme being(s) and that all of us terrestrial heathen, pagan infidels had better see the error of our untrue faiths and convert to their extraterrestrial theology quick-smart. Although you’d hope that advanced alien beings would have long since out-evolved such religious nonsense, that’s not a given. That missionary scenario is even more frightening than them coming here with their ray guns blasting away. So if those extraterrestrial evangelists come knocking at your door, be afraid, be very afraid!

But ultimately there’s no point in worrying about things that we have no control over, and since we can’t hide Earth (and ourselves) in a technological cloak of invisibility, we’re at the mercy of ET: the good ET, the bad ET and the ugly ET. 

Seven Alien Misconceptions Revisited: Part One

The scientific community and the general community tend to have differences of opinion over the topic of extraterrestrial life, especially intelligent extraterrestrial life with advanced technological capabilities. The scientific community tends to be ultra conservative; the great unwashed are way less critical since they get their news and views from the tabloids and sci-fi programs. Perhaps the middle ground is a more viable option than either side’s extremely conservative or uncritical point of view. 

An article titled “7 Huge Misconceptions about Aliens” by Natalie Wolchover has appeared recently on several websites including Space.com; Life’s Little Mysteries (prime site); and the Huffington Post (abridged to just five). It’s all about how scientists view the existence and nature of advanced ET as opposed to the more common perceptions of the great unwashed. The following comments are my addressing of the common misconceptions raised. Let’s see if I agree or disagree with the verdicts, and most important, why. Oh, of course the “THEY” referred to is our intelligent and technologically advanced ET. 

THEY MIGHT NOT EXIST: Disagree

This is the only case of the magnificent seven with scientists hedging bets. They “might” not exist. Then too they “might” exist.

Okay, we have no actual alien bodies on the slab in the lab, so the existence of aliens to date is pure speculation. When it comes to life in the universe, we have to speculate from a statistical sample of one – terrestrial life. Extrapolating from a statistical sample of one is fraught with danger. But, when crunching the numbers, so many stars, so many planets, so much time, so much space, so much of the ‘right stuff’ available for life-as-we-know-it, that very, very few scientists would bet their family farm that terrestrial life, and terrestrial intelligent life, and terrestrial intelligent life with advanced technology was the proverbial IT in the cosmos at large.

Certainly SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) scientists, one of which featured prominently in the original essay, wouldn’t adopt the “we are alone” scenario. It would make a mockery of their very own chosen profession and careers. The possible existence of ET may currently just boil down to pure statistics, but those statistics have been crunched and double crunched and tripled crunched again and again and again by the best science currently available to us. The verdict, well SETI scientists have voted to put their time, efforts and energy into, and bet on, the “we are not alone” option.

Finally, if you adopt the quantum (physics) mantra, anything that isn’t forbidden is compulsory; anything that can happen, must happen. Life isn’t forbidden; life can happen – we’re proof; therefore life must happen again and again and again.   

THEY WON’T COME IN ‘PERSON’: Disagree

By “come”, the consensus is that flesh-and-blood aliens will boldly go via silicon and metal surrogates that are themselves constructed artificially intelligent (AI), thus saving the biological aliens a lot of time, cost, effort, energy and danger. Sending out zillions of robotic AI space probes to explore the galaxy while the flesh-and-blood aliens stay at home however runs counter to what we humans do. Sure, we invest massive amounts of resources into silicon and steel. Robotic probes are often our eyes and ears from unmanned military drones to spy-in-the-sky satellites to probes to the planets and into the depths of the ocean. But, there is just something crazy enough about the human condition that humans insist on seeing and hearing for themselves, even if supplemented by technology, the wonders of, whatever.

Sure we sent unmanned probes to the Moon – but we followed by sending humans in person. Sure we send unmanned probes to Mars – but humans will go there in person eventually. Sure we explore the ocean’s abyss with robotic submersibles, but humans still go down to look up close and personal at RMS Titanic, even unto the deepest parts of the ocean trenches. Sure we can, and do, send instrumentation into the heart of massive tornadoes, but that hasn’t stopped ‘storm chasers’ from deliberately inserting themselves into the vortex of deadly twisters, sometimes as a thrill, more often as not to advance the science of meteorology and forecasting. Humans constantly put themselves at risk even though robots do the risk-taking better and cheaper. That’s the essence of the question “Why climb Mount Everest?” The answer, as always: “Because it’s there”. Now of course to do these sorts of things requires technological augmentation, from warm clothes (Mount Everest) to scuba gear (exploring the Great Barrier Reef) to reinforced steel containers that keep out the outside environment (exploring RMS Titanic or going to the Moon). But the biological entity remains cocooned inside.

If aliens evolve a high IQ and a sophisticated technology, then they no doubt will have that desire to explore and see what’s on the other side of the hill and climb their own Mount Everest. Perhaps firstly by surrogates; but if they have one tenth the curiosity and drive of humans, they will boldly go in person by hook or by crook. Robotic probes might inform ET that the third rock from a stellar body called Sol has a biosphere, but ET will want to see for itself, sooner or later.  

Now I might concede that via advanced bioengineering abilities, aliens could augment themselves with technology to such an extent that they might be nearly artificial constructions – our artificial hip joints and dentures and plastic heart valves taken to their logical conclusion. The Daleks of “Doctor Who” are a prime example. Perhaps their mind could be downloaded into something more permanent than wetware like software part and parcel of a silicon and steel computer. But the key bit is that their biological essence (their mind) remains intact and boldly goes.

THEY WON’T MATE WITH US: Disagree

Alien biochemistry wouldn’t be absolutely identical to our biochemistry, or translated, their genetics wouldn’t be absolutely identical to our genetics. Just like humans can’t mate and reproduce with petunias, though both are terrestrial life forms and share DNA, humans are even less likely to be able to mate with ET. So, why do I disagree with this most obvious of the obvious? Four reasons: 1) Genetic engineering; 2) Mythology; 3) Modern animal mutilations and 4) UFO abductions. Taking each in turn…

Genetic Engineering: If ET is technologically advanced enough to get from there (wherever that is) to here, then it’s logical to assume that they are technologically advanced in lots of areas – like genetic engineering. Okay, humans can not naturally mate with petunias. But, assuming they wanted to; couldn’t our geneticists take a human reproductive cell and the reproductive cell of a petunia, and manipulate both to such an extent that a union between the two might be possible? Okay, that’s pretty far out, but geneticists have already combined two dissimilar species genes into one – the ‘Frankenfish’, patented as the GloFish, combining the Zebrafish with various genes of fluorescence proteins from other species comes to mind as just one example. Collectively, the field is known as producing genetically modified organisms (GMO’s)! There’s much controversy that rages about GMO’s as human foods. That aside, in theory, a human-petunia combo is possible. We share some genetics and DNA with the petunia.

Mythology: One would be hard pressed to find a culture who’s mythology didn’t include examples of their ‘gods’ mating with us mere mortals. Greek mythology is a no-brainer given the ever randy Zeus. Biblical mythology also records sex between the ‘sons of god’ and the ‘daughters of men’. Now do scientists accept all of the multi-thousands of deities of the world’s cultures as supernatural entities? - Probably not. That then leaves them a choice between all of these deities being as 100% fictional as the Easter Bunny and Sherlock Holmes, or else they are aliens. To me, probability dictates that the more logical option of the two is ET – a speculation that also solves the Fermi Paradox – “where is everybody?”

The Fermi Paradox can be summed up simply enough just by postulating the existence of at least one other technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilization in our Milky Way Galaxy that’s older than our civilization by at least a few millions of years and with the same sorts of ‘boldly going’ drives as we humans have (i.e. – plain old curiosity, the “what’s on the other side of the hill?”). If that alone is taken as a given and nothing else, then just as humans explored and colonized Planet Earth in a tiny fraction of the Earth’s existence (ditto microbes, insects, birds, etc.), technologically capable extraterrestrials would have explored and colonized the Milky Way Galaxy in a tiny fraction of its existence, even at say rippling out at one to ten percent the speed of light. Planet Earth is part of that Milky Way Galaxy, so “where is everybody?”

In the case of humans enveloping Earth, we don’t need to ask “where is everybody?” We’re everywhere. In the case of ET, we do ask “where is everybody?” They should be here. Scientists say they’re not, never have been, and thus they have to explain the Fermi paradox by other means. On the other side of the fence, those who see evidence in those ‘ancient astronauts’ and in UFOs have no paradox with which to have to come to terms with.

Animal Mutilations: Animal mutilations are certainly well documented, and the cause(s) are mysterious to say the least. If human culprits, why hasn’t anyone been apprehended, tried and convicted of violations of animal welfare laws, destruction of private property (if livestock) and trespass? If natural predators are to blame – well that should be bloody obvious if true and no controversy should therefore ensue. If extraterrestrials, well that explains a lot that natural predation can’t like precision incisions and lack of blood and no hoof/paw prints and no signs of a struggle, though it also leaves mega-questions unanswered. Presumably, it has something to do with ET interest in terrestrial biochemistry and genetics.

UFO Abductions: If UFO abduction accounts are taken at face value, and I’m not prepared to call these ‘victims’ either liars or deluded, then extraterrestrials are mightily interested in the creation of more hybrids – not animal-animal hybrids like the Chimera, or human-animal hybrids like the Mesopotamian Shedu (winged bulls with human heads) but human-alien hybrids, something perhaps akin to those alien-human close encounters of the intimate kind (those ‘gods’ mating with humans) referred to above in all things mythological. If you know your mythology, you’d be aware that there are more hybrids than you can tick off on your fingers and toes –squared.

Of course “won’t mate” is not the same as “can’t mate”. If we assume advanced aliens are skilled enough to ‘mate’ with humans, why the hell would they want to? Of course this isn’t apparently mating in the traditional way, rather aliens harvesting human gametes and doing their technological thing with them, hence an alien version of artificial insemination or in-vitro fertilization. Again, if the human abduction ‘victims’ are taken at face value, some sort of alien-human hybrid program is underway. Why a human-alien hybrid program is the $64,000 question. Perhaps someday we’ll have an answer. Perhaps it’s similar to why we created the ‘Frankenfish’ or why the ‘gods’ created the Minotaur or the griffin or even demigod/demigoddess hybrids like Hercules or Helen of Troy.  

To be continued…