In his paper “A New Cosmogony,” the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem asked how it can be possible that from the vast cosmos, most likely filled with intelligent beings other than ourselves, we have so far heard nothing. The problem is more commonly known as the Fermi Paradox: given the high probability that other intelligent life forms exist elsewhere in the universe, why does it seem that none of them has ever tried to contact us?
In his blazingly original paper, “Radio Astronomy as Epistemology,” our guest, philosopher Anthony Weston, formulates a response to the Fermi Paradox. What we take to be the silence of the universe, he suggests, may teach us more about ourselves–and the challenges of receptivity to nonhuman minds in general–than about the prevalence of other life. “Suppose,” he writes, for the sake of argument, “that some extra terrestrial intelligence briefly scans our portion of their sky in search of ‘messages.’ Could they recognize our TV transmissions–for them just one fluctuating electromagnetic impulse among billions of others…–as a product of intelligent beings? … A TV signal is certainly not constructed to be easily decoded by anyone else. We cannot assume,” he continues, “that the ETIs are so unlucky as to have thought of television.”
“It seems like people are really impressed by the fact that the octopus can escape from cages under certain conditions that seem improbable to humans…” Weston says. “But [that] might be quite marginal to what the animal is actually mostly doing or about. It proves something, I suppose, but we … ought to be a lot more interested in what is central to the animal’s life and experience.”
The reason the universe appears to offer no evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, or ETI, Weston suggests, may be that we are paying the wrong kind of attention. In his books, he invites us to imagine the possibility that other forms of intelligence, quote, “do manifest themselves, constantly and directly, in ways that we simply do not expect and are not prepared to welcome or even notice…” For evidence of this blindness, he continues, we need look no further than our poor track record with nonhuman terrestrial intelligences: “the dolphins and whales and chimps right here among us, with whom we have such a poor record of communicating. If we have such trouble acknowledging them,” he asks, “when we have lived with them since time out of mind, how can we even begin to say what it will take to recognize a truly alien intelligence or lifeform? Possibly we would miss it even if we were face to face with it… and even if it was going to extraordinary lengths to reach us.”
Dr. Anthony Weston is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Elon University in North Carolina, where he teaches Ethics, Environmental Studies, and a course on “Millennial Imagination.” He is the author of thirteen books, including Mobilizing the Green Imagination, How to Re-Imagine the World and Back to Earth, as well as dozens of articles on ethics, critical thinking, education, and contemporary culture. At Elon, Weston has won the University’s premier awards for both teaching and scholarship; he is also a founding member of Hart’s Mill Ecovillage in North Carolina, an experiment in self-sufficient, sustainable living.
Recommendations:
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
Jim Nollman, Dolphin Dreamtime: The Art and Science of Interspecies Communication
Mary Midgley, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature
Paul Davies, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris
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