“Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Are we alone in this universe? When will we ever know? Even if we did know, would we feel safe in that knowledge? Would it bring us comfort? Are there others out there, living out their daily lives in much the same way we do; going to jobs, raising families, worshiping deities and feeling the same emotions that we here on Earth feel? I wager that the human brain, for all its marvelous accomplishments, is still quite inferior compared to the vastness that awaits us in the cosmos. Ever since the dawn of human civilization, our ancestors have looked into the night sky wondering if anyone was out there looking back at us. In order to feel less alone in the greatness of space, and subsequently time, they imagined great gods, heroes, and other creatures in the night sky watching over them and moving about the sky in an orchestrated pattern that told their story. The overwhelming size of the cosmos is more than just humbling, it is frightening. It is truly more than the human race can as yet imagine. So far, we know this: There are more stars in the observable night sky than there are grains of sand on every beach on the entire Earth.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is a medium-sized city of stars. We know that within it, there are between 400 and 500 billion stars. Thanks to the discoveries made by Edwin Hubble, and the telescope later named after him, we know there are literally countless billions of galaxies. Each of these galaxies contain anywhere between 100 and more than 500 billion stars. Is our little blue planet, which resides on the outskirts of one of the outer arms of the Milky Way the only place where life and intelligence have developed? Simply playing the law of odds and using basic probability math, we can estimate that we are in fact most definitely not alone. Frank Drake, the founder of the SETI institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) postulated this equation in the now infamous “Drake Equation” which stated that even with the most skeptical odds against intelligent life in the Milky Way, there would still be hundreds of thousands of civilizations out there; and some could very well be close to home.
Years ago, science would have said there was a possibility that life on Earth was unique and probably hasn’t cropped up in as many places as we’d hoped, based on our observations at that time. However, we now know that life is more resilient and determined than we previously thought. Life can create itself just about anywhere on the planet Earth, use chemicals that would almost instantly kill human life, and can easily do so in some of the harshest environments that would instantly destroy any plant or animal life, including humans, that happened to fall into it. So consider this, what would an alien life form from another world be like? Would we even know we were looking at something that was alive? Even if we did, could we ever understand it when it doesn’t compare exactly to ourselves? Or will our arrogance and concern for the self-made paradigm of life be our ultimate end in understanding the cosmos?
“We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything - - solitude, hardship, exhaustion, death. We're proud of ourselves. But when you think about it, our enthusiasm's a sham. We don't want other worlds; we want mirrors.” – Ulrich Tukur from the movie Solaris (2002).
We are not ready for alien life. Whether that life is single-celled or multi-cellular with an intelligence and self-awareness, we are not ready to meet it. Astronomers, physicists, biologists and others have spent their lives believing and publishing books explaining that life on other worlds is likely to not exist because so far as we know, the Earth is the only planet capable of supporting life. All life on Earth is carbon based. Life, as we know it, consists of the following basic elements: Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur combined in some form or fashion. For the whole life of science, since the beginning, this is what defined life. How short-sighted of us to believe this could be the only possible mixture that gives the great mystery called life. The human race for all its intelligence and discovery still has no forward-thinking when it comes to what the nature of life could be. Scientists demand evidence, and proof-positive that another chemical mixture can give life. They refused to attempt to think outside the box, and instead remained stuck in their dogmatic ways in the search for life outside our planet. Recently however, we learned that a bacteria lives in a lake in California that needs arsenic to survive. Does this small bacteria feed on arsenic, a toxic poison to some? No. Its basic DNA structure, the code by which all life as we know it is built requires arsenic in order to remain stable and to replicate itself so that the life-form can live. Arsenic, a chemical known to be extremely deadly to all plant and animal life on the planet Earth is a required element needed to form a life-form. This is probably the greatest discovery so far of the 21st century. It is the kind of discovery we needed in order to think deeper about the nature of life. However, this says nothing about the nature of intelligence, what kind we might find out there, and just how completely alien it will be when compared to ourselves.
“An alien intelligence has to be move advanced. That means efficiency functioning on multiple levels and in multiple dimensions” – John Hurt from the movie Contact
Why do we look for mirrors? Why did we assume that life would be chemically and biologically similar us? An alien intelligence will not mirror our own. How could it? It is not human. Any intelligence behind us technologically will still be so completely alien to us, that we might never understand it, let alone have deep conversations with it and share knowledge. Alien intelligence that is more evolved and more advanced than us we will never be able to understand unless it dumbed itself down to our level and helped us. Even then, we’d only be scratching the surface and would never fully know its mind. How can we hope to understand an alien intelligence when we barely understand ourselves? Alien life is called alien for a reason. It is not human and never will be. Even if a benevolent race introduced itself to us and wanted to learn about us, it would never fully understand us either without being human.
I love the scene in the movie “Contact” where the scientists, after downloading the alien signal, fumble for months over how to align the data sent to them in order to decode it. One character makes the remark that this intelligence was obviously more advanced than us being able to actually send us this complex message in the first place. Therefore it would, by nature, be more efficient and would need to think on multiple levels and in more than two dimensions. Once the data was combined in a three-dimensional format, the message was made clear. Finally, when the craft was created that would send humans to meet the aliens, they realized the only intention the aliens had was to meet us and to know us. There were no hostile intentions or even a positive intention to share their knowledge. They just wanted to know and said they did what they did because that’s just what they did, and that process has gone on for billions of years.
“Why do you think it has to want something? Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? There are no answers, only choices.” – Ulrich Tukur from the movie Solaris (2002).
Why would they want anything from us in the first place? Of course “Contact” is a work of fiction, but in reality why do they have to want something? Do we want anything from ants? Do we go to the anthills in our backyards and lean down and attempt to speak to them? Do we offer them our great knowledge or technology? No, of course not, they are ants and even millions of years from now, they would never understand a human being or what we can do. The distance between humans and advanced alien life, would be the same as the distance between humans and ants. Until we reach their level (if we don't destroy ourselves first), we will never be able to understand them in any way.
The same holds true for the planet in the novel “Solaris”. It needed no motivation, and even if it had something similar to a motivation, we wouldn’t understand it. Human beings always try and ascribe meaning to everything in our lives. We try to subjugate everything to our varied emotional states in order to define the realities in which we live. Our varying focus in the moment is what defines our existence. And yet, we seek absolute answers. Analyzing and debating, testing, and classifying will do us no good in the end. Nothing is true, everything is permitted, and we shall never know another intelligent life-form or see through the dark glass that separates us through the cosmic ocean of space and time. We are children, and we shall remain children until we put away our childish preconceptions and extend our knowledge and our wisdom into a realm where we become more than the sum of our experiences.
1st Corinthians, Chapter 13:
“10. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
11. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly...
