How Incomprehensible Could Extraterrestrials Be? A few days ago Paul Gilster, the author of Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration and the curator of Centauri Dreams , posted a thoughtful discussion of a blog entry I wrote (titled What's The Connection Between Deafness and SETI? ) His discussion and the resulting comments were fascinating, and in this post I want to carry on that conversation. I want to ask: Will extraterrestrials be so different from us as to be truly incomprehensible? I think the answer is no. And yes. In one of the comments, Christopher Phoenix argued that aliens could be so different from us as to be incomprehensible. He wrote, "How can we expect to use extraterrestrials as a mirror for human behavior? Excellent point. Okay. Still, it’s fair to ask if an alien species might be so different from us that even our science wouldn’t be able to get a grip on it. I don’t think biology in itself would create that kind of radical incomprehensibility.
Ken Wilber's "all quadrants, all levels" schema. The Astrobiology Web | Your Online Guide to the Living Universe. NASA Astrobiology. Xenobiology. © 1981 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved. Robert A. Freitas Jr., “Xenobiology,” Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol. 101, 30 March 1981, pp 30-41 URL: This paper contains material originally drawn from the book Xenology (1979) by Robert A.
Xenology is the study of all aspects of life, intelligence, and civilization indigenous to environments other than Earth. Xenobiology – the study of alien lifeforms – is a major subdiscipline within the xenological sciences. Biological Chauvinisms The term “chauvinism” derives from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a highly jingoistic soldier born at Rochefort in the late 18th century. For instance, there used to be the notion that oxygen (O2) is absolutely required for higher life. Another early biological chauvinism was the insistence that life is an especially fragile phenomena limited to a very narrow range of environments. Carbon/Water Lifeforms Dr. In December 1979 Dr. Biology without Water. Xenology Home Page.