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On the Plausibility of Intelligent Life on Other Worlds
Abstract
The apprehension of the last three factors of the Drake equation, fi · fc · L, is misguided or at least not very well examined. This article scrutinizes the underlying suppositions involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) research. What is meant by “intelligence,” “technology,” and “civilization”? What makes them possible, and how do they evolve? The present examination aims to arrive at a more well-founded search for extraterrestrial intelligence that takes into account current research within cognitive science, the history of technology, and the history of socialization. What we need is a cognitive-semiotic approach to the extent, distribution, and evolution of extraterrestrial intelligence. The three variables fi · fc · L concern how an extraterrestrial biosphere evolves cognitively flexible organisms that, through a biocultural coevolution, acquire an increasing capability to manipulate the surrounding environment for the purpose of transferring shared mental states. In addition, this has to last for a period of time long enough to coincide with the relatively brief existence of Homo sapiens sapiens.
... Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence by means of radio astronomy has been an exciting challenge ever since the start of Project Ozma in 1960 (Sagan, 1975;Weston, 1988;Tarter, 2001;Drake, 2011;Shuch, 2011;Dunér, 2015Dunér, , 2017Traphagan, 2015;Vakoch and Dowd, 2015;Cabrol, 2016). The problem of interstellar communication, however, lies not so much in the physical or technological constraints, even though they strongly challenge our scientific and technological skills, but in the cognitive and semiotic problems that an interstellar message decoding would provoke (Dunér, 2011(Dunér, , 2014Dunér et al., 2013). ...
Astrobiocentrism is a vision that places us in a scenario of confirmation of life in the universe, either as a second genesis or as an expansion of humanity in space. It manages to raise consistent arguments in relation to questions such as what would happen to knowledge if life were confirmed in the universe, how would this change the way we understand our place in the cosmos? Astrobiocentrism raises a series of reflections in the context of confirmed discovery, and it develops concepts that work directly with what would happen after irrefutable evidence has been obtained that we are not alone in space. Unlike biocentrism or ecocentrism, the astrobiocentric view is not limited to the Earth-centric perspective, and for it incorporates a multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary understanding. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to make a reflection on the astrobiocentric issues related to the challenges and problems of the discovery of life in the universe and the expansion of mankind into space. Here we explore some aspects of the transition from biogeocentrism to astrobiocentrism, astrobiosemiotics, homo mensura , moral community, planetary sustainability and astrotheology.
... Details, arguments, and specula tions on the prospects of the emergence of nonterrestrial life-simple, complex, intelligent, or sentient-can be consulted in the literature (see Shklovskii and Sagan, 1966;Tipler, 1980;D. G. Brin, 1983;Mayr, 1985;Fogg, 1987;Drake and Sobel, 1992;Dickinson and Schaller, 1994;Hei dmann, 1995;Clark, 2000;Aldiss, 2006;Kukla, 2001;Cohen and Stew art, 2002;Webb, 2002;Shostak and Barnett, 2003;Ward, 2005;Davies, 2010;Shuch, 2011;Vakoch, 2014a;Bains and SchulzeMakuch, 2016;Za ckrisson et al., 2016;Dunér, 2017;Kipping, 2020;Westby and Conselice, 2020). ...
This article discusses from a semiotic perspective one important variable-anthropocentrism-present in various proposed messages intended to communicate with offworld intelligences. Our review of different scenarios re veals embedded flaws to various degrees. This should not be a reason for desist ing in the pursuit of SETIstyle (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) pas sive "listening" or active "messaging" programs; however, in tandem with such SETIstyle programs, a robust and efficient strategy for potential contact should be developed as well. Such a strategy will require adequate time for major struc tural improvements in both the semiotic and technological realms rather than attempted lastminute adjustments carried out, for instance, when a SETIstyle program claims success and contact seems imminent. The realization that humans often have great difficulties in interpreting their own cultural products and experiences (especially, the longforgotten ones), as well as the communicative abilities of nonhuman residents on Earth, is deemed a critical aspect that must be overcome in order to undertake successful hypo thetical communication with extraterrestrial intelligences (ETIs). Furthermore, we believe it is pertinent to raise the issue of the modality that any particu lar ETIs might utilize or recognize as a communication system. Arguably, the widely held assumption (often unstated) that ETIs will recognize and respond positively to either visual or auditory communication (where auditory commu nication is often encoded in visual graphic forms, such as writing systems), in many cases coded in and transmitted via electromagnetic waves or some other medium, is simply a form of anthropocentrism at a fundamental level.
This chapter examines the human search, understanding, and interpretation of biosignatures. It deals with four epistemological issues in the search for signs of life in outer space: (1) conceptualization, how we form concepts of life in astrobiology, how we define and categorize things, and the relation between our concepts and our knowledge of the world; (2) analogy, how we see similarities between things, and with inductive, analogical reasoning go from what we know to what we do not know, from the only example of life here on Earth, to possible extraterrestrial life; (3) perception, how we interpret what our senses convey in our search for biosignatures, how the information we get from the surrounding world is processed in our minds; and (4) the semiotics of biosignatures, how we, as interpreters, establish connections between things, between the expression (the biosignature) and the content (the living organism) in various forms of semiosis, as icons, indices, and symbols of life. In all, it is about how we get access to the world, and how we interpret and understand it, for achieving a well-grounded knowledge about the living Universe.
This book, which presents a cognitive-semiotic theory of cultural evolution, including that taking place in historical time, analyses various cognitive-semiotic artefacts and abilities. It claims that what makes human beings human is fundamentally the semiotic and cultural skills by means of which they endow their Lifeworld with meaning. The properties that have made human beings special among animals living in the terrestrial biosphere do not derive entirely from their biological-genetic evolution, but also stem from their interaction with the environment, in its culturally interpreted form, the Lifeworld. This, in turn, becomes possible thanks to the human ability to learn from other thinking beings, and to transfer experiences, knowledge, meaning, and perspectives to new generations.
Unlabelled:
Advances in planetary and space sciences, astrobiology, and life and cognitive sciences, combined with developments in communication theory, bioneural computing, machine learning, and big data analysis, create new opportunities to explore the probabilistic nature of alien life. Brought together in a multidisciplinary approach, they have the potential to support an integrated and expanded Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI (1) ), a search that includes looking for life as we do not know it. This approach will augment the odds of detecting a signal by broadening our understanding of the evolutionary and systemic components in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI), provide more targets for radio and optical SETI, and identify new ways of decoding and coding messages using universal markers.
Key words:
SETI-Astrobiology-Coevolution of Earth and life-Planetary habitability and biosignatures. Astrobiology 16, 661-676.
The history and philosophy of the Origin of Life - Volume 15 Issue 4 - David Dunér, Christophe Malaterre, Wolf Geppert
This article contains the argument that the human ability to travel mentally in time constitutes a discontinuity between ourselves and other animals. Mental time travel comprises the mental reconstruction of personal events from the past (episodic memory) and the mental construction of possible events in the future. It is not an isolated module, but depends on the sophistication of other cognitive capacities, including self-awareness, meta-representation, mental attribution, understanding the perception-knowledge relationship, and the ability to dissociate imagined mental states from one's present mental state. These capacities are also important aspects of so-called theory of mind, and they appear to mature in children at around age 4. Furthermore, mental time travel is generative, involving the combination and recombination of familiar elements, and in this respect may have been a precursor to language. Current evidence, although indirect or based on anecdote rather than on systematic study, suggests that nonhuman animals, including the great apes, are confined to a "present" that is limited by their current drive states. In contrast, mental time travel by humans is relatively unconstrained and allows a more rapid and flexible adaptation to complex, changing environments than is afforded by instincts or conventional learning. Past and future events loom large in much of human thinking, giving rise to cultural, religious, and scientific concepts about origins, destiny, and time itself.
The present account explains (i) which elements of nonverbal reference are intersubjective, (ii) what major effects intersubjectivity has on the general development of intentional communication and at what stages, and (iii) how intersubjectivity contributes to triggering the general capacity for nonverbal reference in the second year of life. First, intersubjectivity is analysed in terms of a sharing of experiences that is either mutual or individual, and either dyadic or triadic. Then it is shown that nonverbal reference presupposes intersubjectivity in the communicative intent indicators and referential behaviour, and indirectly in modifications of previous behaviour in response to communication failure. It is argued that different forms
of intersubjectivity entail different types of communicative skills. A comprehensive analysis of data on gaze-related intersubjective behaviour in young infants shows that interaffectivity and interattentionality enable referential skills early in development and together allow for complex behaviour. Early referential skills, it is proposed, arise by other mechanisms than in nonverbal reference. Reliable and consistent use of nonverbal reference occurs when interaffectivity and interattentionality coalesce with interintentionality, which affords general cognitive skills that together permit a decontextualisation of communicative behaviour.
The f
I term of Drake's equation – the fraction of life-bearing planets on which ‘intelligent’ life evolved – has been the subject of much debate in the last few decades. Several leading evolutionary biologists have endorsed the thesis that the probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is vanishingly small. A discussion of this thesis is proposed here that focuses on a key issue in the debate: the existence of evolutionary trends, often presented as trends towards higher complexity, and their possible significance. The present state of knowledge on trends is reviewed. Measurements of quantitative variables that describe important features of the evolution of living organisms – their hierarchical organization, size and biodiversity – and of brains – their overall size, the number and size of their components – in relation to their cognitive abilities, provide reliable evidence of the reality and generality of evolutionary trends. Properties of trends are inferred and frequent misinterpretations (including an excessive stress on mere ‘complexity’) that prevent the objective assessment of trends are considered. Finally, several arguments against the repeatability of evolution to intelligence are discussed. It is concluded that no compelling argument exists for an exceedingly small probability f
I. More research is needed before this wide-ranging negative conclusion is accepted.
Laying foundations for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of evolution in communication systems with tools from evolutionary biology, linguistics, animal behavior, developmental psychology, philosophy, cognitive sciences, robotics, and neural network modeling.
The search for origins of communication in a wide variety of species including humans is rapidly becoming a thoroughly interdisciplinary enterprise. In this volume, scientists engaged in the fields of evolutionary biology, linguistics, animal behavior, developmental psychology, philosophy, the cognitive sciences, robotics, and neural network modeling come together to explore a comparative approach to the evolution of communication systems. The comparisons range from parrot talk to squid skin displays, from human language to Aibo the robot dog's language learning, and from monkey babbling to the newborn human infant cry. The authors explore the mysterious circumstances surrounding the emergence of human language, which they propose to be intricately connected with drastic changes in human lifestyle. While it is not yet clear what the physical environmental circumstances were that fostered social changes in the hominid line, the volume offers converging evidence and theory from several lines of research suggesting that language depended upon the restructuring of ancient human social groups. The volume also offers new theoretical treatments of both primitive communication systems and human language, providing new perspectives on how to recognize both their similarities and their differences. Explorations of new technologies in robotics, neural network modeling and pattern recognition offer many opportunities to simulate and evaluate theoretical proposals. The North American and European scientists who have contributed to this volume represent a vanguard of thinking about how humanity came to have the capacity for language and how nonhumans provide a background of remarkable capabilities that help clarify the foundations of speech.
Bradford Books imprint
This chapter contends that the only way to understand and appreciate the strength of life’s interaction with climate and geochemical cycles during the evolution of system Earth is by modeling it. Models, however, are useful only if their construction satisfies a number of basic requirements, which are briefly discussed in the context of the empirical cycle; many models do not satisfy these requirements. Modeling the interaction is only in its childhood; the biology in existing models for climate and geochemical cycles is generally weak. The main interaction mechanisms are briefly reviewed here. The Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory offers a useful framework for modeling the interactions. This theory specifies the uptake and use of substrates—including nutrients and light—by organisms and implies body-size scaling relationships for parameter values that quantify the processes of uptake and use of substrates.
In this compelling book, leading scientists and historians explore the Drake Equation, which guides modern astrobiology's search for life beyond Earth. First used in 1961 as the organising framework for a conference in Green Bank, West Virginia, it uses seven factors to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilisations in our galaxy. Using the equation primarily as a heuristic device, this engaging text examines the astronomical, biological, and cultural factors that determine the abundance or rarity of life beyond Earth and provides a thematic history of the search for extraterrestrial life. Logically structured to analyse each of the factors in turn, and offering commentary and critique of the equation as a whole, contemporary astrobiological research is placed in a historical context. Each factor is explored over two chapters, discussing the pre-conference thinking and a modern analysis, to enable postgraduates and researchers to better assess the assumptions that guide their research.
The search for life in the Universe, once the domain of science fiction, is now a robust research program with a well-defined roadmap, from studying the extremes of life on Earth to exploring the possible niches for life in the Solar System and discovering thousands of planets far beyond it. In addition to constituting a major scientific endeavor, astrobiology is one of the most popular topics in astronomy, and is of growing interest to a broad community of thinkers from across the academic spectrum. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, historians and scientists discuss the big questions about how the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether intelligent or microbial, would impact society. Their remarkable and often surprising findings challenge our foundational concepts of what the discovery of alien life may hold for humankind. Written in easily accessible language, this thought-provoking collection engages a wide audience of readers from all backgrounds.
The search for life in the Universe, once the domain of science fiction, is now a robust research program with a well-defined roadmap, from studying the extremes of life on Earth to exploring the possible niches for life in the Solar System and discovering thousands of planets far beyond it. In addition to constituting a major scientific endeavor, astrobiology is one of the most popular topics in astronomy, and is of growing interest to a broad community of thinkers from across the academic spectrum. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, historians and scientists discuss the big questions about how the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether intelligent or microbial, would impact society. Their remarkable and often surprising findings challenge our foundational concepts of what the discovery of alien life may hold for humankind. Written in easily accessible language, this thought-provoking collection engages a wide audience of readers from all backgrounds.
The search for life in the Universe, once the domain of science fiction, is now a robust research program with a well-defined roadmap, from studying the extremes of life on Earth to exploring the possible niches for life in the Solar System and discovering thousands of planets far beyond it. In addition to constituting a major scientific endeavor, astrobiology is one of the most popular topics in astronomy, and is of growing interest to a broad community of thinkers from across the academic spectrum. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, historians and scientists discuss the big questions about how the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether intelligent or microbial, would impact society. Their remarkable and often surprising findings challenge our foundational concepts of what the discovery of alien life may hold for humankind. Written in easily accessible language, this thought-provoking collection engages a wide audience of readers from all backgrounds.
The search for life in the Universe, once the domain of science fiction, is now a robust research program with a well-defined roadmap, from studying the extremes of life on Earth to exploring the possible niches for life in the Solar System and discovering thousands of planets far beyond it. In addition to constituting a major scientific endeavor, astrobiology is one of the most popular topics in astronomy, and is of growing interest to a broad community of thinkers from across the academic spectrum. In this volume, distinguished philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, historians and scientists discuss the big questions about how the discovery of extraterrestrial life, whether intelligent or microbial, would impact society. Their remarkable and often surprising findings challenge our foundational concepts of what the discovery of alien life may hold for humankind. Written in easily accessible language, this thought-provoking collection engages a wide audience of readers from all backgrounds.
Human beings have wondered about the stars since the dawn of the species. Does life exist out there - intelligent life, even - or are we alone? The quest for life in the universe touches on fundamental hopes and fears. It touches on the essence of what it means to formulate a theory, grasp a concept, and have an imagination. This book traces the history of the science of this area and the development of new schools in philosophy. Its essays seek to establish the history and philosophy of astrobiology as research fields in their own right by addressing cognitive, linguistic, epistemological, ethical, cultural, societal, and historical perspectives on their development. The book is divided into three sections. The first (Cognition) focuses on the human mind and what it contributes to the search for life. It explores the emergence and evolution of terrestrial life and cognition and the challenges humans face as they reach to the stars. The essays raise philosophical questions, pose ethical dilemmas, and offer a variety of approaches, including one from cognitive zoology, in formulating a theory of the universal principles of intelligence, the limits of human conceptual abilities, and the human mind's encounter with the unknown. The second section (Communication) examines the linguistic and semiotic requirements for interstellar communication. What is needed for successful communication? Are there universal rules for success? What are the possible features - and limitations - of exolanguages? What is required for recognizing a message as a message? The third section (Culture) considers cultural and societal issues. It explores astrobiology's organization as a scientific discipline, its responsibilities to the public sphere, and its theological implications. It reviews the historically important panspermia hypothesis, along with the popularization of astrobiology and its ongoing institutionalisation.Through addressing these questions, we take our first steps in exploring the immense terra incognita of extraterrestrial life and the human mind.
In this compelling book, leading scientists and historians explore the Drake Equation, which guides modern astrobiology's search for life beyond Earth. First used in 1961 as the organising framework for a conference in Green Bank, West Virginia, it uses seven factors to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilisations in our galaxy. Using the equation primarily as a heuristic device, this engaging text examines the astronomical, biological, and cultural factors that determine the abundance or rarity of life beyond Earth and provides a thematic history of the search for extraterrestrial life. Logically structured to analyse each of the factors in turn, and offering commentary and critique of the equation as a whole, contemporary astrobiological research is placed in a historical context. Each factor is explored over two chapters, discussing the pre-conference thinking and a modern analysis, to enable postgraduates and researchers to better assess the assumptions that guide their research.
In this compelling book, leading scientists and historians explore the Drake Equation, which guides modern astrobiology's search for life beyond Earth. First used in 1961 as the organising framework for a conference in Green Bank, West Virginia, it uses seven factors to estimate the number of extraterrestrial civilisations in our galaxy. Using the equation primarily as a heuristic device, this engaging text examines the astronomical, biological, and cultural factors that determine the abundance or rarity of life beyond Earth and provides a thematic history of the search for extraterrestrial life. Logically structured to analyse each of the factors in turn, and offering commentary and critique of the equation as a whole, contemporary astrobiological research is placed in a historical context. Each factor is explored over two chapters, discussing the pre-conference thinking and a modern analysis, to enable postgraduates and researchers to better assess the assumptions that guide their research.
This chapter examines the prehistory of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) prior to 1961. It reviews the first attempts to contact other planets at the scale of the solar system - that is, interplanetary communication (premodern SETI era). We emphasize the latter half of the nineteenth century because many efforts were made at that time to contact our neighboring planets through interplanetary telegraphy. Such a technique became conceivable in the 1860s thanks to many advances in the field of terrestrial communication (electrical telegraphy, telephone). Generally, the pioneers in interplanetary telegraphy proposed to send flashes using powerful lamps and reflectors to reach our neighboring planets, Mars and Venus. Considering their methodology, the early proposals using light flashes could be compared to modern Active SETI, or METI (messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence). The intellectual approach is similar to that of CETI (communication with extraterrestrial intelligence), since the first attempts were expected to be a two-way exchange of information. Even though they remained only theoretical, these attempts demonstrated that basic thought about a universal language had begun as early as the 1860s. At the turn of the twentieth century, new possibilities emerged with the birth of wireless telegraphy and the development of radio techniques used for telecommunications on Earth. Listening to Mars by means of radio waves was sporadically attempted in the 1920s. By the mid-twentieth century, developments in radio astronomy had a decisive influence on the birth of SETI because they allowed astronomers to contemplate the possibility of contact with extraterrestrials at a much larger scale, that of interstellar distances. Introduction. Today, the SETI focuses on the planetary systems that abound in our galaxy. Many exoplanets have been discovered since 1995, including terrestrial-like planets that could be habitable. First deployed only about fifty years ago, the current science of extraterrestrial communication in our galaxy is based on the detection of artificial signals using radio frequencies, of which Cocconi and Morrison demonstrated the possibility in 1959 (Cocconi and Morrison 1959). Optical-laser pulses are an alternative technique, as proposed by Schwartz and Townes as early as 1961 (Schwartz and Townes 1961).
The article provides an overview of ongoing research and key characteristics of Cognitive Semiotics, an emerging field dedicated to the “transdiciplinary study of meaning”, involving above all researchers from semiotics, linguistics, developmental and comparative psychology and philosophy. The combination of the following features distinguish it from other synthetic approaches: (a) integration of theoretical and empirical research; (b) ontological pluralism and methodological triangulation; (c) influence of phenomenology; (d) focus on dynamism and (e) the ambition of true transdisciplinarity. Its ultimate goal is to provide new insights into the nature and culture of human beings, as well as other meaning-making creatures.
This book explores humanity’s thoughts and ideas about extraterrestrial life, paying close attention to the ways science and culture interact with one another to create a context of imagination and discovery related to life on other worlds. Despite the recent explosion in our knowledge of other planets and the seeming era of discovery in which we live, to date we have found no concrete evidence that we are not alone. Our thinking about life on other worlds has been and remains the product of a combination of scientific investigation and human imagination shaped by cultural values--particularly values of exploration and discovery connected to American society.
The rapid growth in our awareness of other worlds makes this a crucial moment to think about and assess the influence of cultural values on the scientific search for extraterrestrial life. Here the author considers the junction of science and culture with a focus on two main themes: (1) the underlying assumptions, many of which are tacitly based upon cultural values common in American society, that have shaped the ways researchers in astrobiology and SETI have conceptualized the nature of their endeavor and represented ideas about the potential influence contact might have on human civilization, and (2) the empirical evidence we can access as a way of thinking about the social impact that contact with alien intelligence might have for humanity.
The question of how intelligence evolves on different planets is a central factor in the Drake Equation and informs the fields of bioastronomy, astrobiology, and SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). In this chapter, I trace the history of our conceptions of intelligence through changes and growth in our understanding of brain evolution, genetics, and animal behavior, and present a modern view of intelligence that places human intelligence in an evolutionary context and linked to the multiple intelligences inhabiting this planet. Much of our current understanding of intelligence as an astrobiological question and, specifically, the nature and much-vaunted uniqueness of human intelligence, should be updated by modern knowledge and divested of outdated ideas such as the scala naturae, progressive evolution and teleology, and the anthropic principle. These notions continue to fuel a fundamental misconception of intelligence as a uniquely human phenomenon with little or no evolutionary or comparative context and, therefore, no way to understand its true biological nature. In this chapter, I will discuss these issues in detail and replace these outmoded notions with new information and insights about how and why intelligence evolves and the levels and distribution of intelligence across species on this planet. Modern understanding of intelligence shows that it is continuous across all animal life on Earth and that the human brain is embedded in the evolutionary web of primate brain evolution and contains the hallmarks of nervous-system evolution traced back to the first life forms on this planet. These updated ideas provide a biological context for understanding the mechanisms and range of intelligence on this planet and should therefore serve the critical purpose of revising notions of fi, leading to more productive outcomes for the study of the evolution of intelligence on this and other planets. Starting at the endpoint: The beginnings of SETI. Radio waves were known to exist and could be detected in the late 1800s, and by the early 1900s, physicists began to think about whether they could be observed from astronomical sources.
Where are the borders of mind and where does the rest of the world begin? There are two standard answers possible: Some philosophers argue that these borders are defined by our scull and skin. Everything outside the body is also outside the mind. The others argue that the meanings of our words "simply are not in our heads" and insist that this meaning externalism applies also to the mind. The authors are suggesting a third position, i.e. quite another form of externalism. Their so called active externalism implies an active involvement of the background in controlling the cognitive processes.
What kind of indispensable cognitive ability is needed for intelligence, sociability, communication, and technology to emerge on a habitable planet? My answer is simple: intersubjectivity. I stress the significance of intersubjectivity, of shared cognition, for extraterrestrial intelligence and interstellar communication, and argue that it is in fact crucial and indispensable for any successful interstellar communication, and in the end also for the concepts that are the focus of this volume, empathy and altruism in space. Based on current studies in cognitive science, I introduce the concept of intersubjectivity as a key to future search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and then explain—leaning on phylogenetic, ontogenetic, and cultural-historical studies of cognition—why intersubjectivity is a basic requisite for the emergence of intelligence, sociability, communication, and technology. In its most general definition, intersubjectivity is the sharing of experiences about objects and events. I then discuss what “intelligence” is. I define it as cognitive flexibility, an ability to adjust to changes in the physical and socio-cultural environment. Next, I discuss sociability and complex social systems, and conclude that we probably can expect that an extraterrestrial civilization which we can communicate with has a high degree of social complexity, which entails a high degree of communicative complexity and high degree of cognitive flexibility. Concerning communication, I discuss intention, attention and communicative complexity. I also stress three socio-cognitive capacities that characterize advanced complex technology: a sustainable, complex social system, with a regulated system for collaboration, such as ethics; complex communication for collaboration and abstract conceptualization; and a high degree of distributed cognition. Finally, if we conclude that intersubjectivity is a fundamental requisite, we then have some options for future interstellar communication. We should target Earth analogues, monitor them, and finally initiate an interstellar intersubjective interaction.
Astronomers around the world are pointing their telescopes toward the heavens, searching for signs of intelligent life. If they make contact with an advanced alien civilization, how will humankind respond? In thinking about first contact, the contributors to this volume present new empirical and theoretical research on the societal dimensions of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Archaeologists and astronomers explore the likelihood that extraterrestrial intelligence exists, using scientific insights to estimate such elusive factors as the longevity of technological societies. Sociologists present the latest findings of novel surveys, tapping into the public's attitudes about life beyond Earth to show how religion and education influence beliefs about extraterrestrials. Scholars from such diverse disciplines as mathematics, chemistry, journalism, and religious studies offer innovative solutions for bridging the cultural gap between human and extraterrestrial civilizations, while recognizing the tremendous challenges of communicating at interstellar distances. At a time when new planets are being discovered around other stars at an unprecedented rate, this collection provides a much needed guide to the human impact of discovering we are not alone in the universe. © 2011 Douglas A. Vakoch and Albert A. Harrison. All rights reserved.
Cognitive semiotics is a new field dedicated to the transdisciplinary study of meaning, involving above all researchers from semiotics, linguistics, developmental and comparative psychology, and philosophy. A nonexhaustive survey of the field shows the following research areas as being particularly representative: cognitive semantics, gesture studies, (language) evolution, semiotic development, and the embodied mind. The work of groups and academic institutions is also briefly described. On this basis, the following features are listed as characteristics of cognitive semiotics, distinguishing it from other approaches studying mind and meaning: emphasis on the conceptual“empirical loop, ontological pluralism and methodological triangulation, influence of phenomenology, meaning dynamism, and transdisciplinarity. The ultimate goal of cognitive semiotics is to provide insights into the nature and culture of human beings, and their similarities and differences compared to other creatures, thus helping to mend the gap between the humanities and the sciences, without succumbing to reductionism.
In this paper we address the cosmic frequency of technological species.
Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all
astrophysical terms in the Drake Equation. Using these and modifying the form
and intent of the Drake equation we show that we can set a firm lower bound on
the probability that one or more additional technological species have evolved
anywhere and at any time in the history of the observable Universe. We find
that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a
technological species is larger than ~, then humanity is not the only
time technological intelligence has evolved. This constraint has important
scientific and philosophical consequences.
Conventional wisdom over the past 160 years in the cognitive and neurosciences has assumed that brains evolved to process factual information about the world. Most attention has therefore been focused on such features as pattern recognition, color vision, and speech perception. By extension, it was assumed that brains evolved to deal with essentially ecological problem-solving tasks. 1.
When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world." The pen and paper of Feynman's thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain- bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.
What is the role of language in social interaction? What does language bring to social encounters? We argue that language can be conceived of as a tool for interacting minds, enabling especially effective and flexible forms of social coordination, perspective-taking and joint action. In a review of evidence from a broad range of disciplines, we pursue elaborations of the language-as-a-tool metaphor, exploring four ways in which language is employed in facilitation of social interaction. We argue that language dramatically extends the possibility-space for interaction, facilitates the profiling and navigation of joint attentional scenes, enables the sharing of situation models and action plans, and mediates the cultural shaping of interacting minds.
Our ability to think is one of our most puzzling characteristics. What would it be like to be unable to think? What would it be like to lack self-awareness? The complexity of this activity is striking. Thinking involves the interaction of a range of mental processes - attention, emotion, memory, planning, self-consciousness, free will, and language. So where did these processes arise? What evolutionary advantages were bestowed upon those with an ability to deceive, to plan, to empathize, or to understand the intentions of others? In this compelling work, the author embarks on an evolutionary detective story to try and solve one of the big mysteries surrounding human existence - how has the modern human being's way of thinking come into existence? He starts by taking in turn the more basic cognitive processes, such as attention and memory, then builds upon these to explore more complex behaviours, such as self-consciousness, mindreading, and imitation. Having done this, he examines the consequences of 'putting thought into the world', using external media like cave paintings, drawings and writing.
Nature is the international weekly journal of science: a magazine style journal that publishes full-length research papers in all disciplines of science, as well as News and Views, reviews, news, features, commentaries, web focuses and more, covering all branches of science and how science impacts upon all aspects of society and life.
Throughout the twentieth century, from the furor over Percival Lowell's claim of canals on Mars to the sophisticated Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, otherworldly life has often intrigued and occasionally consumed science and the public. Does `biological law' reign throughout the universe? Are there other histories, religions, and philosophies outside of those on Earth? Do extraterrestrial minds ponder the mysteries of the universe? The attempts toanswer these often asked questions form one of the most interesting chapters in the history of science and culture, and The Biological Universe is the first book to provide a rich and colorful history of those attempts during the twentieth century. Covering a broad range of topics, including the search for life in the solar system, the origins of life, UFOs, and aliens in science fiction, Steven J. Dick shows how the concept of extraterrestrial intelligence is a world view of its own, a `biophysical cosmology' that seeks confirmation no less than physical views of the universe.
The human desire for exploration and man’s encounters with the unknown are a fundamental part of the cultural history of mankind,
from the first stumbling steps on the African plains to the recent explorations of our globalised and urbanised world. From
the dawn of the hominids to the days of the modern man, this ever changing terrestrial being has expanded in ever increasing
circles of spatial consciousness, in an endeavour to climb over mountains to the next valley, transcend vast oceans and fly
through the air. The next small step, or giant leap for mankind, that of going far beyond the atmosphere and gravitation of
the Earth to the unknown outer space, is decisive, but that, too, is part of the long history of mankind.
Observation suggests that the Earth’s surface environment is maintained by processes in which non-living and living causes are linked inextricably. Once established on Earth, life rapidly became a dominant influence on the evolution of the planetary environment. But life was also shaped by that evolution, constrained and directed by the physical and chemical processes that moulded the planet’s surface. Life and the planetary environment form a closely coupled entity, a view of the Earth as a complex system which is prefigured in the writings of James Hutton.
Hutton compared the workings of the Earth’s surface to the body of an animal, being both wasted and repaired continually. In modern times, James Lovelock has argued that it is a property of this system that it acts to maintain the planet in a habitable condition. Alternatively, perhaps it is pure chance that the planet has always remained hospitable for life — it could just as easily have followed an infinity of different evolutionary paths, many and perhaps most of which would lead rapidly to global extinction. Consideration of the fates of our near-neighbour planets, Mars and Venus, and the dangerous nature of the inner solar system, leads to the conclusion that there is indeed a substantial element of luck involved in the Earth’s biosphere having survived as long as it has. The fact that our own existence is dependent on it having survived makes it nearly impossible to accurately assess a priori the probability of survival.
Abstract models such as ‘Daisyworld’ can capture some of the complex behaviour of the Earth-life system. This may include periods of stasis and sudden changes to new states, the stasis being an example of regulatory behaviour where the system is dominated by negative feedback, and the sudden changes being essentially the opposite — brief but traumatic periods where the dominant feedbacks are positive. GEOCARB, a biogeochemical model for the Phanerozoic which links changes in the long-term carbon cycle to planetary temperature, shows examples of both regulatory and destabilizing behaviour in a less abstract system, and suggests that such responses have indeed characterized Earth history.
I conclude that the properties of the Earth-life system are complex and not easily predictable. The longevity of Hutton’s animal (nearly 4 Ga) is no guide to its future life expectancy, and even if the system as a whole lasts many aeons into the future, any given species (such as humans) is most unlikely to.
This volume integrates the latest findings on earliest life forms, identified and characterised in some of the oldest rocks on Earth. New material from prominent researchers in the field is presented and evaluated in the context of previous work. Emphasis is placed on the integration of analytical methods with observational techniques and experimental simulations. The opening section focuses on submarine hot springs that the majority of researchers postulate served as the cradle of life on Earth. In subsequent sections, evidence for life in strongly metamorphosed rocks such as those in Greenland is evaluated and early ecosystems identified in the well preserved Barberton and Pilbara successions in Southern Africa and Western Australia. The final section includes a number of contributions from authors with alternate perspectives on the evidence and record of early life on Earth.