Designing a Team for Alien Encounter: Communicating with Aliens (Part I)

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Introduction

The SETI debates have included cautionary arguments about the possibility that aliens might be hostile. But this perspective, most easily dealt with by military attitudes, tends to be set aside in favour of an assumption that aliens would necessarily be intelligent and motivated to communicate in a way that fits comfortably into western assumptions -- to the point of commercializing the despatch of personal messages into deep space at a charge of $14.95 each.

Unfortunately the assumptions associated with this process do not seem to have been explored. Reliance on number theory as a basis for developing communication could easily be interpreted as a convenient projection by a psycho-socially unchallenged scientific milieu -- which has its own internal communication problems between disciplines for which no common language has yet been developed. The nature of the challenge can perhaps best be scoped out by exploring the difficulties of communicating with the 'aliens' that are frequently encountered in the daily life of a global society.

In exploring these challenges it is worth reflecting on the Aztec culture which, according to some archeologists, was effectively destroyed by its own surprise at the arrival of the conquistadores in 1519 -- in conformity with predictions by its own priesthood. It could not respond effectively to the surprising nature of those who arrived -- or the diseases they brought. To what extent does modern civilization -- with its own apocalyptic and doom-mongering 'priesthoods' -- have lessons to learn from the cultural unpreparedness of the Aztecs? Is our civilization as brittle and inward-looking as that of the Aztecs proved to be? Many strategic studies relating to the future of modern governance stress the challenge of surprise in a turbulent environment. How might aliens surprise us and undermine assumptions vital to the integrity of our civilization? And why is it almost universally assumed that they would bring no microbial lifeforms that might be highly problematic for some species on Earth?

In the examples which follow it is not the issues of negotiating the evident differences -- already difficult enough -- but understanding what those differences may imply. A major part of the challenge may come from unforeseen ways in which humans are challenged by what aliens value as 'positive' as well as what they necessarily question as 'positive' in human society. Then there is the challenge of what aliens value as 'negative', including differences in their evaluation of what humans consider as 'negative' -- especially when it is accompanied by deep denial. For an extensively documented review of such challenges as they manifest in the relationships between modern culture and the 'alien' cultures of indigenous peoples, see the study by the United Nations Environment Programme: Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity: a complementary contribution to global biodiversity asessment (1999).

The experiences of 'alienness' in communicating with 'normal' terrestrials can be clustered as follows:

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