Article IX of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty: Avoid harmful contamination of planets and the adverse effects on Earth from Space Exploration. While conducting research there are no risks; upon discovery there are some risks, indirect. After discovery there are long term, uncertain risks.
Risk assessment: For extra solar planets no problem. Discoveries are not provocative. SETI won"t do anything until it follows its protocols. For Solar System discoveries there are no current policies in place; for instance, if we discover life on Mars. Do SETI"s protocols need updating?
There"s a current emphasis in discovering life and our place. The societal interest and support still needs to be developed. We also need renewed theological deliberations. The International Academy of Astronautics is a place to deliberate.
Eric J. Chaisson: American astrophysicist at Harvard University appointed to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. His scientific research addresses an interdisciplinary, thermodynamic study of physical, biological and cultural phenomena, seeking to understand the evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, life and society devising a unifying cosmic-evolutionary worldview.
Highlights:
Why are we not picking up signals after 50 years? Are "they" too advanced? Are they hiding from us or quite simply they are not there? Is it possible we can learn from a lack of signals? Maybe the "eerily silence" is itself sending us a signal. Maybe we are receiving the signal that we must first get our act together on this Earth?
How do we increase the factor L (life) of the Drake equation? I"m trying to develop a "Big History" approach, a measure of complexity and intelligence. All systems and societies are open systems. An optimal in-out flow gets complex. I tried to normalize the lows as rate energy flows in and out of a system: As energy; not as information: Energy rate density as a function of time, plotting galaxies, the Sun, the Earth, plants, animals and societies in a graph as ergs/second/gram vs. time (in billions of yrs). This tells that more life = more complex. We can speak of a "radiation era," "matter era," "life era." How do we cross into the life era? If we want to survive we need to acquire more energy.
We need to quickly adopt solar energy because it"s already part of the Earth system.
Maybe we don"t hear them because there"s only a brief period to adopt efficient energy of their parent star (and most don"t).
Linda Billings: Ph.D. in mass communications. She is a consultant to NASA"s Astrobiology and Near-Earth Object Programs in the Planetary Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Highlights:
There"s an "allure" about alien life in society. SETI is more about us.
What do we know about alien life? Nothing.
In the public mind the distinction between microbial and intelligent life is none.
What do we know about human intelligence? Little to nothing.
The fictional aliens –and I"m a neo-Marxist- serve to reinforce the whole male dominant culture. Lots of fear of invasion movies of "others" not like us.
We have aliens as "messiah" as "id" as "brother" as "us" as "them." There also are "alien antichrists" for example as un-individuated swarms. It is a belief system, not knowledge. We don"t know anything about aliens but they lend themselves to profitable, easy to make documentaries abounding now even in Discovery, History, Nat Geo, TLC, the Science Channel and as series like "Alien Encounters" and "Are We Alone" attest. It"s a belief system, not knowledge and part of it is that "they" will save us, but almost always they are portrayed as dark and angry.
Do you know there"s something called WETI or wait for extraterrestrial encounter?
What about people that don"t have time for those interests because otherwise they may not be eating today? We need to promote scientific literacy and critical thinking.
Jennifer J. Wiseman, Senior astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center moderated a Q&A conversation period and a question was raised: If we are not going to make ETI contact in many years is society going to support this search? Linda Billings: For me it"s interesting and, yes, society is already giving us support. Margaret Race: Astrobiology is a way to think outside of the box.
I asked a question if there were any efforts at transdisciplinarity and said that that approach was already being developed in Peru in the Astrobiological Association. Linda Billings said that there was some talk about multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, that transdisciplinarity was a very complex subject and that there was some talk about connecting disciplines at the National Science Foundation.
Someone mentioned that NASA"s astrobiology program focuses on microbes and that SETI is not part of their funding. Also, has the universe developed microbial abundance, intelligent abundance or super intelligent abundance? We don"t know yet. Is science and-or mathematics universal? Do ETI agree about objective things? Have we here contributed to the rise of "astroculture," "astrotheology" "astroethics?"
Thomas Jefferson would embrace the idea of questioning all assumptions as we have done here at the Kluge Center. We prepare by preparing to do good science and to question assumptions, educating the public and continuing research in this area to engage the public.
We will soon include more papers, not so Western-centric.
(And the symposium was formally over).
Personal reflections
About the need for transdisciplinarity and for an expansion of astrobiology research
Formal academic astrobiology needs to be informed by serious UFO research, by the more plausible contactee research and information, alternative physics involving consciousness and multidimensionality and by exopolitics as much as the these four latter fields need to learn from the careful, scientific, methodological approach of formal academic astrobiology. However, all of these fields, along with the social sciences, theology and philosophy need to find a common ground to cooperate in order to address the issue of "discovering" (in a widely socially endorsed form) both microbial extraterrestrial life and ETI. A truly integrative form of transdisciplinarity can assist key cultural leaders to make sense of it all.
I really think that to coordinate all these empirical, quantitative and rational-self-reflective, qualitative approaches in relation to the key and multidimensional concept of "life" (a leitmotif at least including consciousness, first person, subjective experience, information and volitional information-management, entropy, entropy reduction, syntropy, self-organization, non-local quantum holographic connectivity, a revived recognition of rational metaphysics including formal causes, ontological levels and teleology) astrobiology will necessarily have to be "informed" by "TRANSDISCIPLINARITY," a necessary and practical Meta philosophical and Meta scientific approach already being developed by integrative thinkers like Basarab Nicolescu and Ken Wilber.
To work with shared concepts, I"ll basically define a "discipline" as a particular approach to the study a phenomenon or a set of related phenomena; "multidisciplinarity" as the use of a plurality of disciplines to study that phenomenon or set of related phenomena; "interdisciplinarity" as the use of a plurality of disciplines and their methods to enhance how a particular discipline studies a phenomenon or set of phenomena and, finally, "transdisciplinarity" as the use of shared patterns and principles common to a plurality of disciplines to best understand and synergistically coordinate them as a whole so as to study a phenomenon or set of related phenomena more perfectly. Transdisciplinarity is the search of commonalities among disciplines. Transdisciplinarity can itself be somewhat limited to a particular metaphysics and epistemology or be encompassing enough to integrate quantitative and qualitative experiences, methods, theories and disciplines under what could be called an all-encompassing integral metaphysics and integral meta science.
The discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life will quite likely grow in leaps and bounds collectively surprising us on many levels and requiring from us (as an intelligent planetary-wide, interconnecting species) a revision of the premises and foundations of what today are often understood as logically incommensurable or disconnected disciplines. Inspired by Ken Wilber"s approach I"ll say that the need to make sense of a complex, multidimensional discovery will transform these disciplines into compatible constituents of a much more encompassing, integral science that makes sense of the qualitative and quantitative approaches inextricably needed to further disclose physical, mental and spiritual realities under objective, intersubjective and subjective perspectives (or the True, the Good and the Beautiful as per platonic value spheres).
Astrobiology and other mutually-reinforcing disciplines will likely be understood in a holographic sense as perspectives coordinated by common integrating patterns within a vast intelligible whole of meaning, knowledge, methods and experience. Astrobiology and other disciplines will be "holographic" inasmuch as they reflect the stable intelligible patterns of knowledge as a whole and contribute to understanding that knowledge as a whole.
Astrobiology (as currently understood within formal academic institutions heavily influenced by the excessively incomplete and inadequate metaphysics of materialism) is the focus of most current "academically valid" discussions on the social and cultural implications about what may be an impending discovery of what is deemed either as "intelligent or non-intelligent" extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology – thus understood- is already an emerging discipline gradually recognized within established institutions like NASA, SETI and leading universities, but in my view (due to inescapably connecting with the ever-widening issue of "life") has the potential to grow into an integrative, culturally-transforming force surpassing the limits of conventional mechanistic and physicalist-materialist science.
Yes, the discovery of extraterrestrial life would likely encourage human society as a whole to find ways to think anew and/or more deeply and expansively about science, culture, life, theology, reality and civilization. Therefore, it is important to continue having these conversations to prepare for the various implications of discovering extraterrestrial life which might formally occur under conventional means or under unconventional means any time soon.
The conversation at the Kluge Center was basically respectful and open to many ideas, although most speakers coming from a conventional academic (and definitely also very valuable) standpoint were clearly unaware of the best objective evidence that there is a small percentage of serious UFO cases and alleged human interaction cases with greater scientific validity indicating that ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) is actually interacting with us (through some of us) in ways that current, conventional science doesn"t easily fathom. I don"t think they were really considering all possibilities in the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, only possibilities that seemed reasonable enough within their boundaries.
But the process of self-selecting information goes both ways among "believers" and "skeptics." In the case of normal academic scientists, they are insufficiently informed during their formative years and, once established in a prestigious community that obtains funds and official recognition they are psychologically "stamped out" from considering extraneous information. Both for "believers" and "skeptics" it is selective ignorance and knowledge.
While quite often there are extremes of gullibility and over generalizing mistakes among those who think or experientially known that we are already being visited, observed or contacted and those that do not (the latter sometimes adopting a committed skepticism and the former an ill-disposed, accusative view), but the conversation must develop amply without mutual animosity or offhanded dismissals.
While objectively seen with a neutral and critical attitude the best UFO and "experiencer" evidence is reasonably convincing that we are indeed being "visited" or interacted with by intelligences which can qualify as "extraterrestrial" there also are good reasons to doubt about the unscientific approach and often overwhelming generalizations of many that are so convinced. But being the issue of vital planetary and cultural significance it is too important to be held back by characteristic oversimplifying, dichotomous thinking in either camp. We need to know; learning to think, feel and sense in ways suitable to a reasonably harmonious planetary civilization require it.
Serious individuals developing astrobiology and also less recognized approaches to the political-cultural implications of extraterrestrial life (like "exopolitics") not only need an inter disciplinary approach but to discover a TRANSDISCIPLINARY approach based on highly inclusive universal patterns (not just reduced to or based on modern scientific premises or even on pre-modern ones) in order to coordinate the various qualitative and quantitative disciplines and approaches to life in general and to extraterrestrial life in particular.
Ken Wilber"s AQAL model, Nicolescu"s Transdisciplinarity ideas, Edgar Morin"s Complex Thought, Archie J. Bahm"s Organicism, Fritjoff Schuon"s overview of Metaphysics within a "perennialist" integrative school as well as other integrative meta philosophies (or developments which may contribute to the development of meta integrative philosophies) should be able to assist us to come together with a more intelligently inclusive "meta paradigmatic approach." Our integrative attitudes would also co-evolve (even surpassing the zeitgeist of modernity and postmodernity) as we discover the meaningfulness and usefulness of this approach.
The intrinsic inseparability not only of information but of consciousness probably found amidst more intellectually advanced extraterrestrial individuals operating within a science capable of understanding how to manipulate spacetime will probably have to be systematized and understood also by us in order to survive as a species and to move on coordinating among us as a planetary civilization with autonomy, respect and a type of sovereignty recognized by the extraterrestrials.
We"ll need to surpass fragmentary thinking mainly temporarily useful for certain survival applications in a classical physical experience and we"ll need to adopt a higher level of discourse, one that transcends and includes the distinct disciplines under a more inclusive logic. Under that higher level of discourse (including and surpassing the "excluded middle") otherwise separate disciplines will seem commensurable. Its premises will also transcend and include those of the natural sciences.
Rational meta frameworks stemming from a deep understanding of non-duality, logic, an integrative vision and ultimate transcendental spiritual principles can be coherently developed and they should. In particular Ken Wilber"s AQAL model once again comes to mind as a promising, incipient example as – among other virtues – it offers a way to recognize in a logical way the quantitative and qualitative aspects of life as inextricably interwoven and simultaneous.
Sincere, dedicated, mentally balanced individuals constantly willing to learn (whether convinced of the evidence of an intelligent extraterrestrial presence or not) need to carefully listen to each other"s best arguments, understanding each other"s premises and finding whatever good there may be in each other"s evidence-gathering methods to respectfully converse on this important, society-transforming, planetary issue affecting our entire species and planetary future. SCIENTISTS AND NON SCIENTISTS alike would have to deactivate excessive mutual criticisms and offhanded dismissals (which often go both ways) because of seemingly incommensurable methods and premises under limited pre-integral and pre transdisciplinary cultural attitudes and insufficiently inclusive/connective Meta principles.
Although I"m convinced by the evidence that we are indeed being visited by intelligent beings from the Cosmos, I also affirm that we need to seriously appreciate the dedicated, methodical work of our conventional academic scientists, also contributing in many ways to humanity"s development.
After decades of pondering on genuine and alleged contactee, contactee-abductee and-or "experiencer" cases with extraterrestrial intelligences already interacting with segments of the human family I think that subjective and intersubjective means and methods seem to work best to causally interact with beings that (albeit their advanced technology) often seem to physically exist in a more, shall we say, "refined" level of reality; a reality with greater degrees of freedom relating its quantum states with its macroscopic structures after (entropy-and-probabilities-modifying) intention, measurement and observation. In other words, while still under the structures of exterior physical objective patterns to qualify as "physical" there would be greater degrees of freedom to be able to affect those structures through subjective and intersubjective means. This would be one of the reasons why conventional scientific means limited to exploring our own physical level (and "time density fractal" as contactee Eric Julien would probably assert) may be limited in reach to the moments of convergence between these being"s reality system and ours. However, although contactees working with subjective and intersubjective methods may be relating more directly with at least some of the alleged ETI I think that the conservative and methodological approaches of most scientists and academicians bring balance against the interpretive failures associated with the contactee approach.
Thus we must also understand our own personal lack of connectivity and understanding first rather than to be overtaken by our achievements and to criticize and point fingers onto others not apparently sharing our approach to a greater understanding of "life." This includes us all and the likely fact that most key "actors" (including us, some politicians, some military in the know, renowned scientists, but also contactee and abductee "experiencers," UFO witnesses, committed skeptics, intelligence officers, UFO researchers, movie producers, media reporters, and people in general have not been able to adequately process, interpret and integrate unto themselves whatever they may have found about the extraterrestrial situation adequately. In these matters (seemingly bizarre and challenging of specific instincts adapted to our experience of a continuous, stable classical reality) we are all together –both committed "believers" and committed "skeptics." We are all learning to think more inclusively while defending our partially valid and important truths as we gradually overcome our fractional thinking patterns.
Reflections about specific concepts shared by the symposium speakers
Regarding what Dr. Steven J. Dick thought about direct discovery of UFOs not being a type of valid evidence he didn"t go into details of serious UFO research evidence or clarified that only SOME "UFOs" may qualify as adequate evidence of ETI.
Regarding the statements by brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, I think that quite often those of us who are convinced that we are already being visited by ETI over read and over expect members of the Vatican to secretly plan about, know and care about ETI. While some may actually know we often think that there must be a well-concerted plan for disclosure in which someone like a Vatican Observatory astronomer must be in. To me brother Consolmagno was not giving a surreptitious Vatican pronouncement about ETI but simply giving his reasonable theological views about the possibility of baptizing certain types of extraterrestrials if certain specific conditions pertaining to individuals with souls (like self-awareness, free will capacity, capacity for intimate relationships, capacity to love and to err and the desire to be baptized in spite of their advanced knowledge and technology) were met.
As an astronomer and Jesuit brother he had simply found himself needing to respond to these issues and he enjoys a degree of freedom to take initiatives and engage on certain issues without the Church hierarchy dictating or controlling him. I really don"t think he was preparing the public or church members for the discovery of ETI or that he was sent to lower down such expectations. He was trying to raise the level of discourse beyond simple expectations. I also don"t think that his conference was a continuation or modification of a deliberate policy connected with the previous declarations of Father Gabriel Funes, SJ or of Monsignor Corrado Balducci. I think each case should be judged independently.
Regarding John Traphagan"s assertions about our interpretations being culture-centered are quite true and worth considering but also excessively well-established on the relativism known by anthropologists. This excess is already being transcended by post postmodern integrative Meta philosophical approaches needed for a post-disclosure and-or post discovery of ETI period.
Regarding Susan Schneider"s concept of computational frameworks being conscious, I think it is quite possible but not as producing consciousness, only as support or physical correlates which partially due to its complexity may be able to interact with a subjective embodied consciousness that should not be conflated with the objective, material aspect. While I think that a self-aware individual can live in such a non-biological framework I don"t think that uploading the intelligent, information-processing pattern is equivalent to uploading the subjective individual consciousness. There"s a qualitative difference between information processing and subjective experience. Thus, an uploaded intelligence and memory would probably not be able to display free will and originality beyond certain limits and that would become noticeable.
Whether non-biological frameworks/bodies would be superior to biological ones (so that upon encountering advanced ETI we would likely find non-biological entities who may have created analogues of their original biological brains) I don"t think it might be necessarily so as we have indications that direct experiencers of ETI still seem to predominantly meet with entities that still seem to be predominantly biological.
Regarding Eric J. Chaisson"s increasing pattern of energy and complexity leading to life, I think that there are some categorical confusions between physical objects, biological entities and societies. As Ken Wilber points out, each belongs to a different category, while complexifying relations correlate among them. I agree that the use of solar energy could be necessary to support a more intelligent "life era" planetary civilization but I also think that the use of zero-point energy will also be useful. As a related issue, as per the Kardashev scale of cosmic civilizations according to energy use, I would add that the discovery of how to use zero-point or energies internal and transcendent to spacetime would replace the need to use exterior energies such as those available by harvesting stars (such as in the "starivore" hypothesis offered by Clement Vidal or the need for a "Dyson" sphere surrounding a star).
Conclusion
Astrobiologists should consider Integral Theory, Transdiciplinarity and other integrative models in order to coordinate the different quantitative and qualitative disciplines used. Moreover, they should also take a serious, open-minded, unbiased look at the best UFO and contactee research evidence offered. Astrobiology impinges on policy-making regarding extraterrestrial life and intelligence and astrobiologists should dialogue both with integrative theorists and with exopoliticians who are already convinced by the evidence that we are being visited by intelligent extraterrestrial beings displaying a modus operandi and level of technology that is difficult to interpret according to modern scientific, academic assumptions. Furthermore, integral and integrative thinkers should consider learning from and becoming involved in a dialogue with astrobiologists, serious UFO researchers, contactee researchers and exopoliticians. All of these "elements" challenge pre-integral ways of thinking and none can integrally flourish without the other.
The transformation of the human family into a more integrated planetary-wide civilization respectful of its participant members, the planet"s living creatures and into a species capable of being admitted as sovereign into a complex cosmic community not only requires the adoption of a particular integral or integrative model over another in order to better understand some aspects of life while ignoring or dismissing others. All sources of research, discovery, reflection and information which can contribute to that integrative goal and the expansion of human consciousness should relate under a truly integrating approach.
The integral community should assimilate and work with current orthodox scientific developments like "astrobiology" gaining recognition but also contributing to that field assisting it to become transdisciplinary. It should also examine and learn from unorthodox scientific approaches that seem better suited to connect non-local psychic events, consciousness, and multiple levels of existence. Astrobiology, the integral theory movement and other integrative movements should also move beyond admissible modern-postmodern academic encapsulations (selective and biased information-seeking and validating) and consider taking a fresh look into all kinds of reality and paradigm-expanding evidence which some of the more objective and sincere UFO researchers, exopoliticians and contact experiencers are also currently offering.
What is at stake is either a successful updating of our personal and collective sense of reality and foundational metaphysical premises in a truly coherently inclusive integral mode or a sickly personal and collective lingering in denial leading to limits on human freedom and an insane lack of adaptation to an interconnected world. What is at stake here is the possibility of coming together recognizing each other"s contributions without hubris and offhanded dismissals to work in the creation of a sane integral world or dismembering into atomized, mechanistic failure, the inability to think and disarray.
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Postscript
Given that there is good evidence of truly "anomalous" (non-conventionally explained) UFO sightings captured on film and photograph and collectively witnessed and, given that serious, dedicated UFO research has accumulated over several decades credible evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial visitation in ways that transcends most conventional knowledge of physics , as soon as the symposium ended I individually asked Dr. Shostak if any SETI or NASA scientists would care to go to the fields with scientific instruments where truly anomalous UFOs appear and he told me it wasn"t the SETI scientist"s task to research into the UFO evidence although sometimes they were given alleged evidence of an extraterrestrial presence and UFOs which turned out not to be convincing. He suggested that that effort should be ours. Like citizen scientists? I asked. Yes, he replied. He suggested me to go out with two cameras and to try to simultaneously take two pictures of a UFO with the cameras separated from each other for a known distance, preferably a mile or so in order to be able to triangulate. I asked if a mile was excessive (as he probably thought that the object would be too far away) and he said that that distance between the cameras would be correct. It should be daytime and preferably with some moderate cloudiness for reference.
I think that that the distance between the cameras may be excessive but not impossibly so. If the UFO (or craft) is not too far away the distance between the cameras doesn"t need to be so long. Also, the two photographers could coordinate with walkie-talkies and have someone else film them. Hopefully an ET vehicle could collaborate for this and situate itself equidistant from the cameras and not so far away. I suppose that if the cameras have are of the same brand, model, lens and are programed with the same picture-taking characteristics it would be better.
I wonder if after achieving such a feat SETI scientists would still be reluctant to go out and verify the phenomena for themselves with adequate equipment or still doggedly try to find alternative explanations, nonetheless I"m sure that many of the issues raised at the symposium are still crucial for when the time comes to develop a cultural, formal, national and global exopolitical process after ETI is sufficiently verified. We all need to work together in this in spite of our differences.
Sources
Bahm, Archie J. (1979). The Philosopher"s World Model. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, in collaboration with NASA: September 18-19, 2014. Symposium: "Preparing for Discovery: A Rational Approach to the Impact of Finding Microbial, Complex or Intelligent Life Beyond Earth" http://www.loc.gov/loc/kluge/news/nasa-program-2014.html
Morin, Edgar (2008). On Complexity. Cresskill: Hampton Press, Inc.
Nicolescu, Basarab (2002). Albany: State University of New York.
Wilber, Ken (2006). Integral Spirituality. Boston: Integral Books.
Autor:
Giorgio Piacenza
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