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What are the Consequences of Detection?
Marc Kuchner, Astronomer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
[Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute, Chair of IAA SETI
Permanent Study Group]Jennifer Wiseman, Chief, Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA GSFC; Senior Project Scientist, Hubble Space Telescope; Director, AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion
Kathryn Denning, Assoc. Professor, Dept of Anthropology and Program in Science & Technology Studies, York University, Canada
What are the Consequences of Detection?
Notes before even starting to answer the question...
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1) It depends. I have to say that. I’m an anthropologist.
2) Consequences for whom? Can break this down in many ways, but the first division is
probably: invested scientists, or other people?
3) Generally, Life will be what we make of it. In most detection scenarios, the vast majority of people
will be dealing not with extraterrestrial life itself, but with human perceptions and representations of that alien life. Data could be nigh-irrelevant.
What are the Consequences of Detection? Depends on...
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4) What kind of detection? – radio detection of ‘overheard’ traffic– radio or optical detection of beacons– signatures of astro-engineering – probes in our neighbourhood– evidence of past visitation, perhaps very long ago -
durable signatures could include nuclear waste, large scale geoengineering, biotechnology, artifacts or messages (e.g. genetic insertions), any signature of artificiality
– a naturally-occurring second sample of life: ‘second genesis’ / Life 2.0, ‘weird life’, or shadow biosphere on Earth
- Paul Davies, 2010, “Footprints of Alien Technology”
What are the Consequences of Detection? Depends on...
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5) Verifiability / confirmation controversial/contested vs. definite
6) Significance of signal Rio Scale variables, also decipherability, content,
comprehensibility
7) What is it? (Can we tell?) Biological or postbiological?
8) Is it interactive? How close, how active?
9) Is it volitional? Does it want something?
What are the Consequences of Detection? Depends on...
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10) Is it useful? Political, military, scientific, or commercial
relevance?
11) Social context at the time
12) Consequences for whom, exactly, and on what timeline?
What are the Consequences of Detection? A Question About the Question,
and A Question About Answering the Question ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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1) What is our goal in asking the question? What do we want to know, and why?
Are we seeking control over the cascade of events? Do we want to not be surprised? Do we want to ensure that we’ve done our duty in thinking ahead?
2) What are the consequences of ... thinking about the consequences of a detection?
Are some kinds of thinking ahead counter-productive? Which kinds of thinking are most helpful?
SETI, Astrobiology, Society - to connect or read more:
- SETI Permanent Study Group of the International Academy of Astronautics (Seth Shostak, chair), and its Post-Detection Task Force (Paul Davies, chair), and the Rio Scale calculator:
www.setileague.org/iaaseti/
Royal Society UK events from January 2010 (archived online), and upcoming October 2010: The detection of extra-terrestrial life and the consequences for science and society, and
Towards a scientific and societal agenda on extra-terrestrial life
A few relevant works: Social Implications of the Detection of an Extraterrestrial Civilization; Starstruck; When SETI Succeeds; Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears
about Encountering Extraterrestrials; Astrobiology Roadmap of Societal Issues
- UPCOMING: Online resource centre collating existing publications on Astrobiology/SETI/Society, to be hosted by www.seti.org, joint project of K. Denning (York),
P. Davies (ASU), M. Race and D. Vakoch (SETI Inst)
- NEW: Astrobiology & Society Focus Group within the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Margaret Race, Kathryn Denning, Connie Bertka ([email protected])
“The psychology of transcending here and now” - 1People start from the 'here and now', and they use the same mental machinery to think about things distant from themselves in space, in time, social organization, or hypotheticality. Might explain why speculations about ‘long long ago’ are a lot like
speculations about ‘far far away’.
“The psychology of transcending here and now” - 2The further away something is from people (doesn't matter whether the dimension is space, time, social organization or hypotheticality), the more abstract their thinking
gets. Might explain why it takes all kinds of cognitive strategies and training to be more specific about distant things.
