may well be newly formed stars. The usual method in scientific investigation is to exhaust all natural explanations before considering the unnatural ones and, even if we found a star with an excess of radiation and no immediate explanation in terms of natural phenomena, it is highly unlikely that we would conclude – without other evidence – that it indicated intelligence.
It can be argued that very advanced SCs would not be so prolific with their energy sources and would consequently remain undetected. There are also dubious assumptions about the aspirations of SCs in the Kardaschev–Dyson theory. The SC hypothesis is based on the assumption that the main aspiration of an intelligent civilization is the collection of information about the surrounding universe. This requires increasing amounts of energy. This is why there are SCs of Type I, who have mastered their planetary energy, Type II, the energy of their star, and Type III, the energy of their galaxy. But this hypothesis assumes a concept of progress which might be unique to human culture. Moreover, the concept of linear progress has not always been uppermost among human civilizations. The notion of progress took root in Western religion and was secularized in nineteenth-century biology, despite its rejection by contemporary neo-Darwinism. Contemporary science is, however, structurally dependent upon the notion of progress, but this may be accidental.
What are the benefits of contact with an advanced civilization?
Very few philosophers have addressed the question of contact with an advanced civilization, although it is widely assumed that they would be more scientifically advanced than us, and that scientists in particular and humanity in general could benefit from their superior knowledge. Thomas R. McDonough (1987: 1) argues that intelligent ETs are likely to have older civilizations, and he offers an optimistic forecast of contact: ‘They have most likely faced the same problems of war, disease, starvation and pollution that plague humanity today. Any civilization that survived very long has most likely solved these problems.’ If the Kardaschev–Dyson hypothesis of SCs, billions of years ahead of us, were true, then what could we learn from them? The belief that we can benefit from an advanced SC reveals a number of assumptions. First, that science is a universal activity and, second, that terms like ‘advanced’ and ‘progress’ are unproblematic. There is also the problem of knowing that what they do is actually science, when it has proved so difficult for scientists and philosophers on Earth to provide a satisfactory definition of science. At a basic level it could be said that science involves forming beliefs about the world, recognizing problems, formulating solutions and testing them by observations and experiment, and then applying them in practical contexts. It is not certain that all intelligent beings will be scientific. Dolphins are intelligent but not scientific, as intelligence must be put to use in some particular way.
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Nicholas Rescher (1984) is one of the few philosophers to have described the problem of communicating with an advanced SC. He draws an important distinction between the ‘content of their doctrines (belief structures and theory complexes)’ and ‘the aims and purposes with which their doctrines are formed’ (Rescher, 1984: 176). If we consider how the content of human enquiry has varied so much throughout human history – for example, from the speculations of the nature theorists of ancient Greece to the gulf between Newtonian and contemporary physics – then Rescher suggests that emphasis should be given to their aims and purposes: in short, to find out whether their projects are functionally equivalent to our scientific projects, seeking explanations, predictions, and control over nature. But when he considers the methods they might employ to express their science, Rescher notes enormous potential for diversity. They might have a different mathematics to ours, with anumerical approaches to quantity, stressing comparability rather than quantification. Such a mathematical system with a different geometry might prove to be more effective for application in an unstable environment: if, for example, they had structures like jellyfish and lived in the sea. They might not have developed digital thinking and their description of nature in mathematical terms might be very different to ours. Their orientation of science might be different; their natural science could well be oriented towards social categories. Rescher points out how nature is observed selectively. The ETs might very well ignore certain phenomena which are considered significant to us: for example, if their environment does not have magnetic poles, then observations of loadstones and electrical storms might have little scientific meaning.
Creatures that have evolved in very different natural circumstances to us will have very different interests which will influence the emphasis they place upon certain experiences. Creatures which have adapted to life underground, or beneath the sea, will never develop astronomy. Access to different natural facts will influence the topics which give rise to puzzlement and stimulate investiga-tions. Different ways of experiencing nature will raise different questions about nature. A society of advanced ETs, with different structures and sensory receptors, might develop interests in parts of the environment that mean nothing to us.
Rescher argues that we must expect ETs to have different conceptual schemes, different ways of making sense of their experience, such that discourse with them might be impossible. The point made by Thomas Kuhn (1962) that there is no ‘ideal scientific language’ for the characterization of reality, is even more relevant, argues Rescher, when speaking of alien cultures. As a science develops, the concepts it uses evolve in the course of various discoveries and not only help to make these discoveries; they are in turn modified by them. The ancient Romans, says Rescher (1984: 181), did not have a different conception of quantum electrodynamics; they had no view at all about it. There were many steps from Cicero to Bohr; whole theories about the universe and matter had to be abandoned and others built up from scratch. With an alien civilization, argues
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