***Answers to Ks***
AT: any K…
Aliens know your kritik best, let’s ask them
Tough, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, ’00
(Allen, Foundation for the Future, 2000, “When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact”, www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_wrk1.pdf , p. 16, 21 July 2011) SW
Post-contact humanity may be privy to partial or full answers to questions about such things as the origin and fate of the universe and the course of evolution and of civilization. We dream of learning “comparative cosmologies,” contrasting theories of the ultimate origin of the universe. We dream also of learning the mathematical theory unifying all known forces of nature, or perhaps a theory of the superstrings or a unified theory of science of a type that we have not yet conceived. Ben Finney points out that one of the reasons that the social sciences lack the maturity of the physical sciences is that so far we have had only one opportunity to study the development of consciousness, intelligence, and culture (Finney, 1999). That is the opportunity available on Earth. He points out that astronomy, for example, would have not progressed very far if astronomers had been forced to develop a theory of planetary evolution based solely on knowledge of our own planet. We need extraterrestrial civilizations “to introduce us to an array of possibilities and variations beyond our experience, and also to shock us out of such parochial views as regarding ourselves as the summit and final goal of evolution….” Information about other civilizations would confer opportunities for comparative scientific studies of cultures, life forms, and psychologies. By the year 3000, under an information-rich detection scenario, we may have assembled a database containing hundreds, perhaps thousands of societies that endured from decades to millions or billions of years. We might have, for tomorrow’s social scientists, the equivalent of anthropology’s Human Relations Areas Files that facilitate cross-cultural studies for anthropologists. Historians would be able to do quantitative research on comparative civilizations. Multiple opportunities, notes Finney, could move us in the direction of consilience, or the unification of knowledge (Wilson, 1998). So far, only physics and chemistry have achieved consilience to any appreciable degree. The chance to study extraterrestrial civilizations may help us build bridges among the physical sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Finney adds that SETI is one of the endeavors led by physical and natural scientists that has welcomed the participation of social scientists and humanists.
Contact leads to new metaphysics
Harrison PhD Professor at UC Davis and Dick Served as Chief Historian at NASA 2000
(Albert is a PhD Professor of Psychology at UC Davis and Steven Served as Chief Historian at NASA When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact Edited by Allen Tough “Contact: Long-Term Implications for Humanity” p. 16 http://ieti.org/tough/books/succeeds/sectII.pdf MLF 6-22-11)
Contact with ETI may expose us to new metaphysics and epistemologies. Post-contact humanity may be privy to partial or full answers to questions about such things as the origin and fate of the universe and the course of evolution and of civilization. We dream of learning “comparative cosmologies,” contrasting theories of the ultimate origin of the universe. We dream also of learning the mathematical theory unifying all known forces of nature, or perhaps a theory of the superstrings or a unified theory of science of a type that we have not yet conceived. Ben Finney points out that one of the reasons that the social sciences lack the maturity of the physical sciences is that so far we have had only one opportunity to study the development of consciousness, intelligence, and culture (Finney, 1999). That is the opportunity available on Earth. He points out that astronomy, for example, would have not progressed very far if astronomers had been forced to develop a theory of planetary evolution based solely on knowledge of our own planet. We need extraterrestrial civilizations “to introduce us to an array of possibilities and variations beyond our experience, and also to shock us out of such parochial views as regarding our selves as the summit and final goal of evolution….”
SETI provides information to help protect earth’s environment
Chyba, Environmental Sciences Professor-Stanford, 2003
(Christopher, Space Policy in the Twenty-First Century, ed. W. H. Lambright, p. 199)
NASA has identified the search for life beyond our solar system as a priority. In this light, it is remarkable that the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has been altogether absent from the NASA program. SETI is a natural component of any balanced investigation of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in our galaxy – that is, of astrobiology. There are areas where appropriate private-public partnerships in this field could be of mutual benefit. There is a natural alliance between planetary exploration and the protection of Earth’s environment. Comparative planetology helps us to understand the Earth and therefore the context for Earth’s biosphere and our own civilization. Astrobiology helps us to understand the origin and evolution of life itself. Great harm could be done to this alliance were planetary protection issues to be handled with anything other than forthrighteness and transparency.
Even if ETs don’t exist, simply the search for alternate forms of sentient life allows acceptance of the other and an inclusive politics
Regis, Department of Philosophy, Howard University 87 [Edward, 1987, He specializes in books and articles about science, philosophy and intelligence. His topics have included nanotechnology, transhumanism and biological warfare, Extraterrestrials: science and alien intelligence, p.14-15]
Thinking about and even hoping to find extraterrestrial civilizations, however, sharpen our search for and appreciation of the peculiar virtues and vices of the only form of life we know. Exobiology and other exo-sciences cannot proceed merely by generalization from terrestrial experience; they must construct models of a more abstract nature of which terrestrial life and society are specifications. In that way hypotheses about extraterrestrial situations may throw light on the terrestrial, while the illumination of the extraterrestrial by hard facts about life on earth is at best dim and wavering. What Peter Winch has said about anthropology, we may say about exo-sociology: ‘Seriously to study another way of life is necessarily to seek to extend our own - not simply to bring the other way within the already existing boundaries of our own .... ”' Even if the exo-sciences fail to attain their prime goal, here is a valuable by-product. The quest for other. and better, forms of life, society, technology, ethics, and law may not reveal that they are actual elsewhere; but it may in the long run help us to make some of them actual on earth. Yet after all there is some glimmer of hope for an answer. As long as it exists - and I think it will exist as long as we do - it would be a mistake to let niggardliness. skepticism, and despair inhibit the search. Many more harmful things can be done with our technology than listening for another civilization. lf it should be successful. probably nothing is more worth using it for. So we have to ask. how should we proceed, and what shall we do if we succeed? To the first, there are two simple and prudent answers. Let us give more thought to possible worlds so as to prepare ourselves to interpret any evidence we get that they are actual. Here is work for disciplined science-fiction writers, astronomers. biologists, psychologists, sociologists. and linguisticians. l venture to believe that even philosophers might be of some help. Second. let there be world-wide sharing of resources of radio observatories. If all appropriate observatories devote some time to a systematic project of this kind. the costs in other more efficient research can be equitably spread.” But it must be remembered that the search is not worth undertaking unless it is planned to last decades, centuries, or even forever. Such cooperation would be a small stop in bringing about the discovery of how much enlightened intelligence there is on one planet at least, our own.
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