Extraterrestrial psychology

Astrophysicist Gregory Benford says we need to consider extraterrestrial economics when looking for signals from outer space. He suggests SETI narrow down its search to what we can reasonably expect extraterrestrial to achieve at such great distances ..assuming they’re not omnipotent. I applaud him for his pragmatism, however I think we also need to consider extraterrestrial psychology if we are to expect a reasonable chance of successful contact. Otherwise, I don’t see how we hope to achieve any kind of meaningful communication. Since we have no basis from which to conceive of the extraterrestrial mind, I think we have to start with something we can observe ..and I believe that would be us.

Psychologists already know that rational thought is a spatio-temporal process. It’s powerful but limited to weighing evidence about the physical universe. Other-worldly experience is out-of-scope. I believe this would also apply to the thought processes of any aliens we encounter. First, we’d only know we’ve encountered them if they share the same spatial-temporal dimension as us. Second, those we do meet would have to have some way of processing information about this shared dimension that is similar to ours. In other words, like us .. they would also have to integrate sensory information into a coherent model of the world they inhabit. So, I believe the first step in contemplating extraterrestrial life is to better understand our own. I mean, lets face it .. at this point it’s all we got.

Science tells us that knowledge is often knowledge of differences. Given that the human brain is tuned to receive only a narrow band of information available on earth, which is further constrained by culture ..I’m not sure it’s safe to assume that the alien mind is similarly tuned. They do not share the same background. We know that human perception is based on background information as much as information from the present ..and that the brain integrates information selected by the senses with information available in memory to create a coherent whole. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect extraterrestrials, who do not share our planetary history, to perceive our surroundings the same way we do. The way I’ve heard it explained best goes something like this:

“We could try and introduce ourselves to them ..but all they might see is a sparse dusting of energy waves occurring in a vacuum ..with some probability of identity based on their backgrounds ..not ours.”

Presented at the ~> SB Institute for Consciousness Studies