Encountering ETI

Aliens in Avatar and the Americas

Hart

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781630875664
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Encountering ETI weaves together scientific knowledge and spiritual faith in a cosmic context. It explores consequences of Contact between terrestrial intelligent life (TI) and extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI). Humans will face cosmic displacement if there are other complex, technologically advanced intelligent beings in the universe; our economic structures and religious beliefs might need substantial revision. On Earth or in space, humans could encounter benevolent ETI (solicitous of our striving for maturity as a species) or malevolent ETI (seeking our land and goods to benefit themselves, claiming that their "superior civilization" gives them the right)--or meet both types of species. Earth Encounters of the Third Kind described by credible witnesses (including American Indian elders) suggest that both have arrived already: some shut down U.S. and U.S.S.R. ICBM missiles to promote peace; others mutilated cattle or abducted people, perhaps to acquire physiological data on biota for scientific study or for other, unknown purposes. Sci-fi movies such as Avatar and novels like The Martian Chronicles describe humans as malevolent ETI aliens: we do to others what we fear others will do to us. A shared and evolving spiritual materiality could enable humanity to overcome cosmic displacement, and guide TI and ETI in a common quest for meaning and wellbeing on cosmic common ground.

1

Aliens and other Others

Where Did They Come From?

Throughout Earth’s biotic history, residents original to a place have had their life disrupted by the arrival of newcomers. Whether the original inhabitants had evolved in that place to become the first form of intelligent life there, or had evolved elsewhere—including to become intelligent beings—and migrated to their current place, biota’s survival depended on adapting to their new context with its geophysical characteristics and existing biotic inhabitants. Even if the original residents did not seek to retain their place only for themselves, or the newcomers did not want to appropriate it solely for themselves, they both needed abiotic and biotic natural goods for survival.

In such times and places of interspecies encounter, if there was a sufficiency of natural goods for both natives and newcomers each would co-adapt to the other. If sufficient territory and goods were not available, residents would know or sense that it was necessary for them to fend off the newcomers to prevent their initial or ongoing intrusion; if the threatening intrusion occurred anyway, the original inhabitants would defend themselves in order not to be deprived of natural goods they needed for sustenance and survival. For their part, the newcomers upon meeting resistance would engage in an aggressive offense against residents in order to attain needed territory and natural goods, and to be able to adapt to both available land characteristics and nonthreatening biota or, conversely adapt them to the newcomers to meet their species needs—alter them in some way—in order to survive as a species. Conflictive competition or co-adaptive cooperation in the newly common habitat, in terms of accommodation to mutually acceptable species-specific living spaces, food and water allocation, and shared use to provide for the wellbeing of both, might well determine the ultimate survival of the original inhabitants, of the immigrants, or of both. Either or both species might not have the capability to migrate to a different place, to alter dietary or den requirements, or to prevail in a life-and-death struggle for survival, should accommodation not be achievable.

As species extended their territory or migrated to different territory, they came to alien places: they were not familiar with the discovered geophysical terrain, climate fluctuations, and every type of resident biota encountered—some of which might prove to be competitors, predators, or prey. The inhabitants were aliens to the newcomers, just as the newcomers were aliens to the inhabitants. The newcomers, however, were aliens in an alien (and, in their perspective, aliens’) land. The natives were no longer aliens in territory that they had come to regard as their home, a place that was no longer alien land to them: at some prior moment they adapted to it and adapted it to themselves (for example, converting caves to homes, or nesting in or felling trees to provide living accommodations; or, consuming as food a variety of roots or fruits from plants that previously had been unknown—alien—to them).

Alien Species, Invasive Species

In contextual encounters between biota, the resident species might be simple or complex, as might be the immigrants seeking entry into or acquisition of their space. An obvious and easy example of this is revealed in a common news story, particularly and more frequently reported in the past century in the United States: human expansion of residential, commercial, and industrial structures into more rural or wilderness areas, whether forests, mountains, or rivers has occasioned not-so-friendly human encounters with bears, mountain lions, eagles, and salmon, among other biota already in place. Recreational runners and household pets have been attacked by cougars and coyotes, respectively; hikers have been mauled and even killed by black bears and grizzly bears; home, office, and shopping center picture windows and patio doors have been shattered by deer leaping through them; carpenter ants and termites have found new nutrition to satisfy their focused gourmet appetites.

The “other,” then, whether seen as an obstructive occupant of needed territory with its natural goods, or as a belligerent intruder into habitat that currently serves nicely to meet the needs of those who have been historically present (even if “historically” means a matter of months, not the course of centuries), is initially an alien species, that is, foreign to another encountered species in this place at this moment in time. In the view of new entrants on the scene, the earlier inhabitants are the foreigners; they are a form of life unexpectedly encountered and engaged that might impede or prevent the migrating species, accustomed to satisfying its expansion needs without opposition, from proceeding in their customary manner. Those living in an established, delineated territorial space (even if indicated only loosely: for humans, with artifacts of some sort placed as boundary markers, or by customary use of a territory affirmed by natives and accepted by others; for other species, scent or another indicator marking a place), might regard the incoming “other” as both an alien species and an invasive species. The immigrant newcomers are viewed as invasive if their needs and wants conflict with those of the resident species, and adaptation of each to the other is infeasible (too many nutrition or shelter needs would have to be altered) or impossible (there are no available alternative nutrition or shelter goods, and no possibility of migration by either species because of impediments such as inherent species immobility due to factors that might include species’ lacking wings or fins, an altered climate in this place and elsewhere, or imposing topographical constraints).

The long-term prognosis for consequences of resident-immigrant encounters might be either extinction or adaptive integration. Consequently, intentionally or instinctually, species will do what seems best in their efforts at self-preservation or their desire for self-enhancement. They will employ such strategies as are presumed necessary in order for them to exist or to have an enhanced existence. Less complex species could not thoughtfully consider alternatives; more complex species might be able to reflect on the extent of their apparent need or desire for this particular place, or these particular natural goods, etc., and act accordingly. This would result in an offensive “fight or flight” by aggressive intruders, to be met in turn by a defensive “fight not flight” by current inhabitants.

If we think of “alien” in its multiple usages, essentially it is what a biotic being regards and designates as an abiotic “other” place into which it is entering or considering entering; a biotic “other” not previously native to this particular place or not encountered previously during a migration; or a transplanted immigrant who has been accepted as a resident of a place, who might continue always to be an alien, or eventually be regarded as “one of us” as long-term residence continues or as generations pass (assuming that no internal conflicts emerge, or external pressures are exerted, resulting in the “other” being relegated again to an “alien” status). The designation of an arriving or resident biota as an apparently or actually threatening “other” is not necessarily verbal: there are no cell phones or even audible vocalizing of another sort by which individuals in some species can call others of their species to warn them about, and call them to respond expeditiously and aggressively to, if necessary, the incoming “other.” There are, of course, many land animals, birds, sea creatures, and insects that do vocalize alarm about known predators or unknown biota entering their accustomed territory.

The types of living “aliens” considered here will be plants, insects, animals, people as a particular species of animals, and exoEarth biota. The preceding includes biota that are complex or simple, intelligent or primarily instinctual and nonreflective. (The most comprehensive regional book for the U.S. in terms of nonhuman aliens is George W. Cox’s already classic Alien Species in North America and Hawaii: Impacts on Natural Ecosystems [1999], from which some of the following data is drawn.)

Biotas’ Ecological Relationships

As noted above “alien” plants might be, for a migrating species, unfamiliar vegetation growing in and around a place which they hope to colonize. The vegetation in such encounters is native and likely evolved there. Perhaps it had been carried there in some form (such as seeds on hoofs, in droppings, or on the wind) by animals, birds, or the elements. As migrants become residents, they become native to a place, and the once-alien vegetation is now familiar and some of it is likely being used for food or medicines (as it is, raw; or, after alteration and preparation by heating to varying degrees).

In On the Origin of Species (1859), biologist (and former divinity student) Charles Darwin describes the intricate yet straightforward co-adaptive and coevolutionary relationship between house cats and red clover. (I’ll bet that caught your attention! There are, of course, other species involved.) Darwin had noticed that there was a more extensive population of red clover near rural villages, and wondered why this was the case: the clover seemed to grow better with human neighbors than out in the country isolated from humans. In his own words:

From experiments which I have tried, I have found that the visits of bees, if not indispensable, are at least highly beneficial to the fertilisation of our clovers; but humble-bees alone visit the common red clover (Trifolium pretense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very rare, or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the habits of humble-bees, believes that “more than two-thirds of them are thus destroyed all over England.” Now the number of mice is largely dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman says, “Near villages and small towns I have found the nests of humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.” Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district might determine, through the intervention first of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!

In this ecological relationship described by Darwin, humans who were once aliens to a place, as were their pet cats, and the clover, mice, and humble bees native to that place, have co-adapted to the changed circumstances caused by immigrant humans’ arrival with their feline “livestock” (of course, they might have brought a cow for milk, chickens for eggs, dogs as sentinels, horses for transport, etc.—all of which would originally be aliens too). Since the diverse species have learned to coexist, as described by Darwin, their relationship has become mutually beneficial.

Darwin’s narrative also illustrates how species that are seemingly unrelated, or distantly related but more complex (e.g., humans), might regard the less complex (e.g., bees) as unimportant, without intrinsic value (value inherent in themselves) or even instrumental value (value for and to be used by others as food, to provide shelter, to be used for clothing, etc.), even though, in reality, they are all intimately intertwined, integrated, interdependent, and interrelated. In recent decades, people have been seeing even more clearly and extensively that all beings—not just humankind—have intrinsic value as they are; further, they are often beneficial to meet other biota’s or an ecosystems’ needs, and even provide regional or global requirements for the general integrity of the planet (think about a forest “as is,” whose trees provide shelter for bird nests, shade for hot people, dogs, and other mammals, wood for home construction and, ever more importantly, consumption of harmful carbon dioxide and release of beneficial oxygen, which fauna need to exist). Since the massive deaths of bees began a few years ago, possibly caused by a microbe whose existence is enhanced or made more extensive because of human-caused or -exacerbated and -accelerated global warming, or by humans’ use of chemical pesticides that are harmful to bees, people have learned the extent to which bees cross-pollinate plants that are needed by people for food. Bee extinctions would cause regional and even global hunger if they were to continue at their present pace.

Currently, global warming increases throughout Earth. Human overconsumption and overpopulation are principal contributors, particularly because of humans’ release of particulate matter into the atmosphere through motor vehicles, power plants, and irresponsible industrial production. A May 10, 2013 New York Times article by Justin Gillis, “Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears,” stated that data collected and analyzed at two sites established that for the first time in human history carbon dioxide (CO2) was measured at 400 parts per million for a full twenty-four-hour period. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientific instruments atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography instruments in San Diego, California, independently noted and reported their findings. The last time CO2 reached that level was at least three million years ago, according to geological research. Earth had a much hotter climate (CO2 and climate are inextricably intertwined) and the seas likely were significantly higher—by sixty to eighty feet. (Imagine if the water that meets the shore in Miami, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, among other U.S. cities and towns, were six to eight stories higher on skyscrapers—and flooded transportation systems’ tunnels.) In such a context of drastically increasing CO2 levels, the role of trees in cleansing the air, always extremely important, is growing to be ever more so—but massive human deforestation of still existing forests and jungles continually imperils trees and strains their abilities to provide for life. So, alien humans (significantly assisted today by the fossil fuel industry, whose corporate representatives and the politicians they influence in one form or another are culpable culprits for denying the reality of global climate change) are destroying their own habitat and extincting native vegetation that could help them diminish or mitigate their irresponsible behavior. In mid-September 2014, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated that June, July, and August 2014 comprised the hottest summer ever recorded on Earth, and that the year 2014 likely would end as the hottest year on record. Descendants of European immigrants in the United States have become aliens once again, as they have alienated themselves from the biota and abiotic setting native to this place.

Alien Plants

Scientists and other people regard as “noxious” those alien plants that enter an area and endanger or diminish native or other vegetation beneficial to humans or their livestock. The once-alien humans become locked in biotic battle (in which humans are sometimes assisted by abiotic chemicals that threaten the health of humans and other life) with the now-alien noxious plant immigrant aliens for a newly contested familiar place. Sometimes humans have introduced, intentionally or unintentionally, noxious weeds that previously were unknown in a place—for example, for purposes of landscaping terrain or of eliminating previously identified undesired vegetation from farms and fields, or providing a hardy, regionally new form of agricultural crop. (An unexpected consequence resulted, for example, when U.S. farmers imported seed for Russian winter wheat because it would be hardier in colder U.S. areas than native species of wheat had been. Agriculturalists did not realize that Russi...