6.15.20 - Aliens Among Us

When people talk about aliens or "intelligent life" — people like Joe Rogan — they're generally referring to a binary question: are we or are we not going to make contact with people at our very narrow band of intellect one day? To me it's a reductionist question.

Assuming beings of our intelligence are distributed stochastically around planets like ours, there's probably a couple dozen similar intellects in this galaxy alone. We imagine them to be capable of interfacing with our brains and appearing visibly and making auditory signals through the air. But given that we don't have the means to travel out to anybody or to defend ourselves, this might be better left an open question for now. Maybe when we're bionically fused with computers we'll be ready. 

Stephen Hawking once warned that humans shouldn't answer cosmic transmissions because whoever finds us might look at us like bacteria. But here's my thing: we probably already live among beings that look at us like bacteria.

There's no possible way that the hierarchy of natural intelligence simply stops at the level of intellect we humans can understand. Amoeba, prokaryotic cells, lizards, Lassie, humans — that's it? Anybody think the progression really stops there? Feels much more likely that natural intelligence continues well beyond our cognitive abilities; essentially, that we live among an "alien race." I assume it's a presence we can perceive, the way lizards and dogs can perceive and interact with us. Maybe we control it or burden it; maybe some mysteries of humanity elude this being, the way we relate to mysteries of animal cognition.

Regardless, this idea clarifies the question of extraterrestrial life. The question is not "are we alone," because there are probably beings of higher consciousness integrated into our current existence yet to discover. The question about aliens then becomes a matter of whether we can meet a race at exactly our level. Who knows, maybe our super-conscious superiors on Earth are already have contacts across the galaxy and are managing our introduction. Maybe we need to evolve further before a cosmic debutante ball — or a cosmic chicken pox party.