Speculations on First Contact

After watching the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still", I could not help but keep revisiting the topic of alien encounters with the human race in the back of my mind. The topic of alien encounters is a very frequent one in science fiction and has been brought up countless times, both in novels and movies. However, I think novels tend to fare better than most Hollywood films in depicting the realism of possible alien encounters with mankind.

Most Hollywood films such as Starwars, Star Trek, Alien, Species and Predator tend to portray aliens as having humanoid bodies, having two arms, two legs, a head and body. The usual differences between humans aliens in such movies are the alien skin colour, number of limbs, eyes, etc. All these superficial differences reflect a lack of creativity. Even most other lifeforms on Earth such as insects and animals will look more different from humans than the aliens in the films. Or maybe the film producers want to cut costs by using human actors for the alien roles instead of creating robots or using computer animation.

The probability of any alien lifeforms resembling anything close to humans is extremely low, far lower than the probability of anyone striking the lottery consecutively for his/her entire life! Anyone who has read and understand the theory of evolution should come to this conclusion. Life on Earth is the way we know it because of eons of accumulated chance mutations which were then sieved out by natural selection so that only those best suited for the particular environment in the particular locales on Earth will thrive. The complex interplay of numerous factors in the evolutionary history of Earth is certainly not something that will likely be repeated elsewhere in the universe. As such, there is no reason to believe that life on another planet would take exactly the same evolutionary path of Earth life, even if the conditions are the same. Famed scientists Carl Sagan, Paul Davies and Richard Dawkins, as well as numerous others have written books on this topic and it is worth reading them.

The main problem why most people think aliens will look like humans or some other Earth-like creature might be due to our current narrow definition of life. Our definition of life is only based on Earth life, and is certainly not representative of life throughout the cosmos. Why must life be restricted to solid forms? It is physically sensible for alien life to manifest in other physical states such as liquid and gas. Or alien life may be non-coporeal and take on exotic forms such as being composed of pure energy or electromagnetic fields. Science fiction novels such as "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, "Beyond Infinity" by Gregory Benford have postulated such possibilities. Another hot favourite is that many scientist think that water is necessary for life and thus they focus their search for alien life to worlds which contain water. Water is a good solvent for many inorganic substances and has high heat capacity which allows the stabilization of temperature within a relative small range, as well as other properties which make it suitable for Earth life. Water may be necessary for Earth life, but why must this criteria apply to aliens too? There are other solvents which can dissolve many substances as well. It is high time we re-look at our current definition of life and update it, before we miss recognizing alien life in future space exploration missions.

Another point to consider is that of collective consciousness. Aliens could also behave more like a hive than as separate individuals. As such, any attempt to communicate with them may prove even more difficult, due to the different ways of thinking. Imagine what would a person say to an ant or termite hive. I suppose the natural tendency for humans is to look for the leaders in the alien race, but a hive has no leaders; the queen ant or termite does not give instructions to the other ants, each individual ant merely carry out its own job. When each eat follows its own simple set of 'instinctive instructions', the self-organised collective behaviour of an entire ant colony can be markedly different from that of the individual ant itself. Clearly, a single ant or termite may not be as intelligent as a human (then again it depends on our definition of intelligence), but an entire ant or termite hive is far from stupid. Just look at the engineering marvels such as 5 meter tall termites hives which African mound termites are capable of building. Hives follow a bottoms-up approach, in contrast to our usual top-down approach.

As a class 0 civilization, chances are that a more advanced civilization will make contact with us rather than the other way round. Furthermore, we have only started exploring space in the last few decades, and the cosmos being such a unimaginably huge space, it will probably take us eons to find signs of alien life, if there is any. Given that the universe is around 17 billion years old, it is plausible that there are much older and advanced civilizations out there among the stars other than ours. And they would probably have reached class 3 or even 4 if they can reach us on Earth. From the history of mankind, every time a more advanced civilization makes contact with a less advanced one, it almost always resulted in a war of civilizations with the more advanced one triumphing. The same may or may not occur with our contact with extra-terrestrial intelligences. We do not know yet. Even if the aliens came here with no intention of harm, I think the result would still very much turn out to be a war, due to the territorial nature of humans, a behavioral relict of our evolutionary past. We would probably be the first to attack the aliens. This is where the film " The Day The Earth Stood Still" is probably right. Perhaps precisely because of this, the aliens have kept themselves invisible from us on purpose, assuming that they exist and are benevolent. This is just one of the many theories behind the Fermi Paradox.
(I will probably write an article on the Fermi Paradox in the future. I think I shall stop here for now, I could go on non-stop on the topic of aliens.)

Arthur C. Clarke’s Final Odyssey

It was indeed a loss to the world that one of the world's most visionary and renowned science fiction author has passed away. Arthur C. Clarke, one of my favourite sci-fi authors, passed away on 19 March 2008 at the age of 90. I started reading his books when I was in secondary 1 and it was through his vastly imaginative and thought-provoking stories that cemented my love for sci-fi. Contrary to general sentiments, sci-fi is not just totally nonsensical ideas. Rather, most ideas in sci-fi stories are based on scientific theories (especially those sci-fi stories written by scientists or engineers). Contemporary sci-fi also explores a variety of issues ranging from philosophy to psychology and even politics. It is no mean feat to reconcile the schism between mainstream literature and hard core science and to bring across scientific ideas to the masses in an accessible manner through stories. Few can claim to be able to do this as skilfully as the late Arthur C. Clarke. Indeed stories have been around since the dawn of civilization and have tremendous power in disseminating ideas and influencing the masses. What better way to spread scientific ideas and stretch the imagination of human minds than through stories? Herein underscores the undervalued importance of science fiction in the modern society.

Arthur C Clarke wrote 100 books, more than 1,000 short stories and essays over 60 years. Some of his best-selling novels include ‘Childhood's End’ (which is my personal favourite), 2001: A Space Odyssey (The Oscar-nominated movie of the same title was based on this book), ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ and ‘Fountains of Paradise’. Trained in physics and mathematics, Sir Arthur also wrote many books and essays of non-fiction on space travel, communication technologies, underwater exploration and future studies.

It is widely believed that Clarke's most important scientific contribution is his idea of using geostationary satellites as ideal telecommunications relays. He wrote a paper titled ‘Extra-Terrestrial Relays — Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?’, which was published in Wireless World in October 1945 delineating how the concept of geostationary orbit can be put to practical use. The geostationary orbit is now sometimes known as the Clarke Orbit or the Clarke Belt in his honour. This shows why we should pay attention to sci-fi writers, for we never know if some wacky idea which is deemed impossible today will be possible and useful tomorrow. Jules Verne’s idea of an underwater submersible ages before the development of the first submarine is another example of the prophetic power of science fiction. Indeed, Arthur C. Clarke once said that ‘in order to find out the limits of the possible, we have to venture a little way past them into the impossible’. Never has the words of someone had such a profound impact on my thinking than those of Arthur C. Clarke’s.

Before his death, Clarke said: "I’ve had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer – one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well." Well, he has undoubtedly stretched my imagination and I believe that of many other people too.

“It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars.” -Arthur C. Clarke, First on the Moon, 1970

As a leading proponent for space travel and exploration, Clarke has also chaired several space advocacy organizations. I do believe the day will come when mankind will advance into a stage 2 or even stage 3 civilization and alter the destinies of stars as Clarke prophesized.

Arthur C. Clarke’s even came up with 3 ‘laws’ of prediction which he called it Clarke’s 3 Laws:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
As a fitting eulogy, I decided to name the title of this article ‘Arthur C. Clarke’s Final Odyssey’ after one of his books in the Space Odyssey series, ‘3001: Final Odyssey’. I highly recommend you to read his novels and be inspired by one of the greatest masters of sci-fi. Arthur C. Clarke may no longer exist on this world, but his legacy will forever live on in his books and be immortalized in the minds of his fans.

My recommendations:
• Childhood's End

• The Light of Other Days

• 2001: A Space Odyssey

• 2010: Odyssey Two

• 2061: Odyssey Three

• 3001: Final Odyssey

• Rendezvous with Rama

• Against The Fall Of Night

• Time's Eye

• Sunstorm