Extraterrestrial Altruism: Evolution and Ethics in the Cosmos

325 Pages·2014·3.42 MB·English

by  Albert A. Harrison (auth.)

T H E F R O N T I E R S C O L L E C T I O N
Douglas A. Vakoch
(Ed.)
E XTR ATER R ESTR I A L
A LTRU ISM
Evolution and Ethics
in the Cosmos
THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION
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Unit of Interdisciplinary Studies, Bar-Ilan University, 52900, Ramat-Gan, Israel
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DepartmentofPhysics,UniversityofNorthCarolina,ChapelHill,NC27599-3255,
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DepartmentofPhysics,UniversityofAlberta,Edmonton,ABT6G1Z2,Canada
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Douglas A. Vakoch
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EXTRATERRESTRIAL
ALTRUISM
Evolution and Ethics in the Cosmos
123
Editor
Douglas A.Vakoch
SETIInstitute
Mountain View, CA
USA
ISSN 1612-3018
ISBN 978-3-642-37749-5 ISBN 978-3-642-37750-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-37750-1
SpringerHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013940087
(cid:2)Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2014
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To Gerry Harp, for innovative leadership in
the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
Foreword
Extraterrestrial altruism. What can be said about it? Is it important in any way
beyondbeingagoodexerciseforourlogicalabilities,andtoexciteourcuriosity?
Mostpeoplewouldanswer,off-hand,thattheanswerstothesequestionsare‘‘very
little’’ and just plain ‘‘no.’’ The readers of this book may come away with sur-
prisingly revised and positive answers to these questions!
Withregardtowhatcanbesaidaboutextraterrestrialaltruism,weareseriously
inhibited by having no information whatsoever about the nature, cultures, and
histories of any actual extraterrestrial beings, either non-intelligent or intelligent.
To arrive at some ideas about the possible existence and abundance of extrater-
restrialaltruism,wecan,fornow,dependonlyonknowledgeoftheoneintelligent,
altruistic, species we know of, ourselves. An example of one! In science, it is
alwaysverydangerousandevenprobablyfallacioustodevelopconclusions,based
on a sample of one, about anything complicated. This is not the case in reaching
understandings of many matters related to extraterrestrial life, such as the origins
of life, the nature and evolution of planets, and the possible chemistry on other
worlds.Wehaveplentyofdatafromtheplanetsofourownsolarsystemtoguide
us in those studies. But with regard to altruism in an extraterrestrial intelligent
species, there is just the one example, us, on which to depend.
Of course, we do have many examples on Earth of altruism in complex crea-
tures other than ourselves—for example, in the marine mammals, and in many
terrestrial animals, such as the wolves, the simians, and the birds. Indeed, in the
milieu of the higher complex animals, altruism is ubiquitous. Think of the pen-
guinsshelteringtheiryounginthebrutalAntarcticwinter,orthemotherbirdwho
fights off predatory birds to bring food to her chicks. Indeed, the ubiquity of
altruism in terrestrial animals is so extensive that it would appear to support
strongly the idea, discussed later in this book, that altruism is not a choice, or an
accident, or even a vanity, as it is sometimes with humans, but is of Darwinian
origin.Itworksverywelltoenhancesurvival.Ifevolutionhasdiscoveredaltruism
sowidelyasanimportantcontributortosurvivalonEarth,mightitnotbesimilarly
widespread on other worlds?
As an aside to this thought, as an astronomer I would point out that the driver
that causes altruism to flourish is one that is somewhere between trivial and
profound. It is that all planets large enough to support life are round (well, or
vii
viii Foreword
almost round)! Planets that are most suitable for life as we know it must be
massiveenoughtohaveagravitationalfieldstrongenoughtoretainanatmosphere
and probably liquid water. A simple calculation based on Newton’s Law of
Gravitation shows that the lowest energy state of the accumulated planetesimals
thateventuallymergetobecomeaplanetisasphere.Ifthereisrotation,theshape
will deviate slightly from being a sphere, as in the planet Jupiter. So planets are
near spheres. Never something like a sheet of paper! The consequence of this is
that there always will be a finite surface area, and therefore, importantly, finite
resourcestonourishthegrowthandlivelihoodoflivingthings.Indeed,thesurface
area of a sphere is the smallest surface area of a volume of any shape. Finite
resources means there will be competition by living things for them, powering
evolution, and in turn, at some point, altruism. This is explored in this book.
Hopefully, despite our lack of extraterrestrial empirical evidence, we can use this
model to make some credible progress in predicting the nature and extent of
extraterrestrial altruism.
Now, are there some benefits of importance to us that we can, with some
credibility, predict will derive from extraterrestrial altruism? There are probably
many possibilities. Here I will write about one kind that comes to my mind. It is
guidance in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, SETI. Success in such
endeavors is a major goal in astrobiology, and altruism may play a major role in
them. Indeed, the existence and conductof extraterrestrial altruism is becoming a
centralissueinSETI,andmayplayacrucialroleinorganizingourSETIprograms
for success.
How does this come about? In planning SETI programs, the planners must
make assumptions as to what detectable technology the ETs may be using. What
might those technologies be? Here we are faced, again, with the problem of
dealing with a statistic of one. We have only our technological history and
capabilitiesforguidance.Historically,SETIprogramsonEarthhavelookedtothe
status of contemporary technologies to point to the most promising search
approaches. Fifty years ago the answer seemed to be to search for radio signals.
Nothing else we were doing seemed reasonable as a detectable signal. The para-
digm,basedonourhistory,wasthatradiosignalswouldremainamainsignofour
(and their?) existence, andthat,indeed,thepowerofsuch signals wouldcontinue
to increase as more powerful transmitters were developed. Then in recent years,
thedevelopmentofveryhighpoweropticalandinfra-redlasershassuggestedthat,
at least, we should search for signals at optical and infra-red wavelengths.
Accordingly, we have added searches for such signals to our ‘‘classical’’ radio
searches. We had a clear belief that signals at all electromagnetic wavelengths
would forever be present and probably growing in intensity. We had no other
examples to improve that belief.
Now, only 50 years after the first scientific SETI programs, we see unforeseen
changes in the paradigm taking place rapidly. The radio signals from Earth are
rapidlybecomingfainterandmoredifficulttodetect.Theoncestrongestevidence
of our existence, our traditional television transmitters, is fast being replaced by
cable television and direct-to-home transmission of television and other media
Foreword ix
from orbiting satellites. The sensitivity of affordable signal receivers has
improved, and signals are more efficiently transmitted using digital techniques.
The result, for now, is that the one million watt power of traditional television
transmitters is fast being replaced by cable television, which transmits no power
into space, and the roughly 40 watt power of satellite-transmitted television,
almost all of which power does not go into the extraterrestrial space. The exact
numbersarenotimportantofcourse;therealpointisthatthepowerlevelstospace
are decreasing by enormous amounts. Similar reductions, but not so dramatic, in
thepowerreleasedtospacebyothermeans,particularlybythemilitary,aretaking
place. It seems obvious that within a very short time on the cosmic timescale,
perhaps only decades, the ‘‘brightness’’ of our civilization will be reduced by a
huge factor. The great bulk of the electromagnetic transmissions of human civi-
lization are fast fading to black! Not long from now the remaining signs of our
existencemaybethelightsofcitiesatnight,andatinterstellardistancestheseare
very hard to detect. We have no technology that can come close to making such
detections.Ofcourse,thecitylightsthatarevisiblefromspacearewastedlight,a
consequence ofinefficient light fixtures. They are,toastronomers, light pollution.
AlreadyonEarththereareeffortstodeveloplightfixturesthatwillnotwastelight
in this way, and at optical wavelengths, too, we will fade to black.
All of this adds up to bad news for SETI, and for our chances of learning of
othercivilizations,andbeingenrichedbythefloodofusefulinformationwemight
well obtain from other civilizations. Our old paradigm was probably very wrong.
We need some realistic new thinking.
It is plausible that other civilizations have traced this same history in their
technology development. They, like us, have seen their visibility grow fantasti-
cally,butthen,inashorttimeonthecosmictimescale,decreaseasaresultoftheir
own growing expertise. They will be curious as we are, and will know that new,
young,civilizationslikeoursareoutthereinspace,searchinganddreamingaswe
do. They will know that those civilizations have been confronted with the same
eventual sobering recognition that intelligent civilizations may be very hard to
find.
This is where altruism moves to center stage. Will they practice altruism, and
expend some resources to make themselves detectable? Maybe through electro-
magnetic signals of great power? Is this the crucial step that will allow civiliza-
tionstoshareinformation, after all? We have tried tothink ofalternativestothis,
but know of none.
If this is the case, we need to change our search strategies. The altruistic
beacons of other worlds may come not from the planets of nearby stars, but from
rare altruistic systems far away. It is a fact, rarely emphasized, that most of the
brightest stars in the sky are not nearby, but are intrinsically very bright very
distantstars.Thesameistrueofcosmicradiosources.Ifaltruismismotivatingthe
technologychoicesforinterstellarcommunication,thesamecouldbetrueofsigns
of intelligent life. We should search for signals that are designed to be easily
detectableatgreatdistances.Wealreadydothis.Weshouldsearchwherewecan
test as many stars as possible at once for the presence of signals. It could well be
x Foreword
thatthefirstcivilizationwedetectwillbehostedbyastarthatisnotinanycatalog,
or not even visible.
The nature and abundance of extraterrestrial altruism is not just an interesting
and challenging exercise in logic; it may be very important to the discovery and
understanding of extraterrestrial civilizations. This book will serve as the first
major step inmakingprogress withthese questions, whose answersmay beoffar
more importance than we might have imagined.
Mountain View, CA, USA Frank Drake
SETI Institute
[email protected]