Extraterrestrial Intelligence and Immortality

Two years ago (2023), my e-friend—let’s call him Raheem—and I had a thought-provoking debate on a timeless question: Are we alone in the universe? If advanced alien civilizations exist, why haven’t we made contact with them? Also, could these aliens have achieved immortality?

The stimulating arguments are presented below, with my side of the argument headlined - Chistev, and his - Raheem. 

I am posting this here for whoever might find the topic of extraterrestrials interesting. 

The submissions are presented exactly as they were written, with all spelling and grammatical errors left untouched. The focus is on the ideas and arguments themselves, not on their polish.

If you wish to share your thoughts or contribute to the discussion, you may contact me via the email provided on the About page of this blog.

RAHEEM

I've always been a firm believer in life after death, but recent speculation has led me to decamp to the contrary. I had a recent discussion with a friend on the origins of consciousness in each individual; and while we've always been groomed to believe our spirit man (or whatever gender spirits identify as) was imbued at some point, that this life is a waiting lobby pending retrieval to our original station, there's no reason to think nothing was imbued, at all. Our every conjecture regarding the spiritual realm could as well be a product of a millennia-long fanfiction The way the human mind unfolds between birth and agency, gradual development to accommodate unique characteristics, is that when the spirit is minted? Or is it projected to this body in a recessive state within that timeframe? One of my reasons for backing the tripartite being theory is that the intricacies of our working is far too great to be utilised in this charade we exist in – 65-80 miserable years of gathering pitiful contributions to our race, given the potential of some of us.

On a second thought, I may in fact, be overestimating our capacity. Maybe, we are nothing beyond what meets the eye. Other species far away in the universe will possess attributes impressive enough to equate our most sparkling virtues to that of domestic pests. So, final death wouldn't be a loss as colossal as I used to think it is. Cruel 

I don't know between that, and the hoax of eternal judgment/punishment, which is a bigger shocker; because ecclesiastes 9:10 suggests that all of this life after death ideology took hold years after it was written; which in turn, would imply the deity under whose guidance those authors are said to have reported is not as infallible or omniscient as they would have us believe.

CHISTEV

The popular evolutionary scientist Richard Dawkins has said that the biggest unsolved mystery in Biology is - what is consciousness and why did it emerge?

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?

"Modern purpose machines use extensions of basic principles like negative feedback to achieve much more complex 'lifelike' behaviour. Guided missiles, for example, appear to search actively for their target, and when they have it in range they seem to pursue it, taking account of its evasive twists and turns, and sometimes even 'predicting' or 'anticipating' them. The details of how this is done are not worth going into. They involve negative feedback of various kinds, 'feed-forward', and other principles well understood by engineers and now known to be extensively involved in the working of living bodies. Nothing remotely approaching consciousness needs to be postulated, even though a layman, watching its apparently deliberate and purposeful behaviour, finds it hard to believe."

WHY DID CONSCIOUSNESS EMERGE?

He speculates that consciousness must have been a product of our ancestors having to create a model of the world in which they inhabited.

To be able to think ahead (even if it's just one step into the future), and plan for eventualities must have led to the development of consciousness which gradually improved from its primitive form to the type of consciousness we now have.

"Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself. Obviously the limbs and body of a survival machine must constitute an important part of its simulated world; presumably for the same kind of reason, the simulation itself could be regarded as part of the world to be simulated. Another word for this might indeed be 'self awareness', but I don't find this a fully satisfying explanation of the evolution of consciousness, and this is only partly because it involves an infinite regress-if there is a model of the model, why not a model of the model of the model...?"

The quoted passages are from his book, The Selfish Gene.

Richard regards consciousness as a really great puzzle. 

There are several theories on how and why consciousness must have emerged and they do not all involve invoking the supernatural/metaphysical because those speculations generate more questions whose answers are not that satisfying to me.

Regarding your opening sentence, I have to say that I do not have much confidence in an afterlife. I don't want to go into much detail why but let me just say that it has to do with my reservations regarding life being created.

The way I see it, if life wasn't created and was a product of some cosmic accident, then there probably can't be an afterlife.

RAHEEM

I feel a little letdown that you consider THIS a cosmic accident. The passage you quoted tells you the intricate design is woven into the fabric of our consciousness. That's not the kind of thing you come up with by chance. The amount of accidents that coincided to result in our current reality is simply too uniform to not have been carefully orchestrated. The degree of precision required for this level of development, trust me, someone or some guys took the time to set it in motion

Hmm "consciousness in its primitive form". I'm happy you pointed out my preference for conflating consciousness and a man's spirit. I don't know if I should make a separate post for that Yes, consciousness feels biological, yet we can't catch it, can't reproduce it. We can only see manifestations of it. For doctors to know how to suppress it, it's biological. And every biological organ existed in an earlier form. That's a very interesting take. How would a concept that is intangible possibly evolve? But then, that would assume we were once barely conscious (note: not intelligent, not self aware). Barely conscious = unconscious, progressively reaching a point of being awake and able to do things it wasn't programed to do. Notice the line begins to blur between mere consciousness, intelligent life, and agency. That unique identity seen with the last one is what is referred to as "spirit".

You get the gist?

CHISTEV

Sorry, I meant to respond to you sooner, but I've been really busy with school in a way you would not believe.

"The passage you quoted tells you the intricate design is woven into the fabric of our consciousness. That's not the kind of thing you come up with by chance. The amount of accidents that coincided to result in our current reality is simply too uniform to not have been carefully orchestrated."

I think this is heading into a slight argument on evolution which is probably not what you intended.

Anyway, the statement you made above fits into either of "argument from personal incredulity" or "argument from irreducible complexity" and variations of your statement have been dealth with before.

No, the "intricate design" we see now wasn't always so intricate but instead developed from precedents with decreasing complexity as we go down the figurative slope. 

So I believe that the consciousness we all have now arose gradually to the form it now has.

"The degree of precision required for this level of development, trust me, someone or some guys took the time to set it in motion"

But doesn't this lead us down a path of infinite regression? If the degree of precision needed for development of our consciousness or of beings such as us capable of evincing our level of consciousness, then surely the guys that took their time to set it all in motion must be significantly more complex and must have a superior form of consciousness or experience a different form of reality, whatever that might be. Couldn't the question also be asked about what guys must have set it all in motion for them too? And who set it all in motion for those other guys too? ad infinitum? 

If it all had to have started somewhere then why not with us?

"How would a concept that is intangible possibly evolve? But then, that would assume we were once barely conscious (note: not intelligent, not self aware). Barely conscious = unconscious, progressively reaching a point of being awake and able to do things it wasn't programed to do."

"When we watch an animal 'searching' for food, or for a mate, or for a lost child, we can hardly help imputing to it some of the subjective feelings we ourselves experience when we search. These may include 'desire' for some object, a 'mental picture' of the desired object, an 'aim' or 'end in view'. Each one of us knows, from the evidence of our own introspection, that, at least in one modern survival machine, this purposiveness has evolved the property we call 'consciousness'.

"Whatever the philosophical problems raised by consciousness, for the purpose of this story it can be thought of as the culmination of an evolutionary trend towards the emancipation of survival machines as executive decision-takers from their ultimate masters, the genes."

The above quoted parts are still from the book, The Selfish Gene. 

Remember I said there are various theories on how and why consciousness must have emerged without the need for the supernatural. The above is an example.

And to reiterate, the issue of consciousness is still a big mystery amongst biologists.

RAHEEM

mind you, some valid points were raised in your reply. I have difficulty copying segments I want to reply to since they're all in one long message. But I was intrigued by the infinite regression argument. "why can't it start with us?".

Spacetime has to have been created by something beyond space and time. I've written before about my thoughts regarding time as the fourth dimension. physics strongly suggests the existence of other dimensions, obviously habited by more advanced creatures. So, it definitely doesn't begin with us. So, how did it begin for whoever it began with? As I said, it exists outside Spacetime, which could imply they don't have a "beginning" in the sense of the word. Our minds can't comprehend what exists outside time, so it isn't possible to visualize what the equivalent of the concept of beginning is to them 

How did they get to that state of controlling time?There is an answer for it that neither involves mistakes/accident or evolution. I find those very very derogatory terms of describing something with the mental capacity and resources to anchor a universe where they deem fit, populate it with the celestial bodies, all the bewildering features mankind has discovered so far

So, in summary, the concept of a starting point is a 3 dimensional one. Outside this, it can be possible for things to reach their most advanced state without having to have technically began at a less advanced level

CHISTEV

Yes, I've heard that argument before but I don't buy into that special pleading. 

Instead of taking that leap, I'd rather go with the theory that time didn't exist before the Big Bang but was instead a product of it. 

I'd rather go with either - Nothing existed before the Big Bang, or the universe has always been.

I find it hard to wrap my head around something arising from nothing though, to be fair. 

But whenever I think about creators, I imagine that they must inhabit some world of their own even if that world might present reality to them in several different dimensions. I can't help but think that the regression argument still applies and something also must have created their intricate world too. If it all had to have started somewhere then I'd say that it started right here in our own universe in some strange way without some outside help in need of explanation too.

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CHISTEV

There's a theory that the reason we haven't encountered aliens yet is that whenever an intelligent species evolves, it becomes too intelligent that it inadvertently destroys itself with its own technology. Think of how close the world came to destroying itself during the Cold War, and think of how the possibility still exists with the United States, China, and Russia today possessing a Nuclear arsenal that can end the world. All it would take is a mistake, say, from a Nuclear state that thinks they are under attack. We've had several nuclear close calls in the past. War isnt the only thing capable of ending the world though, think of Climate change, or the ever increasing population on Earth and the troubles likely to be caused by it. 

This theory says that intelligent beings eventually destroy themselves. A cost for being too intelligent. 

There's another theory, I forgot what it's called, but I'll look for it after posting this comment. The theory says that If highly intelligent species have evolved in our Milky Way galaxy for example, and if they are millions of years ahead of us, as the pictures you posted suggested, then we would have encountered them by now. Because those species would have the technological capability to colonize other planets, and would eventually arrive here or be close enough to be detected by us (SETI) or to to detect us. 

Anyway, I believe that life exists somewhere out there. The Universe is too large for us to be alone, but I don't think life always evolves to intelligence. Maybe intelligence (defined here as the ability to understand the world around you as we do) isn't always the end product of evolution. And the cosmos is too harsh a place. Who says extraterrestrials aren't being regularly wiped out in meteor attacks like the believed to have ended the dinosaurs?

Regardless of how complicated a life form might be, I don't think immortality is possible. They might live for a long time but would eventually die/deteriorate. Eternity is an awfully long time.

RAHEEM

I think I have more to say on this than I'm willing to type. first, what does "end itself with its own technology" mean to you? note the variables: how much of the earth's population dies off/ survives? what technology can we consider ours, that can cause such damage? explosives? bioweapons? is there a variant of human hostility or transgression that could access the most remote parts of the world in a shorter time than it can be neutralized?

natural hazards could evict us from our tenancy. personally, I have two exit points I believe the human race has: one is my poetic projection, where there's only one man left in the world. the part about whether he eventually dies a natural death, or joins the rest of his species to wherever they went is hazy. the second one is based on scientific projection — the solar system is consumed by a dying sun. we ought to have advanced to type 2 or 3 civilisation by then. this thing is complex. I will explain. 

most of the beliefs I had while studying these stuff related to pseudoscience, not facts. for instance, I don't think Dyson spheres will work quite the way they're billed to be implemented and used. why? the human mind has proved to be more effective than its enclosure. if anything, the human body is an impediment. if wishes reside in the mind, it means that by finding our way our freeing the laws of physics, gravity, force and motion, from waiting to be influenced by physical touch, we can intervene in events on an astronomic scale. it equally means more: we would have greater priorities than subsisting on energy from random suns. it implies a dying sun will be the least of our priorities. that is assuming the Christian God leaves us to our devices and doesn't eradicate all the bad eggs.

there are counter arguments to the fermi paradox; one of which hires the analogy of, iirc, a guy looking over at a group of insects/anthill/ worms. he doesn't go wondering whether those worms are sentient enough to meditate on his thoughts. he doesn't think to sit back to converse with them. hell, they wouldn't understand him even if he tried. the paradox only holds water on the assumption that such civilisation is within the scope of our comprehension. 

intelligence not being the end product of evolution? maybe evolution isn't the word you want to use, but i understand where you're driving at, and what an interesting perspective it is. a realm where sentient beings are faced with other challenges that overcoming makes them feel superior. the constant, though, is that intelligence will always be a common denominator. it's what makes the difference always. the god whose spirit hovered over the waters signified the cradle of industry. without sophistication, what you have cannot be described as evolution.

immortality doesn't exist. even in scifi, there are no million year creatures. right? debatable. for the guys/ ladies responsible for creating our universe, the concept of time is one of their many machinations. I wouldn't expect they abide by it. but, then again, I haven't seen the full extent of the human mind outside the boundaries of its dungeon. there's no telling what its mortality rate is. but I wager it must've been long enough for the Christian God to promise eternal retribution.

CHISTEV

If the Cold War had progressed to an open, full-scale conflict, or if a nuclear or thermonuclear war were to happen now, the casualties would be significant for humans. It has been said that a nuclear weapon today has more explosive power than all the explosives combined in the Second World War (I would search for a source after posting this). Not only would there be deaths from the immediate explosion, but there would be long term effects from the Nuclear fallout, and even deaths from the ensuing chaos by the survivors. The economies and technologies of the countries embroiled in the conflict would take a huge blow, and given how interconnected the global economy is, there would be a ripple effect world-wide, and it would take, I guess, several centuries to recover. 

You've heard of the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima, and the work done to contain the damages? Well, according to scientific estimates, considering the radiation levels, it would take thousands of years (some estimates as high as 20,000 years) for the area surrounding Chernobyl to be habitable again.

Also, given the Covid-19 pandemic and other pandemics in history, it is theoretically possible for a bioweapon to cause mass casualties provided it leaves the carriers with enough time to spread it. Today's transportation system is advanced enough to ensure it spreads across all continents in very short time.

My point isn't that we possess the technology to wipe out the human race entirely, but that the technology exists (Radiation like in the case of Chernobyl, Bioweapons, thermonuclear weapons) that could potentially cause a massive blow to our civilization, sending us backwards.

I mentioned a theory in my original post on why we haven't yet encountered alien life. To state it again, this theory goes that once a civilization evolves in intelligence, it gets to a point where its technology becomes detrimental to the survival of the species. So just imagine the blow our ambitions for space exploration would take if one of the above mentioned scenerios threatening civilization on a global scale were to occur.

All it would take is an accident (like Chernobyl, or a Nuclear state thinking falsely that they are under attack), another Adolf Hitler (Germany were on a race to develop nuclear bombs during WW2 but were beaten by the allied powers - Manhattan project)

Maybe this has been happening on distant extraterrestrial worlds? The theory suggests it has.

"if wishes reside in the mind, it means that by finding our way our freeing the laws of physics, gravity, force and motion, from waiting to be influenced by physical touch, we can intervene in events on an astronomic scale."

You're right that this sounds like pseudoscience. We are indeed already capable of escaping from weak enough gravity. Whenever a space probe leaves Earth, for example, it escapes Earth's gravity. Yes, we are already capable of great things, but I doubt that we'd ever be able to escape the laws of physics. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but the laws of science puts a ceiling on how far that "magic" can go. For example, I don't think any civilization, no matter how advanced, would be capable of traveling at a speed greater than that of light. We're always going to be restricted by the laws of science because that's exactly why they are laws. There are even some suggestions that God himself, if he exists, is restricted by the laws of the universe which he created. 

Regarding the counter argument to the Fermi Paradox, yes it's possible that we're too primitive for advanced civilizations to bother about. But even in the case of ants and humans, isn't it true that we sometimes try to interfere with their lives just to see how they'd react either for fun or just sheer curiousity? And even if you're right and they know we exist but can't be bothered to pay us any attention, why haven't we detected them with our own technology (SETI)? Is it that they have advanced beyond radio technology that we cannot detect them? Or, is that they have prevented their radio signals from being detected by whoever might be listening?

"the paradox only holds water on the assumption that such civilisation is within the scope of our comprehension"

Yes, it's true that we might not be able to comprehend alien species. After all, they evolved in worlds different from ours. But, any sufficiently advanced civilization would understand Mathematics. Mathematics is a universal language and for them to be scientifically advanced means they understand science. They could, if they desired, find a way to communicate with earthlings using the universal language - Science.

We have also made attempts of our own to communicate with alien species if they exist out there. 

Voyager Golden Records were aboard the Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. Pioneer plaques were also aboard the Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecrafts launched from Earth into space in 1972 and 1973 respectively. The idea is that any advanced alien civilization would find them and find a way to understand us and our world.

"intelligence not being the end product of evolution? maybe evolution isn't the word you want to use"

"[biological evolution] is change in the properties of groups of organisms over the course of generations…it embraces everything from slight changes... to the alterations that led from the earliest organism to dinosaurs, bees, oaks, and humans." - Douglas Futuyma  

The above definition is what I had in mind when I spoke about evolution. I do realize that there are various ways to define intelligence. An animal, say, a lion or any predator utilizes its intelligence to evade detection as it stalks for prey, just as a prey used its intelligence to escape. Intelligence, as you rightly said, would always be a common denominator where evolution is concerned. So I concede that I was wrong to phrase my statement the way I did. So let me rephrase... Maybe our kind of intelligence (the ability to comprehend the world on a larger scale) isn't always the end product of evolution? Consider this, evolution has been happening on Earth for what, 3 billions years? And in all that time how many species have evolved that can ask questions about the universe or even think of ways of exploring said universe? We have several million species of living things here on Earth (some already extinct) but humans are the only ones capable of thinking of a world beyond theirs. So maybe this sort of intelligence isn't always the end product of evolution? Giraffes, Lions, Bacteria, etc, are all intelligent in their own way, but do they have the capacity to know what is happening beyond their immediate environment? No. Evolution, ultimately, is about ensuring the survival of the organism/species.

So, again, using this definition, maybe intelligent creatures are rare in the universe, hence why we haven't encountered alien civilizations? I hope this argument makes sense to you.

"for the guys/ ladies responsible for creating our universe, the concept of time is one of their many machinations. I wouldn't expect they abide by it.... there's no telling what its mortality rate is, but I wager it must've been long enough for the Christian God to promise eternal retribution"

What Christian God are you referring to? The one they say is part of a Holy Trinity, or the one that is not? And what about the Muslim God? Or the Hindu gods? or some other God?

Anyway, there are a plethora of arguments against God's existence and arguments against the idea that the Universe was created. I think with advancements in science and technology it would be possible to expand our life span perhaps considerably. After all, there are always reports of advances in Medicine. However, I think immortality is beyond our reach. Nothing lasts forever. Even the Sun, as you said, is projected to run out of fuel in some billions years. Galaxies themselves also die. So I don't know how any alien species can keep escaping from galaxy to galaxy to escape annihilation every few billion years.

I know this was a long, and hopefully, exciting read. But to conclude, I think it's likely that alien civilizations exist somewhere out there.

The universe is far too huge for us to be alone. We might never encounter aliens for reasons already stated here, and because of the sheer scale of the cosmos. For all we know, maybe on a very distant planet, two guys are having an argument on their own version of social media on this very topic . But, whatever be the case, eternity is an awfully long time.

RAHEEM

I disagree with your assertion on restrictions imposed by laws such as the speed of light. Can you measure the speed of your thoughts? Can you imagine what would happen if the speed of thought could be improved, much the same way as mediums of transportation were improved? 200 speed of thought per year. You realise space exploration will no longer be a case of light years if your mind can get there at the speed of thought.

lmao exactly. If they've advanced beyond our primitive technologies, what makes you think what we have could detect their presence? They probably transited our galaxy in a voyage for intelligible life forms in the 19th century, and we didn't qualify further inquiries. That's one.

If they cracked the challenge of escaping their original mortal shells, it's likely they operate with more exotic technology we are even yet to discover. So they don't have to fudge their signals per se. It'll simply be beyond our comprehension.

 no matter how rare creatures who have reached the state you describe are, it's simply not possible for them not to exist. This question is one of the major foundations this discourse is built upon 

But I'm beginning to wonder whether I got your statement about the end product of evolution wrong. There's another possibility i didn't consider earlier: devolution—diminishing evolution. It's theoretically possible that our species gradually tends to a point where comprehension wanes; even memory retention. Then humanity will shrink into something else. And we will be too dumb to detect or combat it if it's a result of natural phenomena 

Then evolution would be complete. That's another plausible exit point.

 expansion of lifespans the way you think of it is impossible. Your body wasn't built to last. There's more potential in endeavors channelled toward escaping the fleshy prison than attempting to prolong its durability. That much is certain. All this talk about escape to Mars is sheer waste of time — cheap entertainment for ignorant plebs. Same goes for those who don't think the universe is a product of careful, purposeful, construction.

Was it built by one guy? Is he/ they even guys? I doubt. I won't rule that out, though. Remember, still within the scope of my original comment, I doubt such being(s) would impose the stringent laws world religions claim they drafted for our guidance.