Philosophy 'Lite'/Hypotheticals: The E.T. Question & Hypothetical Implications For Humanity

   The X-Files made news this year after the debut of Season 10, a 14 year break since the 9th season. Most are familiar with the general theme of the show, two FBI agents take on mysterious cases of the unknown called the 'X-Files.' One of the agents is a passionate and oftentimes paranoid believer in the supernatural and Aliens named Fox Mulder, and the other is a medical doctor named Dana Scully who is extremely intelligent and very skeptical of the theories put forth by Mulder (however, her incredible devotion to science and logic is comically swept aside when it comes to religion.) In the beginning of the series, Agent Scully thinks Agent Mulder is a total crackpot, but eventually comes to terms that some things in the world are in fact unexplained by conventional science and that the presence of intelligent, extraterrestrial species is being covered up by the government.

From x-files wiki

   What does the X-Files have to do with reality? Well, it may very well be the case that although X-Files is a stretch, there is some degree of realness to the series.

   This kind of possibility begs the question: what do we do if and when we find out we are not alone in the universe? To answer that question, we must be aware of and try to comprehend several things first.

   So, the first question many people might have is "why does this matter?" or they might say, "why waste our time on this sort of thing? We have real problems to deal with!" Those are of course, valid questions that need a valid answer. To answer that question, I would point to a curious statement made by NASA's chief scientist, Ellen Stofan, last year during a space agency panel discussion on the efforts being made to discover hospitable planets. She stated, "I think we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years." In other words, talking about the potential existence of alien life matters quite a bit, because we may have to prepare for its discovery in as little as 10 years.

Scene from the movie 'E.T.' Courtesy of  Universal Pictures

   Now, allow us to suppose that in 10 years NASA makes an announcement to the world that they have discovered life on Mars (the most likely contender for harboring extraterrestrial life in our solar system.) Little green men are not what they would likely be announcing though. It is no secret that NASA has discovered water on Mars already (here and here.) And as most people know, water is crucial for life. The presence of liquid water on Mars however, suggests that there may be a chance of finding microbial life on the red planet. In fact, microbial life is not hard to believe at all. Scientists have also discovered meteorites that have amino acids, which are an essential building block for biological organisms. With that being said, anyone who says alien is not real is saying that there isn't even the chance of microbial life existing in either of the 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets other than Earth in the observable universe. And no, that number is not made up.

Recommendation: find someone who doesn't believe in aliens and make a bet with them that we will discover some sort of alien life in 50 years (to be safe.) Make the wager as cruel as you'd like, because there is no way your friend wouldn't see this coming. The above picture is courtesy of NASA.

What would be the repercussions of finding intelligent life from other worlds?

   So we get it, there is probably microbial life somewhere other than Earth in the universe. And the chances are most people are really referring to intelligent aliens when they generalize about the existence or nonexistence of aliens. So what happens if and when we discover intelligent beings from other worlds? What will it do to our ethics and morals? What about our technology? Our understanding of the universe? Our understanding of each other, ourselves? Will we lose faith in our religions? The sooner we have an answer to some of these questions, the more prepared we are for a revelation of such magnitude. 

   To formulate answers to questions like this, we need to put the questions into context. For the sake of reasoning, allow the question to assume that the answer will be based upon a very current perspective. In other words, assume that we are answering the question as if intelligent beings introduced themselves to us right now. 

   So let's pretend that at this moment, you turned on the t.v. and President Obama was holding an emergency national broadcast, and stated to the world that just recently, NASA and other global space agencies have confirmed that they have received transmissions from an advanced civilization that has announced their peaceful intentions and will come to Earth if they have our permission. 

   The immediate global response will stem from the primitive region of the human mind. We can expect there to be riots, emergency meetings, chaotic markets, political crises, religious panic etc. The imagery might begin to play out in your head, and the scene is absolute chaos. Governments all around the world will most likely have to establish martial law. Expect things to remain like this for at least a couple of weeks. 

   If we fast forward several months, it will all be a bit calmer. After direct contact with the civilization, we as a whole will face an existential crisis. First of all, the best thing to come from this event would be the sense of global unity, and that we are truly one people in the vast universe. This good might be overshadowed by the intense religious fanaticism that will likely create a movement demonizing the aliens as 'fallen angels' who have come to pull us away from God, or something along those lines. This movement will probably not become too large, but it will certainly be the source of a new form of extremism that would have to be contained. 

   But with the existential crisis at hand, philosophers would probably be at full force, revisiting old thoughts on morality and humanity, and creating new forms of 'galactic' morality that applies to a broader set of life. Sociologists and psychologists would also be having an academic field day with the flooding of new data to be examined. And of course, scientists like biologists and astrophysicists around the world will be in shock over the way such a revelation would change their understanding of their science.

   If these intelligent beings were kind enough to share their technological knowledge, we'd probably be facing the end of dirty fossil fuel energy and be introduced to new sources of energy and ability for space travel. The implications for medicine would also mean that we could be introduced with cures to all diseases. I think that all this will be occurring as people restructure society and some of our institutions. It would be a time when people would look at each other and say: "well, maybe we aren't so different, you and I." 

   Years after contact, we could imagine the world being a much more peaceful and evolved place. However, the form of religious extremism would probably still be present, albeit smaller. If these beings are generous, we may even be in the process of transitioning to new systems of governance, education, and living in general.

   Truly, a post-contact world is an incredible thing to visualize. It may even put us on the path to a being a 'star trek-like' civilization. This is why preparing for the discovery of alien life is so important, because it is bound to occur within our lifetimes, and if it does, it will change everything we know. If that isn't worth a little bit of consideration, then nothing is.