Human
versus ET Superpowers
Part
One:
OUR
HUMAN POWERS OF MIND
vs
THE POSSIBILITY OF
ET INTELLIGENCES
Ingo
Swann (21Feb01)
There are
a number of pathways by which we can approach the subject of how Earthside
knowledge of MIND would stack up against similar kinds of knowledge
developed by life forms elsewhere in the cosmos.
Of course
there is yet no absolute certainty that extraterrestrial entities
equipped with minds do exist. Thus, in order to proceed, one
has to imagine, speculate, or hypothesize that they do.
The principle
justification for making such an effort is that IF mind-developed
species do exist elsewhere in the universe, then perhaps our own human
species emanating or traveling from Earth could encounter them, or
perhaps those species emanating or traveling from some cosmic elsewhere
might encounter ours.
It is by
considering the ways and means of such “traveling” that
a very significant situational problem can stand revealed: The
species that first achieves the traveling capabilities would be considered
“advanced” by those species that had not yet achieved
anything along such lines.
Something
now depends on what the “advanced” connotation is thought
to refer to. It is clear that Earth people seem justified in
thinking in terms of advanced technology that bestows the capabilities
of negotiating deep cosmic reaches of space. But this thinking
principally refers to the 3-dimensional contexts of physical space
and whatever matter and energy is involved in it.
On Earth,
the idea that ET technology would be advanced is arrived at by comparison
with Earth-based technology that is neither commensurate to nor on
a match with ET space-travel capabilities.
We do not
know, for certain, what such ET technology might consist of.
But it can be hypothesized that perhaps some ET civilization achieved
the necessary space-travel capabilities in the terms of 3-dimensional
physicality.
It is clear
that Earth people have not yet matched the ET capability. And
so the ET capability must be seen as technologically advanced in comparison
to Earth’s space technology – and especially so IF any
evidence for ET space-travel and arrivals in near-Earth proximity
can be discovered.
ADVANCED
TECHNOLOGY IMPLIES THE EXISTENCE OF ADVANCED MINDS
The foregoing
seems to hold water, but it does so only to a certain degree, and
then only with regard to a physico-energetic technology brought into
existence within 3-dimensional matter, energy, and space.
Within their
specific materialistic contexts, ideas concerning a physical-energetic
space technology are sufficiently rational, and so confidence is placed
in such materialistic ideas by the conventional sciences and by UFOlogists
alike.
But one of
the implications of this is that Earth people will tend to interpret
ET via Earth-based ideas of a physico-energetic technology - in other
words, via 3-dimensional equipment.
However, just
behind this physical, 3-dimensional interpretation is a rather unavoidable
reality: no technology can come into existence in the absence
of minds to innovate it. Even physical 3-dimensional technology
does not magically produce itself.
If, therefore,
one hypothesizes (a) the existence of ET advanced technology, one
is also supposing (b) the real existence of ET advanced minds that
innovated and produced their technology.
As indicated
above, the idea that something is “advanced” is arrived
at by comparing two relatively similar things and finding that one
of them performs and produces far better, and perhaps amazingly so,
than the other one.
Implicit in
this comparing, however, are what might be referred to as information
and knowledge packages. Things do not of and in themselves become
advanced or inferior with respect to each other unless some kind of
function or activity is established within their perspectives.
For example,
the possibility of planetary and stellar space travel could be hypothesized
by any number of ET civilizations, and, indeed, this notion has even
emerged on Earth. In this sense, the basic hypothesis of space
travel would probably be relatively similar everywhere in the universe.
However, AFTER
the hypothesis is established, THEN comes the universal reality of
what information and knowledge packages are required to convert the
hypothesizing into a functional activity whereby space travel is actually
achieved.
And, one may
as well add, achieved not merely in the light of experimental attempts
to do so, but with sustainable and predictable certainty.
MIND
DEALS WITH INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE PACKAGES
Via the foregoing
considerations, it can appear that the real make-break point between
any recognizable advanced or inferior status of something has to do
with the existence of minds that can deal with information and knowledge
packages.
Such are,
of course, the workhorses of mind, so much so that if mind does not
fundamentally deal with information and knowledge packages, then it
is rather difficult (1) to identify what it does deal with, and (2)
to comprehend why it is even needed.
In this sense,
it can be hypothesized that mind anywhere in the cosmos fundamentally
deals with information and knowledge packages.
It can therefore
be suspected that minds that deal with greater, even vast volumetric
amounts of information and knowledge (1) could probably be thought
of as “advanced” over those minds dealing only in lesser
amounts, and (2) could probably have developed and engineered “advanced”
technologies.
EARTH-HUMAN
IDEAS OF WHAT MIND IS
The term MIND
has been utilized rather liberally here.
Doing so has
permitted hypothesis regarding the fundamental possibility of ET mind(s)
elsewhere in the cosmos.
Doing so has
also permitted speculation that mind dealing, to one degree or another,
in information and knowledge packages might be a universal constant
wherever mind is found. However, ET comprehensions of what mind
is could be quite different from our own ideas of it.
There are
nine basic ways that MIND is officially defined and considered here
on Earth. Although a very large literature exists regarding
the topic of mind, discussions seldom extend too far outside of the
nine definitions.
There are,
of course, many unofficial and semi-official variants upon these definitions,
but in combined meaning they more or less constitute the background
framework for how MIND is conceptualized here on Earth.
At first take,
it seems that at least definitions (1) through (7), when taken altogether,
do constitute a neat knowledge package about what mind is.
But if those
definitions are contemplated even slightly more deeply, it turns out
that they are mostly describing PRODUCTS of mind, not mind itself,
and indeed, describing only a very few mind’s many possible
products.
Furthermore,
there is no direct reference to information and knowledge packages
– although such can be thought of as somehow implicit among
the definitions.
It can also
be noticed that although “intellectual ability” is mentioned,
INTELLIGENCE is not. (And even more surprisingly, as will be
discussed ahead, the definitions of INTELLIGENCE do not incorporate
any of the definitions of MIND.)
Last, but
not the least of it all, the official definitions of MIND give no
hint or clue as to the real existence of the remarkable powers of
mind, and which, it might be said with some certainty, are absolutely
necessary for a mind to call itself a mind.
Indeed, it
can easily be conceptualized that a mind cannot be thought of as one
if it just sits like a bump on a log. Clearly, mind MUST have
powers to function at all.
ONE
PROBABLE REASON WHY HUMAN DEFINITIONS OF MIND ARE NOT VERY EXTENSIVE
The foregoing
human definitions of MIND might not be considered a total flop within
average Earthside frames of reference.
But if and
when those definitions might be utilized to consider and analyze the
possible dimensions of ET advanced minds elsewhere in the cosmos,
the success rate of such an analysis might not be very high.
Therefore,
it is worthwhile, as a brief aside, to discuss one probable Earthside
reason having to do with why mind is so poorly and inefficiently defined
within the context of our species.
On Earth,
the real existence of the human mind and its extensive powers has
long been treated this way and that within different contexts.
Those contexts
are usually SOCIETAL in purpose and function, and so the ways in which
the mind is treated usually have more to do with societal structures
and controls, and less to do with the fuller and bigger nature of
the human mind itself.
This clearly
means, at least in some full part, that human societal arrangements
on Earth are NOT built upon a fuller and more extensive appreciation
of the human mind and its powers.
Rather, the
various kinds of societal structures are far more likely to be built
ONLY upon so-called “normalizing” patterns of thinking
that reinforce the presumed authenticity of the structures themselves.
It is because
of this normalizing utility within societal groupings that patterns
of thinking are usually seen as far more important than trying to
discover the larger nature of the human mind itself.
The whole
of this becomes abundantly clear when it is realized that all social
ordering is principally based upon ratios of tolerance and intolerance
between what should be and what should not be thought. And this
is more or less the historical case within Earth’s manifold
societies.
Thinking is,
of course, a product or an output of the human mind. But if
the societal and cultural emphasis is on the product or output of
the mind, then the larger and more intimate nature of the mind itself
will not come into view.
In fact, it
is CONVENIENT within most societal contexts on Earth that the larger
and more intimate nature of the mind itself should NOT come into view.
Indeed, in some past societies, inquiring into the larger nature of
the mind has been prohibited.
The best reason
for this has two easily observed parts.
The first
is that most societal structures tacitly and unofficially admit that
there is much more to the human mind than meets the average eye or
even the average intelligence.
But the second
part has to do not with what the mind IS, but with establishing what
a mind should and should not think in order to fit more appropriately
into a given societal structure.
It is thus
seen more useful that minds be fitted into the parameters of societal
structures, and the pursuit of this takes precedence over what the
mind is.
The reason
for this aside is to point up that within Earth-human frames of reference,
the larger and more intimate nature of the human mind is NOT anywhere
understood.
The most obvious
reason for this is that achieving any larger understanding of the
human mind is NOT REALLY NECESSARY in the light of societal contexts
that are largely dependent upon what IS and IS NOT to be thought.
Indeed, if, for societal ends, thought-thinking can be managed, it
does not really matter what the mind IS.
Earth societies
probably know much more about thought management than they know about
what the human mind actually is. The goal of most societal orders
is to mutually integrate the thinking of many individuals so that
the desired societal structure will manifest and (hopefully) stay
in place thereafter.
THE
HUMAN MIND IS UNIQUE (ON PLANET EARTH)
The human
species mind on Earth can be thought of as unique – as long
as it does not encounter another species mind that is equivalent or
more advanced.
Furthermore,
as long as such encounters DO NOT come about, humans will not feel
much need to discover more about what mind fundamentally consists
of. Indeed, a mind species on a given planet having no equivalent
mind competitors, so to speak, can afford the societal luxury of not
discovering too much about its own mind.
If, however,
such encounters should come to pass, then a necessity for information
and knowledge packages about MIND would become explicit enough.
THE
POSSIBLE EXISTENCE OF ET MIND-INTELLIGENCE
If one begins
to hypothesize the possibility of ET intelligences, one necessarily
sets into motion, without realizing it, subtle changes having to do
with how we think of ourselves. We will ultimately have to wonder
if and how the formats of our own Earth-based intelligence stack up
against ET formats which might be encountered elsewhere, or FROM elsewhere.
A number
of unfamiliar, and rather complicated, problem-like situations would
download from this kind of hypothetical inquiry.
Among the
first of these is that our own Earth-based ideas and/or knowledge
regarding MIND and INTELLIGENCE would have to be studied more objectively,
and examined in the larger contexts of our species as a whole.
If ET civilizations
should give evidence of being advanced over our Earth-based civilizations,
then various kinds of cognitive crisis would begin to unfold on our
part having to do with our own limited, and thus inefficient, ideas-knowledge
of mind, etc.
Earth-based
thinking about civilizations more or less equates them with particular
societal formats that not only achieve long-term existence, but also
produce constructive order in various departments of communalizing
activity.
It is thus
understood by literate Earth people that Earth has experienced numerous
societal civilizations that have arisen and declined. However,
the idea of instituting constructive and communalizing order has not
yet been applied, by humans, to their species as a whole.
As indicated
earlier, it is thus that Earth-based ideas of mind and intelligence
are left to various kinds of societal orders, each of which shapes
those ideas in limiting ways that serve the societal frameworks, but
none of which can be completely applied to our species as a whole.
It is because
of this that the nature of mind and intelligence at our species level
has been left unexamined.
One of the
obvious results is that although “mind” can be thought
of within the contexts of various (and always transitory) socio-cultural
levels, the nature of our species mind has been left unexamined.
This kind
of thing permits two major options regarding the possibility of ET
mind-intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos.