. . . if you want to contact intex, is it better to use physics or mindscience?

Conundrum Four: Part II: Modern Physicists Expand World-Mongering

Let’s jump ahead a century and a half to another record-breaking telescope, a fully steerable radio dish nestled in the Allegheny mountains in Green Bank, West Virginia. There was non-stop interest in intex within physics from William Herschel’s era through the era of radio astronomy. All the centuries of speculation and hypothesizing about the existence of intex finally reached fruition in 1961 when astrophysicist Frank Drake assembled ten male scientists, including Carl Sagan, at Green Bank to discuss the possibility of searching for extraterrestrials using radio technology.

Physicists rather self-importantly consider this meeting to be the start of the modern hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence, not only because it was the first gathering of physicists to discuss the hunt in a formal and organized manner, but because it produced two epochal artifacts emblematic of the physicists’ conception of intex:

.1 An equation purporting to offer a roadmap to the secret lairs of intex.

.2 The very first human message intended for intex broadcast to another solar system.

The physicists’ formula for quantifying and locating intex is given below. It is known as Drake’s Equation, as Frank Drake proposed it. The burgeoning number of astrobiology textbooks usually cite this equation as marking the commencement of the modern study of astrobiology, which is a bit like suggesting that Freud’s proposal of id, ego, superego was the commencement of modern mindscience. There’s some truth to it, certainly. Freud and Drake got the modern ball rolling in their respective fields, no question. But even though no contemporary neuroscientist ever references Freud’s anal stage of psychic development, a majority of intex-searching physical scientists still reference Drake’s Equation as a helpful tool of insight:

N = the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible

R_∗ = the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy

f_p = the fraction of those stars that have planets

n_e = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets

f_l = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point

f_i = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)

f_c = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space

L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space

The equation is tautological. It states that the number of alien civilizations in our galaxy equals the number of alien civilizations in our galaxy. There is no hidden insight or crucial relationship concealed inside this fake-intimidating equation.

To see this more clearly, imagine if we applied Drake’s Equation to a search for criminals. How many criminals are lurking on planet Earth?

Drake would suggest we could obtain the answer by multiplying the number of countries on Earth times the average population of each country times the percentage of the human population who are criminals. If we know each of these three variables, then we can compute the number of criminals on Earth. Of course, the only way to calculate the value of the third variable is to first know how many criminals exist on Earth…. which means that the equation is useless as a tool of discovery.

The Drake equation offers little more practical and scientific value than Thomas Wright’s map of the Eyes of Providence. Why does it maintain such a grip over many scientists, like the Hard Problem of consciousness, despite its dearth of scientific value? Many physicists retort that their adoption of the equation isn’t explicitly intended to determine the actual number of extraterrestrials in the universe, but rather is intended to focus our attention on the crucial factors and concepts involved in generating intelligent life. Except it’s a Declaration of Ignorance, because we don’t know the factors and concepts involved in generating intelligent life. Drake’s equation does nothing to remedy this.

The main problem with the formula is that it ignores all details about the extraterrestrials themselves, which is also one of the main drawbacks of the Doomsday Argument emphasizing time and chance. If we possessed some empirical constraints about intelligent life as a class of entities, then we could make some independent hypotheses regarding what percentage of solar systems are occupied by extraterrestrials. Instead, we have a sample size of one.

Imagine you only had access to a single Earthborn species—the banana slug, let’s say. What conclusions could you draw about other species from this single specimen? Would you predict owls and orangutans? Based on our knowledge of the banana slug, where might we expect to find other organisms on Earth? As the slug dwells in the rotting materials on forest floors, should we direct our hunt to other rotten substrates? Would we reject the ocean, because no banana slug could possibly survive its icy depths? Can we estimate how many non-banana-slug organisms exist on Earth—and where they are located—solely from our knowledge of the banana slug?

Drake’s Equation is worse than nothing—it implies knowledge and insight where there is none. What if societies that reach a certain level of sophistication tend to leave their home planet to live in the exotic, energy-dense environments near black holes? Such a possibility is not captured by Drake’s Equation, nor does the equation focus our attention on factors and concepts that would lead us to consider this possibility.

The real problem with Drake’s Equation—and with virtually every historical approach to intex—is the influence of a mental phenomenon well known in mindscience: self-congruence.

Self-congruence is our deep-seated belief that other people—or other beings—are fundamentally like ourselves, sharing our own values, beliefs, and activities. We instinctively tend to think that other people—other normal people—like the same music as us, like the same food as us, hold the same ideas as us, pursue the same goals as us, and feel the same feelings as us. The potent bias of self-congruity is a problem across all human interactions, but it particularly troubles the search for intex, an endeavor where there are no constraints on the projection of our private self onto an unknown other.

What does an angel look like? In the absence of evidence, it looks like me!

The self-congruity bias is intimately and inextricably linked with another deep-seated human prejudice: intergroup bias, the inborn bigotry of healthy-brained humans that makes us feel our own tribe is strong, smart, and righteous, whereas other tribes are weak, dumb, and immoral[1]. Who are physicists looking for in the sprawling stars? Just like the rest of humanity, they’re looking for themselves.

Drake’s Equation assumes that we will find other intelligence life on planets like our own, wielding radio dishes and telescopes like our own, trying to communicate with us in the same fashion that we’re trying to communicate with them—using the academic power of physics.

In their heart of hearts, most alien-seeking physicists presume aliens will be physicists, too.

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[1] Personally, I seem to experience self-congruence as strongly as any other human, though my intergroup bias is very mild because of my autism: I don’t ever experience a particularly compelling or durable sense of belonging. For me, group identity is a rumor.