The recent-ish news about rational, intelligent, highly-trained people describing their experience of UFOs has me pretty excited. That excitement mostly stems from my technocapitalist-centric optimism that we can progress ourselves out of the problems we've created through our progress. I hold out hope that the aliens can and will save us.
I'm also looking forward to the religious and philosophical communities' epistemological yoga required when suddenly introduced to potentially 1000s of years' worth of scientific/technological progress.
"Oh, what you refer to as the 'collective unconscious' is just this phenomenon that you haven't figured out how to observe or measure yet."
"Oh, how do we observe and measure it?"
"Well, you need this instrument."
"Ok, how do we build that instrument."
"Well, you need this element."
"What element is that?"
"Well, that element doesn't exist on Earth."
"Oh, how do we get that element, then?"
"Well, you'd have to travel 1000 light-years to the [name in another language] system."
"We only live 79 years, on average."
"Well, you have to travel through a fold in spacetime."
"How do you do that?"
"Well, you need this tool."
"Ok, how do we build that tool."
"Well, you need this element."
"What element is that?"
"Well, that element doesn't exist on Earth."
"Oh, how do we get that element, then?"
"Well, you'd have to travel 1000 light-years..."
I'm also looking forward to the religious and philosophical communities' epistemological yoga required when suddenly introduced to potentially 1000s of years' worth of scientific/technological progress.
"Oh, what you refer to as the 'collective unconscious' is just this phenomenon that you haven't figured out how to observe or measure yet."
"Oh, how do we observe and measure it?"
"Well, you need this instrument."
"Ok, how do we build that instrument."
"Well, you need this element."
"What element is that?"
"Well, that element doesn't exist on Earth."
"Oh, how do we get that element, then?"
"Well, you'd have to travel 1000 light-years to the [name in another language] system."
"We only live 79 years, on average."
"Well, you have to travel through a fold in spacetime."
"How do you do that?"
"Well, you need this tool."
"Ok, how do we build that tool."
"Well, you need this element."
"What element is that?"
"Well, that element doesn't exist on Earth."
"Oh, how do we get that element, then?"
"Well, you'd have to travel 1000 light-years..."
The answer was no.
The funny thing here was when listening to that I had thought immediately that aliens would then treat us the same.
But now I've been thinking.... what if a pre-requisite to having such technology to be able to roam around the cosmos like aliens would requires a transformation -- not only technical -- but spiritual and societal. As in the only way to have such techonlogy is to transcend beyond negative sum thinking and bigotry.
Thus any aliens who come here with such technology would have to be peaceful and benevolent. Just a thought.