How Alien Is Alien?

Original Post: 13 November 2012
Posted Here: 2 December 2017

Since retiring, I seem to have gotten behind in my reading. For example, I just started reading the June 2012 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction this weekend. Sheila Williams, the editor, had, as usual, an interesting Editorial, "We Have Met the Alien..."

Among other things, she discussed the idea that SF authors cannot really fashion a story about alien aliens because we can only think in human terms. As a result, the aliens that we are most familiar with are, as I would phrase it, essentially just humans in an alien suit. Those that aren't are apt to be some poorly defined shape that still contains a human mind.

I've heard this argument before, and wonder if it is necessarily correct. Perhaps some aliens will be alien enough that we will have trouble understanding their behavior, language, culture, etc. Star Trek: The Next Generation, in the episode, Darmok, tried to create aliens along those lines, the Tamarians, (although they still used humans in alien suits). The Tamarians spoke only in metaphors based on their folklore. Since the folklore was unknown to humans, the Enterprise's translator failed to allow Captain Picard to communicate with them. The problem was eventually "solved" by some hand-waving hocus-pocus. But the fundamental issue for the creation of these fictional aliens--how the Tamarians passed on the folklore that their language was based on when they must use metaphors from even earlier folklore to do so (a sort of infinite regress)--was not explored.

So, should our SF stories suggest aliens that we cannot understand? will we someday meet aliens so alien that we can never understand them? Perhaps. But I would guess that the nature of life and the processes of evolution may well limit how alien an alien will be.

Parallel evolution is hardly apt to be limited to terrestrial life. The specific contingencies that resulted in humans are unlikely to have occurred anywhere else, but the sorts of events that eventually produce intelligent creatures are not necessarily unique. If we can't put aliens into our movies via a man in an alien suit, then we can do it with computer graphics. We got here one way, the Waxonians a second way. Yes, Waxonians are different, but must they be that different? Will they be that different? Can they be that different?

Sometime between the launch of the first Sputnik (1957) and the time I graduated from high school (1961,) I read an article which attempted to describe what intelligent life on other worlds would be like. I no longer have a copy of the article (if I actually kept one) and have no idea of who the author was, but I believe that it appeared in the Sunday Parade Magazine. Last April, I emailed them a request for a copy of the article. In their reply, they said it might take up to 5 weeks to respond. Over six months have elapsed and I still have not received any other response from them.

I did find, in an old "Ring King Steno Note Book" with all sorts of SF ideas of mine from that time period, a page entitled "Qualifications of Highly Intelligent Extra-Terrestrial Life." I originally wrote the page in pencil, then overwrote it in ink. I gave no reference, but I suspect that this was a transcript (possibly paraphrased) of the Parade article. What I found follows:

1. He Breathes Air. Water breathers might develop some intelligence but they would suffer a serious hardship: They couldn't smelt metals under water. Any technology above the level of our own Stone Age is an accomplishment of air breathers.

2. He Eats Both Plants and Meat. A strict plant-eater spends too much time stuffing himself with unconcentrated food to attain any degree of high intelligence. Animals which can digest meat only would not be likely to survive the occasional adverse periods which occur on all planets and wipe out the less adaptable forms of life.

3. He's Probably Not Much Larger Than the Largest Human. Extra-large people would probably be clumsy and would not be able to perform precision work.

4. He Weighs At Least 40 Pounds, and Probably More. A body weighing 40 pounds would be needed to hold a 2 pound brain, which is complex enough to form high intelligence.

5. He Has a Skull of Some Kind. The brain must be protected from injury.

6. He Has Two Eyes and Ears. Two eyes are better than one for judging distance but more are not needed. The same goes for ears.

7. He Has Hands and Feet. He will need feet to walk erect and move around. He must have hands to hold and build things. He would have to be able to push, pull, grasp, etc. [Which is why he probably won't use tentacles instead of hands and arms.]

As I said, I have no idea as to who the author of this list was, but, based on a reference to Christiaan Huygens in my Salutatorian speech, I suspect that the ideas may have come from Huygens' posthumous book, Cosmotheorus, in which he is said to have speculated on life on other worlds. You may or may not agree with all the above speculations in the Parade article, but I don't think they can all be denied.

Yes, we are human and think and act like humans. But I really have trouble with the notion that aliens exist who are so alien that we can't understand them well enough to put them into our science fiction stories. I have trouble accepting the notion that aliens will not have problems with romance, in-laws, crime, crooked politicians, mad scientists, xenophobia, etc., etc.

I think that we will eventually find that the nature of life imposes limits on just how un-Earthlike life forms can be. I have no doubt that the same is true of alien intelligence.

Keep reading/keep writing - Jack