Aliens Among Us?
Just about anyone in the Western world will see this image and know what it implies. The myth of Roswell and Area 51 is incredibly resistant to logic and reason. To me, this falls in the same category as belief in a flat earth or disease conspiracies. But this time, I’ll concentrate on purported aliens among us.
As I mentioned in an earlier post - “Is Coding Writing?” - the language one is using influences (at the least, many would say it determines) the thoughts expressed. Some of us can have odd or unusual ways of expressing ourselves, but with a bit of effort, we do generally understand at least the gist of what another is expressing. This is true across languages as well as within a language. Or we learn each other’s languages. Or we settle on a common language, as is a central conceit in the “Riverworld” series of SF novels by Philip José Farmer.
Every human language, whether natural or designed, is based on the human experience on Earth. We are bipedal terrestrials. Think about the implications. We have hands. We see things from 1 to 2 metres above the ground, using binocular vision which we interpret as a three dimensional representation of the world. Our senses of smell, taste, and hearing are inferior to many other species. Even our vision has many internal compromises, allowing us (for example) to see a series of images as representing motion.
We communicate almost entirely via vision and sound. That vision is in less than a single octave range, a range in which our local star has peak emission. Our hearing has a much wider range, about 10 octaves at best. Our vocal range is limited to 3 octaves at best. We need technical instruments to sense or emit beyond those ranges. In short, without technical assistance we are blind, deaf, and dumb to most of what happens in the Universe.
Dolphins have a hearing range of about 12 octaves. Their vocal range is over 19 octaves! Their vision is primarily monocular, but they can co-ordinate for binocular vision. They see their world from any perspective that suits them, living in a 3 dimensional world as they do. They don’t have hands. What they do have is a brain that’s about 20% larger than ours. By most measures, they have every advantage over us limited humans. So why aren’t they putting humans in zoos instead of the current reality? They don’t have hands.
It’s quite clear that dolphins and other cetaceans have highly evolved social structures and most likely, advanced languages. And yet despite decades of research, we have no idea how to have a conversation with them. For all we know, they understand us perfectly but don’t wish to let us in on their secret.
Which takes us back to the title of this piece. If there are indeed aliens among us, as the UFOlogists claim, they would be obvious. Even if they evolved on a planet with 9.8 M/sec² gravity, even if they are terrestrial bipeds, even if they have hands or equivalent, even if they see and vocalize and hear in compatible ranges to us, they couldn’t possibly share our evolution and cultural influences. If they did, they would be us, not alien. Without all those commonalities, there could be no shared language or understanding. We can’t even talk to the other intelligent species on this planet (with minor exceptions in carefully managed situations with other primates) so how could an alien with no common background pass as human?
No, there are no aliens among us. We’re on our own.