I was a philosophy major in university decades ago. Recently I got it in my head to create a rational framework by which humans might judge how best to interact with NHI. I don't have the brain for that, being a bit ADHD, and I refuse to offer this to AI so it can do its tiresome thing. I can however, present considerations I think will be important for developing such a framework, which - if first contact is indeed, as some profess, immanent - should be a priority. Here are my considerations, as simple as I can make them, so that better brains may extract what value they contain. 1) Human conduct toward other intelligent species/As Above So Below morality My departure point is how humans treat other intelligent species on Earth. I take anything that is roughly similar to a human as intelligent: Dogs, Elephants, Dolphins, whales, etc... We don't call such animals rational, but I agree with many who think that whales could be approaching human levels of intelligence. It's hard to know because they cannot manipulate their environment. What I want to look at is human treatment of animals that clearly have some conscious awareness of their world, and especially those which may have complex emotional responses to their world which is, in my opinion, most animals that are about our size, and possibly all animals. Scientists talk about humans anthropomorphizing animals, projecting emotions onto them, and somehow consider emotionless animals a more parsimonious proposition. I argue that the burden of proof is on those who contend animals are not thinking, emotional creatures. This discussion isn't irrelevant to this topic, but it is peripheral, and I'll leave it there. Karma/Human Action: I can't make an analytical case to prove that Karma exists, but I see it this way: How someone treats the world is how the world treats someone. Karma is action: it is ones patterns of action reverberating in the world and reflecting back. The quality of action creates the quality of the reality. I think of Human-NHI relations as being ethically informed by human karma, or how humans treat each other, the world, and the creatures around them. It makes sense for NHI to judge us based on how we interact with other intelligent species, or other species with comparable capacity to experience joy and suffering. How we interact with each other, and how we treat strange creatures is an indication of how we will treat NHI. As Above, So Below: This Hermetic axiom has always informed my thinking around this topic. I've generally been kind to all creatures, except for a very short time when I was a child. I feel intuitively like having this interaction with the world - helping creatures I encounter, treating them with compassion - increases the probability that my interaction with NHI will be of a positive nature. I don't know if there is a rational case to be made for this intuitive judgment, but I leave it here in case it proves a useful idea for reflection. 2) Humanity as a Whole vs. Humans as Individuals: It makes the most sense for an NHI to judge humanity as individuals rather than as a species. No matter how you divide humanity, whether on racial, cultural, religious, or gender lines, all groupings of humans are wildly heterogeneous. There is an infinity of difference even between identical twins. All generalizations about groups of people, while they may have some basis in similarity, inevitably collapse a world of differences into a simple, flawed, model of reality, resulting in endless prejudice among humans. Generalizations based on categorical judgements pertaining to groups of humans are therefore unlikely, in my opinion, to be used to differentiate between which humans might be safe to deal with and which ones might not be. It is more likely that NHI would deal with individuals based on their unique qualities. In the event that this is impossible, and some categorization is necessary to simplify processes, it stands to reason that NHI would categorize along lines of differentiation that are far subtler than the ones that humans use. Such gross distinctions as race, religion, and culture, for example, may be wholly irrelevant. 3) Uncertain Nature of NHI Traditional ethical concepts such as Utilitarianism (the greatest happiness to the greatest number), are based on the most fundamental assumptions we can make about humans. The question is can we make the same assumptions about NHI, or is it possible that NHI are so different from humans that we cannot possible make conjectures about common ground, no matter how fundamental? I think there may be some possibility. Adam Smith, J.S. Mill, Rand, and Hobbes, all thought it useful to consider humans as rationally self-interested. They would act in their own self-interest to achieve their maximum happiness, or maximum benefit. (This does not exclude acting in the interest of others if doing so increases your own happiness). There are competing concepts of fundamental human nature, and I'm not well-acquainted with them. But one counter-example to self-interest is Marx's idea that humans are creative, productive and collaborative. According to Marx, humans simply appear self-interested because they are within a capitalist system. From Rand's logic, one can simply reply that being creative, productive, and collaborative is what, for some, fulfils their self-interest to the highest possible extent. I'm getting distracted from my point. My point is it is difficult to extend a model of human relations to human-NHI relations unless the qualities that are most fundamental to all humans are also the qualities most fundamental to all thinking creatures. In any case, a universal theory of inter-species relations would have to be based on the latter. What are the most fundamental qualities of all thinking creatures? 4) Is Self-Interest Common to Humans and NHI? Following from the last section, it makes sense to me to ask whether rational self-interest or perhaps even just self-interest is universal to all thinking creatures. If virtue and selflessness can be categorized as forms of self-interest, is self-interest the most fundamental ethical quantum of subjective experience? And what else might be common to NHI and humans? Self-interest could be a useful starting point, because it does not presuppose that some parties will act for a common good. Some compassionate beings might view our happiness as their own happiness, might be devoted to a grand Utopian vision of the cosmos where peace and love pervade, whereas other groups or individuals might be wholly devoted to their own selfish interests no matter what the cost. In both cases, self-interest is the common denominator. But in the former case, it coincides with a collective interest. The question of an Alien Agenda is quite rightly preoccupied by whether our human interests might be served by interacting with NHI, or whether our interests might be completely irrelevant to NHI and therefore undermined by interacting with NHI. It is framed as "some are good, some are evil." It may be better framed as all are self-interested, and the interest of some NHI coincide with the interest of humanity. I'm not sure what to add to this discussion on potential commonality between NHI and Humanity. The question though is "what is so fundamental that it must be true of any thinking creature in this universe?" And perhaps, like self-interest, that is the place to start. The more detailed a picture we can get of what we humans must necessarily have in common with NHI, the more robust a framework we can develop. 5) The Impossibility of Knowing I think it was Chris Ramsey that I heard observe that it was impossible to know what the real agenda of any NHI is, simply because of how advanced they are beyond humanity. If an NHI is as mentally advanced as it is technologically advanced, then how are we to know whether we are being dealt with in good faith, or simply manipulated: comforted like a trusting dog that's about to be put down. This impossibility of knowing renders any subjective evaluation of NHI's intentions impossible. How do you know you're being dealt with in good faith, when your very matrix of perception and truth, your consciousness, could be manipulated at will by NHI? This circumstance almost suggests a kind of nihilistic submission to the will of NHI, whatever that will might be. 6) The Certainty of Human Duplicity We cannot know the intentions of NHI, nor can we know if they deal in good faith. By contrast, we do know that many of the organizations that act on our behalf have most certainly dealt in bad faith, have not been truthful, and have propelled the interests of an elite at the expense of a larger population whose interests they claimed to represent. For example, most of the military organizations mentioned by UAP Gerb could be said to be acting dishonestly and conducting operations using unethical, immoral practices, not the least of which is the intimidation of people who might expose what they are talking about. So does it make more sense to trust what you don't understand, and whose intentions you can never be sure of, or to trust an organization that you know for sure has maintained a culture that uses lying, intimidation, and deceit to achieve its aims? Here again, it is probably impossible to judge individuals based on the actions of the group. Still, the actions of a group are perhaps a sound basis to judge whether that group, taken as a whole, is trustworthy. If 9 times out of 10, a mining corporation leaves an environmental disaster behind whenever it finishes its operations, it's a good bet that when they move into your back yard, they're going to do exactly the same thing there. We may not know whether the intentions of certain NHI are good or bad from our perspective, because we have never observed their actions. But there are some human organizations and individuals that we can, with the right information, form a sound opinion of. Therefore, it might make sense to judge NHI by proxy, based on which human organizations they end up being allied with. Some Final Thoughts I don't have a framework, but these are the things that cross my mind frequently. I think for humanity to evolve, we need to reach beyond our presently very limited horizons. For many humans, deciding what is in our best interest just means considering where the biggest paycheck comes from or what's going to give us the quickest personal gratification. Expanding our horizons, to me, means universal compassion: compassion for all creatures terrestrial and other-worldly, compassion for all generations to come, and the refusal to accept an existence justified only by self-interested hedonism or provincial concerns. The broader our horizon of inclusion and compassion, the better a world we create for ourselves and for all the creatures of the universe. I'm going to end with my favorite Youtube video of all time. It is the rescue of a baby Humpback from the shores of Haida Gwaii. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF1I7hJ2rBM It shows me something of the reverence, love, and respect that the creatures in our unique world, including humans, truly deserve. This is the kind of humanity I want to be a part of. It's the kind of humanity that I hope our species can ultimately bring into the broader universe as we, perhaps some day soon, make contact with its smarter denizens. submitted by /u/Snoo_44409 [link] [comments]