Modern Incarnation of the Geocentric Solipsism

Modern Incarnation of the Geocentric Solipsism

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence – everywhere abbreviated SETI, except by those who talk somewhat more optimistically about communication with extraterrestrial intelligence CETI – is essentially an observing routine, the dull staple for which most of the facility had been built. But a quarter of the time you could be assured of using the most powerful array of radio telescopes on Earth for other projects. You have only to get through the boring part.

Astronomers are making extraordinary discoveries among the stars and galaxies, picking out those objects which, by whatever mechanism, generated intense radio waves. Other radio astronomers publish scientific papers, attend meetings, are uplifted by a sense of progress and purpose.

If we have accomplished so much in only a few thousand years of high technology, what must a truly advanced species be capable of? They should be able to move stars about, to reconfigure galaxies. Why haven’t we detected a radio signal by now? The answer is in. Neither in deepest space nor near the Earth has been there any sign of extraterrestrials. They do not exist.

No extraterrestrial civilizations anywhere? All those billions of worlds going to waste, lifeless, barren? Intelligent beings growing up only in this obscure corner of an incomprehensibly vast universe? Image by Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

We can ask ourselves about the Zoo Hypothesis, the contention that the extraterrestrials are out there all right but choose not to make their presence known, in order to conceal from humans the fact that there are other intelligent beings in the cosmos – in the same sense that a specialist in primate behavior might wish to observe a troop of chimpanzees in the buss but not interfere with their activities.

Is it likely that with a million civilisations in the Galaxy – the sort of is “bandied about” there would not be a single poacher? How does it come about that every civilization in the Galaxy abides by an ethic of non-interference? Is it probable that not one of them would be poking around on the Earth?