extraterrestrials

The discovery of nonhuman intelligent life elsewhere - or here - would matter only to the extent of reciprocity. Without reciprocity, the discovery would be informational, perhaps disinfect a few stubborn falsehoods, and certainly spawn a few new ones. In short, it would hardly matter. Reciprocity, if minimal or sporadic (or perhaps if localized), would matter in a manner that would track responsible theology. That would be a happy circumstance, in that it would render useful some of the best developed bodies of higher human effort, which religious theologies are. And it would be a happy circumstance, too, in that it would almost certainly elevate a sense of humanity and good action, in the manner of a religious awakening. There would be a (human) Jonathan Edwards. By 'in the manner' I mean that the elevation would be uneven and largely temporary, but with detectable leavening effects that would carry forward many generations with a utility comparable to Puritanism in New England. Whether the interaction was, in itself, good or bad, happy or unhappy, of course, is a matter of particulars. (That Puritanism's tenets were not so did not prevent Puritanism from being greatly useful, on balance. The thought that a mistaken or fraudulent minimal extraterrestrial reciprocity might be similarly useful, on balance, although not genuine, is interesting, but too risky to wish for because the fraudster could not be counted on to do the faking in a manner meant for the common good. Among the differences between cult founders and the beginnings of the higher religions is simply that cult foundings are reliably too deliberate and intended to be useful outcroppings for human development to encrust.)

Now, if the interaction were sustained and general, the effect would not be theological, but simply the end of what we have been, and the beginning of something as new as what we became upon gaining language.

It doesn't matter that, in actuality, all of this is surpassingly unlikely. The thought is itself interesting, since it considers one of the few really important alterations that could occur that is not annihilation or a functional equivalent.

Another, and more likely, important alteration would be a plague that very greatly reduced the human population. Such a plague would be more likely to benefit mankind after a too-terrible interval, than it would be to harm it. But the middle passage, and the not-too-unlikely alternative, that we would be worse off, perhaps worse off indefinitely, makes such a plague repugnant even as a thought experiment.

Yet another, and less likely, important alteration would be a sundering of humankind into parts that did not communicate, or that hardly communicated. This would almost surely be bad. Even that may be understating it -- this would be bad, absent very special, narrow and odd conditions. One of the most complete blunders of the Hebrew (and Christian) scriptures is the tower of Babel story, which casts segregation as the cure. There are ample examples in history of linguistic segregation and desegregation, and the results of such segregation are almost always bad, sometimes very bad, and of desegregation are almost always good, often very good.

The Babel story is one of the most factually falsifiable portions of the Bible. But that falsifiability should not overshadow the additional (not the only additional) defect I have just sketched: that the scattering "cure" is in fact a poor one. It is not even a corrective (good) punishment, only a cruel one, because calamitous and indecipherable.

Which brings insight to the extraterrestrial line of thought: the generalized good of ongoing interaction with extraterrestrials, were there any, would really be that of a sort of desegregation. That is why one can say that such interaction would be more likely to be good than bad without having to posit whether we or they are virtuous or vicious, brilliant or stupid, wise or shallow.