Contact

SETI initiatives and other projects to search for intelligent life often assume they are looking for a single intelligent species–perhaps similar in some ways to our own–that has achieved mastery over their home planet. The modern global civilization views itself as separate from the biosphere, and as a result has continued a self-destructive pattern of increased consumption and growth. This civilization views itself as the masters of the world, the single most important and dominant species on the planet. Search for life initiatives implicitly assume any contact they make will likewise be a single “superior” species.

This notion is relatively recent, though, compared with the duration humans have existed on Earth. No species is an island, since life cannot exist outside of the community. Although the global human civilization views itself as separate from the community of life, this pattern of thought is ignorant and ultimately self-destructive. Likewise, any long-lived extraterrestrial intelligence (at least that resembles what we know in some way) will be part of a community of life. If we ever make contact, we will reach an entire community–not just a single species.