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What does it mean to be human?: Reflections on the portrayal of pain in interstellar messages
Acta Astronautica 68 (2011) 445 -- 450
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Acta Astronautica journal homepage: w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / a c t a a s t r o
What does it mean to be human?: Reflections on the portrayal of pain in interstellar messages Douglas A. Vakocha, b, ∗ a b
Department of Clinical Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute, 515 North Whisman Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
A R T I C L E
I N F O
Article history: Received 21 February 2009 Accepted 21 July 2009 Available online 15 August 2009 Keywords: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI Interstellar communication Interstellar messages Pain Suffering Embodiment Lincos Subjectivity
A B S T R A C T
If there is any way that humankind is unique in the galaxy, perhaps it is insofar as on Earth, our joys and our pains are so exquisitely balanced. If pain is an obstacle that has been overcome by more advanced extraterrestrial civilizations long ago, then our descriptions of our suffering may significantly contribute to other civilizations' understanding of our species and our culture. By drawing on some of the same methods Freudenthal uses in Lincos to describe the physical universe, we can also provide detailed descriptions of our bodies. Portraying ourselves as embodied and vulnerable, we might provide outward signs of our inward distress. In addition, the link between the physical and the subjective experiences of pain provides a vehicle to address one of the greatest challenges of interstellar communication: explaining human subjectivity. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), astronomers point sophisticated telescopes toward the stars, hoping to detect evidence of other civilizations. On statistical grounds, if SETI succeeds, then it is very likely that any civilization we discover will be much older than our own. It may be, as some skeptics argue, that the typical civilization has the capacity to communicate using radio waves or brief laser pulses for only a few decades before it destroys itself—or loses interest in interstellar discourse. If that is the case, however, then it is very unlikely that any two civilizations will happen to exist at almost the same small slice of time in the billions of years our galaxy has existed. The only ∗ Corresponding author at: Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute, 515 North Whisman Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Tel.: +1 650 960 4514, +1 415 575 6244; fax: +1 650 968 5830, +1 415 575 1266. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (D.A. Vakoch). 0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.07.014
way we are likely to detect extraterrestrial intelligence is if alien civilizations are much older than we are. One of the implications of this is that pain and suffering may be especially interesting topics for us to discuss in any interstellar messages we might send them. To be clear, current SETI programs only listen for signals from other civilizations, rather than transmit. One reason we hold out hope of older civilizations transmitting is because they will presumably be more capable, and it is much more costly to transmit than to listen. “Besides”, many have argued, “what could a young civilization possibly have to offer in an intellectual exchange across interstellar space?” Surely advanced aliens would have little to gain from our understanding of astronomy or physics, chemistry or mathematics. What then might we say to hold up our end of an interstellar conversation? One of our natural tendencies, when we make contact with strangers, is to try to impress them. Many advocate doing the same in our first messages to intelligence beyond Earth. Physician Thomas [1] suggests that if we want to
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impress an alien civilization, we should send “Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again” (p. 45). Perhaps more impressive to an advanced civilization, however, would be a more balanced presentation that honestly reflects our foibles, our weaknesses, and perhaps even our pain and suffering. 2. The promise of pain In rare instances, people have transmitted intentional messages to potential extraterrestrial intelligence, more as a demonstration that this is feasible, rather than as part of a concerted, longstanding program in interstellar communication. In these few messages, the depiction of humankind has been uniformly positive. Absent are any references to pain, disease, or poverty [2]. And yet, those are exactly the sort of topics that may be of greatest interest to advanced civilizations on other worlds. If the purpose of interstellar communication is to convey material never known or long since forgotten by the recipient, then a discussion of terrestrial pain may be an important part of our transmissions. If pain is an obstacle that has been overcome by more advanced civilizations, then our descriptions of our suffering may significantly contribute to other civilizations' understanding of our species and our culture. And if they overcame such experiences themselves long ago, our messages might be a reminder of the earlier stages of their own civilizations. In addition, by drawing a link between the physical and the subjective experiences of pain, we have a means to take up one of the greatest challenges of interstellar communication: explaining human subjectivity. But is not pain such a small part of ourselves that an interstellar message mentioning it would provide a skewed sense of who we are? Indeed, any particular topic could well be addressed along with many other topics as a part of a wideranging message. But at this stage, we may benefit more by concentrating on constructing a few portions of a more comprehensive interstellar message, than by trying in our first drafts to encompass everything. We are looking, therefore, not for the best possible message we might send, but for aspects of messages that will challenge us to express some significant parts of ourselves, and to help us elucidate the more general process of creating messages that may plausibly be understood by independently evolved civilizations—all under the constraint of no direct contact, over timescales of centuries or millennia. 3. Intergalactic screams In contemplating messages that could convey notions of pain across vast interstellar distances, very fittingly, we take part in an activity that reflects the inherent distancing nature of pain. Appropriately for such an undertaking, Scarry [3] reminds us that pain “may seem as distant as the interstellar events referred to by scientists who speak to us mysteriously of not yet detectable intergalactic screams . . . ” (p. 3). Indeed, such immense distances have been used to express something about the separateness that pain elicits. “The very temptation to invoke analogies to remote cosmologies (and there is a long tradition of such analogies) is itself a sign of
pain's triumph”, she writes, “for it achieves its aversiveness in part by bringing about, even within the radius of several feet, this absolute split between one's sense of one's own reality and the reality of other persons” (p. 4). The distancing effect of pain takes several forms. At one level, the distancing is an attempt to remove oneself mentally from the intensity of suffering. “Even if we had a theory about pain which allowed us to accept it intellectually, as when we call to mind the evolutionary advantage of being able to feel pain, or understand pain to be a warning of something gone wrong in the body, or when we consider pain to be an acceptable part of God's plan for humanity”, van Hooft [4] observes, “we still feel it in its immediacy as unpleasant” (p. 256). As a result, we attempt to withdraw from this unpleasant feeling, viewing the pain as an object to be analyzed. “To overcome this feeling and to accept it or even feel blessed because of it requires that one objectifies the pain to some degree . . . . It requires that I place a little distance between myself and my pain so as to frame it in an intellectual construct” (p. 256). While such efforts may succeed when the pain can be separated from one's sense of self, this is not always possible. “[T]o the degree that the pain is mine in an immediate and felt way, it cannot but be unpleasant and unwelcome. My body recoils from it” (p. 256). In a phenomenological study of chronic pain, Thomas [5] confirms this ability of pain to “reset [the sufferer's] interpersonal parameters, creating separation and distance from the world and other people, even family members” (p. 692). Among the examples of such isolation that she heard from her study's participants were “`Pain separates you. It's really hard to be involved with people when you're in pain'. `I feel like I'm on this little island all by myself'. `My life is pulled in to where I have very little contact with anybody'. `I am absolutely alone'” (p. 692). A similar theme is identified by ¨ ¨ Ohman, Soderberg and Lundman [6] in their study of chronically ill individuals: “The feeling of being lonely in the illness and that nobody could share or take this feeling away was intensified during the night, when pain and uneasiness kept him or her awake and isolated them from other people” (p. 535). When translated to a galactic scale, we might expect the human experience of pain to incline us to withdraw from discourse with extraterrestrial civilizations—to attend to our own pressing needs, rather than to open up a channel of communication with strangers who may not understand our experience at all. As van Hooft [4] observes, “persons in pain withdraw into themselves. For them, in proportion to the severity of their pain, their world reduces to their own isolated reality” (p. 259).
4. The certainty of pain Though it may be desirable to talk about pain in interstellar messages, is it possible? Can we realistically hope to convey such an idea to an independently evolved civilization? In attempting to establish a universal language, one approach is to start with general principles that will be readily recognizable—or so one hopes—to any civilization capable
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Fig. 1. Visitors to the SETI Institute's Earth Speaks website are greeted with a world map, with pushpins linking messages to their city of origin. By “zooming in” on the interactive map, visitors can scan through messages from any part of the world that interests them. This screen shot shows a concise message from a contributor in Australia: “help”. (From the Earth Speaks website, http://earthspeaks.seti.org.)
of interstellar communication. For example, any civilizations able to build radio telescopes and transmitters, it has often been argued, will surely share with us at least some basic principles of mathematics and physics. Once these basic principles are recognized—through a multitude of examples, beginning with such basics as counting and arithmetic—a complex language for conveying even quite sophisticated notions of mathematics and science might be created. This approach is reminiscent of Descartes' [7] second rule for the direction of the mind: “We must occupy ourselves with those objects that our intellectual powers appear competent to know certainly and indubitably” (p. 153). The key, of course, is to identify what will be universally recognized. But would the truths that seem obvious on our world—supposing we can agree amongst ourselves what those truths are—necessarily be true on other worlds? Must human and extraterrestrial technologies—even if they are sufficiently similar to allow the civilizations that created them to interact—necessarily be based on the same conceptualizations of mathematics and science? Might the experience of pain be as good an a priori truth for interstellar communication as the fact that 2+2 = 4? As Scarry [3] points out, pain brings with it a sense of both certainty and doubt: “For the person in pain, so incontestably and unnegotiably present is it that `having pain' may come to be thought of as the most vibrant example of what it is to `have certainty,' while for the other person it is so elusive that `hearing about pain' may exist as the primary model of what it is `to have a doubt'. Thus pain comes unsharably into our midst as at once that which cannot be denied and that which cannot be confirmed” (p. 4). As we seek analogies for understanding alien civilizations, a similar doubt arises as to our ability to understand
any experience of an interstellar interlocutor, evolved independently in an environment that could be quite different from Earth, with its own unique biology, history, and culture. Indeed, could humans and extraterrestrials even be aware of the existence of the full range of the other species' experience. Might we not, rather, be in a position of the chronic sufferer whose pain remains invisible to others? “Despite the profound changes in their bodies”, Thomas [5] notes, “study participants ruefully acknowledged that the chronic pain was not readily apparent to other people. Chronic pain was invisible, a `secret disorder' with no outward manifestations” (p. 691). While it may be important for sufferers to express their pain, they may not feel capable of doing so adequately to convey their full experience. In a recent phenomenological study of adolescents and young adults with cerebral palsy, Castle, Imms, and Howie [8] observe that “[p]articipants felt fortunate that they were able to talk about their pain . . . . However, they found it impossible to describe their pain in all its intensity to those who did not experience it” (p. 447). By focusing on pain, then, we shift our search for certainty from that which will be certain to the receiver of a message to that which is certain to the sender. The burden of understanding is cast onto the recipient of the message, to guess or recognize what will be central to the sender's concerns. Indeed, astronomer Heidmann [9] suggests that we should place the onus of translation on extraterrestrial civilizations, sending an encyclopedia that might be decoded by a sufficiently advanced intelligence. This shifting of responsibility to the other is evident in Rao's [10] description of self-mutilation as a means of showing distress to others. In a study of women who cut themselves to deal with emotional pain, Rao notes that these
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Fig. 2. Each message submitted to Earth Speaks is labeled with one or more tags. A frequently used tag among early submissions to this online project is “help”. (From the Earth Speaks website, http://earthspeaks.seti.org.)
actions can be a means of reaching out to others for help: “What is the significance of cutting one's arms, given that the space encompassing one's arm is the space of social action? . . . Cutting is a way of extending one's arm to bridge the gap of separateness. It is an extension of one's cut arm for assistance” (p. 48). Similar motivations of reaching out to extraterrestrial intelligence for help are evident in the SETI Institute's new project, Earth Speaks, which gathers messages from around the world that people would want to communicate to an extraterrestrial civilization (see Fig. 1). One contributor, for example, submitted the message “Please help save our planet, Earth. Some of our species are destroying it and the rest of us cannot stop them” (see Fig. 2). Including pain as a topic in interstellar messages might well be unpopular among humans responsible for deciding on the content. Some would argue that we should not reveal any of our weaknesses, lest malevolent aliens should decide to exploit us. Instead, these people might argue, we should project a confident image of strength. Heidmann [9], however, doubts that such a censored message would be convincing to extraterrestrials: “Statistically our ET correspondents should be much more educated than we are; then it seems worthless, for instance, to try to hide some of our `bad' aspects by omitting [sic] to transmit them; they would show anyway”! (p. 234). If so, he argues, it is better to acknowledge honestly our limitations ourselves. 5. The limits of language The challenge of communicating about a hidden state of suffering, using only language, has long been recognized. As Scarry [3] describes the incommunicability of suffering, “Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively
destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and cries a human being makes before language is learned” (p. 4). As we consider ways to get around the partially ineffable nature of pain, we have an analogy that is useful to keep in mind for interstellar communication as well: when unable to communicate through the langue of discursive reason, consider other methods of communication. Physician Vass [11] describes his reaction to a collection of visual artwork created by patients in pain, who were often frustrated by being unable to communicate verbally their experiences of pain to their own physicians. “Viewing the pictures was a numbing and uncomfortable experience for me”, Vass writes. “As doctors we are taught to take histories, but the history and reality contained in some of the photos was almost too much to handle”. His initial inclination was to flee: “Faced with something too hard to understand and to which I felt I had no answer, I wanted to shut off”. Whether it is a testament to the artwork or to Vass's openness as a physician, he did not turn away: “[S]omehow these pictures wouldn't let me. Perhaps it was something to do with the courage that must have taken to create them, but I found it impossible to turn away as the profession has turned away from such people in the past” (p. 1162) 6. The embodiment of pain As we consider how we might communicate human experiences of pain to another civilization, one of the most salient characteristics of our species is our embodiedness. “Human beings are creatures of the flesh”, Watson and de Bruin [12] remind us. “Primarily, our experiences and how we make sense of what we experience is dependent upon the kinds of bodies we have and also on the ways in which
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we interact with the various environments we inhabit. It is through our embodied interactions that we inhabit a world, and it is through our bodies that we are able to understand and act within this world with varying degrees of success...” (p. 352). Although some have suggested that the advanced civilizations we are most likely to detect through SETI will be based on artificial intelligence, nevertheless the fact that we are able to make contact with them somehow requires that they have a means of relating to the material world. Though extraterrestrial intelligence may be markedly different from that of Homo sapiens [13–15], nevertheless they should anticipate that other intelligent species will be biologically embodied, or at least have arisen from evolved biological entities. The body when it functions well, however, is often invisible. “In most accounts of healthy individuals, the body is `silent', very quietly performing its functions without compelling moment-to-moment awareness”, Thomas [5] reminds us (p. 689). Just the opposite is the case for those who suffer. “The lived experience of the chronic pain patient stands in dramatic contrast: He or she is exquisitely and perpetually aware of the body. Within the body is housed the pain, which has become the most salient aspect of daily existence” (p. 690). Insofar as we wish to describe aspects of ourselves that provide a bridge between our subjective experiences and the external world, pain serves as a good prototype. As Scarry [3] notes, the corporeal nature of pain also provides a starting point for describing the active role that humans take in constructing their broader social and material worlds as extensions of and surrogates for their bodies: “When, for example, the woven gauze of the bandage is placed over an open wound, it is immediately apparent that its delicate fibers mime and substitute for the missing skin, just as in less drastic circumstances the same weave of threads (called now `clothing' rather than `bandage', though their kinship is verbally registered in the words `dress' and `dressing') will continue to duplicate and magnify the protective work of the skin . . . ” (p. 282). Such an overt sign of self-care as the bandage can be a manifestation of self-caring even in the seemingly paradoxical case of self-mutilation: “Cutting is a phenomenon in which life prevails over death. It is a paradoxical attempt at healing”, Rao [10] tells us. “[C]reating a wound is experienced as pasting, sewing, or mending. Taking care of herself is somewhat new to the cutter; she tends to put the wellbeing of others before that of herself. Still, she is proficient in the art of attending to self-inflicted wounds—before bandaging she may apply pressure or painlessly disinfect the gashes” (p. 53). As one example of an interstellar language that might bridge the gap between the subjective and the physical, consider Lingua Cosmica, or Lincos, by the Dutch mathematician Freudenthal [16]. After an exposition of mathematical concepts, Freudenthal then moves to a discussion of time, and then human behavior. Only after he describes the interactions between people through brief stories does he go on to discuss notions of space, motion, and mass. In effect, he portrays humans as disembodied “ghosts”, beings living in time
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Fig. 3. The fragility of the human body can be shown through interstellar messages created using three-dimensional animation and motion capture technologies. (From Douglas A. Vakoch's series of interstellar messages “Der Schwerkraft ausgeliefert: Eine interstellare Komposition”, (bound by gravity: an interstellar composition). In All Design—Leben im schwerelosen Raum (Space Design—life in zero gravity). Group exhibition held at the ¨ Gestaltung, Zurich, ¨ Museum fur Switzerland, October 27, 2001–March 3, 2002.)
but not space. By expanding these stories to emphasize the specifically corporeal nature of human beings, however, one could make use of narrative's ability to capture important elements of the experience of pain [17,18]. Even an interstellar language that emphasizes a behavioristic, rationalistic, mechanistic description of human interactions might provide a foundation for conveying aspects of the subjective experience of being human, including the experience of pain. By drawing on some of the same methods Freudenthal uses to describe the physical universe, we can also provide detailed descriptions of our bodies [19]. By portraying ourselves as embodied and vulnerable (see Fig. 3), we might provide outward signs of our inward distress. Through a physicalistic description of our bodies, we might convey something of the interiority of our pain. One approach would be to depict objects that break the boundary between the body and the world, showing weapons inflicting wounds. “As an actual physical fact”, Scarry [3] writes, “a weapon is an object that goes into the body and produces pain; as a perceptual fact, it can lift pain and its attributes out of the body and make them visible”. Such an approach may not just be convenient for describing pain. Something like it may be necessary: “The point here is not just the pain can be apprehended in the image of the weapon (or wound) but that it almost cannot be apprehended without it...” (p. 16). As Rao [10] observes, “The wound and the scar are representations of, and testament to, the pain that the individual has endured” (p. 54). Sometimes, these physical manifestation of pain are actively resisted by the sufferer. Thomas [5] reports that “ . . . a
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woman whose arm was in a sling—who conceivably might have welcomed the device as a badge of legitimacy—actually resented the attention it garnered: `I just want to wear a sign that says, “Please don't ask”'” (p. 691). In other cases, just the opposite occurs, as sufferers actively attempt to convey their pain to others. At one level, this is similar to the author's previous proposal for interstellar messages that show humans pointing either to abstract objects such as geometrical shapes or to parts of the human body as if they were simply three-dimensional objects [19]. Aspects of Rao's analysis could equally apply to all such attempts to communicate through ostention, or pointing. ““Pointing is `a social gesture'”, Rao [10] says, “that calls others to share one's view. The act of pointing often draws its significance from an other who is there, at least symbolically”. But this particular case of a self-revelation of suffering goes far beyond that, making reference to a world and other people in it who have earlier inflicted pain on the one who now expresses this pain simultaneously inwardly and outwardly: “By cutting herself, the self-cutter points to a world of repeated mistreatment, shameful isolation, agitated anger, and unbearable sadness” (p. 55). 7. Conclusion As we have seen, not only does pain isolate the sufferer from others, but it can also compel a reaching outward. “Contrary to the often repeated contention that pain is silent, incommunicable, and destructive of language”, van Hooft [4] contends “ . . . that pain is an eloquent amplification of the intersubjective rapport which human beings naturally establish between themselves. Pain not only causes sufferers to become preoccupied but also leads them to seek help from others. Pain amplifies and intensifies the interpersonal appeal that exists between people who engage in genuine encounter . . . . It intensifies it because, along with the lure of mystery and infinity which each person presents to another in encounter, pain highlights the vulnerability and finitude of each one of us. It is from this finitude that we reach out to each other and it is because of this finitude that we embrace one another in rapport” (p. 261). As Råholm and Lindholm [20] observe, “Suffering develops a human being's ontological awareness. In it one sees the relationship that brings people closer to each other” (p. 536). “Bearing witness to suffering”, Eifried [21] explains, provides an opening “to a relationship with the Other” (p. 67). As we attempt to make contact with alien forms of intelligence on other worlds, in the end, this openness may be the most critical factor in whether or not we succeed. The description we provide of ourselves may be intriguing and informative to civilizations far older than our own. Perhaps just as importantly, a portrayal of the breadth of human experience—including our pain—would let us reflect more deeply on our relationship with others already inhabiting our own world.
Acknowledgments The author gratefully acknowledges the following support of this research: President Joseph Subbiondo, Academic Vice President Judie Wexler, and Clinical Psychology Department Chair Katie McGovern of the California Institute of Integral Studies for sabbatical and ongoing research leaves; CEO Thomas Pierson and Director of SETI Research Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute for support of research on SETI and Society; Chris Neller of the SETI Institute for administrative support; and Jamie Baswell, as well as Harry and Joyce Letaw, for financial support through the SETI Institute's Adopt a Scientist program. References [1] L. Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, Penguin Books, New York, 1978. [2] J. Lomberg, Pictures of Earth, in: C. Sagan (Ed.), Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, Ballentine Books, New York, 1978, pp. 71–116. [3] E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985 p. 3. [4] S. van Hooft, Pain and communication, Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy 6 (2003) 255–262. [5] S.P. Thomas, A phenomenologic study of chronic pain, Western Journal of Nursing Research 22 (2000) 683–705. ¨ ¨ [6] M. Ohman, S. Soderberg, B. Lundman, Hovering between suffering and enduring: the meaning of living with serious chronic illness, Qualitative Health Research 13 (2003) 528–542. [7] R. Descartes, Philosophical Writings, Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, Indianapolis, 1971. [8] K. Castle, C. Imms, L. Howie, Being in pain: a phenomenological study of young people with cerebral palsy, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 49 (2007) 445–449. [9] J. Heidmann, A reply from Earth: just send them the encyclopaedia, Acta Astronautica 29 (1993) 233–235. [10] R. Rao, Wounding to heal: the role of the body in self-cutting, Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2006) 45–58. [11] A. Vass, Finding a visual language for pain, British Medical Journal 324 (2002) 1162. [12] T. Watson, G.P. de Bruin, Impact of cutaneous disease on the selfconcept: an existential-phenomenological study of men and women with psoriasis, Dermatology Nursing 19 (2007) 351–364. [13] G.G. Simpson, The nonprevalence of humanoids, Science 143 (1964) 769–775. [14] G.G. Simpson, Some cosmic aspects of organic evolution, in: G. Kurth (Ed.), Evolution und Hominisation, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1962, pp. 6–20. [15] D. Jonas, D. Jonas, Other Senses, Other Worlds, Stein and Day, New York, 1976. [16] H. Freudenthal, Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part I, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1960. ¨ [17] J. Ohlen, Evocation of meaning through poetic condensation of narratives in empirical phenomenological inquiry into human suffering, Qualitative Health Research 13 (2003) 557–566. [18] W.H. Wandless, Narrative pain and the moral sense: toward an ethics of suffering in the long eighteenth century, Literature and Medicine 24 (2005) 51–69. [19] D.A. Vakoch, Three-dimensional messages for interstellar communication, in: G.A. Lemarchand, K. Meech (Eds.), Bioastronomy 99: A New Era in Bioastronomy, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, 2000, pp. 623–627. [20] M.-B. Råholm, L. Lindholm, Being in the world of the suffering patient: a challenge to nursing ethics, Nursing Ethics 6 (1999) 528–539. [21] S. Eifried, Bearing witness to suffering: the lived experience of nursing students, Journal of Nursing Education 42 (2003) 59–67.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Acta Astronautica journal homepage: w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / a c t a a s t r o
What does it mean to be human?: Reflections on the portrayal of pain in interstellar messages Douglas A. Vakocha, b, ∗ a b
Department of Clinical Psychology, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute, 515 North Whisman Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
A R T I C L E
I N F O
Article history: Received 21 February 2009 Accepted 21 July 2009 Available online 15 August 2009 Keywords: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SETI Interstellar communication Interstellar messages Pain Suffering Embodiment Lincos Subjectivity
A B S T R A C T
If there is any way that humankind is unique in the galaxy, perhaps it is insofar as on Earth, our joys and our pains are so exquisitely balanced. If pain is an obstacle that has been overcome by more advanced extraterrestrial civilizations long ago, then our descriptions of our suffering may significantly contribute to other civilizations' understanding of our species and our culture. By drawing on some of the same methods Freudenthal uses in Lincos to describe the physical universe, we can also provide detailed descriptions of our bodies. Portraying ourselves as embodied and vulnerable, we might provide outward signs of our inward distress. In addition, the link between the physical and the subjective experiences of pain provides a vehicle to address one of the greatest challenges of interstellar communication: explaining human subjectivity. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction In the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), astronomers point sophisticated telescopes toward the stars, hoping to detect evidence of other civilizations. On statistical grounds, if SETI succeeds, then it is very likely that any civilization we discover will be much older than our own. It may be, as some skeptics argue, that the typical civilization has the capacity to communicate using radio waves or brief laser pulses for only a few decades before it destroys itself—or loses interest in interstellar discourse. If that is the case, however, then it is very unlikely that any two civilizations will happen to exist at almost the same small slice of time in the billions of years our galaxy has existed. The only ∗ Corresponding author at: Center for SETI Research, SETI Institute, 515 North Whisman Road, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Tel.: +1 650 960 4514, +1 415 575 6244; fax: +1 650 968 5830, +1 415 575 1266. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (D.A. Vakoch). 0094-5765/$ - see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.07.014
way we are likely to detect extraterrestrial intelligence is if alien civilizations are much older than we are. One of the implications of this is that pain and suffering may be especially interesting topics for us to discuss in any interstellar messages we might send them. To be clear, current SETI programs only listen for signals from other civilizations, rather than transmit. One reason we hold out hope of older civilizations transmitting is because they will presumably be more capable, and it is much more costly to transmit than to listen. “Besides”, many have argued, “what could a young civilization possibly have to offer in an intellectual exchange across interstellar space?” Surely advanced aliens would have little to gain from our understanding of astronomy or physics, chemistry or mathematics. What then might we say to hold up our end of an interstellar conversation? One of our natural tendencies, when we make contact with strangers, is to try to impress them. Many advocate doing the same in our first messages to intelligence beyond Earth. Physician Thomas [1] suggests that if we want to
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impress an alien civilization, we should send “Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space, over and over again” (p. 45). Perhaps more impressive to an advanced civilization, however, would be a more balanced presentation that honestly reflects our foibles, our weaknesses, and perhaps even our pain and suffering. 2. The promise of pain In rare instances, people have transmitted intentional messages to potential extraterrestrial intelligence, more as a demonstration that this is feasible, rather than as part of a concerted, longstanding program in interstellar communication. In these few messages, the depiction of humankind has been uniformly positive. Absent are any references to pain, disease, or poverty [2]. And yet, those are exactly the sort of topics that may be of greatest interest to advanced civilizations on other worlds. If the purpose of interstellar communication is to convey material never known or long since forgotten by the recipient, then a discussion of terrestrial pain may be an important part of our transmissions. If pain is an obstacle that has been overcome by more advanced civilizations, then our descriptions of our suffering may significantly contribute to other civilizations' understanding of our species and our culture. And if they overcame such experiences themselves long ago, our messages might be a reminder of the earlier stages of their own civilizations. In addition, by drawing a link between the physical and the subjective experiences of pain, we have a means to take up one of the greatest challenges of interstellar communication: explaining human subjectivity. But is not pain such a small part of ourselves that an interstellar message mentioning it would provide a skewed sense of who we are? Indeed, any particular topic could well be addressed along with many other topics as a part of a wideranging message. But at this stage, we may benefit more by concentrating on constructing a few portions of a more comprehensive interstellar message, than by trying in our first drafts to encompass everything. We are looking, therefore, not for the best possible message we might send, but for aspects of messages that will challenge us to express some significant parts of ourselves, and to help us elucidate the more general process of creating messages that may plausibly be understood by independently evolved civilizations—all under the constraint of no direct contact, over timescales of centuries or millennia. 3. Intergalactic screams In contemplating messages that could convey notions of pain across vast interstellar distances, very fittingly, we take part in an activity that reflects the inherent distancing nature of pain. Appropriately for such an undertaking, Scarry [3] reminds us that pain “may seem as distant as the interstellar events referred to by scientists who speak to us mysteriously of not yet detectable intergalactic screams . . . ” (p. 3). Indeed, such immense distances have been used to express something about the separateness that pain elicits. “The very temptation to invoke analogies to remote cosmologies (and there is a long tradition of such analogies) is itself a sign of
pain's triumph”, she writes, “for it achieves its aversiveness in part by bringing about, even within the radius of several feet, this absolute split between one's sense of one's own reality and the reality of other persons” (p. 4). The distancing effect of pain takes several forms. At one level, the distancing is an attempt to remove oneself mentally from the intensity of suffering. “Even if we had a theory about pain which allowed us to accept it intellectually, as when we call to mind the evolutionary advantage of being able to feel pain, or understand pain to be a warning of something gone wrong in the body, or when we consider pain to be an acceptable part of God's plan for humanity”, van Hooft [4] observes, “we still feel it in its immediacy as unpleasant” (p. 256). As a result, we attempt to withdraw from this unpleasant feeling, viewing the pain as an object to be analyzed. “To overcome this feeling and to accept it or even feel blessed because of it requires that one objectifies the pain to some degree . . . . It requires that I place a little distance between myself and my pain so as to frame it in an intellectual construct” (p. 256). While such efforts may succeed when the pain can be separated from one's sense of self, this is not always possible. “[T]o the degree that the pain is mine in an immediate and felt way, it cannot but be unpleasant and unwelcome. My body recoils from it” (p. 256). In a phenomenological study of chronic pain, Thomas [5] confirms this ability of pain to “reset [the sufferer's] interpersonal parameters, creating separation and distance from the world and other people, even family members” (p. 692). Among the examples of such isolation that she heard from her study's participants were “`Pain separates you. It's really hard to be involved with people when you're in pain'. `I feel like I'm on this little island all by myself'. `My life is pulled in to where I have very little contact with anybody'. `I am absolutely alone'” (p. 692). A similar theme is identified by ¨ ¨ Ohman, Soderberg and Lundman [6] in their study of chronically ill individuals: “The feeling of being lonely in the illness and that nobody could share or take this feeling away was intensified during the night, when pain and uneasiness kept him or her awake and isolated them from other people” (p. 535). When translated to a galactic scale, we might expect the human experience of pain to incline us to withdraw from discourse with extraterrestrial civilizations—to attend to our own pressing needs, rather than to open up a channel of communication with strangers who may not understand our experience at all. As van Hooft [4] observes, “persons in pain withdraw into themselves. For them, in proportion to the severity of their pain, their world reduces to their own isolated reality” (p. 259).
4. The certainty of pain Though it may be desirable to talk about pain in interstellar messages, is it possible? Can we realistically hope to convey such an idea to an independently evolved civilization? In attempting to establish a universal language, one approach is to start with general principles that will be readily recognizable—or so one hopes—to any civilization capable
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Fig. 1. Visitors to the SETI Institute's Earth Speaks website are greeted with a world map, with pushpins linking messages to their city of origin. By “zooming in” on the interactive map, visitors can scan through messages from any part of the world that interests them. This screen shot shows a concise message from a contributor in Australia: “help”. (From the Earth Speaks website, http://earthspeaks.seti.org.)
of interstellar communication. For example, any civilizations able to build radio telescopes and transmitters, it has often been argued, will surely share with us at least some basic principles of mathematics and physics. Once these basic principles are recognized—through a multitude of examples, beginning with such basics as counting and arithmetic—a complex language for conveying even quite sophisticated notions of mathematics and science might be created. This approach is reminiscent of Descartes' [7] second rule for the direction of the mind: “We must occupy ourselves with those objects that our intellectual powers appear competent to know certainly and indubitably” (p. 153). The key, of course, is to identify what will be universally recognized. But would the truths that seem obvious on our world—supposing we can agree amongst ourselves what those truths are—necessarily be true on other worlds? Must human and extraterrestrial technologies—even if they are sufficiently similar to allow the civilizations that created them to interact—necessarily be based on the same conceptualizations of mathematics and science? Might the experience of pain be as good an a priori truth for interstellar communication as the fact that 2+2 = 4? As Scarry [3] points out, pain brings with it a sense of both certainty and doubt: “For the person in pain, so incontestably and unnegotiably present is it that `having pain' may come to be thought of as the most vibrant example of what it is to `have certainty,' while for the other person it is so elusive that `hearing about pain' may exist as the primary model of what it is `to have a doubt'. Thus pain comes unsharably into our midst as at once that which cannot be denied and that which cannot be confirmed” (p. 4). As we seek analogies for understanding alien civilizations, a similar doubt arises as to our ability to understand
any experience of an interstellar interlocutor, evolved independently in an environment that could be quite different from Earth, with its own unique biology, history, and culture. Indeed, could humans and extraterrestrials even be aware of the existence of the full range of the other species' experience. Might we not, rather, be in a position of the chronic sufferer whose pain remains invisible to others? “Despite the profound changes in their bodies”, Thomas [5] notes, “study participants ruefully acknowledged that the chronic pain was not readily apparent to other people. Chronic pain was invisible, a `secret disorder' with no outward manifestations” (p. 691). While it may be important for sufferers to express their pain, they may not feel capable of doing so adequately to convey their full experience. In a recent phenomenological study of adolescents and young adults with cerebral palsy, Castle, Imms, and Howie [8] observe that “[p]articipants felt fortunate that they were able to talk about their pain . . . . However, they found it impossible to describe their pain in all its intensity to those who did not experience it” (p. 447). By focusing on pain, then, we shift our search for certainty from that which will be certain to the receiver of a message to that which is certain to the sender. The burden of understanding is cast onto the recipient of the message, to guess or recognize what will be central to the sender's concerns. Indeed, astronomer Heidmann [9] suggests that we should place the onus of translation on extraterrestrial civilizations, sending an encyclopedia that might be decoded by a sufficiently advanced intelligence. This shifting of responsibility to the other is evident in Rao's [10] description of self-mutilation as a means of showing distress to others. In a study of women who cut themselves to deal with emotional pain, Rao notes that these
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Fig. 2. Each message submitted to Earth Speaks is labeled with one or more tags. A frequently used tag among early submissions to this online project is “help”. (From the Earth Speaks website, http://earthspeaks.seti.org.)
actions can be a means of reaching out to others for help: “What is the significance of cutting one's arms, given that the space encompassing one's arm is the space of social action? . . . Cutting is a way of extending one's arm to bridge the gap of separateness. It is an extension of one's cut arm for assistance” (p. 48). Similar motivations of reaching out to extraterrestrial intelligence for help are evident in the SETI Institute's new project, Earth Speaks, which gathers messages from around the world that people would want to communicate to an extraterrestrial civilization (see Fig. 1). One contributor, for example, submitted the message “Please help save our planet, Earth. Some of our species are destroying it and the rest of us cannot stop them” (see Fig. 2). Including pain as a topic in interstellar messages might well be unpopular among humans responsible for deciding on the content. Some would argue that we should not reveal any of our weaknesses, lest malevolent aliens should decide to exploit us. Instead, these people might argue, we should project a confident image of strength. Heidmann [9], however, doubts that such a censored message would be convincing to extraterrestrials: “Statistically our ET correspondents should be much more educated than we are; then it seems worthless, for instance, to try to hide some of our `bad' aspects by omitting [sic] to transmit them; they would show anyway”! (p. 234). If so, he argues, it is better to acknowledge honestly our limitations ourselves. 5. The limits of language The challenge of communicating about a hidden state of suffering, using only language, has long been recognized. As Scarry [3] describes the incommunicability of suffering, “Physical pain does not simply resist language but actively
destroys it, bringing about an immediate reversion to a state anterior to language, to the sounds and cries a human being makes before language is learned” (p. 4). As we consider ways to get around the partially ineffable nature of pain, we have an analogy that is useful to keep in mind for interstellar communication as well: when unable to communicate through the langue of discursive reason, consider other methods of communication. Physician Vass [11] describes his reaction to a collection of visual artwork created by patients in pain, who were often frustrated by being unable to communicate verbally their experiences of pain to their own physicians. “Viewing the pictures was a numbing and uncomfortable experience for me”, Vass writes. “As doctors we are taught to take histories, but the history and reality contained in some of the photos was almost too much to handle”. His initial inclination was to flee: “Faced with something too hard to understand and to which I felt I had no answer, I wanted to shut off”. Whether it is a testament to the artwork or to Vass's openness as a physician, he did not turn away: “[S]omehow these pictures wouldn't let me. Perhaps it was something to do with the courage that must have taken to create them, but I found it impossible to turn away as the profession has turned away from such people in the past” (p. 1162) 6. The embodiment of pain As we consider how we might communicate human experiences of pain to another civilization, one of the most salient characteristics of our species is our embodiedness. “Human beings are creatures of the flesh”, Watson and de Bruin [12] remind us. “Primarily, our experiences and how we make sense of what we experience is dependent upon the kinds of bodies we have and also on the ways in which
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we interact with the various environments we inhabit. It is through our embodied interactions that we inhabit a world, and it is through our bodies that we are able to understand and act within this world with varying degrees of success...” (p. 352). Although some have suggested that the advanced civilizations we are most likely to detect through SETI will be based on artificial intelligence, nevertheless the fact that we are able to make contact with them somehow requires that they have a means of relating to the material world. Though extraterrestrial intelligence may be markedly different from that of Homo sapiens [13–15], nevertheless they should anticipate that other intelligent species will be biologically embodied, or at least have arisen from evolved biological entities. The body when it functions well, however, is often invisible. “In most accounts of healthy individuals, the body is `silent', very quietly performing its functions without compelling moment-to-moment awareness”, Thomas [5] reminds us (p. 689). Just the opposite is the case for those who suffer. “The lived experience of the chronic pain patient stands in dramatic contrast: He or she is exquisitely and perpetually aware of the body. Within the body is housed the pain, which has become the most salient aspect of daily existence” (p. 690). Insofar as we wish to describe aspects of ourselves that provide a bridge between our subjective experiences and the external world, pain serves as a good prototype. As Scarry [3] notes, the corporeal nature of pain also provides a starting point for describing the active role that humans take in constructing their broader social and material worlds as extensions of and surrogates for their bodies: “When, for example, the woven gauze of the bandage is placed over an open wound, it is immediately apparent that its delicate fibers mime and substitute for the missing skin, just as in less drastic circumstances the same weave of threads (called now `clothing' rather than `bandage', though their kinship is verbally registered in the words `dress' and `dressing') will continue to duplicate and magnify the protective work of the skin . . . ” (p. 282). Such an overt sign of self-care as the bandage can be a manifestation of self-caring even in the seemingly paradoxical case of self-mutilation: “Cutting is a phenomenon in which life prevails over death. It is a paradoxical attempt at healing”, Rao [10] tells us. “[C]reating a wound is experienced as pasting, sewing, or mending. Taking care of herself is somewhat new to the cutter; she tends to put the wellbeing of others before that of herself. Still, she is proficient in the art of attending to self-inflicted wounds—before bandaging she may apply pressure or painlessly disinfect the gashes” (p. 53). As one example of an interstellar language that might bridge the gap between the subjective and the physical, consider Lingua Cosmica, or Lincos, by the Dutch mathematician Freudenthal [16]. After an exposition of mathematical concepts, Freudenthal then moves to a discussion of time, and then human behavior. Only after he describes the interactions between people through brief stories does he go on to discuss notions of space, motion, and mass. In effect, he portrays humans as disembodied “ghosts”, beings living in time
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Fig. 3. The fragility of the human body can be shown through interstellar messages created using three-dimensional animation and motion capture technologies. (From Douglas A. Vakoch's series of interstellar messages “Der Schwerkraft ausgeliefert: Eine interstellare Komposition”, (bound by gravity: an interstellar composition). In All Design—Leben im schwerelosen Raum (Space Design—life in zero gravity). Group exhibition held at the ¨ Gestaltung, Zurich, ¨ Museum fur Switzerland, October 27, 2001–March 3, 2002.)
but not space. By expanding these stories to emphasize the specifically corporeal nature of human beings, however, one could make use of narrative's ability to capture important elements of the experience of pain [17,18]. Even an interstellar language that emphasizes a behavioristic, rationalistic, mechanistic description of human interactions might provide a foundation for conveying aspects of the subjective experience of being human, including the experience of pain. By drawing on some of the same methods Freudenthal uses to describe the physical universe, we can also provide detailed descriptions of our bodies [19]. By portraying ourselves as embodied and vulnerable (see Fig. 3), we might provide outward signs of our inward distress. Through a physicalistic description of our bodies, we might convey something of the interiority of our pain. One approach would be to depict objects that break the boundary between the body and the world, showing weapons inflicting wounds. “As an actual physical fact”, Scarry [3] writes, “a weapon is an object that goes into the body and produces pain; as a perceptual fact, it can lift pain and its attributes out of the body and make them visible”. Such an approach may not just be convenient for describing pain. Something like it may be necessary: “The point here is not just the pain can be apprehended in the image of the weapon (or wound) but that it almost cannot be apprehended without it...” (p. 16). As Rao [10] observes, “The wound and the scar are representations of, and testament to, the pain that the individual has endured” (p. 54). Sometimes, these physical manifestation of pain are actively resisted by the sufferer. Thomas [5] reports that “ . . . a
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woman whose arm was in a sling—who conceivably might have welcomed the device as a badge of legitimacy—actually resented the attention it garnered: `I just want to wear a sign that says, “Please don't ask”'” (p. 691). In other cases, just the opposite occurs, as sufferers actively attempt to convey their pain to others. At one level, this is similar to the author's previous proposal for interstellar messages that show humans pointing either to abstract objects such as geometrical shapes or to parts of the human body as if they were simply three-dimensional objects [19]. Aspects of Rao's analysis could equally apply to all such attempts to communicate through ostention, or pointing. ““Pointing is `a social gesture'”, Rao [10] says, “that calls others to share one's view. The act of pointing often draws its significance from an other who is there, at least symbolically”. But this particular case of a self-revelation of suffering goes far beyond that, making reference to a world and other people in it who have earlier inflicted pain on the one who now expresses this pain simultaneously inwardly and outwardly: “By cutting herself, the self-cutter points to a world of repeated mistreatment, shameful isolation, agitated anger, and unbearable sadness” (p. 55). 7. Conclusion As we have seen, not only does pain isolate the sufferer from others, but it can also compel a reaching outward. “Contrary to the often repeated contention that pain is silent, incommunicable, and destructive of language”, van Hooft [4] contends “ . . . that pain is an eloquent amplification of the intersubjective rapport which human beings naturally establish between themselves. Pain not only causes sufferers to become preoccupied but also leads them to seek help from others. Pain amplifies and intensifies the interpersonal appeal that exists between people who engage in genuine encounter . . . . It intensifies it because, along with the lure of mystery and infinity which each person presents to another in encounter, pain highlights the vulnerability and finitude of each one of us. It is from this finitude that we reach out to each other and it is because of this finitude that we embrace one another in rapport” (p. 261). As Råholm and Lindholm [20] observe, “Suffering develops a human being's ontological awareness. In it one sees the relationship that brings people closer to each other” (p. 536). “Bearing witness to suffering”, Eifried [21] explains, provides an opening “to a relationship with the Other” (p. 67). As we attempt to make contact with alien forms of intelligence on other worlds, in the end, this openness may be the most critical factor in whether or not we succeed. The description we provide of ourselves may be intriguing and informative to civilizations far older than our own. Perhaps just as importantly, a portrayal of the breadth of human experience—including our pain—would let us reflect more deeply on our relationship with others already inhabiting our own world.
Acknowledgments The author gratefully acknowledges the following support of this research: President Joseph Subbiondo, Academic Vice President Judie Wexler, and Clinical Psychology Department Chair Katie McGovern of the California Institute of Integral Studies for sabbatical and ongoing research leaves; CEO Thomas Pierson and Director of SETI Research Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute for support of research on SETI and Society; Chris Neller of the SETI Institute for administrative support; and Jamie Baswell, as well as Harry and Joyce Letaw, for financial support through the SETI Institute's Adopt a Scientist program. References [1] L. Thomas, The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, Penguin Books, New York, 1978. [2] J. Lomberg, Pictures of Earth, in: C. Sagan (Ed.), Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, Ballentine Books, New York, 1978, pp. 71–116. [3] E. Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985 p. 3. [4] S. van Hooft, Pain and communication, Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy 6 (2003) 255–262. [5] S.P. Thomas, A phenomenologic study of chronic pain, Western Journal of Nursing Research 22 (2000) 683–705. ¨ ¨ [6] M. Ohman, S. Soderberg, B. Lundman, Hovering between suffering and enduring: the meaning of living with serious chronic illness, Qualitative Health Research 13 (2003) 528–542. [7] R. Descartes, Philosophical Writings, Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, Indianapolis, 1971. [8] K. Castle, C. Imms, L. Howie, Being in pain: a phenomenological study of young people with cerebral palsy, Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 49 (2007) 445–449. [9] J. Heidmann, A reply from Earth: just send them the encyclopaedia, Acta Astronautica 29 (1993) 233–235. [10] R. Rao, Wounding to heal: the role of the body in self-cutting, Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2006) 45–58. [11] A. Vass, Finding a visual language for pain, British Medical Journal 324 (2002) 1162. [12] T. Watson, G.P. de Bruin, Impact of cutaneous disease on the selfconcept: an existential-phenomenological study of men and women with psoriasis, Dermatology Nursing 19 (2007) 351–364. [13] G.G. Simpson, The nonprevalence of humanoids, Science 143 (1964) 769–775. [14] G.G. Simpson, Some cosmic aspects of organic evolution, in: G. Kurth (Ed.), Evolution und Hominisation, Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart, 1962, pp. 6–20. [15] D. Jonas, D. Jonas, Other Senses, Other Worlds, Stein and Day, New York, 1976. [16] H. Freudenthal, Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part I, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1960. ¨ [17] J. Ohlen, Evocation of meaning through poetic condensation of narratives in empirical phenomenological inquiry into human suffering, Qualitative Health Research 13 (2003) 557–566. [18] W.H. Wandless, Narrative pain and the moral sense: toward an ethics of suffering in the long eighteenth century, Literature and Medicine 24 (2005) 51–69. [19] D.A. Vakoch, Three-dimensional messages for interstellar communication, in: G.A. Lemarchand, K. Meech (Eds.), Bioastronomy 99: A New Era in Bioastronomy, Astronomical Society of the Pacific, San Francisco, 2000, pp. 623–627. [20] M.-B. Råholm, L. Lindholm, Being in the world of the suffering patient: a challenge to nursing ethics, Nursing Ethics 6 (1999) 528–539. [21] S. Eifried, Bearing witness to suffering: the lived experience of nursing students, Journal of Nursing Education 42 (2003) 59–67.