Larreka remembers English words spoken to him by Goddard Hanshaw, then arrives in the human town of Primavera and speaks with his old friend, Jill Conway. What we do not see then is First Contact between human beings and Ishtarians. (First Contact with Ythri is in "Wings of Victory.")
Presumably extra-terrestrial organisms will divide into those that are merely vegetative and those that seem to be conscious because of their behaviour. Examination of the latter should reveal that they have sensory organs and central nervous systems. Then, hopefully, communication will become possible although it might not be by exchanging sounds. (Even if sounds are emitted, they will not necessarily emerge from an orifice also used for breathing, drinking and eating.)
We might be able to make three kinds of statements about any organism.
(i) If an organism approaches a source of heat, then it becomes hot. This is an objective proposition. The temperature of anything, whether animate or inanimate, is measurable with scientific instruments.
(ii) If an organism is conscious, then it feels hot, then, as its temperature rises, uncomfortably and painfully hot. That feeling is subjective. Only the organism feels its discomfort even though we know what it is like and can empathise because we also experience it.
(iii) When we observe that an organism has become agitated and is trying to avoid a source of heat, then we confidently infer that that organism not only is hot - so are plants and inanimate objects - but also that it feels uncomfortably hot. Thus, the proposition, "That organism feels hot," is objective even though the experienced feeling itself remains subjective. Consciousness involves an irreducible subjective-objective distinction.
I predict, for what it is worth, that extra-terrestrial organisms, if discovered, will defy expectations and classifications. Scientists might disagree indefinitely about whether something is plant or animal, conscious or unconscious, intelligent or unintelligent or something else that we had never thought of.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Your last paragraph reminded me of A WORLD NAMED CLEOPATRA, esp. Anderson's contributions, the informative Introduction and his story "The Serpent in Eden." The humans exploring Cleopatra had to find out whether the "natives" were intelligent beings or not. In many ways these creatures seemed so high functioning that it was easy to think they must be intelligent. But after repeated tests and disappointments the humans realized they were simply animals.
I think "Serpent" is a good example of how actual explorers might puzzle over what may be discovered on other worlds. Anderson's story was also better than the other contributions.
Ad astra! Sean
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