Forum on the History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy, Lecture 82: Jiang Xiaoyuan: Should We Talk to Strangers? — A Debate in the History of Science about the Search for Extraterrestrial Civilization
This afternoon I went to listen to the Keke Forum. Quite a few people showed up this time; even the classroom was full. It seems that everyone still has high expectations for Teacher Jiang’s talk.
Before this talk, when Teacher Wu mentioned it to us, he said that this time he especially wanted Teacher Jiang to say something “substantive.” In the past, whenever Teacher Jiang had been invited to speak, it was all rather “media-like,” or to put it plainly, a bit watery; since he was coming to Peking University, he ought to bring some real substance. So in the subtitle of this talk we saw the appearance of the words “history of science.”
It turned out that “history of science” was just a pair of words, after all. Teacher Jiang’s talk had very little substance; its content was the same as the things Teacher Jiang has written before (I only just discovered that his article there had, in fact, already been given a history-of-science heading). In essence, he was simply arguing that human beings should not actively send signals to extraterrestrial civilizations, because doing so is dangerous.
Teacher Jiang pointed out that if extraterrestrial civilizations exist, then what attitude might they have? He said they would very likely be aggressive. Since we have no sample of any alien civilization, we can only infer from the characteristics of earthlings; and according to our understanding of earthlings, the result would certainly be to take immediate action to conquer or even destroy. Teacher Jiang mentioned that when one civilization in the universe discovers another, striking it down at once ought to be the most rational thing to do.
I raised two objections on the spot. First, Teacher Jiang said that the so-called sample of earthly humanity is also only one; I pointed out that this “one” was probably only Western civilization, or even Western civilization in the industrial age, whereas in the history of human civilization there have always been diverse civilizational forms. For example, when ancient China was strong, its response to encountering other civilizations was not to conquer them, but to show off everywhere. And even when in a desperate situation of resource scarcity, the first thought was not to plunder resources from other civilizations, but to be busy with internal struggle. What was predatory, aggressive, and perpetually in a state of resource scarcity was industrial-age Western civilization, which is only a small part of human history. Is it appropriate now to take this particular form of civilization as the sole example from which to infer extraterrestrial civilization? Later, Teacher Wu also restated this objection of mine in a clearer way. But Teacher Jiang consistently held that this was the only possible case.
My second objection was even more fundamental: namely, that throughout, in his discussion of the nature of civilization, the only theoretical resource Teacher Jiang relied on was the two basic principles of “cosmic sociology” envisioned by Chinese science-fiction writer Liu Cixin in *The Three-Body Problem*: “1. Survival is the primary need of civilization; 2. Civilization continuously grows and expands, but the total amount of matter in the universe remains unchanged.”
According to these two principles, Jiang Xiaoyuan believed that civilizational development must continually expand and must sooner or later face a resource crisis; in a state of resource crisis, in order to preserve survival, it will certainly plunder outward.
My objection was this: since you want to use humanity as a sample for analysis, why not cite more serious academic theories—sociology, anthropology, history, psychology, and so on? Why is there, from beginning to end, only one science-fiction novel as a theoretical resource?
Teacher Jiang’s response was to ask me to give some things that could be cited and see for myself. Of course I could not respond immediately, and so he said that since no one else was doing “cosmic sociology,” then he could only cite Liu Cixin. Teacher Tian Song, sitting nearby, also helped defend this, mentioning that serious scholars abroad could cite Asimov’s science-fiction novels (the Three Laws of Robotics), so of course Liu Cixin could be cited as well.
I did not say that science fiction could not be cited, but the problem is that Teacher Jiang was not merely citing it; he was building his entire chain of reasoning on Liu Cixin! I emphasized that *The Three-Body Problem* is a science-fiction novel, and I was not trying to belittle its intellectual value. But the key point is that, as a novel, it can casually put forward a principle of “cosmic sociology” like that; it can do so without analysis or argumentation. But if you are citing a principle from a novel to help support your own argument, how can you do so without any broader academic background? I do not know whether Liu Cixin himself truly regards these principles as solid theoretical dogma; I suspect he may not even be as serious about them as Teacher Jiang is. Whether it is Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics or Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest law, when written into a novel, they are naturally a simplified, exaggerated, cartoonish image. Scholars can of course take them up and develop them further, but how can they be taken ready-made and made the center of an argument?
Besides, what is Liu Cixin’s cosmic sociology? He is simply saying that civilizations must survive, civilizations must expand, and resources are always limited. These rules, setting aside right or wrong, are not necessarily related to aliens in the first place. On Earth, in the history of survival and exchange among civilizations of all sizes, such problems have always existed. Survival, expansion, resources, exploration, exchange, plunder, conquest, and so on—all are problems that exist in human society and human history. How should one civilization deal with another unfamiliar civilization? How might a civilization respond to a resource crisis? I do not see why these questions must be discussed within “cosmic sociology.” Teacher Jiang kept saying that since we have no sample of extraterrestrial civilization, we can only study earthly civilization and make inferences. But the problem is, must you invoke a whole set of “cosmic sociology” in order to study earthly civilization?
Of course I could not produce an example of some serious sociologist or historian talking about “cosmic sociology”; naturally none of them are concerned with extraterrestrial civilization, because our topic itself does not require concern with extraterrestrial civilization. Do sociologists have no literature on human competitiveness, aggression, and suspicion? Do historians have no literature interpreting the rise and fall of civilization and the history of exchange? I feel I did not need to cite any examples at all. The key point is that Teacher Jiang kept saying he wanted to use an understanding of human civilization to infer cosmic civilization, but in fact he was merely using a science-fiction “cosmic sociology” to understand human civilization.
Because many people were asking questions, I did not get the chance to press the point further, but in his concluding remarks Teacher Wu also put more sharply what I wanted to say: what Teacher Jiang lacks is an understanding of “civilization.”
In fact, if Teacher Jiang’s “cosmic sociology” were valid, then the entire aggressive expansion of Western civilization would be justified—they would, out of rationality, have no choice but to destroy one after another; if there were any problem, it would be that their extermination of other civilizations was not thorough or decisive enough.
Teacher Jiang’s version of cosmic sociology resembles a simplified Hobbesian theory, yet it is difficult to say that its theoretical depth reaches even that far. From beginning to end, Teacher Jiang never reflected on why “civilization” becomes “civilization.” In fact, the laws of cosmic sociology can also be applied to—or rather, first applied to—individuals or families. A family must survive, must reproduce and expand, and yet resources are always limited. So when one family encounters another family, when one clan encounters another clan, this problem has already emerged: struggle or exchange? Conquest or trade? The very existence of “civilization” means precisely this fact—that is to say, human beings have not killed one another to the bitter end, but have formed a system of exchange under the tension of conflict.
Perhaps one could say that the formation of such exchanges is achieved when resources are abundant, whereas when resources are scarce, plunder will come first. But on the one hand, when resources are scarce, must all civilizational forms necessarily adopt external aggression as the way to relieve the pressure? In fact, even in the most expansionary period of Western civilization, the primary action was still to try to carry out trade rather than to attack first. For example, with the cheapest glass beads one could obtain large quantities of gold in Africa—why would they need to embark on indiscriminate slaughter? If earthlings really possessed resources needed by aliens, then mindless attack and plunder, even if it did not lead to mutual destruction, might still destroy the resources on Earth. From the history of human civilization and exchange, slaughter has after all not been the mainstream; trade can likewise provide relief of resources.
But matter is conserved; trade can only ease an immediate need. So must the resources of Earth sooner or later be exhausted by alien exploitation? Yet if rational aliens already know this, why would they not kill their own compatriots before setting out? After all, all others will ultimately compete with you for resources.
However, cosmic sociology has one distinctive point, namely the speed-of-light limitation Teacher Jiang mentioned: because aliens must surely be extremely far from Earth, transmitting messages to one another would take a long time, and thus it would be impossible to form a relationship of mutual trust. But this kind of problem also existed in the history of civilizational exchange in ancient times; the result was often the formation of a “far allies, near enemies” relationship. Distant groups, although difficult to trust, were also hard to bring into direct conflict of interest. Distant water cannot put out a near fire; resource crises always first reveal themselves as conflict between you and the people near you. Perhaps some alien exiles who have lost their homes will occasionally discover and reach Earth, but at that point the speed-of-light limitation will have been removed, and we may be able to carry out immediate exchange with the aliens who actually arrive on Earth, while a relationship of mutual trust may also be established.
So, if alien visitors who might possibly drift to Earth are very likely people with nowhere else to go, must they immediately conquer us? This brings us back to the understanding of “civilization”—even if they are in desperate straits, they are a highly developed civilization, not a pack of beasts. If we can only infer other civilizations from earthly civilization, then we should first imagine them as a civilization.
First of all, the resources on Earth are obviously not things that those aliens must consume to the last instant in a single moment. If Earth’s resources were only enough for them to continue survival for one instant, then why would they travel such a great distance all the way here? So, if they need to slowly obtain Earth’s resources over a certain period of time, then they have two choices: the first is to launch an immediate attack, conquer Earth, wipe out the earthlings, and then slowly rebuild and develop their base; the second is to accept the Earthlings’ worship as if venerating God, establish a lasting relationship with the Earthlings, and let them willingly and consciously offer up the corresponding resources. As a “civilization,” which would they choose? Beyond mere hunger, a “civilization” always has its self-respect, pride, honor, vanity, etiquette, ethics, and so on. Only a certain specific utilitarian ethics under modern industrial civilization would make survival the sole value. Merely for a little more survival resources (and not in a life-or-death emergency), would one abandon all other dimensions of meaning? Only a very small portion of ethical systems would think so. We need not cite the Buddhist extreme of sacrificing one’s body to uphold righteousness; morally low people likewise may be willing to live a few years less for the sake of spiritual enjoyment (for example, smoking, drinking, drug use), or be shortsighted for the sake of momentary vanity. There is no need to regard the weighing of meanings beyond mere biological continuation as something so astonishing or so unattainable. In fact, what it means to be human, what it means to be a civilization, lies precisely in this transcendent dimension. To be impatient and strike first merely because “they will sooner or later come and seize our resources” is, on the contrary, a hard-to-understand move. Even in the most aggressive era of Western civilization, those who entered other civilizations were still mainly merchants, explorers, and missionaries. Why should we believe that in an extraterrestrial civilization far more advanced than Western civilization, the beings sent outward would not be merchants or missionaries, but must be conquerors?
Teacher Jiang mentioned an example, saying that even if you know most of your neighbors do not harbor malicious intent, if there is even a one percent chance of malice, you must lock your own door. So, if there may be extraterrestrials with a tendency toward conquest, then one must be vigilant. This sounds somewhat reasonable. But on the one hand, for every household to lock its door is, in itself, a rare phenomenon in human civilization. Even now, in areas with a lower degree of modernization and urbanization, people still do not lock their doors. On the other hand, locking the door is one thing, and exchange is another. The reason people need to lock their doors is often precisely because they are out interacting with others. Even when people know that leakage of personal information will always increase the possibility of malicious use by others, they still hope to present themselves publicly to the outside world. Locking the door does not contradict going out to communicate with people. But if one were given a choice: either shut yourself up at home and cut off the possibility of outside exchange; or open up exchange, but face the danger of theft—I think more people would still choose the latter. Human exchange itself is risky: the more one comes to know a stranger, the more risk there is. Even though we can communicate instantly, we still cannot trust every stranger. We know full well that every stranger may be a wolf in human clothing and may harbor malicious intentions toward you, but we still hope to communicate with strangers. That is human beings; that is civilization. If Teacher Jiang insists on explaining that human beings merely dare to take the risk of mutual exchange because they must preserve survival, then I have nothing to say.
Perhaps you will say: the desire for exchange can be satisfied within humanity itself, so why insist on finding aliens to exchange with? But the same question is: alien resource conflicts can also be resolved within themselves, so why must they seek outward? If the energy obtained by waging war outward is also finite and sooner or later exhausted, then they could well alleviate the problem through self-control and cutting military expenditures. If, in accordance with Teacher Tian Song’s view, they already know that resources will sooner or later run out, then it would be better to stop and not develop technology, and live a low-tech life, which would be more conducive to continuation. If you are certain that aliens would rather accelerate resource consumption and still insist on continuously developing technology and expanding outward, then why can you not believe that they would rather have a little more exchange and honor, and choose to obtain a little less resource? In fact, the logic of survival and the logic of expansion are not necessarily harmonious. In order to maintain a longer and more stable survival, a better choice may be never to expand at all, and to keep strict control over population and social scale at all times. So why would an extremely rational civilization that always takes survival—and long-term survival at that—as its first consideration expand in the first place?
As Teacher Wu said, aliens are a modern fantasy, the only transcendent domain that can legitimately be discussed under a scientistic way of thinking, equivalent to the domain of gods and ghosts in premodern society. For us, extraterrestrial civilization in the modern imagination can be a good research topic. As for directly discussing extraterrestrial civilization, it can be an amusing kind of casual talk; but Teacher Jiang took it too seriously.
“Aliens” are a kind of self-mirror for modern people. Thus we can understand that the aliens imagined by Teacher Jiang and others possess the extreme characteristics of modernity. It is just that those who eagerly hope for exchange with aliens are, more often than not, projecting onto aliens the loneliness, helplessness, and technology-worship of modern people, whereas Teacher Jiang is projecting more of modern people’s expansiveness, conquering nature, and the way in which, by taking life as the sole value, they lose all other dimensions of meaning.
My criticism of Teacher Jiang was already made three years ago: at that time, he and Liu Bing actually twisted Diamond’s *Collapse* into a science-fiction work. The problem now is the same; the old gentleman has unquestionably become utterly obsessed with science fiction.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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