Should you give your genetic information to a credit bureau?

I was recently looking for a housing mortgage and that brought me in contact with credit bureaus. These companies collect your personal information and banking data and use them in statistical models to calculate your credit score – a value that correlates to the chance that you will pay back your debts. Banks use this score to decide whether they will lend you money.

Some of this information is reassuringly linked to good behaviour, like previous convictions or unpaid debt. But others parts seem rather arbitrary. Your credit score improves with the period you stayed at your recent address. Is there something wrong with moving house? Surely not, but it drops your credit score, because people who move house a lot seem statistically less likely to pay back their debts.

Credit bureaus are traditionally paid by the lenders, but they increasingly try to turn consumers into customers well. Telling individuals how their credit score was calculated does not only provide transparency that might deflect a backlash by rejected consumers. It also makes some consumers subscribe to the credit bureau’s service and work on improving their score. Volunteering detailed information on your last six places of residence, for example, improves your credit score. So I wondered: Would I volunteer my genetic information to improve my credit score?

Right now, credit bureaus can do very little with huge files full of genetic code. But given enough genetic sequences linked to personal payment histories, they would soon figure out what genetic patterns correlate to financial behaviour. Once they have done so and once I had my genetic information sequenced – and assuming for the sake of this argument only that I can trust the bureaus to keep all data confidential – why not give them my genetic information to gain an advantage?

On second thoughts, how sure can I be that this would be to my advantage? I might have a “scoundrel gene” that pulls my score right down – maybe, because the rating agency has not yet learned to appreciate my “anti-scoundrel gene” that more than makes up for it – or because I have much more genetic inclination to become a scoundrel than I previously thought. It might be better to run my genetic information first through a public version of the scoring software, see what I get and only forward the data when it really benefits me.

Others will do the same and soon the credit-seeking population will be divided into two groups: those who give their genetic information because it improves their credit score and those who do not – either because it would drag down their score or out of principle. The second group, containing more high-risk individuals, will have a lower average credit score. As nearly all of its members will claim that they withhold the information merely out of principle, the credit bureau will have no way of differentiating and consequently reduce the credit score of all members of this group according to the group average. That will put a price on having principles.

People with a mildly unfortunate genetic sequence that reduces their credit score by less than the group average for all those who object would then benefit from revealing their genetic information. The more of them do, the more the average score of the objector group will drop and the more the costs of belonging to it will increase. Credit bureaus will surely offer help – if only to reduce the number of unhappy customers – for example, by ignoring a genetic pattern that indicates a higher likelihood to commit suicide when the customer has an appropriate life insurance. Every person who finds a way of coping with the shortcomings in his genetic pattern and therefore reveals it will increase the percentage of people in the objector group who are not likely to cope and further lower the credit score of the remaining group members.

From a merely financial point of view, any additional information that helps to manage risk is welcome. The ethical issue is more difficult. We find it fair to judge people by their actions, say, for stealing a car. But it feels unfair to judge them by a piece of genetic code that was passed on to them without their doing. On the other hand – we readily rate people according to their intelligence, although it is partially inherited, and the schools they went to, although these were mainly determined by their parents. Views are bound to differ widely and before deciding on whether to allow the use of genetic information for credit scoring, it might be worth looking at possible ways to prevent it.

The obvious solution seems to be secrecy. What is not known cannot be abused. But the amount of genetic information that needs to be kept secret will grow exponentially in the near future. Dropping costs of genetic sequencing will make it a standard part of medical diagnosis. Some people will use it to explore their personal strengths and weaknesses, others to find their ideal mate. The more uses for genetic information are found, the more attractive it will become to steal it in large style. There are many employees of banks, personnel agencies, secret services, police forces, industrial companies and political parties who would not mind gaining a competitive advantage – even at the price of having to deal with a slightly tainted consulting agency in less-regulated country. This would create huge business opportunities for criminals – which makes the secrecy option rather questionable.

It might be possible to find better options, at least in the personal credit sector. Instead of keeping genetic information secret, one could simply prohibit its use. Credit bureaus and lenders who calculate their own score could be obliged by law to publish their formula for calculating the credit score. Any customer who gets a lower score than the formula predicts would immediately complain – which would make sure that no hidden information is used. Lenders would then have to be obliged by law to base all their lending decisions on that type of score. This option might release less criminal energy, but it would surely require a lot of nosy supervision.

Alternatively, one might allow the use of any genetic information that is provided voluntarily and encourage consumers to provide it. That would shrink the illegal data market and the resentment of the consumers that goes with it. Naturally, those who got short-changed in the genetic lottery will be disadvantaged. But instead of using the law to prevent everybody else from taking note of that , caring societies might distinguish themselves by recognising and helping the disadvantaged.

Some of this help might be based on recognising voluntary effort, e.g. those genetically more prone to gambling addiction might score by banning themselves from casinos. But other unfortunates might require direct subsidising. This is already done in some areas of life, for example, most people will agree that their society should use some communal funds to help those who become paralysed due to no fault of their own. Why not extend that concept and help those who happen to have a genetic pattern that makes them prone to undesirable financial behaviour? They certainly got this pattern due to no fault of their own, so communal funds might well pay for an insurance that improves their credit score – at least as long as they cooperate in reducing the residual risk.

It is obvious that accepting these principles would change a society far beyond credit scoring. Much of the behaviour that is now considered as part of a person’s free choice would then be classified as the result of a genetic disadvantage that has to be covered by a caring social insurance. However, would that be a bad outcome?

ROLAND SCHIEFER was born in 1951 in Vienna and holds an MSc in Biophysics and a PhD in Medicine. Following work in environmental physiology at the German Institute for Aerospace Medicine, he developed energy supply planning tools at the Pestel Institute in Hanover, Germany, performed contract research work, including physiological telemetry systems, image processing, environmental effects on mental performance and facet analysis at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, was co-founder and director of an internet-based education company and an independent consultant for electronic commerce systems. His broad interdisciplinary experience serves as the basis for his recent book “All In The Mind”.

Every month at h+ magazine we are going to have a new theme. This month we are going with the theme of virtual reality. While VR was once just a provocative idea for sci-fi visionaries, it is now apparent that we live in an era in which it has become technologically feasible.

How accurate were stories and movies like Johnny Nmemonic and Strange Days? What does virtual reality mean for the development of AI? Is it possible that we will be living in a virtual reality after the Singularity?

We are now looking for writers to submit articles to us on the many issues and concepts related to virtual reality. Whether you wish to discuss new scientific advances related to VR, compare the VR portrayed in sci-fi to the VR of today, or share your theories on what VR means for the future of humanity… we welcome you to send in your thoughts.

We will be publishing our favorite submissions throughout the month. Please send your articles to rachel@hplusmagazine.com.

Science is a curious human enterprise.

Opening up the human condition to new vistas of possibility, enchantment and enlightenment, science has become man’s loyal shadow. Today man lives with the understanding and confidence that our shadow will surprise us at any given moment.

For a very long time, dating back to the ancient Greeks, we have had the profound hope that mankind would one day possess itself in the absolute glare and fullness of self-understanding – as a species. No different than a newborn babe glancing around its newly discovered environment and finding itself awed by the sight of its hands, man, too, gropes his own existence in the anticipation of closing our field of knowledge.

Of course, the expectation was that this holistic knowledge would take place after the initial discovery of some of the principles that govern physical existence. The bio-chemical principles that govern human life, we now realize, are a predictable staple of human knowledge, offering us indispensible certainty in some areas.

As a consequence of the aforementioned certitude, it was also the hope of many people that the fundamental and vital essences that dictate the course of personal, subjective existence would be discovered eventually. The latter would round-off what many believed would be the future science of man. This was the hope of philosophical materialists. An all-consuming and overbearing science of life – better yet – of human existence, is still the darling utopia of positivists in all the variegated and aberrant guises that philosophical materialism embodies today. In some respects, our current dilemma is that it is often difficult to separate genuine scientists from utopian mush heads; Dr. Frankenstein appears to be alive and flourishing.

Man has a keen sense of “smell,” or what is essentially a workaday intuition that is capable of uncovering the essential principles that rule over human affairs, but which we cannot easily pinpoint. If this were not the case – our essential capacity for logical inference – even science, would never occur to us in the first place. Just think of the incapacity of animals to engage in self-reflection. We address scientific problems simply because such concerns occur to us. This is a glaring truth that we easily tend to forget. Call this the anthropic principle or Grace, or what you will. Undoubtedly, man’s development and the history of science go hand in hand.

And, to be candid, to create a rift between these two is tantamount to sending man into a Platonic cave of ignorance, a dangerous abyss that would further dehumanize us. A divorce in this particular marriage can only come as the result of coercion by radicalized and irresponsible agents of mayhem. Here I am referring to our current mania for radical skepticism. Our scientific knowledge has allowed us to enjoy a truer completion as persons than during any previous age.

Ironically, science is also a paradoxical tool that man must learn to respect. We know the allegories of Prometheus and Vulcan, for instance, of Pandora’s Box. These stories warn us about our indiscretions regarding our abuse of reason, the latter which serves as a tool to aide us in our daily lives. The impact of these mythological tales is equivalent to the moral lessons of Aesop’s Fables and the import of maxims on our road to moral/spiritual fulfillment. Let us not be surprised to discover that wisdom literature has always made human indiscretion a central focus of its teaching. Stoic philosophy, for instance, is a logical offshoot of this.

Realistically, though, we can assert with certainty that we know in the first decade of the twenty first century whatever it is that we are capable of knowing at the moment. This is a paradox, a tautology, even. Parmenides said it best when he asserted that we know Being, and not non-Being. How else are we to point out the obvious?

What would constitute total, engulfing knowledge? How can finite entities know the infinite? If we were to consider the knowledge that we have reaped from science and philosophy in terms of monetary value, then, clearly our time is richer than any prior age. The average person today is privy to the inner principles of such a complex array of human endeavors that one cannot help but marvel at how easy it all now seems. Too easy, perhaps? Science has given us unprecedented control over our zest for utility.

Disclaimer: This essay is not yet another “thought experiment” as such exercises are so en vogue today. Neither is this an epistemological game of semantic calisthenics. I can’t imagine the value of such writing, except to serve as a hallucinogen that delivers certain academics into a maniacal frenzy that is fueled by their own blinding self-importance.

What about Extraterrestrials?

Let us think about extraterrestrials.

Today it is not inconceivable to imagine a race of extraterrestrials that, like brilliant computers, go gallivanting about the universe with the same finesse, capacity for self-knowledge, and manners as alligators in a wetland. The technical know-how and capabilities that this possible race of outer-space entities would need to possess in order to traverse the depths of space would have to be colossal – by anyone’s standards. Let there be no doubt about the latter. After all, I am suggesting traveling through portions of the galaxy – unthinkable astronomical units, at least judging by our best calculations – in the span of time that it takes us to digest our food and begin to feel hungry again. Our visitors may have discovered wormholes that serve as their most efficient route to reach us.

What could such deep-space wiz entities be able to teach us? Here, I am not concerned with their moral composition, even if we could get a sense of this. For the time being, I am stressing only the epistemological and scientific component of their knowledge. What I have in mind is artificial intelligence. After all, this is what we think of when we think about communicating with extraterrestrials, right? Most people are of the opinion that such beings would be scientifically superior to us. The implications of that realization impress us. The nature of their voyage to Earth would already be proof enough of their astounding technological superiority

There are perhaps several possible ways that we can come to terms with this important question. This is an interesting and telling angle to address given that contact between humans and intelligent extraterrestrials is only a matter of time. In an age like ours that is fascinated by “models,” then, let us reluctantly call the following suggestions possible models. However, I only mean for these models to serve as the speculative fulcrum that anchors our questions. Let us concentrate our energy on three possible models.

Extraterrestrials as Mere Computing Machines

One of these models would have us come face to face with a kind of entity that, like a computer, is merely a disembodied brain, even though not quite fitting our current understanding of the nature of computing machines. This is a useful metaphor, however, because if a computer ever achieves self-consciousness, then we would have to assert that its hardware would comprise the totality of its body. This new turn of events would naturally constitute a dualism much as Descartes’ res extensa and res cogitans. This is the kind of hairsplitting that has made careers for artificial intelligence people and analytic philosophers. I will leave this narrow thought experiment to them – the experts. Instead, my concern in this matter is much more pressing and existentially vital.

It is conceivable, hence, that these beings might be nothing more than machines. They may very well be computing devices that lack all semblance of an inner dimension, as we humans possess. For instance, this condition would allow them to travel great distances without having to be concerned with the effects that interstellar travel would take on humans. Having no emotional ties to family, friends or home life, they would simply take in the information supplied to them and process it, much as any computing device performs its function day after day. We can imagine these entities as being machines that do not know themselves. Existential anxiety is totally out of the question for such entities. This is precisely what processing machines do. Self-awareness is not part of the make-up of mechanical contraptions.

Lacking an internal dimension, or what is the ability for self-knowledge, our hypothetical extraterrestrials would be no more than highly rational animals, or something akin to trees that compute. We can also refer to these entities as sophisticated cosmic appliances. Yet in no way can it be said that these entities do not make use of a highly advanced science. This is their stronghold. This is the main point that I am trying to convey. Science for them would simply be taken for granted, it would be a given, for this is all they know. These extraterrestrials would resemble the Houyhnhms in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Somewhat like the Houyhnhms who do not possess a word for “lie,” our aliens would be incapable of metaphysical or existential reflection. Instead, they are simple machines that respond to electronic stimuli.

We cannot forget that science begins with the basic conditions set forth by simple observation. Without the capacity for observation, experimentation and verification, for instance, scientific inquiry could never take place. This is another one of those gargantuan points that those who ingratiate themselves with the naive notion that computers “think,” conveniently forget. Science may be born of awe and wonder, a challenge to nature, or the love of solving difficult problems. These, as well as several other reasons can be offered as the necessary impetus for someone to become taken in by science. However, it is simple observation that must first inform all of these reasons.

We can imagine this first model of extraterrestrials as being completely incapable of achieving self-knowledge – auto-knosis. This is a major difference between us and our alien visitors. Man does not take himself or science for granted, respectively. Human life is replete with existential crises that quickly bear this out. Science requires tremendous work, and work is a form of life-as-resistance that humans are presented with by the contingencies of human reality. Hesiod reminds us of the importance of work to human life in Works and Days.

Perhaps we also ought to be reminded of the degree of effort and perspicuity that all cultural or scientific enterprise requires. And yet, the relevance and truth of the aforementioned does not have to be necessarily construed as a self-conscious activity. A neurosurgeon hardly has time to become philosophical during surgery. During an operation the doctor is merely taken up with the execution of a practical task. We can imagine, however, that some time afterwards or prior to an operation, some level of reflection is necessary or comes about as a result. Keeping a clear head about us is a requirement for undertaking any high-level psychical exercise. This is the kind of awe and wonder that best fuels humanism in the Renaissance, for instance. But, isn’t this also what the child does when it first discovers its hands?

Science is indeed a curious human undertaking.

We reap the practical benefits of science mostly in the form of what the Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset, has called “technicism.” In many respects, it is creature comforts that we desire today, and what we have come to expect from science. We can conceive of science in two ways, though: science as originating in pure reason – the discipline that uncovers the operative principles of nature – and science as utility, or what is essentially a whore who satisfies our self-indulgent pleasures.

These extraterrestrials might be superb scientists, that is, computing machines that practice an untold degree of rigor in their capacity for pure reason. Pure reason for us, too, is the vehicle that uncovers the constants of nature. Pure reason is all that our visitors would know. Astro-physics, biology and chemistry – the hard sciences – serve us well in their capacity to extract the blueprints of the universe.

We can create as many fashionable and politically expedient theories as we have time to indulge in, as has been the case in the humanities since the 1960s. Yet the reality remains that the physical universe works in objective ways that we either come to understand or ignore. Turning our back on these principles always makes us pay a gigantic price, though.

We currently embrace an aggressive radical ideological form of witchcraft that is intent on delivering us to a moral, cultural and scientific abyss. This radical ideology neither understands science, nor does it originate in good will. Its sinister motives originate in resentment towards the constants of nature. These agents of mayhem have a beef with the human condition being what it is. Radical ideologues have done tremendous damage to man’s ability to accept the limitations of human nature. Genuine understanding is never the goal of the maladroit mind who engages in such sophomoric and malignant rhetoric.

The discovery of form by ancient Greek philosophers allowed us to realize that man possesses a one-to-one correlation with the underpinning principles of the universe. It is not necessary for us to like this truism. However, objectivity can indeed keep us from destroying ourselves as individuals and as a species. This means that the human mind is created in such a way as to be capable of making sense of at least a portion of transcendent reality. This fundamental ability is what makes us capable of attaining knowledge. My point is not so much to reiterate this basic truth, but rather to remind us of how easy it is to forget it.

When we think of intelligent life in outer space, we also tend to display a quasi- childish naiveté that, in many respects, literally begs the question as to the kind of beings that we hope to encounter one day. We have great reverence for intelligence as the defining attribute of the human species. This is a glaring sign that ours is a physicalist age, a milieu dominated by reductionist philosophical materialism. While we stomp on genuine wisdom and ridicule those who possess it, we are taken in by the glare and glamour of what, on closer inspection, is not intelligence at all, but rather crafty affectation. This reflects our expectations of what we imagine extraterrestrials to be like.

We expect that when we eventually make contact with visitors from outer space they will be profoundly intelligent beings. What this means in the minds of many is that extraterrestrials must resemble some form of artificial intelligence. We expect that these beings will be supremely intelligent, and that therefore we will benefit immensely from their company. Of course, it rarely dawns on us that they may also be cosmic pirates that come to steal our resources and destroy whatever they cannot take with them, much like a computer virus that contaminates other computing systems.

Today we love to concern ourselves with I.Q., the extravagantly eccentric exploits of members of Mensa, gifted classes for children, and the laughable behavior of the absent minded professor who forgets where he lives. We marvel at the expediency of computer geeks and other highly intelligent “nerds.” Simply stated, we bow before the altar of intelligence. Besides the ardent respect and admiration that people have for wealth or physical beauty, intelligence is undoubtedly the most feared and revered human trait. We have a fascination with gratuitous and sportive counter-argumentation, much of which eventually proves to be no more than the caprice of people who apparently never left the warm and secure comfort of the graduate seminar.

It is not difficult to understand why we have this disproportionate regard for raw intelligence, especially in the manner that we encounter it in the media and popular culture. Our allegiance to intelligence, lamentably, is completely divorced from all vital conditions. While genuine intelligence is a tool that is used in the service of life, we instead, conceive it as the work of raw brain power. It is naïve to suggest that the brain is what differentiates us from machines, and from each other. To talk about wisdom today seems a moot point in the mind of some people. The reductionist critique of mind presented by materialists will have us believe that we are nothing more than neurons, synapses, and living tissue; biological machines.

We have convinced ourselves that we are merely a conglomeration of membranes that conveniently happen to culminate in consciousness and self-knowledge. In an insipid age that is currently witnessing a heretofore untold vacuum of genuine intelligence, we brag that personhood is merely an illusory effect of brain. The triumph of medical materialism undermines our understanding of the complexity that we have set out to explain in the first place. Feeling highly satisfied in having reduced human life to its atomic structure, some now doubt whether man can live on science alone. Our aberrant and massive societal dysfunctionality is a testament to this doubt. Undoubtedly, ideas have measurable consequences, and bad ideas devastating ones. This will be the legacy of man in the twenty-first century. As much as man needs certainty to flourish, we are also marked by our existential inquietude.

How many people today would venture to realize that we are living in the entrails of a dystopian science-fiction novel?

We hear much talk about intelligent life in outer space. But just what exactly can this mean? So, we have great reverence for intelligence, and this is what we seek and expect to find in our eventual meeting with extraterrestrials. Here we are reminded of that old dictum of paying close attention to what we hope for. If our highly intelligent visitors from outer space bring with them great scientific knowledge – let’s say – the principles of anti-gravity, we would, no doubt, be eternally grateful. But this is only one potential outcome of our encounter with extraterrestrials.

Let us imagine that after our initial meeting with our space visitors, we build vehicles that travel at tremendous speeds and make as loud a sound as a canary taking its last breath. How happy would we be then? The artificial intelligence community will be ecstatic. With all of our most immediate questions seemingly answered, we would then busy ourselves in the implementation of our newly found knowledge to demonstrate that man is nothing more than the sum total of a bio-chemical process. Scientists would act like children at a birthday party, happy to be the center of attention. And then, what?

Extraterrestrials that Possess a Moral Imagination

Another possible scenario that we might want to entertain concerning our visitors would have them be as equally intelligent, in terms of the science that they share with us, but also possessing an indelible and superb moral sense. Extraterrestrials in our second model would convey a profound sense of awe, wonder, and a heightened ability to embrace the sublime. Knowledge, for these entities, would be valuable as a service for life. Knowledge is valuable for these beings because it allows them to have great control over themselves. These beings would possess an unprecedented capacity for self-awareness and self-knowledge, the likes of which we have never witnessed on our planet. This would be the form of “higher consciousness” that some members of our species have envisioned for a long time. This kind of extraterrestrial might practice such a profound sense of personal autonomy that they cannot conceive of social-political categories. These entities have total control of their lives. They are never a burden to others. This would undoubtedly baffle our scientists as well as devastate and demoralize our social scientists.

In addition, let us imagine that our visitors are not slaves of their scientific prowess. Science serves to round-out metaphysical and existential realities that affect their intergalactic travel. This might just prove to be the greatest scientific scandal in the history of man: just when we receive the news that we are not alone in the universe, only then do we discover that our space neighbors all possess abundant scientific knowledge that heightens their sense of moral, spiritual and religious sensibility.

These entities are scientific minded insofar as they know the principles that make up their existence. They understand that reality is not relative, and thus never violate any of its objective principles. Part of their understanding, we discover, comes via intuition. This further scandalizes us, because a long time ago, our gurus discarded such a possibility. Like a cat pursuing a mouse, these entities know exactly what “holes” they can get through. In addition, our visitors from outer space are rather happy beings. We discover that part of their happiness is due to their vital sense of discretion in the choices they make. These entities do possess self-knowledge.

Finding ourselves at odds with this awkward and deflating development, we quickly lose interest in these comical entities on which we had placed such high stock. Furthermore, having given up our poetic sensibility many decades prior to this encounter, we are hardly impressed by the uses that these extraterrestrials have for science. Their combination of scientific and practical knowledge, intuition and wisdom make these entities cosmic freaks in our eyes. Some people among us come to hate these entities for their apolitical approach to existence. The outer space visitors, for their part, look at us as spoiled children whose mere aim in life is to subvert the natural order in such a way as to satisfy our every irrational desire and whim. Our expectations of our cosmic visitors never pan out. Things quickly turn sour. The aliens, too, quickly become bored by us.

When the visitors to our planet explain to us in great detail the transcendent metaphysical principles by which they live, we find little of pressing value in that revelation. The meeting is ultimately deemed a failure by those who expected epistemological fireworks from the visitors. More importantly, besides having a deep respect for science, our outer space visitors display a profound moral sense. They are more interested in ontology than epistemology. The visitors tell us about the order and logos of the universe, and what each individual’s role is in the great scheme of things. While remaining discreet, they also offer us ample insight into our personal limitations, and how we must come to accept these. We are horrified to hear this, and some among us even try to crush the head of the aliens to keep them from revealing more of what they know of the state of nature.

Many of our political leaders tell the outer space visitors that we no longer have a need on our planet for moralizing, and that that stage of our development came to an end a long time ago. The aliens are told that if they want to remain welcome on our planet, they can only talk about how to perfect man through social-political avenues. Hearing this, the aliens become disenchanted with us. They tell us that they do not understand what is being asked of them. We are aghast that the aliens should resemble our moral/spiritual condition sometime prior to the twentieth century. The aliens are a threat to those people who will have nothing to do with human beings as autonomous persons.

Consequently, many come to view the aliens as threatening to our newly found liberation from the existential weight of our former selves. We then explain to them that we are bored by anything resembling transcendence and the sublime. These entities tell us that they are sorry for the inconvenience they have cost us, and leave our planet disappointed. Our meeting with the aliens ends with both sides wanting nothing to do with the other.

As they are escorted to their spacecrafts, they confide that they are baffled by us. They tell us that they have monitored our species for the last five-hundred years, and they thought we resembled them. This is what prompted them to visit our planet. One of them asks: “Are all humans like your social-political leaders?” No one dares to answer them for fear of political reprisal. Then, laughter is heard coming from inside their ships as they close the hatches. They recognize their bad judgment in thinking that humans had something to learn from their visit.

Autonomous Extraterrestrials that Possess a Good Will

A third possibility we might conceive in meeting with extraterrestrials is even more disheartening in lieu of the disappointment brought on by the second model. Imagine that our extraterrestrial visitors were, in a paradoxical way sort of way – remember our aim here is not to split hairs – hardly scientific at all. Imagine that they have not come from too far away, relatively speaking, and only then, after great strife and cost to their spiritual and emotional wellbeing. In other words, rather than being scientific whiz entities, they have all-but-willed themselves to leave their planet in search for life in outer space. These entities willed themselves to reach our planet, given that their technological expertise is not much greater than ours. They are excited by the prospect of making contact with other beings.

Just imagine the uproar that such a possibility will have on our own scientific establishment. Something akin to a ragtag group of cosmic wayfaring, friendly Socrates’, our visitors would crush all our illusions about the great beyond.

We have always had wise men among us. We might even have some today. However, there can be no doubt that wisdom has given way to expediency. Unfortunately, many people will miss the point of having the latter kind of extraterrestrials visit us in the first place. Consider that after investing untold material resources and emotional energy, we came to expect that any visitors from outer space must of necessity be superior beings that have much by way of technology to teach us. We created the SETI Project in the hope of attracting signals from outer space. Our radio telescopes are eagerly pointed to areas of the sky that we believe are possible reservoirs of intelligent life.

This disappointment that I have alluded to does not even take into account the reaction of the “average” man on the street. With the advanced state of atrophied imagination and the dearth of moral/spiritual sensibility that we are currently experiencing, the reaction of average citizens would be predictable. “Why spend so much money on something so pointless like space exploration,” many will be heard saying. Others will be upset that this same money is not being used to further the needs of the welfare state.

The Apollo missions bear out this truth quite clearly. The rapid development of rocketry after Goddard’s earliest rocket, and the subsequent advent of the German V-2, is a major humanistic feat. Von Braun’s multi-stage rockets, post his defection to the United States after WWII, is no less than a majestic engineering achievement. The Apollo missions took us on flights of fancy that man had never witnessed. The success of Apollo 8 on its Lunar orbit and return to Earth, in December 1968, solidified our understanding that landing on the Moon was a real possibility. Apollo 11 touching down on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969, was perhaps man’s greatest achievement.

The excitement and promise of space exploration has always been important to people who cultivate the imagination and a profound sense of the sublime. This has been the case dating back to ancient civilizations. Yet by the time that Apollo 17 landed on the Moon, on December 11, 1972, NASA couldn’t persuade the three major television networks to carry the event live. This is a sorry indictment of our time. News of the lunar landing in 1972 was no longer front page news. Our penchant for awe and wonder has further eroded since then. Our cynicism is now legion, as all aspects of human existence have been politicized by radical ideologues.

This reminds me of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” What is so endearing about that satirical work is precisely its ability to make us doubt the extent of its seriousness. Should we be angry with its author? Or, should we perhaps try to understand the point that he is making in that satire? Either way, the work places us in the uncomfortable position of having to confront an unsavory aspect of human reality. Most importantly, “A Modest Proposal” allow us to take the pulse of our knowledge of reality.

Aliens, as I have described them in the third model, may appear to us as burlesque, laughing spirits, much like the attendees of a convention of interstellar Aristophanes’. We are puzzled at the fact that these amusing visitors from outer space do not take their science or themselves too seriously. Content to cherish their own existence, our visiting aliens, we are shocked to realize, have very little to offer us except friendship and their joy for life. “If we wanted inspiration,” some of our virulent critics scuff, “we would take up poetry…or religion.”

What would be our relationship with the third model of visitors to our planet? After our initial conversations with them, we then leave them to their own devices – assuming that they pay us in order to enter our airspace, and do not disrupt our radio frequencies. “Grotesque cosmic anomalies,” some people will come to call them. Others will see them as grandfatherly figures that mean no harm and that we should not take too seriously. Others will be angry. Angry, because they cannot understand or trust the motives of the aliens in coming to visit us. This means the end of our romance with extraterrestrials.

Some people will demand that the visitors give us their scientific knowledge, and not bother us with moral/spiritual fodder. To these people, the aliens will merely be a curiosity, a circus act, and finally, a nuisance. They will be of the opinion that the aliens are little more than dilettantes that can’t even understand where they went right regarding their technology. These aliens will be viewed as cosmic bumblers.

The meeting between us and the second and third type of alien visitors cannot develop further, and cannot be more fruitful given the debilitating, advanced stage of our philosophical materialism. The aliens confine in us that, “Humans have a very limited vision.” Why should we be surprised of this human trait so late in human history? The extraterrestrials in our first model would be useful to us but only as computing machines.

Remember Prometheus and the newly discovered tool that he gave to mortals? “A great gift to man,” he imagined. Some people stand under falling boulders and don’t have the sense to get out of the way. Others are surprised that humans cannot breathe under water.

It remains true that a rose by any other name is still a rose. We have placed the rose under a microscope, figured out the atomic nature of that colorful flower, and even tried to reproduce it in our laboratories. After centuries of deciphering the essence of the rose, it is those who possess a poetic sensibility who continue to be the authority in this matter. Reality is like a beast of burden – always mulish. Truth, as this informs the human condition, can never be blackmailed or muscled into agreeing with every passing human impulse. As I have already alluded to, splitting hairs is not a substitute for genuine understanding and knowledge.

Just recently scientist discovered a fifth planet in a nearby solar system that they believe resembles Earth. The star is named 55Cancri and is said to be about 41 light years from Earth. This is not bad, when understood in astronomical units. The planet is said to resemble Saturn in composition and appearance, and is about 45 times more massive than Earth. Could this planet harbor intelligent life? It is just a matter of time before we discover one that does. The interesting philosophical question, as I see it, remains: What will be the status of our imagination and regard for the sublime at such a time? Those who have a firm grasp of this concern will be able to effectively predict our reaction to this greatest of all human discoveries to come. At this point in human history, we shouldn’t hold our breath regarding our collective reaction to such a discovery.

The visitors in our third model continue to come and go as they please. We, on the other hand, continue to sharpen our scientific tools and re-double our efforts to find intelligent life in outer space. The entire situation has turned out to be a cosmic comedy. The aliens recognize their lack of usefulness to us, and thus learn to keep to themselves. And so, the great anticipation of this historical meeting turns out to be a bust, a first date that is quickly terminated.

After a while the aliens become disenchanted with us. Thinking that they had something to teach us, they now begin to see themselves as defeated. At first they clamp up, no longer interested in communicating with us. As time passes, the aliens are completely ignored. Feeling ridiculed and isolated, they find no other recourse but to return home. They do so laughing, though. They pity us. They even worry if their sputtering machines are up to the task of their return trip home. They tell us that they respect their machines as useful tools. That is all that machines are to them. They do not take their science for granted, but neither have they become enslaved by it. Their greatest asset is their will to live joyously.

As the aliens travel through intergalactic space, they remain vigilant of their effort to survive. “Existence in the cosmos,” they signal back to us, “is defined by perpetual strife and self-knowledge.”

Of course, we can think of several other models to explore; the three that I have suggested merely emphasize one limited angle of human psychology and several of its moral/spiritual correlates.

Dr. Pedro Blas Gonzalez is a Professor of Philosophy at Barry University in Miami, Florida. He is also the author of 6 books including Philosophical Perspectives on Cinema, Dreaming in the Cathedral, and Ortega’s the ‘Revolt of the Masses’ and the Triumph of the New Man.