Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Academic and Societal Implications - Cambridge Scholars Publishinghttps://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-7727-5What are the implications for human society, and for our institutions of higher learning, of the discovery of a sophisticated extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) operating on and around Earth? This book explores this timely question from a multidisciplinary perspective. It considers scientific, philosophical, theological, and interdisciplinary ways of thinking about the question, and it represents all viewpoints on how likely it is that an ETI is already operating here on Earth. The book’s contributors represent a wide range of academic disciplines in their formal training and later vocations, and, upon reflection on the book’s topic, they articulate a diverse range of insights into how ETI will impact humankind. It is safe to say that any contact or communication with ETI will not merely be a game changer for human society, but will also be a paradigm changer. This means that it makes sense for human beings to prepare themselves now for this important transition.
In her introductory chapter, co-editor Jensine Andresen states that the acknowledgment that unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) are real “provides impetus for academics to start thinking cogently about the topic of human knowledge in the context of a broader discussion of extraterrestrial intelligence. How will widespread Contact impact so-called core disciplines, such as physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, history, etc.? Will such core disciplines begin to merge? How will widespread Contact impact the organizational map of academic disciplines as a whole? Will boundaries between academic disciplines become more fluid? Will the categorization of disciplines into the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities be replaced by something new? Even further, will entire categories of knowledge, e.g., religion and science, find a common ontological ground?”
Discussing their motivations for the book, the editors state that the project “was motived by the intention to support intellectual and scholarly discussion of extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI) and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) by highlighting the different approaches brought by an international group of academics with expertise in many different disciplines. The project was also driven by the desire to frame the ETI/UAP issue in a scholarly manner rather than permitting academic passivity to relegate the topic to a reductionist, militaristic, and governmental framework.”
As NASA prepares to move forward with its plans to set up an independent study on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP), along with the Preliminary Assessment on UAP published in June 2021 by the US Director of National Intelligence and the May 2022 Open C3 House Intelligence Subcommittee Hearing on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, the contributors in this volume offer timely perspectives as humankind assimilates a more expansive understanding of its place in the Cosmos.
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