Download Some Thoughts from an Anthropologist on Culture, Interstellar

Some Thoughts from an
Anthropologist on Culture,
Interstellar Communication, and
the Construction of Interstellar
Messages
John W. Traphagan, Ph.D.
University of Texas at Austin
Presentation Aims
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
Think about “culture” as it
relates to interstellar
message construction and
cross-cultural
communication
Can we assume a mutually
intelligible symbolic system
for representing ideas and
actions?
◦ Can we truly assume that the
symbolic representation of
mathematics by an alien being
would be mutually intelligible
with our own?
Structure of Talk

Relationship between
intelligence and culture
◦ How would culture be
different if our sensory
apparatus were different?
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How do variations in
human cultures influence
communication?
What is culture?
Anthropology and the
study/invention of
culture
Implications for SETI
research
INTELLIGENCE AND
CULTURE
What is culture?
Tendency to assume
“culture” as a concept
not in need of precise
definition
 Culture as homogenizing
category
 Essentialistic
representations of our
own and other societies

Standard Definition
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Culture is a shared set of beliefs, customs,
and ideas that are learned and that unify
people into coherent and identifiable groups
Culture represents a form of collective or
social memory that links past, present, and
future
This formulation represents culture as fairly
deterministic in shaping human behavior
within a particular—and bounded—society
Better Definition
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People not only are held together, but may
be divided by their customs and beliefs, even
when they ostensibly belong to the same
culture
Rather than a deterministic “thing” culture is
better understood as a process by which
people continually contest and reinvent the
customs, beliefs, and ideas that they use,
collectively, individually, and often
strategically, to characterize their
surroundings
In short, culture is in a constant state of flux
My Definition


Culture is a complex arrangement of symbolic
structures that are negotiated and developed in
reaction to personal experience mediated by
particular sensory apparatuses and through
which individuals organize and interpret sensory
data that are, in turn, used for further
organization, interpretation, and creation of
symbolic structures
These arrangements are interconnected
regions of memory that are used to
translate concrete experience into domains
of abstract, and subjective, reasoning and
feeling
Culture and Biology



Culture does not simply
provide a set of ideas, rules,
or concepts that shape
behavior; it provides an
environment of behaviors that
people observe and that
influences the physiological
development of the brain
Studies of sensory
deprivation show that the
idea of separation between
the individual and
environment (cultural or
natural) is highly problematic
Intelligence in individuals and,
more broadly, across a species
necessarily develops as a
product of social context
What is Intelligence?

Minsky (1985) argues that basic capacities
and characteristics will be typical of any
intelligent being:
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Problem solving
Analytical skills
Ability to describe the world
Explanatory skills
Accumulation and exchange of information
Allocation of scarce resources
Planning ahead
Self-awareness
Intelligence and Culture
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What differentiates humans from
other beings?
Minsky’s work is suggestive, but
does not deal sufficiently with issue
of culture
Michael Tomasello: Capacity to
deeply identify with others—to
empathize
◦ Small difference leads to cascading
effects on the capacity to do cultural
things
◦ Generates ability to internalize and
elaborate on collaborative production
◦ Allows us to create and accumulate
cultural artifacts, practices, and beliefs
Intelligence and Culture

Empathic ability generates capacity to understand others as intentional,
mental beings (like ourselves)
◦ Evolution of this capacity enabled new forms of cultural learning and the accumulation
of cultural artifacts and behaviors, with modification, over time
Human children grow up surrounded by these socially and historically
constructed artifacts and practices
 Being immersed in this cultural milieu allows children to:

◦ Benefit from accumulated knowledge and skills
◦ Acquire and use perspective-based cognitive representations – symbols, as well as
analogies and metaphors constructed from symbols
◦ Internalize specific types of discourse interactions that are developed into skills
allowing us to:
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Regulate cognitive processes through self-awareness of those processes (metacognition)
Symbolically represent and describe the world around us
Think and create dialogically
Our understanding of the world is entirely mediated through these
processes, which are themselves mediated through specific sensory
apparatuses
(Tomasello, Michael. 1999.The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Harvard University Press.)
What is it like to be a bat?
Thomas Nagel
 Consciousness of experience
occurs at a variety of levels
among animal life
 We can imagine what it is like
to be a bat; we cannot know
what it is like
 Understanding what it is to
experience being another form
of animal life is impossible
 In other words, we lack the
capacity to empathize with bats

How do bats process the world?

Echolocation
◦ Discriminate among objects
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Echolocation mediates
how bats enact capacities
such as planning ahead to
avoid ramming things or
identifying mosquitoes to
eat
Model of world based
primarily upon
interpretation of sound
reflections, as opposed to
light reflections
Empathy and Humans
Humans don’t vary a
whole lot biologically
 Can we understand
what it is like to be
blind or deaf?
 The things we
choose to focus on
when constructing
our world vary from
one culture to
another

Counting in Japanese

一枚、二枚、三枚
◦ Flat thin thing—CD, sheet of paper
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一冊、二冊、三冊
◦ Copy—such as a book
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一匹、二匹、三匹
◦ Small animal—cat, mouse
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一台、二台、三台
◦ Machine—car, washing machine
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一本、二本、三本
◦ Cylindrical object—pen, pipe
Japanese and English Counting

English distinguishes
between one and many
◦ Plural and singular

Japanese distinguishes
among shapes and sizes
◦ Plural forms are not
important in Japanese
一
二
三
四
五
六
Information Loss

We can translate counting in Japanese into English
◦ 鉛筆一本 = one cylindrical object that is a lead
writing brush = one pencil
◦ 車二台 = two cars that are large machines = two
cars
Basic interpretive and classificatory information
associated with how Japanese people perceive
what is important in counting things is lost
 Some of what is important for English speakers—
adding reference to plurality—is added
 Differences in what is deemed important to
explicate and imply

◦ Personal pronouns
How Would a Bat Count?
How would we translate counting between
humans and a race of intelligent beings who
process sensory data through echolocation?
 Would counting—and more generally
mathematics—necessarily be symbolically
represented in the same way humans do this?
 Perhaps such beings would be quite interested in
shape and size or reflective qualities when
counting, given their manner of processing the
world

◦ Would a bat-like intelligent species count “one large,
sound-absorbent thing, two large, sound-absorbent
thing,” or “one small, sound-reflective thing, two small,
sound-reflective thing?”
Constructing Reality Through
Culture
Underlying principles of symbolic systems like mathematics
or music should be understood by both humans and an alien
intelligence
 Manner in which a particular being obtains and processes
sensory data will influence the way in which it constructs any
system to describe what is being processed
 Elements of the world that are deemed important in a
particular culture will influence cognition and the manner in
which individuals classify and construct their world around
elements that matter more or less
 The nature of empathy will be significantly influenced by the
manner in which a being processes information and
collectively represents and transfers that information

Some Implications
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6.
Culture is not distinct from biology—the sensory apparatus
individuals use significantly shapes their experience of the world
and the manner in which they experience and construct cultural
ideas and patterns of behavior
Culture represents a context for linking memory, experience, and
predictability (past, present, and future) into an interpretive
framework that people use to deal with their surroundings
Culture is not bounded, nor is it constant, instead it is in a
continual state of change or motion
Culture is not consistent, it is an amalgam of individual
experiences, interpretations, and memories that are treated as
though they are consistent but, in fact, involve considerable
variation at the individual level
Culture mediates all human interactions with the world and, thus,
influences all aspects of perception and thought
Culture shapes the way we construct symbolic systems for
representing the world—mathematics is one such system
ANTHROPOLOGY AND
ALIENS: RESEARCH
GONE AWRY
Anthropology
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What are the practical
implications of thinking
about culture and
intelligence in this way?
Anthropology provides
possibility of analogy to
SETI research
Historically,
anthropologists have been
focused on dealing with
“alien” others about
which little was known
Anthropology at a Distance

Early anthropologists, often
known as armchair
anthropologists
◦ Research at a distance
◦ Long time delays
◦ Unreliable modes of communication
Contact, direct or indirect,
normally involved interactions
with people with whom the
anthropologist shared no
language
 Much of the early data collected
was mediated

◦ Missionaries
◦ Colonial officials
◦ Military personnel (mercenaries)
E. B. Tylor (1832 – 1917)
Alien Cultures
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When data were
eventually received
interpretation was
largely based upon
theoretical frameworks
and assumptions that
had a decidedly Western
tinge
Social Darwinism and
cultural evolution with
its underpinnings
associated with progress
and the superiority of
Europeans
20th Century Anthropology
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Armchair anthropology came largely to
an end in the early 20th
Century as
transportation
improved
Circumstances related
to World War II led to
another, very
important, instance of
anthropology at a
distance
An Alien Enemy

Ruth Benedict (1887 –
1948)
◦ Anthropologist trained by
the father of American
cultural anthropology,
Franz Boas
◦ Worked primarily among
Hopi until WWII

Commissioned by US
government to conduct
a study of Japanese
culture in mid 1940s
◦ Japanese behavior made
little sense to Americans
A Difficult Task
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How do you conduct
an ethnographic study
of your enemy in the
middle of a war?
The answer to this
was to conduct
research by looking at
translated literature,
films
Also interviewed
Americans of Japanese
descent living in
relocation camps in
the desert Southwest
Research on Prisoners
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Respondents were passive,
a result of being in a
stressful context
Spoke with a
representative of the very
government that had
forcibly removed them
from their homes and
imprisoned them
Chrysanthemum and Sword
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After the war, Benedict
published her report
to the government as a
book, entitled The
Chrysanthemum and the
Sword
This book sold widely
in both the US and
Japan
No single book has
had more influence on
our understanding of
Japan than Benedict’s
Reactions to C and S
“…Dr. Benedict, with the
soft words of a fox
spirit, leads the reader
into the forest of Japan
and before he knows it
she has him bewitched
into believing that he
understands and is
familiar with every
root and branch of
Japanese culture”
(Embree 1947a:11)
“The most important
contemporary book
yet written on Japan.
Here, for the first time,
is a serious attempt to
explain why the
Japanese behave the
way they do” (Morris
1947:208).
Paradigm for Study of Japan
Benedict’s work set out the
parameters for what would be
considered the basic elements
and core values associated
with Japanese culture and the
Japanese psyche for years to
follow
 Much research produced
supported the conclusions,
either directly or indirectly,
that Benedict had drawn from
her study

Invention of Japan
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Benedict’s at-a-distance take
on Japan became Japan itself
for many, and perhaps the
majority, of Americans
throughout most of the
second half of the 20th
Century
Benedict’s work was central
in the US government’s
approach to re-organizing and
engineering Japanese society
following the War
Widely read by an American
public interested in
understanding the enemy they
had just conquered and
whose country they were
now occupying
Consequences of Benedict’s Work
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Lack of valid empirical
data led to an emphasis
of theory over
description and analysis
Benedict essentially fit
“Japanese culture” into a
theoretical framework
she had developed in her
earlier work on the
Hopi
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Led to a tendency to
create stereotypes of
Japanese culture and to
think in simplistic terms
about how Japanese
behave
Groupism, hyper-loyalty,
the “samurai ethic”
What became
understood as “Japanese
culture” was not an
accurate representation
Invention of Japan

Complex interplay of assumptions, theory, data, and
misinterpretations
◦ Became the basis on which understanding of an alien
civilization was developed
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Japan, as a culture and a civilization, was not simply
discovered, it was in many respects created out of
this interplay
In short, our understanding of Japanese culture and
behavior was filtered, significantly, through our own
cultural notions:
◦ Assumption that objective data collection and analysis of
alien cultures is possible
◦ Assumption of racial homogeneity
◦ Assumption of uniformity of behavior based upon cultural
determinism
IMPLICATIONS OF
THINKING ABOUT
CULTURE AND CONTACT
What will ET be like?
Altruistic
 Bent on imperial
domination
 When we ask this question,
there are several
assumptions lurking that
influence the types of
answers we arrive at

Assumptions

Aliens will think in uniform ways and have a uniform culture
◦ They will act in consistent and predictable ways and will display
cultural consensus
◦ Reflection on our own case and the above discussion makes it
clear that if they are anything like us, this will not be true
Indeed, a tacit assumption of much of the literature dealing
with contact with extraterrestrial intelligence is the idea that
an alien civilization will be culturally unified, unlike our own
world
 We will discover the alien civilization we encounter, rather
than invent it in ways consistent with our own culturally
shaped frameworks for understanding others
 At some root level, we will be able to empathize with an
alien intelligence

Evolutionary Model

Progress leads to greater levels of unified
organizational structure which implies higher level of
“civilization” that is relatively homogeneous
◦ Animism vs. monotheism discredits this assumption
Assumption of human, and particularly Western,
perspectives that have a teleological notion of cultural
evolution in which there is a universal outcome to
processes of cultural change
 Advanced, in this formulation, becomes inexorably
associated with culturally and politically unified
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Fact of increased technological sophistication ≠ increase political or social
sophistication
Intelligence is uniform a product of evolutionary change and
is biological, not cultural, thus it should be displayed in highly
similar ways among different intelligent species
Problems with Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentric views assume an underlying
likeness to humanity in any intelligent being and in
the ways in which “culture” is expressed and
shapes civilization formation among all intelligent
beings
 Culture will exist among aliens—intelligence does
not arise without culture
 Nature of culture will be attuned to a particular a
particular natural and social environment and a
particular set of sensory apparatuses for
processing information about that environment

◦ Could be similar to human culture, but I’d bet it won’t
be
Implications for SETI Research
If we encounter evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence, we
should not only be concerned with deciphering the meaning
of the signal in terms of intended content, but also in terms
of what it tells us about the thing that sent it
 A signal conveys both explicit and implicit information about
the sender.

◦ The fact, for example, that humans have been sending television
images out into the galaxy for several decades could tell
extraterrestrials a great deal about how we process information,
if they are able to recognize that those signals contain
information that can be represented in a visual medium

An alien intelligence that recognizes this fact would then
have a basis upon which to create a message that we might
be able to understand
Implications for SETI Research
The few intentional messages that have been sent out to
date, such as Drake’s approach of broadcasting pictures and
binary information that requires no prior understanding of
our technology, are an attempt to anticipate the capacities of
another civilization of intelligent beings
 Drake’s message provides some basic information about us
and our knowledge, including numbers from one to ten, the
human form, DNA structure, hydrogen and carbon atoms,
and information about our solar system
 The problem is that it requires prior understanding of our
culture, because the symbolic structures used to represent
the information are embedded in our culture and are a
product of our sensory experience of the world

◦ Drake himself has noted that when he presented the message to
different scientists, they had trouble interpreting the entire
message
Implications for SETI Research


Instead of primarily being concerned with the content of a message,
we might want to consider being concerned with what the message
tells us about who sent it
In Drake’s message, there are several subtexts that convey
information about us that are not necessarily part of the intended
meaning
◦ We think in terms of binary relationships—we encode information in
terms of 1’s and 0’s—and understand two-dimensional images
◦ We are highly visual
◦ We are highly logical—an assumption that would be misleading at best
◦ All humans think in ways similar to scientists living in the industrial
world

If the message was interpreted as being sent by “an alien
civilization” for the purpose of making contact, then it would
suggest quite inaccurately that we are a unified society or culture
interested in communication with civilizations in other parts of the
universe
Future Directions
Research on interstellar message construction should involve
not only thinking about the explicit message intended, but
direct consideration of the implicit information that is being
conveyed along with the explicit message
 Rather than asking the questions, “What does ET mean in a
message?” or “What information do we want to convey in a
message from us to ET?” we should also be asking
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◦ “What are the implicit indicators and forms of information about
ET and ourselves that are contained in any message sent or
received?”
◦ “How are our signals products of culturally specific symbolic
systems?”

How is information about our culture(s) and our biology
encoded in the messages we generate?
Interpretive Contexts
What cultural assumptions go into the creation
and interpretation of any message we create or
might receive?
 Because we are inherently cultural beings,
culture has and will continue to shape the
process of looking for and, if contact is made,
interpreting an encounter
 We need to be overtly aware of this and
attempt to bracket our own culturally
circumscribed tendencies and assumptions as
much as possible
