Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T16:34:21.418Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Philosophical issues in the search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2013

Jean Schneider
Jean Schneider*
Affiliation:
LUTh, CNRS UMR 8102, Paris Observatory, 92190 Meudon
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence, it is essential to clarify what is to be meant by ‘life’ and ‘intelligence’. I first analyse what it means to ‘define’ these words. I will show that some philosophical prejudice is unavoidable. As a working hypothesis, I consider two types of philosophy: ‘natural philosophy’, seeking for some essence of things, and ‘critical (or analytical) philosophy’, devoted to the analysis of the procedures by which we claim to construct a reality. An extension of critical philosophy, epistemo-analysis (i.e. the psycho-analysis of concepts) is presented and applied to the definition of exolife and to extraterrestrial ‘intelligence’. Some pragmatic conclusions are finally drawn for future search strategies.

Keywords

critical philosophydefinition of Lifeepistemo-analysisintelligenceSETI
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 12 , Special Issue 3: The Drake Equation , July 2013 , pp. 259 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

Presented at the Conference « 50 years of The Drake Equation » Paris, November 2011.

References

Artistoteles, (1995). Posterior Analytics. Book II, section 3 [theory of definition], Chapter XIII. Procyon Publishing. available at http://libertyonline.hypermail.com/Aristotle/Logic/Posterior-Analytics.html.Google Scholar
Bachelard, G. (2002). The Formation of the Scientific Mind: A Contribution to a Psychoanalysis of Objective Knowledge. Clinamen Press, Bolton.Google Scholar
Bedau, M. (2007). What is Life? In Chapter 24 of ‘A Companion to the Philosophy of Biology, eds. Sarkar, S. & Plutynski, A. p. 455. Blackwell, New York.Google Scholar
Bion, W. (1962a). ‘A theory of thinking’. In Second Thoughts: Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis. London: Karnac. pp. 111–119. 1967.Google Scholar
Bion, W. (1962b). Learning from Experience. William Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Cassirer, E. (1965). The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Yale University Press, Yale.Google Scholar
Cleland, C. (2012). Life without definitions. Synthese 185, 125.Google Scholar
Dick, S. & Lupisella, M. (2009). Cosmos and culture. NASA SP-2009-4802. Available at http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4802.pdf.Google Scholar
Kant, E. (2003). Critique of Pure Reason. Palgrave Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
Laplanche, J. & Pontalis, J.-B. (1974). The Language of Psycho-Analysis. W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Machery, E. (2012). Why I stopped worrying about the definition of life… and why you should as well. Synthese 185, 145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayor, M., Marmier, M., Lovis, Ch., Udry, S., Segransan, D., Pepe, F., Benz, W., Bertaux, J.-L., Bouchy, F., Dumusque, X. et al. (2011). The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets XXXIV. Occurrence, mass distribution and orbital properties of super-Earths and Neptune-mass planets. Astron. & Astrophys., submitted. http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.2497.Google Scholar
Proust, J. (2010). Les animaux pensent-ils? Bayard, Paris.Google Scholar
Rosch, E. (1973). Natural categories. Cognit. Psychol. 4, 328.Google Scholar
Schneider, J. (1975). A model for a non chemical form of life: crystalline physiology. Origins Life 8, 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, J. (2002). L'exobiologie, l'imaginaire et le symbolique. In ‘Epistémologie de l'exobiologie’ Cahiers François Viète, No 4 p. 91, 2002 available at http://luth7.obspm.fr/∼schneider/15mai.html.Google Scholar
Schneider, J. (2006). On the ‘history’ of the Universe and the beginning of time. In SF2A-2006: Proc. Annual Meeting of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics, ed. Barret, D., Casoli, F., Lagache, G., Lecavelier, A., Pagani, L. p. 303, available at http://www.obspm.fr/∼schneider/SF2A06-Schneider1.pdf.Google Scholar
Udry, S. (2012). Radial Velocity detection of exoplanets. In ‘ESO@50 – the first 50 years of ESO’, ESO Garching, 3–7 September 2012.Google Scholar
Ulfbeck, O. & Bohr, A. (2001). Genuine fortuitousness. Where did that click come from? Found. Phys. 31, 757.Google Scholar