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226 Hopes us by.** Our curiosity would be stimulated by discovering how much we had not known, or had misunderstood. Contact also could reveal areas of shared knowledge, supporting our own conclusions. Alien knowledge, integrated with our own, could lead to new syntheses, a boom in interdisciplinary studies as we perceived new linkages, and new branches of science. Morrison and others foresaw that interpreting alien signals would become a major social task, comparable to a very large branch of learning.** What is important is not a single discovery, argued philosopher Beck, but the beginning of an endless series of discoveries that will change every- thing in unforeseeable ways. If they are made, there is no limit to what we might learn about other creatures, and about ourselves. Compared to such advances in knowledge, the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions and the discovery of the New World would have been but minor preludes.* Dealing with a massive influx of knowledge could force us into mind- stretching responses; it could change our criteria of what matters. Baird speculated that the actual potential of the human mind may be realized only when external conditions demand more.**° A Copernican View of History Every civilization sees itself as the center of the world, claimed political scientist Samuel Huntington, and writes its history as the central drama of human history. That perspective could be shattered by contact, which might provoke a Copernican revolution not just in the scientific sense, but in the historical sense as well. Oswald Spengler, author of The Decline of the West, had argued as far back as 1918 that it was necessary to replace the Western “Ptolemaic” approach to history with a Coper- nican one. Communicating with many worlds could help to make history an experimental science. We might learn the stories of civilizations stretch- ing far back into the galactic past, becoming aware of alternative cultures, arts, social and economic systems, and forms of political organization. John Macquarrie of the University of Glasgow speculated that the universe has produced—and will continue to produce—countless mil- lions of histories analogous to human history. MacVey put it more romantically: “Between these islands may be passing even now mes- sages that speak of galactic empires, of celestial dynasties, and of strange events long past.” We might reflect on their achievements, their sagas and tragedies, their hopes and fears, aspirations and doubts, kindnesses and cruelties.*” One of the reasons that the social sciences lack the maturity of the physi- cal sciences, Finney reminded us, is that so far we have had only one