Page Content (OCR)
356 In the meantime, anticipating contact could motivate us to reduce the disparity between ourselves and a more advanced technology. The greater our own scientific, technological, and natural resources, the more capable our future civilization will be—and the more seriously it will be taken by others. We may not have to resign ourselves to being helpless. Making such advances would enable our own future even in the absence of contact. It is one part of spreading our bets. If there is a community of intelligence, our species cannot be part of it unless we search for evidence of its existence and communicate with it. We cannot contribute to its work unless we have the physical means. Techno- logical life, rather than merely intelligent life, will determine membership in a galactic society. The same logic that leads to the conclusion that humanity is one brother- hood will... lead to the same conclusion about all forms of consciousness in the universe. When this is recognized we will be driven to ask about the common goals of the commonwealth of conscious beings. —Gerald Feinberg, 1968* Perhaps the optimistic model will prevail. Older intelligences may have polished their skills of communication, diplomacy, and compromise; they may have learned ways to communicate nonaggressive intent that all sen- tient beings can understand. To succeed, they—and we—must cross not only the barrier of communication but also the barrier of trust. There could be synergistic effects. A community of intelligence may have perceptions of the universe and its fate beyond the ability of any individual species. Each species may contribute knowledge, insights, skills, and powers, which would interact with those of others to stimulate new syntheses; the whole might be greater than the sum of its parts. If the optimistic scenario prevails, technological civilizations in contact might move beyond exchanges of information to identify shared interests, develop understandings that would reduce the risk of friction or conflict, and work together on complimentary courses of action. We might see each other as allies against the impersonal forces of nature. Here is a new opportunity to be part of something much larger than ourselves. Civilizations in contact may conceive of great tasks to assure the survival and further evolution of intelligence. Stapledon foresaw this pos- sibility nearly 60 years ago; the intelligent races he envisioned were engaged upon a vast common enterprise undertaken by the Galactic Society of Worlds.** The feasibility of those tasks may depend on how many tech- nological civilizations emerge, survive, and expand beyond their home worlds. The Human Role The Triumph of Mind