Following your first post on the religious and philisophical beliefs in Sci-Fi series Babylon 5 and my follow up on Star Trek. I got thinking about the fundamental basics of alien or extraterrestrial philosophy. One of my old Tutors who eventually became the head of my faculty was a big fan of what he called interplanetary theology, however he never gave me permission to ‘professionally’ research the matter. But here’s a few thoughts I managed this afternoon.

The basic building block of philosophy must be enquiry. The simple one word questions, who, where, what, how, why? Now some philosophers disagree on where the starting point is, basic metaphysics: what exists? Logic: what is reason? Epistemology: what can I know? and Ethics: how should I live?

I guess anyone can start their philosophical enquiry using any of the above. For example by asking ‘how should I live?’ the philosopher who starts with ethics will begin to ask secondary questions, such as what is good? where does good come from? Both of these questions cover aspects of metaphysics, logic and epistemology.

Personally I believe that logic is the starting point in philosophy, one has to be able to define what is reasonable and rational and what is not. Through logic we can start to identify such things as ‘truths’ and analyse what sort of truth any particular statement is.

I think Wittgenstein got the basic elements of logic correct in the Tractacus in particular that language can be a geometric projection of facts, about which we have thoughts or picture ideas. (I shan’t expand, takes far too long).

So thinking about an Alien philosophy I assume they must have some form of linguistic expression (perhaps not, maybe only telepathic processes) through which they project and communicate their thought enquiries. And that for the accurate transmission of facts, to factual picture ideas, to the expression of those ideas, there must be some form of logical system probably identical to ours. An analytic truth such as ‘all bachelors are unmarried’ must be the same throughout the universe, otherwise it is not an analytical truth.

But herein lies a problem, quite aside from the possibility that an alien culture may have no concept of marriage or bachelorhood, but only instinct driven promiscuity, what if this alien culture was asexual and had no need for social interaction in order to bring about reproduction? Or what if the culture in question through technological advances (?) had divorced reproduction from the sexual act, much like a Barbarella scenario?

So it occured to me that at the level of primary enquiry (which shapes the direction in which the Philosophy goes), quite apart from logic (which is essential in establishing a demarcation for what is true and what is false), philosophical enquiry is dependant upon a posteriori/empirical/experience based knowledge. Note that I am not denying the existence of a priori (before the fact) truths, but I do concede that in the primary stages of philosophical development, it is enquiry about the experienced that is the main driving force.

In simpler terms this means that alien philosophy, although bound by the same logical boundaries and laws as human philosophy, is dependent upon environmental factors. If the sentient life form of one of our alien cultures was plant based, with no animal species in existence, what then would their notion of ‘life’ be. More importantly if an alien life form was physically immortal (measurable only insofar as no-one has ever known anyone else to die) how would this effect the development of their metaphysics and ethics? What if the alien life form had no physical form, or what if the life form wasn’t social, or more interestingly was a singular entity all alone on the planet. Better still what if the life form (borg-like) was a collective individuality, not one but many, “And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.” Mark 5:9

I think the same environmental factors would contribute to the development of alien sciences as well. Considering that the basic mathematical building blocks (analytical truths) of the universe would be the same, we can assume that if they were as similarly developed as humanity they would reach the same conclusions, calculations and knowledge concerning gravity for example, that we have. However if the environmental factors of this alien world were so different to ours, it is fair to assume that the method or route by which they reached these same conclusions would differ enourmously. Without Newton sitting beneath a ripening apple tree, what would lead this alien philosopher of natural sciences to speculate about gravity? On a desert world, would it be the aerodynamics of sand particles in a sandstorm that inspired such enquiry? And what about the potentially inconvenient factor that this alien star system is composed of a binary star, few gas giants and numerous moons?

All interesting stuff, and I could go on speculating, but for now I shan’t as I eagerly await your next post on B5. But lets continue speculating on these matters, for even if we do not achieve the academic heights we may dream of here on earth, it is possible that at some time in the future, possibly posthumously, possibly via a spirit medium, or through a clone, physical or holographic, our speculations may lead us to be awarded the alien nobel prize equivalent in some far off star system as yet unheard of.