« Does this still work? | Main | Well, I am here in »
May 23, 2003
A study on Xenoanthropology
A study on Xenoanthropology
(On Biology and its Cultural implications)
Culture is the result of the interplay between physiology and geography. Thus, the Japanese and the English had a similar feudal culture, right up until the point were England was influenced by events that never happened to Japan. This can be seen in such diverse cultural artifacts from warfare (compare Knights to Samurai) to theater (Neither used female actors, and they both have rather similar traditions of tragedy). Their countryside's are even dotted by the same Mythos. Compare, for instance, the Sprites and Shide of British Isles to the Kodama's of the Japanese isles. What caused such wealth of similarities in these two cultures? It can only be that two physiologically identical (they, like all humans are genetically identical) and geographically similar (small island nations in close proximity to a mainland) people would react in similar ways to their environment. Right down to being cultures that embrace tea.
Let us expand on this a bit. If we ever manage to find the loophole in E=MC2, and find other life in the universe, it will be absolutely essential to understand these creatures. If they turn out (against all probability) to be genetically identical with humans, we would have no more trouble understanding them than we Americans do the French. There would be no reason why they couldn't have developed a language similar (if not identical) to one of our own. In fact, if you took a human child, fostered it in a loving, yet alien, home, that child might never know that it was human. In much the same way that children today don't necessarily know that they are adopted if they aren't told.
To take it one step further, let us suppose that these hypothetical aliens are identical to us in every way save only that their thumbs are on the outside of their hands, instead of on the inside as ours are. That same human child could be reared in that alien society without, and quite possibly less, than a typical physically handicapped person (a paraplegic, say) has in our own society.
Now, something more outlandish: what if our hypothetical aliens were evolved from feline stock. They would have a radically different physiology; a different outlook on life, different (even if only subtly) food requirements, in fact, there would be very little similarities. A human child fostered there would feel alien all her life. This child could never feel at peace, and would long every day for human beings.
To bring things closer to home (galactic speaking), we have in our own solar system the possibility of life, on Jupiter perhaps, or Uranus. This life would have (by definition) to be utterly unlike anything that we know on Earth. Different atmosphere requirements, different pressure requirements, different everything. There is very little hope that we could ever understand such creatures even as well as we understand our own sea-based life forms. In fact the most alien thing we might ever run into would be a non-tool using space dolphin!
Posted by Andrew at May 23, 2003 10:47 AM