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Though the possibility
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of encountering intelligent life within our solar system
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is considered slim,
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many scientists concede the probability,
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if not the inevitability,
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of its existence elsewhere throughout the universe.
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As mankind moves deeper and deeper into space,
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do you foresee the likelihood
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of contact with such alien races?
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We may not need to venture beyond our own solar system,
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although with the exception of Earth,
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it would seem inhospitable
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to all forms of life that we can imagine,
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we shouldn't be too ready to write off
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even cold giant planets like Jupiter or Saturn.
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Are they really cold, as a matter of fact?
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It's much more probable
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that owing to strong gravitational pressure,
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there is some level in their atmospheres
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where it's hot enough for water to exist
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and for the complex chemical reactions which animate life.
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Sheer pressure itself is no obstacle to life
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as our own oceans demonstrate prolifically.
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The facts of astronomy have always turned out
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to be more surprising than anyone could have dreamed.
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Well, but suppose while cruising out
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towards Mars or Jupiter,
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we actually do bump into some kind of alien civilization.
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And finally we find out for certain
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what we've been hoping and dreading
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and suspecting and speculating about for thousands of years,
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that we're not alone in the universe.
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Only then will governments begin to wonder frantically,
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how are we going to handle this?
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What are they like?
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Get the sociologists, the psychologists,
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the anthropologists.
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Now they're almost as important as that nuclear physicist.
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So all these social scientists
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will be brought down to Washington
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with top secret stamped on their foreheads.
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And then since they won't know too much about these aliens,
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either the governments will dig up
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some grubby old science fiction writers
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and ask them, "How strange can these characters be?"
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And at that point,
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we will run through the multitudinous permutations
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that science fiction writers have presented
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and we will suggest,
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"Well, whether they are collectivists or individualists
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isn't nearly as important
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as whether they are asexual, bisexual, transsexual,
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or products of precision manufacture."
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Any condition in chemistry,
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whether it is within our present scope or not,
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which allows the building of large molecules,
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provides a situation in which life can exist
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and inevitably will.
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Well, I think.
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I operate on two adages.
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The first is Sturgeon's law which says,
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"Nothing is always absolutely so."
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And the other adage states, "Nature tries everything."
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And I go further.
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Nature tries everything everywhere and modify that
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to nature tries everything everywhere where it's possible.
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Yes, but let's modify that just a little further down too.
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Nature tries everything that the laws of physics permit,
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which in turn will include
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just about everything we can imagine.
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Well, well, I think the laws of physics
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may subsume things we can't imagine.
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Well, that's a chilling thought.
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When you think of the things we've been able to imagine,
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Bob Heinlein's Titans, for example, in "The Puppet Masters,"
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intelligent slugs who could fasten up your back
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and thereafter control your thoughts and actions.
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Or Hal Clement's creature in "Needle,"
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which which could ooze into your tissues and live there.
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And Stanley Weinbaum's silicon beast
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in "The Martian Odyssey,"
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a creature which absorbed sand grain by grain
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slowly extracting what it needed
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and every year or so laid a brick and moved on a few inches.
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Well, I don't doubt one moment
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that nature can out imagine these trifles.
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Writers like Jack Williamson, Fred Hoyle,
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and Olaf Stapledon have suggested
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that stars and nebulae might themselves be forms of life.
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But we are certainly going to run into life
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as we don't know it,
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but we may even have run into it 8,000 or 30,000 years ago.
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And as Dr. Asimov suggests, "Not recognised it as alive."
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We may be living with it at this moment and not know it.
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The obvious point being you can't know what you don't know.
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Maybe it's totally neutral towards us
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and therefore it doesn't have to be accounted for.
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Maybe the Rocky Mountains are alive
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on some extremely long time scale.
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Maybe the Earth is inhabited by some life form
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so unlike ourselves that we don't recognise it as anything
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but a rock, a tree, or a cloud.
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And so we formulate laws of physics
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to account for physical properties
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that are actually behaviour patterns.
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Well, for the sake of such creatures as yet undiscovered,
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I find myself hoping that they will be
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so unlike life as we know it,
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that we will completely ignore them.
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If they are life as we know it, heaven help them.
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I'm inclined to agree.
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In science fiction, we have dabbled harmlessly
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with countless alien characterizations.
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But when you consider that standard novel
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of a gentile marrying a Jew,
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or a negro sleeping with a white,
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is still considered to be an inflammatory subject,
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you can gauge how far we have come
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in our social development.
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The study of aesthetics, I think, will be essential
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to the task of comprehending the bizarre life forms
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we are going to be encountering,
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just as aesthetics has a lot to do
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with the task of assimilating
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to the various colours races here on earth.
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We don't want to accommodate ourselves to new art forms,
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hence the violent reactions of critics to new techniques,
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new uses of colour.
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Every artist with any individuality
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has done things to shape and form we can learn from.
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These are the lessons we can teach
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those who will be going into space.
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We must say to them,
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"Because a living thing looks hard,
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because it has an unfamiliar colour,
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because you don't like its odour or texture,
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do not be afraid of it.
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Do not lash out instinctively to destroy that thing.
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Quite possibly it'll find us no less repelling to behold."
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When you consider the vast variations
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of human behaviour we already know about,
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I think that any alien we can imagine
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is far less likely to horrify humanity
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or even surprise an anthropologist
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than might contrare seem to assume.
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Bob Heinlein wrote "Stranger in a Strange Land"
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in which the Martians practise ritual cannibalism
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since they live in a desert climate
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and want to keep organic compounds in circulation
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as much as possible.
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Now, that's a rash and rather startling notion for a story,
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but that kind of practise actually prevails
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in many parts of Africa today.
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And I can think of rites even more startling.
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For example, among the Indian Indians,
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when a child dies, the mothers of the tribe
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ritually cook and eat it as their form of mourning.
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It's not a question of they're being shot of protein,
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it's a religious ceremony.
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What I'm trying to say is that few aliens
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are apt to be more startling than man himself.