6.B. The Value of ETL

Location

Student Union 323-B

Start Date

8-3-2022 2:15 PM

End Date

8-3-2022 3:45 PM

Description

  1. The basis for ethical value of ETL / Cory Lewis
    If we encounter extraterrestrial life, how should we determine its ethical status? I propose that depth of self-making should shape our thinking about this question. Living things continually construct themselves. Enactivists propose autopoiesis as a definition of life, a particular sort of self-making. If we encounter a process precariously and adaptively constructing itself, the enactivist view says it is alive, and deserves the ethical standing afforded to all living things.
    But we eat plants without great ethical worry, perhaps because animals are self-making in a deeper way than plants. Animals are meaning-makers. They don’t just build bodies, they build minds. Animals interpret their world, and the cleverest can re-interpret it. Their world means something to them, and that meaning is constructed by them actively and flexibly. So if you meet a plant that has hopes and dreams of its own, it should have the same ethical standing as animals. But it may be that reasonable planetary stewardship need not involve never harming an extraterrestrial algae.
    Humans are self-making in a yet deeper way. We don’t just make meaning, we actively and flexibly construct our own meaning-making apparatus. We think about thinking, and worry about what we should care about. We harbor second order desires: things we want to want, or wish we didn’t want. Humans get top ethical standing, because our recursive meaning making lets us inhabit such rich worlds. Facing an extraterrestrial life form, the depth of its self-making should be central when considering its ethical status.
  2. The discovery of extraterrestrial life: a possible frenzy? or not? / Linda Billings
    How important to humanity, globally speaking, is, or will be, the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life? Astrobiologists affiliated with NASA’s astrobiology program are focused on establishing standards of evidence for confirming the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Such a discovery will not be a single-point event. Confirmation of detection will take time – months or even years. The astrobiology community tends to believe that the detection of evidence of extraterrestrial life – likely in our solar system, and single-celled – will be earth-shaking.
    But will it be? How will the mass media, social media, their non-expert audiences, and decision makers engage with and respond to claims of the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life? Possible responses to this question are purely speculative. But it is worth thinking about possible outcomes, as well as thinking about whether and how the astrobiology community might engage in public dialogue about such a discovery, in advance of its occurrence.
    NASA communication, education, and public outreach (CEPO) or “engagement” efforts aim mainly to build public support for the space agency. The same goes for most aerospace industry efforts. Can, or will, the NASA astrobiology community broaden the scope of CEPO efforts to fully explain why the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life is such a high priority and such a daunting challenge?
    In my position as commentary editor for the peer-reviewed journal Science Communication, I have read many papers on successful science communication, education, and outreach projects. Local and regional efforts, tailored to community needs and focusing on building and sustaining relationships, appear to work best. Rather than pursuing large-scale, top-down CEPO efforts, perhaps members of the astrobiology community – including members of SSoCIA – could practice a decentralized approach, engaging in CEPO at the local level, on their campuses and communities and with schools and the media.
  3. Should we seed life on exoplanets? / Pauli Laine
    Claudius Gros, a theoretical physicist from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt proposed an idea how robotic missions equipped with cryogenic pods with genes could be used to distribute microbial life to planets capable of supporting life, but not likely to give rise to it on their own. In this presentation, I talk about why we should or should not do something like this, i.e. could life on Earth be ultimately saved with directed panspermia, or should we do everything to prevent this from happening.""

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Mar 8th, 2:15 PM Mar 8th, 3:45 PM

6.B. The Value of ETL

Student Union 323-B

  1. The basis for ethical value of ETL / Cory Lewis
    If we encounter extraterrestrial life, how should we determine its ethical status? I propose that depth of self-making should shape our thinking about this question. Living things continually construct themselves. Enactivists propose autopoiesis as a definition of life, a particular sort of self-making. If we encounter a process precariously and adaptively constructing itself, the enactivist view says it is alive, and deserves the ethical standing afforded to all living things.
    But we eat plants without great ethical worry, perhaps because animals are self-making in a deeper way than plants. Animals are meaning-makers. They don’t just build bodies, they build minds. Animals interpret their world, and the cleverest can re-interpret it. Their world means something to them, and that meaning is constructed by them actively and flexibly. So if you meet a plant that has hopes and dreams of its own, it should have the same ethical standing as animals. But it may be that reasonable planetary stewardship need not involve never harming an extraterrestrial algae.
    Humans are self-making in a yet deeper way. We don’t just make meaning, we actively and flexibly construct our own meaning-making apparatus. We think about thinking, and worry about what we should care about. We harbor second order desires: things we want to want, or wish we didn’t want. Humans get top ethical standing, because our recursive meaning making lets us inhabit such rich worlds. Facing an extraterrestrial life form, the depth of its self-making should be central when considering its ethical status.
  2. The discovery of extraterrestrial life: a possible frenzy? or not? / Linda Billings
    How important to humanity, globally speaking, is, or will be, the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life? Astrobiologists affiliated with NASA’s astrobiology program are focused on establishing standards of evidence for confirming the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Such a discovery will not be a single-point event. Confirmation of detection will take time – months or even years. The astrobiology community tends to believe that the detection of evidence of extraterrestrial life – likely in our solar system, and single-celled – will be earth-shaking.
    But will it be? How will the mass media, social media, their non-expert audiences, and decision makers engage with and respond to claims of the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life? Possible responses to this question are purely speculative. But it is worth thinking about possible outcomes, as well as thinking about whether and how the astrobiology community might engage in public dialogue about such a discovery, in advance of its occurrence.
    NASA communication, education, and public outreach (CEPO) or “engagement” efforts aim mainly to build public support for the space agency. The same goes for most aerospace industry efforts. Can, or will, the NASA astrobiology community broaden the scope of CEPO efforts to fully explain why the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life is such a high priority and such a daunting challenge?
    In my position as commentary editor for the peer-reviewed journal Science Communication, I have read many papers on successful science communication, education, and outreach projects. Local and regional efforts, tailored to community needs and focusing on building and sustaining relationships, appear to work best. Rather than pursuing large-scale, top-down CEPO efforts, perhaps members of the astrobiology community – including members of SSoCIA – could practice a decentralized approach, engaging in CEPO at the local level, on their campuses and communities and with schools and the media.
  3. Should we seed life on exoplanets? / Pauli Laine
    Claudius Gros, a theoretical physicist from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt proposed an idea how robotic missions equipped with cryogenic pods with genes could be used to distribute microbial life to planets capable of supporting life, but not likely to give rise to it on their own. In this presentation, I talk about why we should or should not do something like this, i.e. could life on Earth be ultimately saved with directed panspermia, or should we do everything to prevent this from happening.""