我们的头脑无法被震撼，这本身就令人震撼It’s Mind Blowing That Our Minds Can’t Be Blown
Brett： 有科学头脑的人会说："也许我们无法理解下一套物理定律。也许我们无法理解外星人。"这不过是诉诸超自然。它在逻辑上等同于说："上帝就在那里，你不可能理解上帝是什么。上帝是无限的、全知的、超越我们的存在。"
如果你愿意，你大可以相信这些。你可以相信模拟假说，也可以相信其中的任何一种。它们都是关于我们无法触及的现实的形而上学主张。无论你是否要引入拥有我们无法理解的思想的外星人，这些都站在同一立场上。
Naval： 至少对上帝，你可以说："好吧，那是在另一个宇宙里，超出了我们的物理定律。"但外星人想必也受同样的物理定律支配，所以我甚至看不出这有什么依据。
任何聪明到能够离开母星的物种都知道，制约因素在于思想。所以它们最想从遇到的任何其他物种身上得到的，就是新的思想。它们应当进行的贸易，就是思想的贸易。
科幻作品中有一种马尔萨斯主义哲学——如今被称为黑暗森林假说——认为每个人类物种都像细菌一样，我们终将耗尽空间。不，宇宙在规模上是无限的，而且还在不断膨胀。多元宇宙更是无限的。
我们正处于无限的开端。我们不会耗尽资源。每个人都在创造思想。聪明的外星文明交换思想，成功的人类文明也交换思想。因为这些思想会把从前无用的东西变成资源。
每个外星文明都能与其他文明交换思想，因为它们都是普适的解释者，都具备最大限度的理解能力。
事实上，这里最令人震撼的一点是：你的心智不会被震撼。只要付出时间和努力，没有任何思想是你的心智无法吸收的。
所以，如果我们遇到一个外星物种，我们大概应该感到高兴。它们从我们星球上想要的，除了我们的思想之外别无他物。而交换思想的最好方式，就是拥有一个充满活力、资源丰饶、繁荣兴旺的文明。
因为我从小读的是那些套路化的科幻作品，所以我过去对外星接触持悲观态度。"是啊，如果我们遇到外星人，它们只会毁灭我们。"比如在《银河系漫游指南》里，沃贡人为了修建超空间快速通道，毫不留情地拆掉了地球。
现实情况是，任何发现我们的物种都会立刻把它们所拥有的全部知识交给我们。它们也会渴望我们拥有的新知识，因为它们会意识到，这些知识能让它们点亮暗物质、暗能量和宇宙中尚未利用的资源，让它们同样得以繁荣。
Brett: Scientifically minded types say, “Perhaps we won’t be able to understand the next set of laws of physics. Perhaps we won’t be able to understand the aliens.” It’s nothing but the appeal to the supernatural. It’s logically equivalent to “God is out there, and you can’t possibly understand what God is. God is this infinite, omniscient being that is beyond us.”
You can believe that if you like. You can believe the simulation hypothesis. You can believe any one of these things. They’re all metaphysical claims about a reality that we have no access to. Whether or not you want to introduce aliens who will have ideas that we can’t comprehend, that’s all standing on the same footing.
Naval: At least in God’s metaphysics you could say, “OK, that’s in a different universe. That’s outside of our laws of physics.” But the aliens presumably would be under the same laws of physics, so I don’t even see what the basis for that is.
Any species that is smart enough to get off its home planet knows that the limiting factor is ideas. So the thing that they should want the most from any other species they encounter is new ideas. And the trade that they should be making is the trade of ideas.
There’s this Malthusian philosophy in science fiction—now called the Dark Forest Hypothesis—that every human species is like bacteria and we’re going to run out of room. No, the universe is infinite in size; it’s expanding. The multiverse is even more infinite in size.
We are at the beginning of infinity. We’re not running out of resources. Everybody’s creating ideas. Smart alien civilizations trade ideas and successful human civilizations trade ideas. Because those ideas take things that were useless before and turn them into resources.
Every alien civilization can trade ideas with every other civilization because they’re all universal explainers. They’re capable of maximal understanding.
In fact, the mind-blowing thing here is that your mind cannot be blown. There’s no idea out there that your mind cannot absorb given the time and the effort.
So if we encounter an alien species, we should probably rejoice. They don’t want anything from our planet other than our ideas. And the best way to trade ideas is to have a dynamic, abundant, thriving civilization.
Because I grew up on rote sci-fi, I used to be pessimistic about alien encounters. “Oh yeah, if we encounter aliens, they’ll just destroy us.” Like, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Vogons thoughtlessly demolished Earth to make room for a hyperspace bypass.
The reality of it is that any species that finds us is going to immediately give us all the knowledge that they have. And they’re going to crave new knowledge that we have, because they will realize that would allow them to light up the dark matter, the dark energy, the unused resources in the universe, to allow them to thrive as well.