IAC-08-A4.2.08 ALIENS AMONG US: LEARNING DISABILITY AS AN ANALOG FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

by H. Paul Shuch ([email protected]) Executive Director Emeritus, The SETI League, Inc. Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering, Heidelberg University of Applied Sciences

ABSTRACT

SETI scientists can learn a great deal about possible ET communications styles and motivations by studying social outcasts and mental misfits within the human population. Citing two examples: Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which involves a seemingly chaotic learning style at odds with linear information processing, is considered a pathology which our society treats with medication. Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism found among the highly intelligent, manifests itself as an apparent lack of social skills and inability to communicate meaningfully with "normals." Perhaps such forms of cognitive and emotional dysfunction are the norm among highly intelligent extraterrestrials? If so, then persons with ADHD, Asperger's, or other supposed disabilities may prove useful surrogates in the study of ET intelligence.

KEYWORDS

SETI, Communications, Learning Disability, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger

INTRODUCTION stellar formation, fraction of stars with planets, number of good Earths per solar It all begins (as should most SETI articles) system, fraction of such planets with life, with the [Morton, 2002]. fraction of lifeforms evolving intelligence, Ostensibly, this equation allows us to and fraction of intelligent species choosing compute N, the number of potential to communicate, we generally come up with communications partners in the Milky Way a value of one (within plus or minus a Galaxy. Not really a formula intended for couple of orders of magnitude). mathematical solution, this agenda for the world’s first formal meeting of SETI N EQUALS L scientists helps us to focus our research, by identifying the unknowns. It is, in short, an So, what really matters is L, the lifetime of elegant tool for quantifying our ignorance. communicative societies. It stands to reason that the longer the duration of L, the greater Even as early as the Order of the Dolphin the number (N) of civilizations out there meeting, it was argued that the first six with whom we can potentially make contact. factors of Drake’s famous equation don’t really matter. When we multiply together We hope that L is great, for our own sake as our best estimated values for the rate of well as theirs. For nearly half a century, we’ve conducted ever more sensitive would hope) we humans are not so inclined, searches, employing a multitude of search and given that there’s little we can do to modalities, across an ever increasing search increase the longevity of societies we space. Yet, we continue to come up empty- presume are more advanced than ours, let’s handed. After fifty years of solitude, we rule out L. might come reluctantly to the conclusion that L is very low indeed. That leaves us with one remaining factor: f c, the fraction of intelligent species that choose There is, however, an alternative to communicate. We can potentially increase explanation for our present lack of SETI the value of f c in one of two ways: by success. For Drake’s model is a inviting communication, or by redefining its multiplicative one. Thus, as any single parameters. factor in the Drake Equation approaches zero, the product N also approaches zero. INVITING COMMUNICATION So, a low enough value for any Drake factor could explain the null results of all SETI We invite ETI to communicate with us observations to date. through the science of interstellar messaging, lately becoming known as METI An interesting corollary to the above insight (Messaging to ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). is that, conversely, if we can somehow raise The landmark of 1974 the value of any single factor in the Drake [David, 1980] is a prime example of METI. equation, we achieve a corresponding So are the more recent transmissions increase in N, the number of extraterrestrial beamed to various stars from the powerful neighbors with whom we can expect to Evpatoria radar facility in Crimea, Ukraine communicate. Thus, to improve SETI [Zaitsev, 2003]. Such transmissions are not success, we need only pick one Drake without their critics. Controversy arises factor, and proceed to increase its value. around the fact that nobody can say with certainty that such transmissions do not INCREASING THE VALUE OF N subject humankind to some level of risk.

Which, if any, of the Drake factors can we Risk-benefit analysis notwithstanding, there hope to influence? Clearly, there’s not is a very good reason why METI activities much we can do about the astronomical have not contributed to SETI success, and ones. Stellar formation, planetary will not, at least for the foreseeable future. abundance, and Earthlike environments are Even the most powerful and elegantly beyond our direct control, so we leave those crafted invitation to communicate must still factors in the hands of Arthur Clarke and travel through the at c, God. Similarly, there’s little we can do the cosmic speed limit. Thus, propagation about the biological factors – life and time to the specific target stars can extend intelligence either emerge or they don’t, from the tens to the tens of thousands of without our say. years.

We could, I suppose, impact L, the mean Why hasn’t ETI answered our call? They longevity of communicative societies, but haven’t received it yet, and may not for a only negatively – perhaps by waging war on very long time – a period perhaps exceeding them, or spreading disease. Since (one the longevity of human civilization. REDEFINING COMMUNICATION submerged in broadband noise. Since such filtering renders undetectable those Some say SETI success eludes us because intelligent signals that masquerade as noise, we’re listening in the wrong part of the the FFT would not be particularly adept at spectrum. Aliens, their reasoning goes, are detecting, for example, some forms of so technologically advanced as to have spread spectrum communication. For such abandoned microwave radio or laser optics signals, an adaptive algorithm such as the aeons ago, in favor of – of what? Graviton Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT) communications, perhaps, or modulated [Maccone, 1994] might prove more applic- gamma rays, or some other technology not able. So, part of redefining communication in evidence to we primitives here on Earth. could well be re-examining archival data sets in new ways. The late SETI pioneer Prof. Philip Morrison used to talk about zeta waves, some HUMAN LEARNING DISABILITIES ; ALIEN hypothetical communications medium of COMMUNICATIONS DIFFERENCES which ETI has knowledge, and we do not. When we learn how to harness zeta waves, Which brings us to the focus of this paper. he whimsically predicted (without saying Factor’s Corollary to Clarke’s Third Law exactly what they are), we will finally states: “any sufficiently advanced achieve SETI success. Zeta waves may modulation scheme is indistinguishable from indeed be one way to redefine noise.” [Shuch, 1996] If some modulation communication, but only after we have schemes render intelligent information succeeded in harnessing zeta waves (which, content undetectable, might some alien by their very definition, we never will). communications modalities render unintelligible their attempts to Might there be what I will call an eta wave, communicate? something not quite as elusive as a zeta wave, which exists, about which we are Within our own population, we encounter a currently aware, but which we have not yet variety of seemingly intelligent individuals thought to exploit for SETI science? If there whose particular communications styles (we is, we may already have detected ETI, and tend to stigmatize these as ‘disabilities’) just not recognized our positive result. render them incomprehensible to the human mainstream. From them, we can seek to Eta waves might manifest not in some learn new communications modalities, previously unexplored segment of the which might be more applicable to the SETI electromagnetic spectrum, but rather as enterprise than the linear learning modes for previously unrecognized hallmarks of which our scientific training has prepared artificiality, already collected, but buried us. somewhere in the SETI data set. ASPERGER ’S SYNDROME For example, early in SETI science, when it was assumed that advanced civilizations Fans of the weekly US television drama would broadcast easily detected beacons, the “Boston Legal” have already met an Aspie. primary tool of digital signal processing was His name is Jerry Espenson, and he is a the fast Fourier transform. The FFT is very highly intelligent (some would say brilliant) adept at ferreting out monotonic carriers attorney totally lacking in social skills. As insightfully played by actor Christian Persons diagnosed with ADHD tend to be Clemenson, Jerry is awkward around multi-taskers. If you have ever been known people, stammers, fails to make eye contact to talk on the telephone and read a book during conversations, squirms, has various while answering email and drafting your nervous tics, and generally fails clearly to next journal article, you might well fit the communicate his extraordinary insights. syndrome, whether diagnosed or not. Although a caricature in some respects, Jerry’s behaviors and abilities are typical of The ADHD student will fail to hang on my individuals diagnosed with Asperger’s every word. He or she may well feel that Syndrome (AS), a supposed disorder only what I have to say is not personally relevant. recently added to the Diagnostic and Might not ETI, who chooses to ignore my Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders attempts to communicate, be similarly [DSM-IV, 2000] the mental health care unmotivated? “I’m not inattentive,” the profession’s standard reference. ADHD student might say in the lecture hall, “you’re boring.” I’m not listening, ETI may Many of us in the scientific community well think. You humans have nothing to recognize one or more of these AS teach me. behaviors in ourselves. Perhaps some future edition of the DSM will redefine AS more METAPHORICAL SPEECH appropriately, as a collection of abilities, rather than as a disability. They might even First airing on 28 September 1991, season 5 rename it “geekism.” In the interim, if we episode 2 of the TV science fiction series SETI geeks assume ETI to be highly “Star Trek: the Next Generation” tackled the intelligent, might we perhaps consider our challenges of interstellar communication. In own lack of success to be, at least in part, a his script “Darmok,” screenwriter Joe manifestation Asperger’s (either own or Menoskey depicts a race of highly ETI’s)? intelligent extraterrestrials whose communi- cation style is incomprehensible to humans. ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY Although the ubiquitous Universal Trans- DISORDER lator (to which, regretfully, Paramount Studios still holds the patent) is able to Another recent addition to the DSM-IV, translate their individual words into standard ADHD is an alternative learning and English, those words come out in a jumbled communications style typical of gifted torrent, from which the humans can extract students who are being bored to tears by a no meaning. It turns out the Tamarian race lock-step educational system. Mainstream speaks solely in metaphor. Lacking a medical practice is to drug ADHD students common cultural context, humans are at a with stimulant medication (an option far less loss to comprehend their speech. costly than individualized instruction). Formerly disruptive students receiving such Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s words give hope treatment become so cooperative and to those of us who would try to compliant that it is often said Ritalin (the communicate with alien intelligences. “But most commonly prescribed ADHD drug) is are they truly incomprehensible? In my addictive: parents and teachers get hooked experience, communication is a matter of on it. patience... imagination. I would like to believe that these are qualities we have in sufficient measure.” Through a shared seems not to be a problem for those with adventure, a metaphorical common language other forms of autism.) is created, enabling successful first contact. Curran’s mother and I immediately It is conceivable that the inspiration behind understood that, to Curran, being #17 means this episode was the prevalence of being angry. His teachers clearly would metaphorical speech among persons have lacked the cultural context to interpret diagnosed with autism. The autism this remark, which was dismissed by them spectrum includes a number of as off-topic. Similarly, lacking a cultural communications mannerisms which require commonality, might not communications a specific shared context to facilitate between humans and ETI be equally understanding. A personal example may challenging? help to elucidate how such individuals communicate. TECHNOBABBLE

My own 18 year old son, Curran, suffered “The active field discriminator circuit brain damage shortly after birth, resulting in presented in this article operates on the both physical and cognitive disabilities. His principle of balanced product isolation. high intelligence, evidenced by a propensity Signals from the electromagnetic vector for making obscure connections (sometimes multiplier and one parasitic signal coupler several layers deep) between apparently are combined with the output of an external disparate phenomena, results in his harmonic amplitude detector. The resulting communicating through metaphor. waveform is routed through an isotropic polarization generator for processing, Like many humans with autistic tendencies, before being applied at the output to drive Curran tends to fixate on areas of personal an orthogonal distortion filter. (See block interest, and to memorize huge quantities of diagram, fig. 3.) Possible applications seemingly meaningless data. One area of include circular wave oscillator adjustment, interest to him has long been the US as well as optimized linear frequency presidents, whose names and terms of office amplification.” he can recite to anyone, interested or not. At school one day, he was asked by a teacher to Did you get all that? Neither did I – and I describe his emotional state. “I’m number wrote it! 17,” he replied, as though that answered the question clearly. Well, not exactly. Actually, I wrote the computer program that generated the above The seventeenth president of the United text. This opening paragraph appeared in a States, as Curran well knows, was Andrew respected technical journal [Shuch, 1985] – Johnson. In every painting, sketch, or and, much like the famous Alpher, Bethe, photograph of President Johnson which has Gamov article [Alpher et.al., 1948] graced survived to the president day, his its April 1 st issue. countenance exhibits what Curran interprets as anger. (It is significant here that, whereas My point is, we all tend to invoke the jargon those with Asperger’s Syndrome have of our particular disciplines, when difficulty interpreting facial expressions, this communicating with our peers. And, if we optimistically consider ETI to be our peers, we run the risk of obfuscating that which we Science fiction gives us examples of races are trying to communicate. Should we be who live by the sundial, and by the fortunate enough to receive a verifiable hourglass. At both extremes, we SETI signal, what assurance have we that contemplate extraterrestrial intelligence that we can recognize and interpret ETI’s perceives time very differently from discipline-specific jargon? ourselves.

MEN ARE FROM MARS CHEELA

Even on our own planet, between The concept of life on the surface of a individuals of (arguably) the same species, neutron star, first articulated by our own gender differences preclude full communi- SETI patriarch, [1973], was cations. Numerous best selling books eloquently explored by Robert Forward in [Tannen, 1990; Gray, 1992] underscore the his novels Dragon’s Egg [1980] and cultural commonalities (or lack thereof) Starquake [1985]. These books gave us the between men and women. “I know you Cheela, small but macroscopic creatures think you understand what I said,” goes the who lived a million times faster than old joke, “but I’m not certain that what you humans. Contact, when ultimately achieved, believe you heard is necessarily what I represented a brief scientific mission for meant.” (I leave it to the reader to speculate humanity, but a multi-generational effort for as to which gender is the able, and which the the Cheela. learning disabled, one.) A human analog for the Cheela might be TEMPORAL PERCEPTIONS : SUNDIALS AND those diagnosed with ADHD. As previously HOURGLASSES noted, ADHD multi-taskers tend to cram an immense amount of activity into a given 24- A half century of observational SETI hour day. As a consequence, they perceive science has taught us little about the the passage of time differently from the existence of communicative extraterrestrial mainstream human population. civilizations, but it has taught us that SETI science offers little to he or she who METHUSELAH ’S CHILDREN demands instant gratification. Our human reaction to the prolonged null result tends to Robert Heinlein [1941] envisioned, in his be one of impatience. However, our novella of the above title, a genetic lineage extraterrestrial communications partners are of long-lived humans, the result of non- likely to perceive time differently than do coercive eugenic manipulation. Young we. Consider those who reckon time by the people of marriageable age who happened to sundial (a clock with the fewest possible have four living grandparents were moving parts). To them, the passage of time encouraged (through financial incentives) to is marked by a shadow’s slow but pair with others similarly blessed. Over inexorable progress across the ground. By generations, longevity genes were contrast, to those who measure time by the reinforced, and lifespans expanded. The hourglass (the chronometer design with, patriarch of this lineage, Lazarus Long, arguably, the most moving parts), time’s became something of a social misfit as his passage is more palpable, and evident with life spanned the centuries. It’s not hard to the transit of each individual grain of sand. see why communications would take on less urgency to a race of immortals, be they CONCLUSIONS human or extraterrestrial. Human learning differences serve as an There are those humans on the autism effective analog for extraterrestrial spectrum who live by Methuselah time, even intelligence, in that they show us how though their life spans are no greater than effective communication can be impeded, the norm. To them, the passage of time is even between members of the same species. imperceptible; they live by the sundial, not We have seen that, in addition to differences the hour glass, and approach human in communications styles, our potential interactions accordingly. extraterrestrial communications partners may well perceive time differently than we Frank Drake [1976, 1980] has speculated do. Depending upon whether our that a sufficiently advanced civilization communications partners reckon time by the would eventually achieve immortality. If sundial or by the hourglass, whether they this occurred, we could expect that their live on Cheela time or on Methuselah time, incentive for interstellar communications our fifty years of solitude can be regarded as would be significantly altered. either an eyeblink, or an eternity.

REFERENCES

Alpher, R.A., et.al., “The Origin of Chemical Elements,” Phys. Rev. 73(7): 803-804, 1 April 1948. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM- IV-TR Fourth Edition, 2000. David, Leonard, “Putting Our Best Signal Forward,” Cosmic Search 2(3):2-7, Summer 1980. Drake, F.D., “Life on a Neutron Star.” Astronomy 1(5):5, December 1973. Drake, F.D., "On Hands and Knees in Search of Elysium," MIT Technology Review , 78(7):22, June 1976. Drake, F.D., “A Speculation on the Influence of Biological Immortality on SETI,” Cosmic Search 2(3):9-11, Summer 1980. Forward, Robert L., Dragon’s Egg , Del Rey, 1980. Forward, Robert L., Starquake , Del Rey, 1985. Gray, John, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, Harper Collins, 1992. Heinlein, Robert, “Methuselah’s Children,” Astounding Science Fiction, Street & Smith, July 1941. Maccone, Claudio, Telecommunications, KLT and Relativity, Vol. 1 , IPI Press, 1994. Morton, Oliver, “The Drake Equation,” in Farmelo, Graham (editor), It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science , Granta Publications, London, 2002. Shuch, H. Paul, “Electromagnetic Jargon Generator,” Ham Radio 18(4): 75-76, April 1985. Shuch, H. Paul, “Indistinguishable from Magic,” SearchLites 1(3):2, Autumn 1995. Tannen, Deborah, You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation , William Morrow, 1990. Zaitsev, Alexander L., “A Teen-Age Message to the Stars,” SearchLites 9(1):7, Winter 2003.