Expanding World Views: Can SETI expand its own horizons and that of Big History too?

TL;DR

This paper argues that SETI can broaden human and scientific horizons by challenging assumptions about intelligence and cosmic history, emphasizing the need for open-mindedness in the search for extraterrestrial life.

Contribution

It offers a provocative critique of Big History and astrophysics, advocating for a more expansive and less anthropocentric approach in SETI research.

Findings

SETI can expand perspectives on cosmic and societal development

Current Big History views are overly simplified and incomplete

Astrophysicists often focus narrowly on the universe in isolation

Abstract

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a research activity that started in the late 1950s, predating the arrival of "Big History" and "Astrobiology" by several decades. Many elements first developed as part of the original SETI narrative are now incorporated in both of these emergent fields. However, SETI still offers the widest possible perspective, since the topic naturally leads us to consider not only the future development of our own society but also the forward trajectories (and past histories) of many other intelligent extraterrestrial forms. In this paper, I present a provocative view of Big History, its rapid convergent focus on our own planet and society, its oversimplified and incomplete view of events in cosmic history, and its limited appreciation of how poorly we understand some aspects of the physical world. Astrophysicists are also not spared - in particular those who wish to understand the nature of the universe in "splendid isolation", only looking outwards and upwards. SETI can help re-expand all of our horizons but the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence may also require its own practitioners to abandon preconceptions of what constitutes intelligent, sentient, thinking minds.