Email to Dr. Blackburn, Philosopher, Cambridge Univ., London, Eng


Thank you for inviting me. It is undoubtedly presumptuous of me to approach you with my deliberations but age has its privileges. Age, in the sense that I have been thinking about human intelligence, or lack thereof, for many years and do not exclude myself from that affliction. I do have a doctorate in optometry and have had a keen interest in the study of perception. Also I have endeavored to find some cogent explanation of how one "thinks". Philosophers and neurophysiologists seem to, after great expositions, admit they really don't have a clue.

An article in the Sunday NYTimes, January 28th by Peter Edidin, mentioned your removal to Cambridge (congratulations, some hefty people have preceded you, like B.Russell, and L. Wittgenstein)
In it he also stated you had a web site and encouraged visitors to begin a "meaningful interaction". Thus my presumtuousness.

After watching a PBS documentary on "The Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence" and hearing those enthusiastic folks speak of how, "there just has to be life out there and it might be trying to communicate with us", I felt compelled to write down my own feelings about the matter.

This project (SETI) embodies several concepts and assumptions. Mankind - to our knowledge - is the one life form that "thinks".
By mankind's definition of that term. Just what "thinking" is has received much attention from diverse disciplines.
Rene' Descartes, in his writings, has stated- "Cogito ergo sum" which we accept to mean - " I think, therefore I am". He doesn't state. or claim to know, what "thinking" is - it is simply something he does. From this he concludes that, because he can do it, and does do it, he exists.

I don't feel it is especially important to decide if Descartes' reasoning is valid. I'll defer to you philosophers on such matters. What does concern me is the part that language plays, that is, do the conventions and limitations of language constitute a contamination of reason?

Individual language styles themselves become more controversial than what is being discussed. Since thinking and reasoning are inextricably bound up in language is it possible to get off that merry-go-round? Mathematics appears to be the highest form of objective reasoning. ( Use of the word "highest" injects the relativistic aspect language imposes!) Through the evolution of mathematics theoretical physicists have broadened concepualiztion in both the macro and micro dimensions. We now have a greater notion of the universe and have ten dimensions and strings to ponder.

The above is taken as evidence that mankind, the thinkers, is something marvelous. All this thinking is equated with intelligence. Again language poses a problem. use of terms such as "intelligence" and "reasoning" are not as objective as a "square" or a "circle", both of the latter being definable in precise fashion. All of the above is leading to my premise that mankind, a different kind of life form to be sure, is still only one kind of life form. The evidence that humanity has been and is abusing itself and its environment, which includes all other forms of life, is undeniable and increasingly overwhelming. Wouldn't that, by definition, be unintelligent?

Thus the word intelligence purports to define a quality mankind lays claim to but which it assiduously avoids manifesting.
One of Rodenberry's better lines is- "Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life down here!" In the face of mankinds dysfunctionality it is the height of arrogance for us to presume that elsewhere, life as we know it, has taken all the same wrong turns that we have, to arrive at a state of condition roughly analogous to our own and is at all interested in us.

More likely the rationale' that has led to a program such as SETI is an unconscious desire to either escape from our misused faculties or hopefully find a higher source of intelligence to save us from ourselves.

If indeed the Big Bang is the explanation of the origen of our presently perceived universe and we are merely manifestations of reconstituted star dust what, and here language fails, do we represent? Are we a neural construct with a central processing unit that dreams up perception. Is the body a manifestation of the mind or vice versa? Does the "mind"-'body" connection exist or do we need a new paradigm?

One of the vexing aspects of the "intelligence" argument has to do with the misapplication of it. As with the present world food supply: In spite of the abundance of food people are starving because of maldistribution. So too, intelligence applied to technological achievements, is not used to solve social problems in the same degree. Maybe because human nature is so rotten men turn to philosophy. Can you come up with some answers?

Thank you if you have bothered to read this,
DonB