Representing Culture in Interstellar Messages

Paper number

IAC-05-E5.2.10

Author

Prof. Douglas Vakoch, SETI Institute and California Institute of Integral Studies, United States

Year

2005

Abstract

As scholars involved with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have contemplated how we might portray humankind in any messages sent to civilizations beyond Earth, one of the challenges they face is adequately representing the diversity of human cultures. For example, in a 2003 workshop in Paris sponsored by the SETI Institute, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) SETI Permanent Study Group, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST), and the John Templeton Foundation, a varied group of artists, scientists, and scholars from the humanities considered how to encode notions of altruism in interstellar messages http://publish.seti.org/art\_science/2003. Though the group represented ten countries, most were from Europe and North America, leading to the group’s recommendation that subsequent discussions on the topic should include more globally representative perspectives.

As a result, the IAA Study Group on Interstellar Message Construction and the SETI Institute sponsored a follow-up workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA in February 2005. The Santa Fe workshop brought together scholars from a range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, chemistry, communication science, philosophy, and psychology. Participants included scholars familiar with interstellar message design and as well as specialists in cross-cultural research who had participated in the Symposium on Altruism in Cross-cultural Perspective, held just prior to the workshop during the annual conference of the Society for Cross-cultural Research www.seti.org/altruism. The workshop included discussion of how cultural understandings of altruism can complement and critique the more biologically based models of altruism proposed for interstellar messages at the 2003 Paris workshop.

This paper, written by the chair of both the Paris and Santa Fe workshops, will use the lessons drawn from these workshops to examine the role of collaborations between organizations concerned with space activities and organizations devoted to cultural issues. Special attention will be given to methods for recruiting participants with strong backgrounds in cultural issues but without significant prior involvement in space activities. 

Abstract document

IAC-05-E5.2.10.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-05-E5.2.10.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.