The Canadian National Newspaper: How Modern Thinking Is Making Us Primitives

We humans have a nasty habit of thinking that we, as the current generation dominating the surface of Earth, are the most modern, erudite, and intellectual individuals who have ever lived. We tend to think that the millions of people who have lived in millennia past were primitives as compared to us.

We are, after all, modern. In this modern age, we humans tend to blur the distinction between our technology and ourselves. We assume that high technology around us indicates that we, ourselves, have high knowledge. This tendency seems to arise from the ambiance of the high tech gadgets around us much like the aromas that waft from the kitchen. Oddly, while we know that we are not chefs simply because we can smell the aromas of cooking, we still think we are intellectually sharp simply because we are surrounded by high technology.

This modern way of thinking is at the heart of our re-primitivization. It serves to force us into the comfort corners of accepted theories rather than motivating us to venture into the uncharted waters of the possible. We have become a world of increasingly status quo thinking. More and more, people are thinking less and less. Take the scientific search for life on other planets as an example. The mere notion of searching for extraterrestrial life seems so futuristic and out there. Yet, because we bring our own terracentric assumptions and attitudes to the task, we are actually flailing about rather primitively in this out there endeavour. To assume we know is to assure we do not. Here is what I mean.

As scientists, those folks with more degrees than a circle, talk about searching for life on other planets, they are often heard to say things like, "Follow the water. Life as we know it requires water, oxygen, and energy. If you find water out there, you will likely find life."

Really? Life as we know it requires water and oxygen? Not true. We have found life forms on Earth that will die if exposed to oxygen. They live in soups of hydrogen, C02, and even methane.

Have you ever really thought about us as a life form? We do require oxygen. Isn't that odd? Oxygen is one of the most corrosive elements in existence. It will bring down a skyscraper or a massive bridge. Yet, we require it for life. Is it not just as possible that life elsewhere may require methane, argon, or hydrogen in the way we require oxygen? If "life happens" as scientists are fond of saying, it has to happen within the environment in which it finds itself. It has to build with the materials at hand. That being the case, it would seem silly to limit ourselves to following the water.

Our modern thinking is really not so modern. At its core is the appeal to the majority. It is based on the idea that "most people" think this way or that. It is based upon the old and useless saying, "everyone knows" this or that.

Most people thought the earth was flat at one point in our history. While we consider that to be primitive now, they thought it modern in their day. There was a time when everyone knew the Earth was the centre of the universe. Again, we chuckle at our ancestors' ignorance, but that was the best in modern thinking in their day. So when we think that a search for extraterrestrial life must be a search for life that works like us, we are resorting to the same homo-terracentric thinking our ancestors used. After all these millennia, we really have not changed much at all. Our machines are fancier, but we are truly just as ignorant.

If life happens, as scientists say, then we should be looking for life in any environment. By sending probes to planets whose environments are vastly different from Earth (and they all are), and then looking for signs of life that functions like us, we are ensuring we will not find life. If you go to an auto parts store to buy bread, you will fail. Indeed, it is a store with things to sell, but it does not sell bread. So why would you go to an auto parts store if you are searching for bread? In the same vein, why would you go to Mars and look for life like us? Why would you not look for life designed to live in the harsh conditions of Mars, an environment that includes little liquid water?

At the heart of our modern thinking is the same old homo-terracentrism. That means that the only thing really modern about us is our machinery. If the machinery breaks down, we will be the same old dumb primitives we think our ancestors were. Only those who break free of the bonds of terracentric thinking will ever enjoy the wonders of real discovery. Our modern thinking is making us primitives.

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