Exosociology

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Exosociology (also exo-sociology , astrosociology , xenosociology , each combination of exo- (outside, outside), astro (star), xeno (outside, outside) and sociology ) is the designation of various sociological research directions , which - on the assumption that there is extraterrestrial life with scientific-technical organization - deal with the conditions of formation and possible properties of such unknown extraterrestrial civilizations , possible contact scenarios and their consequences. Further topics of these research directions include the conditions of human coexistence in future space colonies and the effects of space travel and space research on human society.

history

The first anthology, which saw itself as a contribution to exosociology, was published in Moscow in 1969 and then in an English translation by NASA's translation service in 1971. The editor, the Soviet astrophysicist Samuil Aronovich Kaplan (1921–1978), defined exosociology in the introduction in analogy to exobiology: the subject of exobiology is the origin and evolution of life under extraterrestrial conditions, while exosociology the origin and development of intelligent civilizations under such Conditions to investigate, on the one hand by evaluating data on the origin and growth of terrestrial civilization, but on the other hand in the future also by evaluating data from the SETI program.

The American philosopher and Germanist Lewis White Beck (1913–1997) discussed in an essay from 1971 the epistemological and epistemological status of exosciences and, already aware of Kaplan's project, also mentioned exosociology. What Peter Winch formulated about anthropology could apply to this : "Seriously exploring another way of life means necessarily expanding our own way of life - and not just classifying that other way of life within the already applicable limits of our own." Beck is not to generalize terrestrial findings for extraterrestrial civilizations, but to design more abstract models within which the terrestrial conditions are to be understood as specific manifestations of more general principles. In this way, hypotheses about situations elsewhere than on earth could shed new light on our earthly situation, while the generalization of terrestrial findings could at best yield weak and uncertain insights into extraterrestrial conditions.

As a contribution from the anthropological side, the anthropological volume Cultures Beyond the Earth appeared in 1974 , emerged from contributions from the previous conference of the American Anthropological Association . The focus here was not on gaining or anticipating knowledge about the nature of non-human civilizations, but on examining the effects that the colonization of space and intercultural contacts with significantly different cultures have on human society to be expected. What the Brookings Report commissioned by NASA in 1961 had already pointed out, namely the historical experience of societies for which the first contact with foreign cultures had led to the disintegration or adaptation of their own culture, then led to a risk scenario in the 1980s Practical experiments in the form of role-plays , which should serve for the practical preparation and acquisition of knowledge about the "human response" to such initial contacts.

In 1983 the sociologist Jan H. Mejer, who teaches at the University of Hawaii , drafted "Exo-Sociology" in a journal article as a new discipline that should deal with

  1. how "foreignness" is socially constructed, and what can be derived from it for the future understanding of extraterrestrial strangers
  2. how terrestrial, especially sociological, science can find out something about the constitution of extraterrestrial societies in the event of their discovery

The Mejers project had no practical consequences for the scientific community, but has recently been modified and brought back onto the agenda by the political scientist and sociologist Michael Schetsche .

In American research, the sociologist Jim Pass in particular advocated research that he renamed "Astrosociology" since 2003, the subject area of ​​which he narrowed down to the interactions between society and its "astrosocial phenomena", the latter defined as the totality of all social phenomena that are directly or indirectly related to space travel or one of the space sciences.

See also

literature

  • Ulrike Landfester u. a. (Ed.): Humans in Outer Space - Interdisciplinary Perspectives , Springer, Vienna 2010 (= Studies in Space Policy, 5), ISBN 978-3-7091-0279-4 ( table of contents )
  • John Billingham, et al .: Social Implications of the Detection of an Extraterrestrial Civilization. SETI Press, Mountain View 1999, ISBN 978-0-966-63350-4 .
  • Emmanuel Davoust: Sociology of Extraterrestrial Civilizations. in: Ders .: The Cosmic Water Hole. MIT Press, Cambridge 1991, ISBN 978-0-262-54161-9 , pp. 121-130.
  • Frank White: Immediate Impact , Long-Term Impact. in: Ders .: The Seti Factor - How the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Is Changing Our View of the Universe and Ourselves. Walker & Company, New York 1990, ISBN 978-0-8027-1105-2 , pp. 111-170.
  • Douglas A. Vakoch: Civilizations beyond earth - extraterrestrial life and society. Berghahn Books, New York 2013, ISBN 978-1-78238-315-4 .
  • Michael Schetsche; Andreas Anton : The society of extraterrestrials. Introduction to exosociology. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2019, ISBN 978-3-658-21864-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael T. Schetsche: Encounters among the stars - exosociological considerations. P. 104, Cultural consequences of the first contact. in: Ulrike Landfester, et al .: Humans in outer space - interdisciplinary perspectives. Springer, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-7091-0279-4 .
  2. ↑ Samuil Aronovich Kaplan (ed.): Внеземные цивилизации. Проблемы межзвездной связи. [Vnezemnye civilizacii. Problemy mežzvezdnoj svjazi.] Moscow: Nauka, 1969; engl. Extraterrestrial Civilizations. Problems of Interstellar Communication . Israel Program for Scientific Translation. Jerusalem 1971. (NASA Technical Translations, F-631), online version
  3. ↑ Samuil Aronovich Kaplan: Exosociology - The Search for Signals from Extraterrestrial Civilizations , in: ders. (Ed.), Extraterrestrial Civilizations , Jerusalem 1971, pp. 1–11 ( online version )
  4. ↑ Peter Winch : Understanding a Primitive Society , in: American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964), pp. 307-324, here pp. 317f .: “Seriously to study another way of life is necessarily to seek to extend our own - not simply to bring the other way within the already existing boundaries of our own ... "
  5. ↑ Lewis White Beck: Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life , in: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 45 (1971/72), pp. 5-21, here p. 19: “In that way hypotheses about extraterrestrial situations may throw light on the terrestrial, while the illumination of the extraterrestrial by hard facts about life on earth is at best dim and wavering. What Peter Winch has said about anthropology, we may say about exo-sociology. "
  6. ↑ On anthropological involvement in general see Steven J. Dick, Anthropology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence: An historical view , in: Anthropology Today 22.2 (2006), pp. 3–7 ( abstract )
  7. ↑ Magoroh Maruyama / Arthur Harkins, Cultures Beyond the Earth: The Role of Anthropology in Outer Space , Vintage Books, New York 1975; Italian practice Civiltà oltre la Terra , Siad, Milan 1977
  8. ^ Samuel Gerald Collins: All tomorrow's cultures: anthropological engagements with the future , Berghahn Books, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1-84545-408-1 , pp. 65ff. ("The Anthropological Alien")
  9. ↑ Brookings report, NASA, Brookings Institution 1960: Proposed studies on the implications of peaceful space activities for human affairs , pdf, 250 p., Nasa.gov, accessed on November 26, 2010; Brookings Report engl. Wikipedia
  10. ^ Jan H. Mejer: Towards an Exo-Sociogy : Constructs of the Alien. In: Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology 11/2 (1983), pp. 171–174, reproduced here from Michael Schetsche : The view into nothing? , Telepolis August 18, 2008. See: Encounters among the stars - exosociological considerations , in: Ulrike Landfester u. a. (Ed.), Humans in Outer Space - Interdisciplinary Perspectives , Springer, Vienna 2010, pp. 102–114; Ders .: exosociology. Knowing and not knowing about extraterrestrial civilizations , in: Harald Zaun (ed.), KOSMOLOGIE - Intelligenzen im All (Telepolis Special 1/2010), Heise-Verlag, Hannover 2010, pp. 106-109.
  11. ↑ See the previous note.
  12. ↑ For academic and professional career see the CV ( Memento of the original March 4, 2016 Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 22 kB) on the website of the 4Frontiers Corporation, for which Pass at works in the development of settlement projects on Mars. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.4frontierscorp.com
  13. ↑ Jim Pass: Inaugural Essay: The Definition and Relevance of Astrosociology in the Twenty-First Century, Part one (PDF; 100 kB), April 1, 2004 published on www.astrosociology.com