Alien Encounter as Fear of Wisdom

[BJMcGilly]

This is reaching, but could encounters with aliens, assuming none exist nor have visited earth, be a projection of our own fear of wisdom and the wise?

Commonly involved in these encounters, we meet the greys. Considered in light of physiognomy:

They are small and fragile in appearance, connoting but a whisp of ego. If any ego at all, they seem to work in concert, as if their bodies existed solely for their cranium, and their collective cranium for the Mind.

They have huge cranuims in comparison to their tiny bodys, indicating an hyperactive intelligence, often attributed with telepathic capabilities- an act of metaphysical intelligence.

They have huge black eyes, seemingly devoid of emotion, perhaps they are capable of seeing spectrums beyond our narrow band. Perhaps such eyes can track the winding paths of birds.

They analyze without remorse- probing the body of those they encounter. Perhaps these intrusive acts mirror the cold analytical approach of the dispassionate sage, so instinctively feared by the unconscious.

Most importantly, they paralyze the egoist. The egoist further paralyzes himself with fear.

My main assumption is that people have a primordial fear of the wisdom of space, the wisdom of timelessness. Such far off visitors capable of traversing space, of negating the barrier of space necessarily negate time, as space is time.

From the stars to earth, from the temporal to the infinite, is there any thought more feared and more awe-inspiring than this? Is the sage's wisdom any different?


note: finessed

[Matt Gregory]

That's a pretty interesting theory.

I haven't seen many alien movies, but I think people are afraid of intelligence getting so advanced that it caves in on itself and becomes stupid. Two movies that I thought demonized intelligence in this way are Blade Runner and I Robot. It could be a fear of wisdom, I guess. Maybe it's the fear that the justification of life can't stand up to rational scrutiny.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The idea that BJ describes about projection could hold some truth. Not sure if it's always fear for wisdom that is projected; it could just as easily be fear for cold technology that 'invades' life more and more, including probing our body in many ways. The fear for the cyborg.

Some report some form of enlightening experience with aliens though, messages of peace and love, shifting of perspectives on life, like some Out of Body, or Near Death experience can do.

Maybe the projection of aliens is just the vehicle of many strong currents in the subconscious, shared or not. This projection might be closely related to how we construct reality in the first place. Any encounter of aliens could make us question the assumption that what we think we experience, even as group or on camera, substitutes reality.

The most fanatic researchers of the UFO phenomenon are most often people sincerely in search of the question 'what is reality' and project that search most often on the phenomenal only, leaving many contradictions unsolved that way - a never ending quest is born.

Another interesting aspect illustrated in the famous Roswell 'UFO crash' story, is the question if we can trust multiple witnesses in what they think they saw, and when they think they've seen it. It's possible some influences like media (even a small initial press release) and the bias of the interviewer can shape and form, through the force of expectation, memory and logic of many 'credible' witnesses.

Two movies that I thought demonized intelligence in this way are Blade Runner and I Robot. It could be a fear of wisdom, I guess. Maybe it's the fear that the justification of life can't stand up to rational scrutiny.

In Blade Runner the androids that gotten to their tragic end were meant to be the 'good' guys, compared to the humans, if you follow the dialog that is. So it were the 'living' people that were demonized in the movie, portrayed like zombies in a nightmare city, not allowing life to bloom up in the machines.

The movie never answers the question that should arise in the attentive viewer: is Harrison Ford playing a human or an android? The director did that on purpose, I heard.

[Matt Gregory]

Diebert,

In Blade Runner the androids that gotten to their tragic end were meant to be the 'good' guys, compared to the humans, if you follow the dialog that is. So it were the 'living' people that were demonized in the movie, portrayed like zombies in a nightmare city, not allowing life to bloom up in the machines.

I didn't see it that way. It looked to me like the human scientist tried to give them as much life as he could, but he was unable to give them more than four years. The white-haired android (sorry, I can't remember their names), who was just as brilliant as the scientist, got angry about that technological limitation and killed him for no good reason. At least, it didn't look to me like he had a reason. I guess he could have killed him to prevent him from creating any more replicants, to spare them from the cruelty of having to die or something, but that wouldn't really make sense.

The movie never answers the question that should arise in the attentive viewer: is Harrison Ford playing a human or an android? The director did that on purpose, I heard.

I don't think it mattered to the story if he was a replicant or not.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I didn't see it that way. It looked to me like the human scientist tried to give them as much life as he could, but he was unable to give them more than four years. The white-haired android (sorry, I can't remember their names), who was just as brilliant as the scientist, got angry about that technological limitation and killed him for no good reason. At least, it didn't look to me like he had a reason. I guess he could have killed him to prevent him from creating any more replicants, to spare them from the cruelty of having to die or something, but that wouldn't really make sense.

The exaggerated (technical) limits in lifespan made the androids even more 'human' the moment they got aware of it more fully. They had to live a bit more intense, sober up, as it were.

The movie never answers the question that should arise in the attentive viewer: is Harrison Ford playing a human or an android? The director did that on purpose, I heard.

I don't think it mattered to the story if he was a replicant or not.

The fact that it didn't matter tells the whole story :) But the whole movie was kind of set up to invoke the question about what it was to be human. The blond android (Rutger Hauer) philosophizes toward the end about the nature of living and existing.

But the robophobic society in the movie, with all its fear of the superior life in terms of physical and (experi)mental capacities still make it a good example to list but not as a movie that demonizes, but as a movie that addresses the demonizing - of raw life force arising.

[Matt Gregory]

Yeah, okay. Reanalyzing it, I think the androids were definitely depicted as evil, but not as an evil to be defeated, more of an evil that arose out of desperation. And in the end, when that last android was about to die he didn't kill Deckard because he wanted to pass on some insight he had, one that was shared between humans and androids.

[millipodium]

That's a pretty interesting theory.

I haven't seen many alien movies, but I think people are afraid of intelligence getting so advanced that it caves in on itself and becomes stupid. Two movies that I thought demonized intelligence in this way are Blade Runner and I Robot. It could be a fear of wisdom, I guess. Maybe it's the fear that the justification of life can't stand up to rational scrutiny.

I think people only fear intelligence that becomes murderous.

I think most alien visits are really alien visits.

The aliens are in the process of both A) Encircling humanity in a control matrix maintained by other people so it seems "normal" and b) ascertaining all the various potentials of man's dna, and the planet earth, for successful integration into their galactic plan.

[Cory Duchesne]

Mill wrote:

The aliens are in the process of both A) Encircling humanity in a control matrix maintained by other people so it seems "normal" and b) ascertaining all the various potentials of man's dna, and the planet earth, for successful integration into their galactic plan.

I would prefer something like that to be true. It is rather enthralling.

Mill, I would like to see you have a philosophical conversation with one of these aliens. I wonder if you would find their philosophy agreeable? Who knows, you might find yourself reluctantly angry and begin uncontrollably calling them nihilists, buddhist and elitist assholes.


They would probably continue to study and observe you with facination, curiousity and affection.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

I haven't seen many alien movies, but I think people are afraid of intelligence getting so advanced that it caves in on itself and becomes stupid. Two movies that I thought demonized intelligence in this way are Blade Runner and I Robot. It could be a fear of wisdom, I guess. Maybe it's the fear that the justification of life can't stand up to rational scrutiny.

Matt's theory reminds me of Flowers for Algernon

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

I think it would be pretty egotistical of us to think that we're the only ones out here or that there are not species far more advanced than we are, but working in pediatrics, which sometimes involved inserting a tube into a baby's lungs by going through its nose to vacuum secretions out of its lungs, I wondered how many "alien abductions" were actually altered memories of hospital visits when the people were babies.

[Cory Duchesne]

I would like to study the evolution of an advanced alien species behavior, sociology and intellectual development. I wonder if struggling with the question of God is universal to all advanced life forms, or I wonder if all advanced life forms have as difficult a time coping with death and God as humans do.

[millipodium]

Mill wrote:

The aliens are in the process of both A) Encircling humanity in a control matrix maintained by other people so it seems "normal" and b) ascertaining all the various potentials of man's dna, and the planet earth, for successful integration into their galactic plan.

I would prefer something like that to be true. It is rather enthralling.

Mill, I would like to see you have a philosophical conversation with one of these aliens. I wonder if you would find their philosophy agreeable? Who knows, you might find yourself reluctantly angry and begin uncontrollably calling them nihilists, buddhist and elitist assholes.


They would probably continue to study and observe you with facination, curiousity and affection.

Their philosophy is most likely not nihilism. They're studying us to advance their own survivability, power, and preferred lifestyle. Nihilism is a percursor meme inserted into a culture to weaken it's resolve. Meat Tenderizer.

[Cory Duchesne]

Mill wrote:

Nihilism is a percursor meme inserted into a culture to weaken it's resolve. Meat Tenderizer.

I think there is actual nihilism, and then there is what you think is Nihilism. True Nihilism is being catatonic, mentally paralysed, unable to conclude, unable to act.

What you 'think' is nihilistic, but is really just intelligence, is an attitude that questions the resolve of cultures in order see if the resolve of the cultures in question are contrary to a resolve that is not only survivable but liberating/spiritual.

If they deem that the present culture is in opposition to what is survivable then they lay down a framework that weakens the mainstream cultures resolve and they do this in order to strengthen a new resolve, which becomes sort of a counterculture.

Often the counterculture becomes gradually co-opted (and diluted) into mainstream culture. And thus we evolve a bit.

[millipodium]

Mill wrote:

Nihilism is a percursor meme inserted into a culture to weaken it's resolve. Meat Tenderizer.

I think there is actual nihilism, and then there is what you think is Nihilism. True Nihilism is being catatonic, mentally paralysed, unable to conclude, unable to act.

That's you guys.

What you 'think' is nihilistic, but is really just intelligence, is an attitude that questions the resolve of cultures in order see if the resolve of the cultures in question are contrary to a resolve that is not only survivable but liberating/spiritual.

Right. You feel entitled to destroy cultures which don't meet your irrational theocratic-buddhist / Communo-nihilistic standards.

If they deem that the present culture is in opposition to what is survivable then they lay down a framework that weakens the mainstream cultures resolve and they do this in order to strengthen a new resolve, which becomes sort of a counterculture.

Often the counterculture becomes gradually co-opted (and diluted) into mainstream culture. And thus we evolve a bit.

Their bizarro notion of increasing survivability usually involves heavy doses of population control and forced poverty.

[NLPRN]

which sometimes involved inserting a tube into a baby's lungs by going through its nose to vacuum secretions out of its lungs, I wondered how many "alien abductions" were actually altered memories of hospital visits when the people were babies.

Interesting. I've often wondered what extent altered memories have on the unconscious mind and its other memories. Imagine the influence a flexible sigmoidoscopy could have on an impressionable one.

I think the key word is fear. Fear of those with more power (intellectual, metaphysical, higher technologies etc.)? Certainly. Or maybe it is fear of aloneness, a surrogate belief for those that find mainstream religions distasteful and in need of reassurance they are not alone?

I think in an unintended manner, many sci-fi movies in their portrayal of aliens desiring to control or exterminate the human race may not be that far off. Not that I necessarily believe alien visitors would be hostile without provocation. I suspect if the general human populace were to actually encounter an alien, higher life form (and realized it)...the majority response based on human history to "those different" would likely be a self-fullfilling prophecy in our own demise. I'm sure our current president could find a way to justify "a pre-emptive strike", thus starting a positive feedback loop of violence.

Welcome to Earth.

[Carl G]

This is reaching, but could encounters with aliens, assuming none exist nor have visited earth, be a projection of our own fear of wisdom and the wise?

No, because aliens -- particularly the greys -- do not connote to wisdom. They may be technilogically advanced, and clever, but it would be a supreme stretch to consider them wise. Are scientists wise? Are engineers wise?

Commonly involved in these encounters, we meet the greys. Considered in light of physiognomy:

They are small and fragile in appearance, connoting but a whisp of ego. If any ego at all, they seem to work in concert, as if their bodies existed solely for their cranium, and their collective cranium for the Mind.

Brainy, maybe, yes, intellectual. But drone-like, hive-like, quite the opposite of the sturdy independent thinker. Not sage-like in any way.

They have huge cranuims in comparison to their tiny bodys, indicating an hyperactive intelligence, often attributed with telepathic capabilities- an act of metaphysical intelligence.

They have huge black eyes, seemingly devoid of emotion, perhaps they are capable of seeing spectrums beyond our narrow band. Perhaps such eyes can track the winding paths of birds.

They analyze without remorse- probing the body of those they encounter. Perhaps these intrusive acts mirror the cold analytical approach of the dispassionate sage, so instinctively feared by the unconscious.

The Greys are clinical and dispassionate, but is a sage? A sage is objective but hardly dispassionate. The sage loves wisdom, and loves the world. The sage is quite the opposite of the alien.

Your metaphor does not work at all.

Most importantly, they paralyze the egoist. The egoist further paralyzes himself with fear.

My main assumption is that people have a primordial fear of the wisdom of space, the wisdom of timelessness. Such far off visitors capable of traversing space, of negating the barrier of space necessarily negate time, as space is time.

From the stars to earth, from the temporal to the infinite, is there any thought more feared and more awe-inspiring than this? Is the sage's wisdom any different?

A primordial fear of the wisdom of space? Fear of timelessness? Dream on. "From the stars to the earth, is there any thought more feared than this?" Get real. How about death, how about suffering and pain? How about the possibility of not being loved? How about going to hell when one dies?

The average person is not awed by space, let alone fearing of it. Not even on the subconscious level.

Ground yourself, then think this through again.

[BJMcGilly]

Carl,

The above post was an acknowledged "reach," written from the perspective of the average person's fears. Although, I think Diebert was closer when speaking on a fear of technology, which implies a fear of intellect.

On the other hand, a sage would appear quite alien to the average egoist.

[millipodium]

Carl,

The above post was an acknowledged "reach," written from the perspective of the average person's fears. Although, I think Diebert was closer when speaking on a fear of technology, which implies a fear of intellect.

On the other hand, a sage would appear quite alien to the average egoist.

Not necessarily. A fear of technology could also be a fear of being hit with gps guided nuclear weapons or a fear of being tagged with satellite tracked rf chips.

[BJMcGilly]

Carl wrote:

A primordial fear of the wisdom of space? Fear of timelessness? Dream on. "From the stars to the earth, is there any thought more feared than this?" Get real. How about death, how about suffering and pain? How about the possibility of not being loved? How about going to hell when one dies?

The average person is not awed by space, let alone fearing of it. Not even on the subconscious level.

Are you serious? Space connotes being alone, time is hell. To be alone in the vastness with all the time in the world is possibly the most fearful experience for anyone filled with attachments.

What greater hell could there be? Devoid of wisdom, alone in the emptiness, the only measure of time being the gnashing of teeth and the churning of thought. Completely separated from comforts, from friends, from family, from routine and distraction. Just the churning revolution of thought. There is no greater suffering than this, being that this ignorance is the root of all suffering. Suffering is being alone with your thought. Hell is being alone with your thoughts. For the sake of clarification, we are speaking for an egoist here. While there are thoughts and actions that can lead to hell, in reality there is neither heaven nor hell. Just emptiness, which appears as hell to the ignorant.

It is only the veil of ignorance that prevents the egoist from seeing that, in fact, not a breath is drawn outside of this emptiness.

[BJMcGilly]

Carl,

The above post was an acknowledged "reach," written from the perspective of the average person's fears. Although, I think Diebert was closer when speaking on a fear of technology, which implies a fear of intellect.

On the other hand, a sage would appear quite alien to the average egoist.

Not necessarily. A fear of technology could also be a fear of being hit with gps guided nuclear weapons or a fear of being tagged with satellite tracked rf chips.

Technology as a creation of man's intellect gone awry.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

NLPRN wrote:

Imagine the influence a flexible sigmoidoscopy could have on an impressionable one.

It wasn't flexible sigmoidoscopy - they actually medicate people for that so that it isn't as traumatic, but since they use conscious sedation, the "repressed memory" idea sounds good. Since you know medical terminology, I'll be more specific so that your perception can be more accurate, while explaining how I thought layman's terms would still reflect accuracy.

Actually it was NT suction, but you know how tenacious RSV secretions are, and that infants can drown in them, so it is important to go past the trachea (generally easy enough to get into the right mainstem, but it's usually possible to get the left, too) so even if the catheter is in the right mainstem, the tenacity of the secretions (and the fact that it's imperative to keep the suction pressure really low on infants for tissue integrity, while the low pressure doubles as an encouragement to keep the secretions together) allows the lung itself to be evacuated of secretions - thus, vacuuming out the lungs.

[Carl G]

Carl wrote:

A primordial fear of the wisdom of space? Fear of timelessness? Dream on. "From the stars to the earth, is there any thought more feared than this?" Get real. How about death, how about suffering and pain? How about the possibility of not being loved? How about going to hell when one dies?

The average person is not awed by space, let alone fearing of it. Not even on the subconscious level.

Are you serious? Space connotes being alone, time is hell. To be alone in the vastness with all the time in the world is possibly the most fearful experience for anyone filled with attachments.

What greater hell could there be? Devoid of wisdom, alone in the emptiness, the only measure of time being the gnashing of teeth and the churning of thought. Completely separated from comforts, from friends, from family, from routine and distraction. Just the churning revolution of thought. There is no greater suffering than this, being that this ignorance is the root of all suffering. Suffering is being alone with your thought. Hell is being alone with your thoughts. For the sake of clarification, we are speaking for an egoist here. While there are thoughts and actions that can lead to hell, in reality there is neither heaven nor hell. Just emptiness, which appears as hell to the ignorant.

It is only the veil of ignorance that prevents the egoist from seeing that, in fact, not a breath is drawn outside of this emptiness.

This is exchange is like communicating with an extraterrestrial. I pick up a message broadcast through the vast universe known as Internet from an entity which calls itself BJMcGilly. I decipher it as best as I can, formulate a response in my own language, and beam it back out into the cyberspace. What comes back is nearly unintelligable to me. I sense some form of intelligent life at the other end, strangely familiar, yet terribly alien. I am thrilled and at the same time aghast, despondant, left with a feeling we will never be able to really share our thoughts.

Here on Earth, I think the average person is more afraid of not having money, a partner, and health (freedom from pain and death), than all the space/time stuff you speak of. On a subconcious level he/she may fear the dark, and nameless boogiemen, but I don't think that can be equated with space, time, wisdom, and greys.

[millipodium]

Carl,

The above post was an acknowledged "reach," written from the perspective of the average person's fears. Although, I think Diebert was closer when speaking on a fear of technology, which implies a fear of intellect.

On the other hand, a sage would appear quite alien to the average egoist.

Not necessarily. A fear of technology could also be a fear of being hit with gps guided nuclear weapons or a fear of being tagged with satellite tracked rf chips.

Technology as a creation of man's intellect gone awry.

But fear of technology that can kill you is natural and normal, and wise. It has nothing to do with intellect. OR fear of intellect.

[Rhett]

.

Matt: Two movies that I thought demonized intelligence in this way are Blade Runner and I Robot. It could be a fear of wisdom, I guess. Maybe it's the fear that the justification of life can't stand up to rational scrutiny.

Diebert: In Blade Runner the androids that gotten to their tragic end were meant to be the 'good' guys, compared to the humans, if you follow the dialog that is. So it were the 'living' people that were demonized in the movie, portrayed like zombies in a nightmare city, not allowing life to bloom up in the machines.

The movie never answers the question that should arise in the attentive viewer: is Harrison Ford playing a human or an android? The director did that on purpose, I heard.

To me Rutger was the closest to being human, far above the living zombies. I can't fully recall why he killed his constructor, but he attempted to kill Harrison only in defense. I think part of the reason he saved Harrison was because Rutger was about to die, so there was no point. He saw that Harrison was just a poor servant of the zombies.

Although above the zombies, Harrison was nevertheless lacking in comparison to Rutger, finally giving in to the feminine android. He did this somewhat conscious of femininity though. I don't think there was any suggestion or possibility that Harrison was playing an android.

I like the way Rutger is finally portrayed as exalted, and Harrison as meek.

The director's cut is much better than the normal cut. I think i could do with seeing it again.

.

[NLPRN]

NLPRN wrote:

Imagine the influence a flexible sigmoidoscopy could have on an impressionable one.

It wasn't flexible sigmoidoscopy - they actually medicate people for that so that it isn't as traumatic, but since they use conscious sedation, the "repressed memory" idea sounds good. Since you know medical terminology, I'll be more specific so that your perception can be more accurate, while explaining how I thought layman's terms would still reflect accuracy.

Actually it was NT suction, but you know how tenacious RSV secretions are, and that infants can drown in them, so it is important to go past the trachea (generally easy enough to get into the right mainstem, but it's usually possible to get the left, too) so even if the catheter is in the right mainstem, the tenacity of the secretions (and the fact that it's imperative to keep the suction pressure really low on infants for tissue integrity, while the low pressure doubles as an encouragement to keep the secretions together) allows the lung itself to be evacuated of secretions - thus, vacuuming out the lungs.

"Imagine the influence a flexible sigmoidoscopy could have on an impressionable one." Was provided as a humorous prelude (regarding the alien topic) i.e. "anal probing". Thanks :)