It’s incredible that we (well, some of us, I suppose) are
so intrigued and excited by the prospect of extraterrestrial life and
intelligence that we fail to notice the aliens all around us.
I recently went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History,
and, probably needless to say, I really
got my nerd on. Beginning in the Earth
Sciences section, I read about the accretion of materials that led to the
formation of our planet and walked around an impressive collection of elements,
gemstones, amethysts, and rocks collected from various places across the globe
as well as a few from meteorites. As I
moved through the institution, the exhibits gradually shifted away from
inorganic compounds and toward discussions of climate change and finally onto
biological specimens ranging from deep-sea Pompeii Worms (an extremophile found
only in hydrothermal vents) to Siberian Tigers, and even a few fossilized
remains of dinosaurs and other creatures from the Triassic, Jurassic, and
Cretaceous. Finally, the institution
also features the interesting Peabody Museum, which houses artifacts from
Pre-Columbian American cultures as well as small-scale recreations of temples
and murals.
As I toured the exhibits, I once again was floored by the
sheer difference that separated me from what I was looking at. The interesting, albeit brief, exhibit on
evolution offers a bit of clarification for those unsure on the tenets of
natural selection (which, as far as I’m concerned, is the closest thing to fact that we’ve yet discovered about the
development and emergence of species); but it is a whole other matter to stand
beneath this…
(Fin Whale)
…and marvel at the
aliens our planet already has in store for us.
Some might object to calling creatures such as the Fin
Whale “alien,” but I actually intend it in the politest way possible. Only by really trying to acknowledge the
diversification already present among the ecosystems of our planet can we then
begin to perceive ourselves as part of this diversification, rather than some
pinnacle or omega point at the top of it, straining toward divine
transcendence. Toss us in the middle of
the ocean without a boat or paddle, and I guarantee you that all of the sudden
we won’t find ourselves at the top of the food chain any longer (hell, throw me
in with a boat and paddle – give me a cruise liner – I’ll still probably
succumb to the elements). What I found
in the Natural History Museum at Harvard reawakened me to the truth that even I
find it difficult to maintain occasionally: that evolutionarily, we are far
from the “best,” and that if we seek the alien other, not only are we already
among it – we are it.
I don’t bother memorizing all the transitional epochs and
eons during which our planet formed (Hadean, Achaean, Proterozoic, etc.); I can
look them up on the internet whenever I need to. But I am still in awe at the sheer weight of
time, even within the scheme of the age of the universe (the accretion of the
Earth is believed to have occurred about 4.56 billion years ago, while the
universe is believed to be about 13.5 billion years old[1]);
and modern human beings – in an anatomical sense – occupy approximately 0.00004%
of the entire age of the Earth. Prior to
that time, we can trace the evolution of what we call “humans” back to
increasingly more and more alien forms:
Where do we draw the
line? Modern science chooses an entirely
arbitrary point, which makes sense in hindsight once we’ve applied the
schematics of biological classification.
We see some semblance creeping along the diverging lines, one strand
that ends with us; but if we follow this strand back far enough, we will likely
stare in disgust at our supposed ancestors.
The other divergent lines offer glimpses into such unique
forms of life that we can’t help but feel as aliens on our own planet:
Right Whale 
Tapir 
I could spend hours
walking around Harvard’s Natural History Museum; actually, I did. The exhibit of glass flowers is as
breathtaking as their collection of elements and animals. Finally, what I found most exhilarating wasn’t
any one exhibit in particular, but my own body – my own limbs, gait, brain, and
the fact that I was part of a culture that put things in museums. We privilege our eyes; sight is our dominant
sense. We need to see things in order to understand them. Museums are an institution of seeing…
(don’t ask me
exactly what this thing is)
…but we must remember
that whatever we look at looks back at us.
In Arthur C. Clarke’s iconic 1953 science fiction novel, Childhood’s End, the character Jan
Rodricks is taken on a tour through an alien museum and witnesses an exhibit
that causes immediate terror, and then gradual wonderment:
It was lifeless, of course – not, as he
had thought in that first moment of panic, consciously staring up at him. It filled almost all that great circular
space, and the ruby light gleamed and shifted in its crystal depths.
It was a single giant eye. (Clarke 214)[2]
It is foolish to believe
that simply because the exhibits in a museum are not living, breathing organisms,
they do not look back at us. We are (most of us) unaware of the deep
cultural affect that permeates the museum environment. We separate the museum out, believe it to be
an objective space that distinguishes each exhibit, and us from the exhibits; but we do not consider the fact that, amidst the
diversity of expunged life, we are the purest exhibit. Our fascination with other creatures signals
the greater imperative: our fascination with what we are, where we fit in the
exhibition.
We need not invoke the technologically advanced aliens of
Clarke’s Childhood’s End in order to
conceive of this fascination. All we
need to do is reorient ourselves with respect to our fellow terrestrial
organisms. Dismiss for a moment the
museum as a “book of nature,” with ourselves as the author, and consider that
what we take to be our authorship is actually a reflexive effort to comprehend
ourselves.[5]
Despite the reflexivity inherent in the instance of
exhibition, we can still find ourselves in awe of the creatures before us,
particularly when all we have left are the bones:
Triceratops
skull
Edaphosaurus
Contemplating these
strange looking things in turn raises questions about our ability to
contemplate other animals at all.
Observing living animals in their habitat, as is the business of
biologists and other scholars of the life sciences, certainly assists in the
matter; but we must acknowledge, at some point, a barrier in what we can hope
to understand. Dinosaurs, unfortunately,
have left us only their bones. We don’t
have any cave paintings, photographs, or home videos, despite our fond memories
of this adorable bunch:
(I’m the baby!)
It helps to
anthropomorphize things, but as any good scholar will tell you, this doesn’t
get us any closer to understanding the thing-in-itself (in Kantian terms). So we attempt to separate, to classify, and
to organize in an effort to achieve the most objective, neutral knowledge
possible of the things around us; but turning to Foucault one last time, no
matter how complex our instruments or how specific our naming system, the utter
alien-ness of the creature will evade
our best attempts.[6]
This is not an admission of futility or a concession to
the inestimable forces of the inhuman world (which, let’s face it, is the world
we live in; it makes no sense to think of it as “ours”). The further science pushes its boundaries,
the more discoveries we will continue to make, and the more (hopefully) we will
understand, at the very least, about the consequences and effects of our
existence in the world. By continuing to
pursue and discover we will not only continue to develop our knowledge, even if
it will always remain imperfect; we will also inaugurate and catalyze the
ever-shifting relationship of humanity to the world, culturally, economically,
ethically, etc. As we continue to make
new discoveries we must also continue to reassess our economic and political
foundations, because whether we consciously choose to or not, we will change. It will not be for better or for worse – it
will just happen.
And, eventually, we will likely be as bewildering to
something else as this is to us:
Kronosaurus
(I’m glad I’m not swimming with this thing still in the water)
[1]
Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude,
Trans. Ray Brassier, New York: Continuum, 2011, p. 9. This is also very common knowledge, and can
be found easily on the internet. I think
Wikipedia even has the correct figures.
[2]
There is also some speculation that the final “starchild” sequence of Stanley
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
portrays the protagonist, David Bowman, walking through some kind of celestial
museum, but unaware of his spectators…
[3]
Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish,
New York: Vintage, 1995, p. 200.
[4] In
Discipline & Punish, Foucault
writes that the Panopticon is “a machine for dissociating the see/being seen
dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the
central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen” (Discipline 202). The architectural model of the panopticon was
designed by Jeremy Bentham for use in prisons.
[5]
For more on the museum as a kind of “book,” see Laura Rigal’s fascinating study
on excavation, exhibition, and expansion, The
American Manufactory: Art, Labor, and the World of Things in the Early Republic,
Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998, p. 96-97.
[6]
See Michel Foucault, “Classifying,” The
Order of Things, New York: Vintage, 1994, p. 125-165.
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