Sadly Pawing the Enclosure Glass
Yesterday The Browser included an article about the Zoo Hypothesis that has been plaguing my brain quite nicely. Side note: The Browser is one of the few services I pay for and the only newsletter I subscribe to. It is absolutely fantastic. Hand-curated collection of longform articles about a variety of topics from around the web. Cannot recommend it hard enough.
It was my first time hearing about the Zoo Hypothesis, but I had generally been familiar with theories around SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence). The only idea within this space that I had previously heard about was the Great Filter Hypothesis. For a (very) light summary of the question being answered by the Zoo Hypothesis and the Great Filter Hypothesis, the prompt goes like this: based on the age of the universe and the ubiquity of the building blocks for life found within it, we should statistically have seen at least some signs of extraterrestrial intelligence by now. Why have we not?
The Great Filter Hypothesis answers the prompt by asserting that all forms of extraterrestrial intelligence have hit some impassable barrier at some point along their intellectual advance. As a result they are no longer with us to leave any signs.
The Zoo Hypothesis answers the prompt with the claim that extraterrestrial intelligence does in fact exist, but that it is intentionally isolating us, frustrating our attempts to know whether or not we are alone in the universe.
Both of these theories have intensely anxiety-inspiring implications when we consider them even for a moment. I'm helping myself to work through the malaise that they bring about in my head by describing the bleakness that both theories represent and then presenting some potentially more optimistic alternatives beyond the obvious within the framework of each hypothesis.
Great Cataclysm Filter Hypothesis (Obvious, Bleak)
The idea of advanced civilizations completely halting their ability to expand into the stars brings to most people's minds some sort of natural or artificial extinction. The odds that a given species survives an extinction event is low, but as a species sticks around long enough to technologically advance to the point of interstellar travel that species must beat the odds and likely survive multiple extinction events. Perhaps the amount of time that it would take for a species to advance would just move the bell curve of survivability far close enough to zero for us to have never seen one make it through the filter at this point. This is a sort of stochastic filter where, instead of a vertical drop-off there's simply a steep enough drop-off as to be only approaching vertical. ...Still not very confidence inspiring.
Great Antagonist Filter Hypothesis (Odd, Bleak)
Instead of a simple boring stochastic model of extinction, we can consider the possibility that the extinction is artificial--an extermination. Perhaps when a species becomes advanced enough to start showing signs of intelligence and expanding throughout the universe, they become visible to something that does not approve of their expansion. An analogy for this would be my willingness to allow a few flies in my home once in a while without taking more action against them than a swat here and there. But if something larger like a cockroach or a mouse is showing signs of activity in my home extermination is the only option that would be sane to pursue (no matter how difficult--Victor mouse traps are a scam!). The clear bleak implication for this idea is that something is out there that could consider any sufficiently intelligent/advanced species worthy of immediate indiscriminate extermination. A real dick of an unfeeling Gnostic God.
Great Rapture Filter Hypothesis (Odd, Optimistic)
I can imagine a world where such a filter exists but perhaps it's possible that it has a benevolent nature. What if reaching this filter is not considered grounds for some antagonist to crush us but a passing grade for some test? What if reaching this threshold causes a species to be considered worthy of elevation into some realm beyond what can be observed? This is a theme posited in some capacity in the movies Arrival and Interstellar as well as Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. Perhaps rather than continue to exist as a subject of observation in the universe we can become worthy of being observers ourselves?
Zoo Enclosure Hypothesis (Obvious, Bleak)
Since the Zoo Hypothesis implies that ETI exists out there and that it is (they are) intentionally avoiding us, it begs some questions like, "Why is it avoiding us?" Things become a bit bleak when we consider the relationship hinted at by the name of the theory. If we are truly being ignored because we are in some sort of Zoo-like enclosure then it means the ETI that exists considers us so backwards or otherwise so purely other to itself that we are worth of isolation via enclosure.
When we extend the analogy further and consider our treatment of animals within a Zoo things become even darker. What would a lion at the Zoo have to do for us to consider it worthy of release from its enclosure? Simply knowing that it is in an enclosure is not enough. Say we do make it as impossibly far as to discover that we are being observed for either edification or amusement by some other form of intelligence. Then we are essentially at the point of our lion counterpart defeatedly batting its paw against the bulletproof glass of the Big Cats Exhibit. To be considered worthy of escape we would have to perform an action so outside of the nature of our instinct as to be unthinkable. We would have to do the equivalent of a lion writing in legible English "please let me out" on the glass through which we observe it.
The final, and possibly most bleak consideration here, is that we keep lions in a Zoo because we know with a level of certainty that it does not contain within its nature the ability to do something like write a message on the wall of its enclosure. We know that keeping it in a Zoo would be cruel if there was any remote possibility of this happening. If we are in a Zoo then it means that whatever is out there knows with near certainty that we don't possess the capacity to be considered worthy of leaving the enclosure and being considered worthy of its considerations of "personhood".
Zoo Anthropology Hypothesis (Odd, Optimistic)
This idea is predicated on the possibility that we are being observed in a scientifically rigorous way. So rather than a Zoo observing entities that are in an enclosure, the idea would be that we are being observed in vivo in a manner akin to an uncontacted group of people. Or rather, we are being explicitly kept in an uncontacted/unobserved state to preserve the integrity of any observations that are made about us. Over the history of anthropology, and scientific thought in general, it has become relatively accepted that if a subject of observation is observed then the subject's behavior changes. Further, if a subject of observation knows that it is being observed, essentially any observations made of its behavior can be considered null because of the degree to which this knowledge alters that behavior.
If we are in some sort of Zoo-style enclosure then any sufficiently advanced ETI that is observing us has forever destroyed the possibility that we could be observed in a rigorous way. It would be viewing us in vitro. So in a bit of optimistic naïveté I posit that, if an ETI is intelligent enough to be observing us in a manner that is purely in vivo, it means that we have hope for being able to make contact.
Consider if a member of an uncontacted tribe from South America were to travel outside the bounds of their territory so far that they walk into Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. There would be no concern about them having left some sort of artificial enclosure--they never had one. The only consideration that they would be left with is the integration into an environment so blindingly new and foreign that they risk the destruction of their sanity.
Perhaps instead of needing to destroy the bars of our Zoo enclosure to run amok in the galactic Zoo, we can simply muster the brutal and resolute determination needed to kayak across the galactic Atlantic and confront the cosmic horrors that wait to welcome us with open impossible-to-understand arms.