The Girl at the Asian Grocer

There’s No Such Thing as Aliens: An Interstellar Post-Humanism

Max Babus

This title contains two pretty loaded and rather confusing words. Let me break them down for you:

Post-humanism: an idea in the social sciences that says instead of focusing on the human as what we analyse, we should equate humans with the natural world and focus on their interactions with each other. I use post-humanism below as illuminated through Anna Tsing’s 2015 book The Mushroom at the End of the World. Interstellar: associated with outer space or the great expanse which lies above us.

Before we begin with the guts of this, I need to note that a lot of post-humanist thinking is heavily inspired by, and has trouble paying credit to Indigenous communities, knowledges and worldviews. As a non-Indigenous Australian, I do not consider it appropriate to comment on which groups influence which strands of thought, but this is something to keep in mind as we go along.

As we are essentially made of stardust and inspired by billionaires’ flying off into outer space, I want to think of what an interstellar posthumanism could look like. Whilst typical posthumanism tends to say “what would it look like if we acknowledged our place on Planet Earth,” I’ll attempt to justify and then reason about “what would it look like if we acknowledged our place in the cosmos.”

In The Mushroom at the End of the World, or rather bits of an extract I read about a year ago, Tsing writes that pre-industrial livelihoods “make worlds too… and show us how to look around rather than ahead” (p.22). Here, we can extend our gaze skywards and look ahead in terms of many many kilometres and light years rather than metres. Later, Tsing comments that humans are not unique in their ability to make and construct worlds, citing a series of biological processes which also do so. In interstellar posthumanism, we should acknowledge the physical processes which allow stars and planets to form – life as we would consider it biologically is not necessarily unique in its ability to create worlds. But what does this all mean? Or rather why should you be listening to the semi-pseudoacademic ramblings of a third-year university student?

We’ve so far seen that humanity’s effects on ecosystems and natural processes extend beyond the atmospheric bounds of the planet. Two examples which spring to mind are the problem of space junk (masses of waste which float in space such as dead satellites) and light pollution (the stars not becoming visible from Earth).

So when we consider an interstellar post-humanism, it would mean acknowledging that these problems which float above earthly realms can be just as damaging as the ones which are at home with us and within earthly bounds. Hopefully, this might inspire some kind of action on these problems – attempting to reduce space junk and light pollution might be a start – though I remain sceptical about this. If environmental planetary problems are being solved slowly, why would interstellar ones be solved any faster?

An interstellar post-humanism could also be humbling, and on a grander scale than earthly post-humanism. In the limited bounds of theory, it might also help us come to terms with other alien life. What are aliens then anyway if we’re all bound up within the same cosmos? They’re certainly not alien to us – they just inhabit another part of space.

Look, all of this presupposes a gentle cosmos and a gentle universe, not one filled with scales of cosmic horror which I might read one too many fictional things about. In any case, I’d rather hope to live, and thus theorise about, living in the first scenario rather than the second.

So as you gaze into the sky and see what little you can of the stars, the vast inky emptiness of the night shouldn’t really feel that empty. Rather this inkiness is a part of us and the subsequent paper our universe is written on.