What if aliens are spiritual beings and not like Hawking said?

Then if hey are spiritual, they will reach out to us.

What hawking was saying was that if they truly are alien, then it would be a mistake to think that they think like we do.

What does “spiritual” even mean? I’ve never heard a satisfying answer to this question.

@Qingu For me, “spirit” is equal and synonymous to “thought”.

So for myself, this question literally suggests a life form that is thoughtful, yet disembodied physically. A being based purely upon thought, sans the requirements for physical representation.

I understand my explanation is probably not for you. But to me, Soul and Mind are synonymous terms from different disciplines. And a Mind/Soul is the result of the numerous Thought/Spirits one accumulates throughout their existence.

For me, spirituality is about connection with things outside yourself. It is both a feeling and a scientific understanding of how all things relate to each other and affect each other.

If the aliens are “spiritual,” then they may sense this connection. But so what? That doesn’t mean they are nice or will care about us. It doesn’t make sense to think that anyone who spent enormous resources to travel through interstellar space would care about life forms they found when they got there. Humans wouldn’t. Why would anyone else?

Actually I have thought of this question myself. With these advanced intelligences out there (assumption but very likely to me) perhaps there are some that have their own religions or deity/s they pray to. Also, maybe there are alien (or human/humanlike) species out there who are atheistic. As we know from our own human history religion or theocracies are not always synonymous with peace and enlightment. I guess it would depend on what you define as spiritual.

@wundayatta by your definition, dogs are spiritual beings.

@Qingu Huh? Dogs can’t talk (at least not to me). Tell me what they say to you. How do you know what they feel connected to? How do you know they have this sense?

Still, even if they do, that would probably be a good thing, and not unprecedented in human ideologies. Native Americans are known for treating animals as spiritual entities.

You didn’t say spiritual things needed to talk, you just said they have to have a connection with things outside themselves. Which dogs (and most pets, really) clearly have, as any pet owner knows.

And while dogs don’t talk, they do communicate. My cat “tells” me when he wants food by meowing and then leading me to his empty food bowl.

My point here isn’t to argue whether or not dogs and cats should be treated as “spiritual,” my point is that the word spiritual is vague and basically meaningless.

I’ll agree that it’s meaningless to the extent that most people mean different things when they use the word. That’s why I try to explain what I mean when I use it. Of course the thing I am trying to explain can’t be expressed very well in words, so I am left with a vagueness that certainly meets your criticism. I can’t tell you what I mean. I can only put you in an experience where you have a good chance of experiencing what I am trying to explain. Even then, there’s no guarantee we will have similar experiences.

Well, in light of the original question, if we use your definition of “spiritual” that means the aliens could be like… dogs. Or humans, or any conscious being. Which is completely in line with what Hawking proposed, and thus contrary to what the original question seems to imply.

Gadzooks, here is a thought. We are gerbils, in a metaphoric sense, we live out our lives in our defined area. We have been watched the whole time but because of the manner in which we were watched, we never really knew it. We know we have limitations to our little area but we can’t understand them anymore than a real gerbil understands why it can’t go any further because of the Plexiglas tank, or cage. Then somehow, these “humans”, watching over us figure out a way to communicate. To us “gerbils”, they would seem like magical beings, the stuff they can do, how they can travel freely pass the Plexiglas, and even MAKE Plexiglas, we gerbils might find humans to be really special, divine-like beings. We might even come up with a method of communicating with them, like a religion.

OK lets sit back and listen to all the minds popping right now.

“We are (metaphoric) gerbils”... stuck on a metaphoric hemorrhoid in the metaphoric ass of a metaphoric Richard Gere.

If aliens are spiritual and evangelical, I expect the human race to suffer the same way Native Americans and Africans did at the hands of the European Christians.

In that case I hope we never ever meet them. Of course I don’t see how a race would be intelligent enough to build a space ship and transverse billions of miles in space while holding to a mythical religion.

^^ ^^
Some people just can’t fathom it…. hoo hoo hee hee…...