Hi, ljk.

Perhaps you are too fixated on the term, "alien." I think that a universal system of the classical branches of philosophy (i.e., metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics), or metaphors of such, probably becomes more apparent in the process of ascension through stages of intellectual development, no matter what the mere material basis might be. Spiritual maturation would follow a similarly predetermined course, no matter what life forms were at the origin of emergence. For a civilization to maintain coherence, and a necessary sustained moral effort, all theory and practice would have to conform to a deepening and expanding universal pattern similar to those principles that have upheld the best of human civilization.

If you had glanced at Pearson's thesis, you would have noted that he is postulating a conscious substrate that antedates matter itself. This evokes images of the "One" of Plotinus, or at least the "Nous." An entity for which even the half-life of the proton (as yet not determined, but > 10exp32 years) would be subsumed under its duration, could not be called alien, but perhaps "The Ancient of Days," a title for the Hebrew God. Pearson is not looking for a surrogate in the place of diety; he is trying to rediscover the spiritual as an exact science (a familiar idea in Asian high culture), and as necessarily harmonized with a correct physics.

As for your concern about catastrophic cosmic events, etc., or more generally about suffering itself and the problem of evil, due to our epistemological limitations we must defer a formal judgment with respect to the true value of all events as a final sum.

Is survival really the ultimate motivation of life? Perhaps the purpose of life is "to live," and all that this implies. The connotation of survival in the intellectual sphere is paranoia. I am reminded of JP Sartre's definition of God as an "unthreatened awareness," a state which is yearned for by all humanity.

In any case, the discrete tribal circles of scientific communities, which retain Descarte's desire for clear and distinct concepts, must in their drive for rigor be dismissive of too great a license given to speculation. Nevertheless I sense a tremor in the world that may overturn some of the familiar culture of science that hasn't changed much since the 19th Century.

JK