Can Outer Space Help Our Inner Life?

(Probably Not)

Someone once asked me, “What’s something that, if true, would cause you to lead your life in a radically different way?” To translate the question: Are there facts out there, that, if introduced into your mental life, could change your values, your mission, your emphasis?

I thought about this question as I read the news about possible “life” on Venus. Should the discovery of extra terrestrial life, however defined, radically alter my worldview, and thus my behavior, day to day? I’m inclined to think not. But why? Will there be a tipping point at which I think differently?

The short answer is that I don’t think, at this point that ET tips the scale in a particular moral direction. Cosmologies come and go, but psychology is here to stay.

Moreover, I think that discoveries about the external universe can’t tell us about our own inner life. There will always be some “new world” to which we can voyage, but it is the self, our own self, that remains the greatest mystery.

So, I ask, is there anything in outer space that can teach us about our inner life? How do we point the telescope at ourselves when we are always the ones looking through it?