Teach us To Feel
What Extraterrestrials May be Looking For
I have it on the authority of William Wordsworth, Lady Gaga, and Georgia O’Keeffe that highly intelligent forms of extraterrestrial life are far more interested in our poetry, music, and visual art than in our cosmologies, mathematics, and technologies. It is not our digital intelligence they seek, but rather our emotional responses to the worlds we encounter—our ability to feel deeply, to hope, to mourn, and to celebrate. Even to be sad. As one alien put it to me: "Your emotions are forms of connection; and it's the connections we seek." For all their advancements, then, they come not to conquer or teach, but to learn—to recover, or perhaps encounter for the first time, what it means to long, to mourn, to yearn, to delight. But let me back up:
We often wonder if there is intelligent life on other planets or in other dimensions of the space-time continuum. Perhaps there is! It may exist on other planets in other galaxies or in other dimensions of the space-time continuum. Perhaps it is far more advanced than ours. And yet, it is also possible that these forms of intelligent life miss something they sense we possess—a capacity to long, to fear, to hope, to feel. If they are visiting us, it is not for information, conquest, or even friendship, but rather because they wish to learn—anew, or perhaps for the first time—how to feel.
From a process perspective, "intelligence" is itself a kind of feeling. It consists of what Whitehead calls "conceptual prehensions" in the "mental pole" of a concrescing subject. These conceptual prehensions grasp ideas, possibilities, and, in some instances, timeless potentialities. We often speak of what is known through the mental pole of experience as "information."
And yet, as in human life on Earth, creatures from other planets or planes cannot live by concepts alone. Even conceptual feelings are not enough. We need, in addition, what Whitehead calls "physical feelings"—the embodied sensations and connections that ground existence in the rhythms of material life. And we need what Whitehead calls "subjective forms"—patterns of subjective experience imbued with aims, purposes, and emotions such as hope, longing, and fear.
It is possible that creatures on other planets, so highly developed in the conceptual sides of their lives, might nevertheless yearn to reclaim the bodily and emotional dimensions of existence. We can imagine them saying, as do the Seekers in the story below:
Teach us to feel.
They know that we are not perfect beings. They do not expect to learn from us anything close to moral perfection. They see us doing horrible things to one another and to other living beings on our planet all the time. But they also know that we long, hope, and fear and that there is an intensity in these experiences that is itself kind of beautiful. They are humble and just a little jealous. To be sure, we have much to learn from them, but perhaps they have a bit to learn from us, too. It is good that we can be friends.
We often wonder if there is intelligent life on other planets or in other dimensions of the space-time continuum. Perhaps there is! It may exist on other planets in other galaxies or in other dimensions of the space-time continuum. Perhaps it is far more advanced than ours. And yet, it is also possible that these forms of intelligent life miss something they sense we possess—a capacity to long, to fear, to hope, to feel. If they are visiting us, it is not for information, conquest, or even friendship, but rather because they wish to learn—anew, or perhaps for the first time—how to feel.
From a process perspective, "intelligence" is itself a kind of feeling. It consists of what Whitehead calls "conceptual prehensions" in the "mental pole" of a concrescing subject. These conceptual prehensions grasp ideas, possibilities, and, in some instances, timeless potentialities. We often speak of what is known through the mental pole of experience as "information."
And yet, as in human life on Earth, creatures from other planets or planes cannot live by concepts alone. Even conceptual feelings are not enough. We need, in addition, what Whitehead calls "physical feelings"—the embodied sensations and connections that ground existence in the rhythms of material life. And we need what Whitehead calls "subjective forms"—patterns of subjective experience imbued with aims, purposes, and emotions such as hope, longing, and fear.
It is possible that creatures on other planets, so highly developed in the conceptual sides of their lives, might nevertheless yearn to reclaim the bodily and emotional dimensions of existence. We can imagine them saying, as do the Seekers in the story below:
Teach us to feel.
They know that we are not perfect beings. They do not expect to learn from us anything close to moral perfection. They see us doing horrible things to one another and to other living beings on our planet all the time. But they also know that we long, hope, and fear and that there is an intensity in these experiences that is itself kind of beautiful. They are humble and just a little jealous. To be sure, we have much to learn from them, but perhaps they have a bit to learn from us, too. It is good that we can be friends.
The Whispering Horizon
The sky rippled.
At first, it was subtle, like heat rising off desert sands, but then the colors began to shift—violets bleeding into gold, streaks of indigo splitting the heavens. Julia stood in the open field, heart pounding, as the light trembled. The telescope beside her buzzed with static interference, its sensors overwhelmed.
She wasn’t prepared for this. No one could be.
For years, Julia had scanned the stars, searching for signals—radio pulses, laser beams, anything. Her colleagues at the Observatory of Extraterrestrial Intelligence mocked her theories about parallel dimensions and epochs intersecting. "Too speculative," they said. But the equations she discovered in the margins of ancient star maps, the faint mathematical imprints that didn’t fit any known physical law, told her otherwise.
And now, the evidence hovered before her.
The air folded, twisted—and a shape stepped through.
It wasn’t humanoid. It wasn’t anything familiar. It rippled like a fluid mirage, a shimmer of translucent layers that seemed to exist in multiple states simultaneously. A presence—not light, not matter—yet undeniably sentient.
"Do not fear."
The words weren’t spoken aloud. They unfurled in her thoughts like petals, vast and gentle. Julia staggered back but couldn’t look away.
"We are the Seekers. We come not as conquerors but as witnesses."
Julia swallowed, her voice trembling. “Who…what are you?”
The being’s form shifted, coalescing briefly into something that resembled eyes—vast, luminous pools of blue and silver.
"We are echoes from an elder epoch. A universe folded alongside your own, older and wider. We step between the veils to learn, to know."
“Why now?” Julia asked.
"Because your world stirs. Patterns emerge—fractures in the continuum. Your minds reach outward, and your machines hum with questions."
She felt their gaze probe through her memories, brushing against her doubts and dreams. It was not intrusive but patient, waiting for her to understand.
“But why me?”
"Because you listen."
Julia exhaled, the weight of countless questions pressing against her ribs. “What do you want to know?”
The being shimmered, its presence folding into fractal patterns that seemed to breathe.
"What it means to feel."
She blinked. “Feel?”
"To long. To fear. To hope. We have forgotten."
Julia’s heart cracked open at the vulnerability in their tone. The Seekers, for all their vastness, were not gods. They were travelers, exiles from a universe stretched beyond the horizon of understanding.
“I’ll tell you,” she whispered, stepping closer.
The being extended what might have been an arm, and she reached out, their forms brushing—a connection across epochs. Images cascaded through her: the laughter of her childhood, the ache of loss, the thrill of discovery. And in return, she glimpsed fragments of their world—towers of liquid crystal, skies that sang, and oceans woven from threads of light.
And then, as suddenly as they arrived, they receded, the sky stitching itself back together.
But they left something behind. A trace of their presence lingered in Julia’s mind—a map, a pathway. Not an ending, but a beginning.
She gazed up at the stars, her heart alight with possibility.
The Seekers would return.
And she would be waiting.
The Whiteheadian Metaphysic and
the Possibility of Cosmic Epochs
The encounter described in The Whispering Horizon finds its philosophical grounding in the metaphysical framework developed by Alfred North Whitehead, whose process philosophy envisions a universe not as a static collection of objects, but as a dynamic and evolving network of interrelated events. In Whitehead’s cosmology, reality is composed of actual occasions—fundamental units of existence that are in constant process, becoming and perishing in time. These occasions form the building blocks of experience, and their interconnections shape the fabric of space, time, and consciousness.
Important to Whitehead’s metaphysic is the concept of an “extensive continuum”—a vast, multidimensional field that encompasses all forms of existence, both spatial and temporal. Within this continuum, events are not isolated but interwoven through patterns of relationship and resonance. This allows for the existence of multiple cosmic epochs, each with its own forms of order and patterns of process. These epochs may unfold sequentially, coexist simultaneously, or intersect at certain points, enabling moments of communication or overlap between them.
Whitehead also emphasizes the primacy of feeling as the basic mode of experience. Every actual occasion prehends—or feels—its environment, integrating influences from both its past and its surroundings. This suggests that intelligence, consciousness, and even technology in other epochs might develop modes of knowing that are radically different from our own, based on forms of feeling and relationality rather than mechanistic causality.
In the story, the beings known as the Seekers embody this principle. Their existence as fluid, multidimensional entities reflects Whitehead’s view that forms of life need not conform to our material expectations but may emerge through novel patterns of process and order. Their ability to traverse epochs relies on a deeper understanding of the continuum, treating it not as a fixed backdrop but as a living process capable of transformation and permeability.
The Seekers’ desire to understand human emotion also resonates with Whitehead’s idea that the universe is not merely physical but profoundly experiential. For Whitehead, the evolution of complexity—including the rise of sentience—reflects the universe’s drive toward greater richness of experience. The Seekers, having grown distant from their origins of feeling, seek to reconnect with this primordial source of value, which humans—despite their fragility—still embody.
Finally, the encounter illustrates the Whiteheadian notion of creative advance, where reality perpetually generates novelty and complexity. The appearance of the Seekers marks a threshold event—a moment where epochs touch and the possibilities of each are expanded through interaction. Far from being a deterministic universe, Whitehead’s cosmos is an open-ended process, always reaching toward what has never yet been.
Thus, the framework of Whitehead’s metaphysic makes plausible the existence of alien beings who emerge not from other planets within our observable universe, but from other orders of reality within the extensive continuum. Their arrival underscores the possibility of deeper connections between worlds, united by a shared process of becoming, and hints at a future where the boundaries between epochs dissolve in pursuit of greater understanding.