Alien Truth

Paul Graham’s essay Alien Truth proposes that certain truths would be shared by any intelligent beings in the universe—not just mathematical and physical laws.

Shared Truths Beyond Math and Physics

The essay identifies principles likely universal to intelligent life:

Controlled experiments validate hypotheses
Practice improves skill
Occam’s razor applies

“There doesn’t seem anything specifically human about any of these ideas.”

The Threshold Heuristic

Rather than speculating about alien life forms, the idea of alien truth serves as “a threshold, or more precisely a target, for truth.”

It helps identify the most general truths we can discover by asking what intelligent beings elsewhere would necessarily understand.

Philosophy Redefined

Graham suggests that philosophy—traditionally broad and diffuse—could be understood as the systematic search for alien truths. This gives the discipline clearer purpose and direction.

Connection to Future AI

Future artificial intelligence might eventually help us identify precisely which truths any intelligent system must possess.

My Takeaway

The attempt to discover alien truths represents worthwhile intellectual work, embodying its own principle—making it paradoxically an alien truth itself.