From ScienceDaily:
One of the problems that have long intrigued experts in cosmology is how to detect possible extraterrestrial signals. Are we really looking in the right direction? Maybe not, according to the study that the neuropsychologists Gabriel de la Torre and Manuel García, from the University of Cádiz, publish in the journal Acta Astronautica.
“When we think of other intelligent beings, we tend to see them from our perceptive and conscience sieve; however we are limited by our sui generis vision of the world, and it’s hard for us to admit it,” says De la Torre, who prefers to avoid the terms ‘extraterrestrial’ or aliens by its Hollywood connotations and use another more generic, as ‘non-terrestrial’.
“What we are trying to do with this differentiation is to contemplate other possibilities — he says-, for example, beings of dimensions that our mind cannot grasp; or intelligences based on dark matter or energy forms, which make up almost 95% of the universe and which we are only beginning to glimpse. There is even the possibility that other universes exist, as the texts of Stephen Hawking and other scientists indicate.”
The authors state that our own neurophysiology, psychology and consciousness can play an important role in the search for non-terrestrial civilizations; an aspect that they consider has been neglected until now.Paper. (paywall) – Gabriel G. De la Torre, Manuel A. Garcia. The cosmic gorilla effect or the problem of undetected non terrestrial intelligent signals. Acta Astronautica, 2018; 146: 83 DOI: 10.1016/j.actaastro.2018.02.036 More.
Here is a useful dissertation idea that could become a good book: How did this kind of speculation get to be classed as science?
See also: Fixing the unfixable Drake equation
Gorilla effect? Here.