Enrichment of the Driving Metanarratives Shared between SETI and Earth-Space Sustainability through a Multispecies Lens

The fields of SETI and Earth-Space Sustainability appear to have significant conceptual common ground. This talk presents an upcoming journal article that argues that this cross-fertilization of ideas is the effect of socially-shared narratives at work in each of the two fields, which are tacitly driven by the same cross-cutting metanarrative framings. The talk argues that the scientific communities of SETI and ESS utilize conviction narratives to enable sense-making, decision-making, and action-generation at the collective level, under conditions of radical uncertainty. It then posits that the distinct narratives at work in each of these two fields are implicitly framed and driven by a finite set of shared metanarrative foundations, which are based on a tripartite distinction of anthropocentrism. The nascent fourth metanarrative frame, i.e., descriptive non-anthropocentrism and normative non-anthropocentrism, is captured through a multispecies lens and is highlighted as very promising for stimulating fruitful dialogue between the two fields and for expanding their individual creative horizons.