The question "Are We Alone?" in different cultures

Abstract

A survey of the worldwide litterature reveals that the question "Are We Alone in the Universe?" has been formulated only in the western litterature. Here I try to understand why it is so. To investigate this problem it is first necessary to clarify what western culture means.Comment: to appear in The Role of Astronomy in Society and Culture: Proceedings of IAU Symposium No. 260, 2009. D. Valls-Gabaud and A. Boksenberg, ed