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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
 Posted - 05/23/2002 : 16:09:06 [Permalink]
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The wildest Sci-Fi alien life I've read about was in a short story years ago in an issue of Analog Magazine. (Sorry, don't remember the author's name.)
The aliens were basically sentient radioactive solar plasma! They lived in, or were part of the physics that powers the stars. From their "point of view" dark matter was really dark - and invisible. They traveled and communicated with others of their kind in other stars. Their consicousness was at the speed of light (therefore "instantaneous" throughout the cosmos) but their bodies moved more slowly as part of erupting solar flares. Can't remember much more, except that there was an episode where one of them crashed completely through the earth. (Oops - wrong turn?) It was of course a big deal to us, seen as a cosmic disaster, but to the solar plasma beings, it was almost literally nothing. They were almost completely unaware of the earth. Just like a mild cool breeze would cause a human traveler to turn up their collar and keep walking!
"Speaking without thinking like shooting without aiming." - Charlie Chan |
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Paulnib68
New Member
USA
28 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2002 : 19:30:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
The wildest Sci-Fi alien life I've read about was in a short story years ago in an issue of Analog Magazine. (Sorry, don't remember the author's name.)
Used to love that magazine.
And here we have the whole crux of the matter really. I am reminded of a few quotes. "Nature abhors a vacuum".
And "not only is the universe stranger
than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."
That there is life out there somewhere I have little doubt. That we would be able to comprehend it's intellectual makeup if it were to be found and intelligent I do doubt.
I recently discussed the efforts of those invited to Paris recently to compose messages to ET at a convention sponsored by SETI. My argument was that the chances of even being able to find common points of reference enabling some sort of translation of our respective forms of communication would be pretty small. How do you communicate when you have nothing in common, or at least nothing resembling a common equivalent? I wonder really if life has to follow some set pattern or if it is variable enough to form in any set of conditions in forms we cannot fathom.
And here we are supposed to believe aliens not only visit and harrass us but that they exhibit human characteristics we have no problem comprehending?
Talk about Hubris.
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2002 : 19:51:24 [Permalink]
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quote:
My argument was that the chances of even being able to find common points of reference enabling some sort of translation of our respective forms of communication would be pretty small. How do you communicate when you have nothing in common, or at least nothing resembling a common equivalent?
As I said some pages before: Math.
We would always have mathematics in common. No matter what your pespective is one plus one will always equal two.
We won't be able to talk about things like philosophy, because unless we are very luck the types of questions we are asking in philosophy won't even make sense in their form of communication. Communication would be very hard and on a very basic level.
But just because we will have to restrict ourselves to attempt to communicate on a extremly basic level, does not mean we would not learn anything.
The worst assumption are the ones we don't know we are making. In trying to communicate we would have to rethink and reevaluate a lot of things that appear obvious and selfevident to us. By the time (if ever) we could talk about more then the most basic stuff we would have learned a lot about our selves.
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I wonder really if life has to follow some set pattern or if it is variable enough to form in any set of conditions in forms we cannot fathom.
We might not have the imagination to conceive all possible forms of life that might be out there, but we can think of some of the minimum criteria that it should have.
Things like having to be self-replicating in a way that allows for darwinian evolution.
It is Math again that will help us identifie possible aliens. But you would not be able to tell about the mathematical properties of DNA molecules of a human being just from looking at him. It took us a very long time to discover those patterns in our bodies and we still have a long way to go to decode the patterns that make up our consciousness, so it might be some time from the first encounter to the realization that something is alive and sentient.
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opus
Skeptic Friend
Canada
50 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2002 : 20:18:52 [Permalink]
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quote:
Lars_H
Just because communism has so far failed to work for us, does not mean that it would not work for anyone else.
The worst problem is, that we can't even assume, that they have a similar distinction between individuals and the whole as humans do.
Ants don't have money. I personally am a sentient being, that consists of many highly specialized cells. Division of labor and allocation of resources works fine without currency being used by the cells.
That is news to me that communism advocated for the elimination of money in all its forms. I do not think it is so and even if tried would not be successfull.
Currency or valuing labour, time or resourses has nothing to do with a market economy or capitalism, in case that is what you are driving at. Markets are just a way to exchange goods or services. More than likely they appear soon after any species realises wandering from bush to bush is not the only way to live. A market does not have to be anything more than two people trading flint for berries. Captalism is a product of law and as such is a man made object like a car or house.
Individual distictions might not exist. I was assuming that these aliens had built a spaceship. To build anything means that you have decided not pursue other activities during that time you are building this spaceship. Even if this spieces has no individuals it still needs to elect between one project or another, whatever they may be. In that process there must be some calculation to decide if the building the spaceship is worth the resources it would take. And that is money you are taking about when you make that calculation. It should not have to be a fixed unit or value, but useful if it was, But a way to measure if it is worth it.
About the division of labour. Yes ants have an organized society. It is not a society organised to build a space ship. They are engaged in one activity, making other ants and it is not really the same thing as building objects such as spaceships. I know they need to make some choices in where to look for food etc, but the goal and the allocation of reasources day in and day out are to the same purpose.
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Slater
For that matter why would they even need ships.Life on Earth has evolved to live under very harsh conditions. Bacteria has been to space on our rockets and lived.
True. I did not really concider an alien that lives in space and moves in that environment. The original reference to money was ment for a society that has a more complex structure.
I believe Physics and natural selection are universal laws shich should apply anywhere in the universe. This does not mean that life elsewhere will be the same as life on earth. But the fundmental driving forces should be the same. Reproduction, food or survival should be.
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2002 : 21:57:24 [Permalink]
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But.., but., but just the material to construct a "body." OK, we know that 'space' within a stellar system, isn't "empty," but it's still a more perfect vacuum, than we can produce here on earth. (Mmm.., that may be outdated, now, dunno) Interstellar space, and intergalatic space, more so at an increasing magnitude, approaching zero atoms per unit volume of space. The microbes that NASA is trying to deal with, must be consuming material from the probes to reproduce. Still imagination is a wonderful thing, too. For some unknown reason, the thought of that 'Tobacco Mosaic Virus,' comes to mind, and how it can lie dormant, lifeless, for millennium, till just the right conditions occur, and allow it to resurrect itself into active life. With imagination given free reign, and escaping the confines of an earthly, human, life span, could envision a lifeform, who's gestation may take thousands of years to complete, collecting material from spects dust or, if fortunate, being upon an asteroid. A delightful flight of fancy, but lifeforms are your specialty, Slater. Will admit such a critter might be possible, though can't come to say it is even remotely probable, or so me feels. So will bow to your expertise, and willingly accept your judgement. How much is imagination, and how much is actual possibility, for such a lifeform to exist?
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire |
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2002 : 22:06:42 [Permalink]
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"Nature abhors a vacuum." Just empirical evidence would refute that statement, wouldn't it?
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 05/23/2002 : 22:54:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
As I said some pages before: Math.
Really?
The Romans had the same degree of intelligence as we do. How would you propose to talk math to them?
Or pre 19th century Polynesians. Very clever folks they could navigate their sailing canoes from Tahiti to New Zealand without a hitch. How do you think they would do with logarithms?
The largest brain on this planet is also the most convoluted per cc. It should, by all appearences belong to the most intelligent creature. We aren't sure if it does or not.
This is the sperm whale I'm talking about, not us. They have an extreemly complicated communication ability. Much more intricate than us. But we don't even know if they are talking. The largest portion of the largest most complicated brain on Earth is directed to communication. Their anatomy is very simple dispite their huge size and the percent of the brain devoted to controling it is less than in humans. They are after all weightless, so their sheer size has little effect on brain usage.
But they don't make any thing. They have no fingers, hands or trunks, so they have no artifacts.
Their huge brains evolved to be devoted to something else. We think communication, but we aren't 100% sure.
Here are "aliens" in our own oceans. How would you suggest using math to communicate with them?
Take a peek at this http://www.mbl.edu/Astrobiology/
to see what the guys up at Woods Hole are doing on this subject
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860
Edited by - slater on 05/23/2002 22:57:06 |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 05/24/2002 : 06:53:40 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
As I said some pages before: Math.
Really?
The Romans had the same degree of intelligence as we do. How would you propose to talk math to them?
Well, with Romans we obviously would be able to skip some parts. We would not have to make them realize that we are intelligent, too. They would come to that conclusion themselves from looking at us. We also would not have to start at the basics, because being fellow human beings we are making many of the same assumptions about the world. I guess we could go straight to the part of pointing at stuff and naming it. Latin is so closely related to english that it would be rather easy to learn for someone who speaks it. (Theoretically at least practical attempts by me, when I was in school, were not very succesful.)
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Or pre 19th century Polynesians. Very clever folks they could navigate their sailing canoes from Tahiti to New Zealand without a hitch. How do you think they would do with logarithms?
To be honest I have no idea of the mathematically abilities of Polynesians or their culture. It is bound to be more different from mine then the Roman's, but I think pointing and naming would work for them.
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The largest brain on this planet is also the most convoluted per cc. It should, by all appearences belong to the most intelligent creature. We aren't sure if it does or not.
This is the sperm whale I'm talking about, not us. They have an extreemly complicated communication ability. Much more intricate than us. But we don't even know if they are talking. The largest portion of the largest most complicated brain on Earth is directed to communication. Their anatomy is very simple dispite their huge size and the percent of the brain devoted to controling it is less than in humans. They are after all weightless, so their sheer size has little effect on brain usage.
Size does not matter, it is how you use it.  We don't really know that they are sentient.
quote:
But they don't make any thing. They have no fingers, hands or trunks, so they have no artifacts.
Their huge brains evolved to be devoted to something else. We think communication, but we aren't 100% sure.
Here are "aliens" in our own oceans. How would you suggest using math to communicate with them?
The methodes of communication I suggesed works best if both parties are interested in communication and bothe parties have a advanced mathematical knowledge. What the romans had in that area would probably be the bare minimum. We would have to try and make ourselves haered in terms of geometry if there was no easier way.
In cases like whales or dolphins we would have to most of the work ourselves. They don't seem either very much inclined nor capable of learning much of our own form of communication. Decrypting their communication and translating it in our own language is math.
quote:
Take a peek at this http://www.mbl.edu/Astrobiology/
to see what the guys up at Woods Hole are doing on this subject
Thanks for the link, I am going to have a look at it later.
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Paulnib68
New Member
USA
28 Posts |
Posted - 05/26/2002 : 16:36:07 [Permalink]
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quote:
"Nature abhors a vacuum." Just empirical evidence would refute that statement, wouldn't it?
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire
No offense intended please. But, care to elaborate?
Skeptics Tricks |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2002 : 10:54:20 [Permalink]
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My point with the Romans and Polynesians wasn't that we had other ways to communicate with them it was that communicating with them through math wasn't really possible, and they have almost exactly the same culture that we do.
Admittedly when the topic of communicating with ETs comes up with Mensa people they usually agree with you about math being a universal constant that communication can be built on. But the more involved in interspecies communication I become the more I doubt the feasibility of a common mathematics.
The closest relative we have is the Bonobo. You have to look really, really, close are our DNA to see any difference at all. There are a couple who live in Ohio (you may have seen them on TV) who can do arithmetic. They can do addition and subtraction, so long as you don't go over the number 5. They know that they have 5 fingers on each hand but the concept that both hands together have 10 fingers is beyond them. But they do know that 2 pieces of candy and 3 pieces make 5 pieces.
These little guys are primates, just like us. Math means nothing to them.
In the SF books we learn that Aliens have a base 7 number system instead of a base 10 and we are off and chatting up a storm.
We don't really know that they (the sperm whales) are sentient.
No, we don't. And there have been sperm whales since before we were people--so they have been here with us all along yet only now are we beginning to think that they might be sentient. Their communication is based on audio images transmitted by an organ ( the melon ) that we don't posses. How much more different would alien communication be when they wouldn't even share the same evolutionary history?
The methodes of communication I suggesed works best if both parties are interested in communication
Both parties are very much interested in communication.
For decades now in western Australia and in Ireland dolphins have been doing studies of humans (that's blatant anthropomorphism but, for the life of me, it's an accurate statement) unsuccessfully attempting to teach humans to speak.
Legends from pre-Hellenistic Crete and 12th century Italy tell of earlier attempts.
Grey Whales off Baja are doing the same thing.
and bothe parties have a advanced mathematical knowledge.
Ah, there's the rub. Would you be likely to develop math when you had no fingers? Nothing to count on, nothing to record calculations with.
In cases like whales or dolphins we would have to most of the work ourselves. They don't seem either very much inclined nor capable of learning much of our own form of communication.
Some of them are very inclined, and-as I've said-have taught their humans basic phrases in dolphin. Though most of them seem to consider people a passing novelty.
Decrypting their communication and translating it in our own language is math.
If you mean that since our computers work on a binary math and we'll need them I agree. But a shared math? Mmmmm, that's another story. We don't know if they even know what math is.
Whenever an alien shows up in fiction it's always easy. It's Michael "Klaatu" Rennie or Alf in his aloha shirt. But think of the way evolution works. Even if you had Earth 2, a planet completely indistinguishable from our home where life started in exactly the same way it did here, the chances that life would even remotely resemble life here are nil. Never mind not having money, there is no reason that their bodies would have separate organs and limbs.
If intelligence that evolved in the last 50 million years in the sea is so different from that which evolved on land that we can't even be sure that it is intelligence what hope have we of recognizing it when it has a 6.5 billion year evolutionary history guided by a completely different environment?
And yes, Nubi, that environment could possibly be the vacuum of space. We say that "nature abhores a vacuum" because it is so hard for us to make a vacuum living as we do at the bottom of a sea of air. If we lived at the bottom of a sea of water we might say that nature abhores an open flame.
The fact is that most of nature is a (near) vacuum.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2002 : 11:38:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
In cases like whales or dolphins we would have to most of the work ourselves. They don't seem either very much inclined nor capable of learning much of our own form of communication.
Some of them are very inclined, and-as I've said-have taught their humans basic phrases in dolphin. Though most of them seem to consider people a passing novelty.
Hah? Can you give a reference to this? Dolphins teaching people their language/ (although I seem to remember reading something about Carl Sagan saying something about it, I don't have a clue as to where he dug it up. Apologies if you've already posted it; I don't have time to read the ENTIRE thread! 
quote:
Decrypting their communication and translating it in our own language is math.
If you mean that since our computers work on a binary math and we'll need them I agree. But a shared math? Mmmmm, that's another story. We don't know if they even know what math is.
Presumably, if they're capable of sending radio signals or space travel (through technological means) they'll have had to figure our some sort of mathematical system as well as working out the general laws of physics which need math to be described.
Besides, we should see if we can find intelligent life on earth before we look for it in the stars; that way we'll maybe have a reference point at least.  insert annoying Woody Woodpecker-type laugh here
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2002 : 12:50:15 [Permalink]
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quote:
Hah? Can you give a reference to this? Dolphins teaching people their language/ (Apologies if you've already posted it; I don't have time to read the ENTIRE thread!
Page 7
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Presumably, if they're capable of sending radio signals or space travel (through technological means) they'll have had to figure our some sort of mathematical system
Yes, if they came to us they might have similar technical abilities, and similar intrests.
BUT....
We have only had these abilities a very, very, short time and we have been intelligent for tens of thousands of years.
And since we aren't getting radio signals or visits from our neighbors but are, ourselves, the ones who are broadcasting and traveling into space there's a good chance that we will find them and not them us.
But when we do find them they are going to be DIFFERENT
They will have gone through an evolution that nothing here has.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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opus
Skeptic Friend
Canada
50 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2002 : 21:07:54 [Permalink]
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Don't you have to make a distiction between intelligent and technological? To be honest I have no idea where the boundary is that defines intelligence.
Math should be effective with any life form that also has math. These are the more likely aliens we are going to encounter; our own solar system aside.
Another area of this topic I am skepical about is the idea that an alien species is 'neccessarily' going to be so much different than our selves. Again I am speaking of a technological society. Won't they require some way to make tools. A reason it wants to improve it's surroundings. I am not sugesting they will be humanoid as in Star Trek. But it can't be assumed they would not be.
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 05/28/2002 : 21:25:06 [Permalink]
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Slater:
The point, I had, about the Romans and Polynesians is not that they know math. A roman leginary might not know much more math then he needs to figure out his pay, the point is that, if we had to, we could teach them math and they would be able to understand it. Thankfully we would not have to cause we already know that they would be able to undertstand our own languange if thought.
With aliens we would not have the same assurance, that it would be possible for thme to wrap their minds about the perspective and many inherent assuptions. We would have to go for the smallest common dominator and hope that they are flexible enough to understand math if they had not evolved some of their own.
Dolphins, whales or apes don't appear to be capable of much abstract thought even if they are sentient. We can only hope that this the exception and that potential 'visitors from outer-space' will have the nescarry mental adaptability to allow our mathmatical approach to work.
On the subject of nature abhoring vacuum and some of the other concepts that have come up in this discussion, I was reminded of Terry Pratchetts book Pyramids. Among other things it features the idea of camels being expert mathematicans, because they never had the ability to count with their fingers and had to jump straight to the more abstract subjects. It also has following quote, that explained a lot of things to me:
quote:
Nature abhors dimensional abnormalities, and seals them neatly away so that they don't upset people. Nature, in fact, abhors a lot of things, including vacuums, ships called the "Marie Celeste", and the chuck keys for electric drills.
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 05/29/2002 : 15:14:43 [Permalink]
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Just re-read this thread from the beginning. Being interested in the subject, found it entertaining and informative. Enjoy the way the thread morphs and ranges, just like any good conversation, accross many subjects. Confess, that do want to 'believe,' that there could be some advanced race, who finds us of enough interest to visit. Wouldn't it be nice, if they shared their knowledge and experiences, handing us solutions to our problems, that might help us prevent destroying ourselves, and laying waste to the whole planet's ecosystem as we go. And yes, did continue to 'believe' in Santa Claus till the bitter end, when could no longer support the delusion. Why?
Think there have been reasoned, stable, educated people, who have seen things in our skies, also along with the others, what we clump into the term, "UFO's." To date, the reports remanin mostly bunk, and a few 'unidentified,' unexplained incidence's of unknown orgins. Alas, just nothing to give hope, that our extraterrestrial saviors have actually arrived. If it is to be done, we'll just have to rely upon ourselves. And find a kind of poetic justice in that. If humanity is to attain the stars, we will have to rehabilitate ourselves to a large extent. Giving long odds, that we will, thou.
This current exploration of "intelligence" and what we mean by it, has reaffirmed my own conviction, it is mostly a self serving term. Just another way, we humans seperate and justify doing things that may be questionable, and we surely wouldn't want done to ourselves. Blinding chimps with various substances in order to develope an improved eyeliner, or smashing their skulls to test airbags. Well, they aren't really self aware or intelligent, after all, just a beast. Does that really make a difference? A doctor doesn't operate on George, or Mary, but he slices and dices on the "patient," experiments are done on the "subject,' we kill the "enemy." It is an attempt at avoiding the emotional consequences of our actions. Seems to work, too, most of the time, for most of us.
Some arguments here, seem to approach denial to me. An ant hill or a bee hive, the division of labor, a complex construction, and the adpatations to its environment, seems to reflect some sort of "intelligence" at work. Is sentience a requirement for intelligence? It is likely, that mankind will develope computer AI to the point, we proclaim it "intelligent," sentient. Shock! We build, model, and program it, based on our own conceptions of what we call intelligence. Nothing 'alien' there. If we can't acknowledge intelligence in beings, that share, (what?), 40%, 60&, 80%, 97% of our own DNA, what ever will we do with beings, who share none? Or is "intelligent life" a myth of our own making? Think <i>they</i> will find any?
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire |
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