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Stop looking for inteligent life in space

Posted By: Blade_RJ

Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/05/19 10:57 PM





our bias may make us blind to intelligence much closer.
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/05/19 11:09 PM

If they're so smart, where's their structures, tools, spacecraft and advanced societies?

See, that's where I have a problem with folks proclaiming other forms of life on this earth are so smart. Perhaps they have modest intelligence, but only one form of life on Earth has ever been to the moon.

Still, even with all these accomplishments, man is little different than they were 20,000 years ago, roaming the plains killing each other. We've gone virtually never being able to wipe ourselves off the planet with crude clubs and stones to being able to annihilate all life on this Earth in 30 minutes. Pretty sad.

So much for intelligence, right?
Posted By: letterboy1

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/05/19 11:29 PM

We make movies. Whales have made no movies. We made E.T. the Extra Terrestrial. Whales made . . . maybe "An Inconvenient Truth" via their vicarious medium Al Gore. Well, I like E.T. better than Gore's movie.
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/05/19 11:43 PM

Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
If they're so smart, where's their structures, tools, spacecraft and advanced societies?

See, that's where I have a problem with folks proclaiming other forms of life on this earth are so smart. Perhaps they have modest intelligence, but only one form of life on Earth has ever been to the moon.

Still, even with all these accomplishments, man is little different than they were 20,000 years ago, roaming the plains killing each other. We've gone virtually never being able to wipe ourselves off the planet with crude clubs and stones to being able to annihilate all life on this Earth in 30 minutes. Pretty sad.

So much for intelligence, right?


what use has a whale for space rockets,internet and trains ? it comunicates through the ocean , can travels great distance on its own,and they already experience zero g gravity. They got it made fam, we are the ones struggling ,creating the need to supplant our inabilities with tools.
Posted By: Clydewinder

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/05/19 11:53 PM

i think the difference is thus:

lets assume that a whale or a dolphin has similar or equal intelligence to the average human. even if they are shockingly smart, there is no behavioral evidence that the result of their intelligence is any different that a dumb fish that just swims around and eats. yes there are some social aspects to their natural intelligence but ants have that too

and of course intelligence that builds on prior intelligence as in the case of humans cannot be demonstrated anywhere else. a whale from 10000 years ago is no smarter or dumber than a whale today. there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 12:18 AM

Originally Posted by Clydewinder
i there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.





and you know that HOW exactly? we only recently found out elephants do that, and its been especulated since i was a kid, but "scientists" could not acept it. if we see earth from space we will not have any clue from humans intelligence other then we live in big colonies. would an extraterrestrial even understand what "work" is when observing us ?
Posted By: NH2112

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 12:48 AM

Proof of our intelligence is currently in the neighborhood of KZ Andromedae A, for one.
Posted By: Crane Hunter

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 12:54 AM

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:09 AM

There are documented cases where dolphins protected swimming humans from shark attacks (okay, they also attack sharks without human presence), and they saved a couple of drowning people by keeping them afloat for a while (I concede that they may have been be sadistic a$$holes that wanted to prolong the suffering, and just failed at the job). Orcas coordinate their attacks on sea lions lying on ice floats by swimming in a formation where the resulting wave will topple the float, so they can snag the victim. Which in itself may appear not more intelligent than wolf packs hunting their prey, but then again dogs (and to a lesser extent, wolves) belong to the most intelligent non-human species (together with great apes, elephants (who paint, and have demonstrated to have a concept of self and individuality), and above all, crows (which do not appear to be very kind souls)).

The problem is of course that our ability to communicate with them is extremely limited. It begins with the whales' percption of the world (mostly audio/echo based), their radically different body shapes that largely prevent the concept of tools, and a radically different environment which MUST shape their concept of the world.
Great apes show, like dogs, the intelligence level of approximately three year-old kids. They do not appear to have yet developed a sense of theory of mind (search for "Sally Anne Test" if you want to know more); crows actually do (which is why they are habitual liars, like humans), so they're probably on the level of four year-olds - which is impressive given their small brains.

The most alien creatures are octopi, actually. They exhibit highly intelligent behavior, they are explorative even outside of water (at least one case is known where an octopus left his fish tank in a research facility every night, climbed into other fish tanks, ate the fish, and returned to their own tank before the researchers returned the next morning; took them a while to figure out who the mysterious fish thief was). What's more astonishing is that octopi actually have very short life spans of about three years. The current theory of brain development and learning simply doesn't work with them; some researchers suspect that they may have evolved in a way to encode long-term memory to certain parts of their DNA (the concept is called epigenetics) which, if true, would open an entirely different perspective on intelligence.

So, that's the big challenge. Can we even devise tests to determine intelligence if the other intelligence is so radically different from our own? Will we recognize entirely different concepts of intelligence?
If we can't do that reliably in our own ecosphere, what are the chances that we could do so with extraterrestrials?
Posted By: cichlidfan

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:26 AM

Originally Posted by Ssnake
There are documented cases ...


Great post! The short answer is that we are not equipped to properly determine if a creature is, or is not, intelligent.
Posted By: Nixer

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:46 AM

Quote
So, that's the big challenge. Can we even devise tests to determine intelligence if the other intelligence is so radically different from our own? Will we recognize entirely different concepts of intelligence?
If we can't do that reliably in our own ecosphere, what are the chances that we could do so with extraterrestrials?


Agreed, GREAT post Ssnake.

Fascinating stuff.
Posted By: DM

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:54 AM

If your only single definition is a human intelligence, then you will never accept anything else as being intelligent. I read somewhere once the idea that if a lion could suddenly talk English somehow, we still would not understand what it was talking about.

Quote
On the hand, if a lion could suddenly speak English, it wouldn't matter much, because the world that the lion exists in is so divorced from ours, that his expressions, desires, and intents could still never be communicated. The lion doesn't know what a surgery is, or a dinner party, or a joke for that matter. Likewise, we don't know what sort world the lion occupies, so words would be useless. This phenomenon isn't as outlandish as it might sound at first, and even occurs frequently among humans. For example, I had two coworkers who played World of Warcraft constantly, and would talk about it at lunch. They could speak to each other for ten minutes, in English, and I wouldn't be able to decipher a single sentence. It isn't because I didn't understand the meaning of the worlds, but because I had no ability to relate the words to a situation or world that I knew, so the meaning was lost on me. If I can't understand a conversation about a video game I haven't played, even when I've played similar games, how can I be expected to understand a conversation between lions?


Source (with humorous illustration)

My own favourite twist on the same idea comes from Douglas Adams:
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“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 02:24 AM

Originally Posted by Clydewinder

and of course intelligence that builds on prior intelligence as in the case of humans cannot be demonstrated anywhere else. a whale from 10000 years ago is no smarter or dumber than a whale today. there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.


Pretty much this. We're the only species on the planet that is knowledgeable of the past, and are aware that it existed. Plus, we're also the only species on this planet that bothers discovering the secrets of the Universe. We don't need to, we are compelled to.
Posted By: Timothy

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 05:31 AM

Well, we haven't found intelligent life in Space, we know it doesn't exist in Washington DC, so that leaves pretty much the Ocean to look for it.
Posted By: Marc

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 06:24 AM

The question is, what is intelligence anyway? And does it matter

Marc..
Posted By: Khai

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 10:18 AM

We are the third most Intelligent lifeforms on the planet.

The second.....?

Well. So long, and thanks for all the fish...
Posted By: FlyingToaster

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by Clydewinder

and of course intelligence that builds on prior intelligence as in the case of humans cannot be demonstrated anywhere else. a whale from 10000 years ago is no smarter or dumber than a whale today. there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.


Pretty much this. We're the only species on the planet that is knowledgeable of the past, and are aware that it existed. Plus, we're also the only species on this planet that bothers discovering the secrets of the Universe. We don't need to, we are compelled to.


We don't know that we are the only species with knowledge of the past. That's the problem with this, you are basing intelligence on what humans do. For all we know, Whales could have talked about developing tools, and decided that they didn't want to for some reason.
Posted By: RossUK

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by Ssnake

The most alien creatures are octopi, actually. They exhibit highly intelligent behavior, they are explorative even outside of water (at least one case is known where an octopus left his fish tank in a research facility every night, climbed into other fish tanks, ate the fish, and returned to their own tank before the researchers returned the next morning; took them a while to figure out who the mysterious fish thief was). What's more astonishing is that octopi actually have very short life spans of about three years. The current theory of brain development and learning simply doesn't work with them; some researchers suspect that they may have evolved in a way to encode long-term memory to certain parts of their DNA (the concept is called epigenetics) which, if true, would open an entirely different perspective on intelligence.


SSnake,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Other-Mind...sr=1-1&keywords=octopus+intelligence

It seems you are interested in the subject so you may enjoy this book - some very good information about octopi/cuttlefish intelligence.
Posted By: Dart

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:25 PM

Quote
Whales could have talked about developing tools, and decided that they didn't want to for some reason.


The primary reason being that starting a fire underwater is really a vexing task.

What we're really talking about is useful intelligence. When the height of intelligence is singing a song about that really great school of herring or krill and goes no further, big whup. Elephants remembering where the water holes are is handy; organizing the herds to dig a well or an irrigation ditch would be much more impressive.

Am I using a human standard? Absolutely. It is the standard for measuring intelligence, as no other species even comes close. If a species isn't using their intelligence to live not only their native environment but finding ways to master others that are hostile to each other they're on the long track to extinction. The few species that have beat the odds all have one similarity - they're rather simple, and therefore robust.
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:43 PM

Originally Posted by Timothy
Well, we haven't found intelligent life in Space, we know it doesn't exist in Washington DC, so that leaves pretty much the Ocean to look for it.


dont go there, please remove this from your post.

Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by Clydewinder

and of course intelligence that builds on prior intelligence as in the case of humans cannot be demonstrated anywhere else. a whale from 10000 years ago is no smarter or dumber than a whale today. there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.


Pretty much this. We're the only species on the planet that is knowledgeable of the past, and are aware that it existed. Plus, we're also the only species on this planet that bothers discovering the secrets of the Universe. We don't need to, we are compelled to.


That you know of, and truth is you dont know, you just ASSUME you know, itis now known the elephants transmit their knowledge orally,and they have excelent memory of safe havens with water, surely that is transmited to the group.

But you expect other animals to write down their knowledge in papers,books etc...remember writing for humans is a VERY recent thing, for the longest time humans transmitted knowledge orally and locally, so one group of human would not have the same knowledge as another tribe because they never experienced what they did.
For exemple, why would a tribe for amazon need to create metal tools or know how to create an thermo isolated hut ? they live in the jungle where wood and strings are abundant,and its hot so they only need to know how to shelter from the rain. What moved human knowledge (not intelligence) was the need to overcome his environment or physical limitation, when you are an evolved species that do not suffer from these limits why would you need to develop tools ?

we needed to use pigeons,smoke,letters,telegraph,phones and now satellites to communicate at distance,meanwhile all a whale need is to click in the ocean, so what use would it have for a phone ?
Posted By: F4UDash4

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:47 PM

Originally Posted by Dart
Quote
Whales could have talked about developing tools, and decided that they didn't want to for some reason.


The primary reason being that starting a fire underwater is really a vexing task.

What we're really talking about is useful intelligence. When the height of intelligence is singing a song about that really great school of herring or krill and goes no further, big whup. Elephants remembering where the water holes are is handy; organizing the herds to dig a well or an irrigation ditch would be much more impressive.

Am I using a human standard? Absolutely. It is the standard for measuring intelligence, as no other species even comes close. If a species isn't using their intelligence to live not only their native environment but finding ways to master others that are hostile to each other they're on the long track to extinction. The few species that have beat the odds all have one similarity - they're rather simple, and therefore robust.




+1
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by Dart
Quote
Whales could have talked about developing tools, and decided that they didn't want to for some reason.


If a species isn't using their intelligence to live not only their native environment but finding ways to master others that are hostile to each other they're on the long track to extinction.


your logic if faulty, by your standart the great masters of the universe are plants (specially common weed/grass) and fungus. They take over and adapt to whatever environment,sometimes even transforming it to their liking.
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 03:15 PM

Originally Posted by Blade_RJ

That you know of, and truth is you dont know, you just ASSUME you know, itis now known the elephants transmit their knowledge orally,and they have excelent memory of safe havens with water, surely that is transmited to the group.


I know that memory is flawed. There's a reason eyewitness accounts aren't entirely accurate in a court of law. The more we research memory, the more we're discovering how malleable they are. The most reliable way for any advanced civilization to record their knowledge and share it with future generations is through writing it down and storing it in a fashion that is easy to retrieve and understand.

Does this mean that man 50,000 years ago was pretty stupid because we didn't record our past?

Nah, because even then we were creating cave paintings.

See, tens of thousands of years ago, man was still exhibiting intelligent behavior, for 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, man figured out how to convert wolves to dogs. Are whales doing the same? Where are their biological experiments? Where is the evidence they are altering their environment to their advantage? Though they may be large, they aren't without predators. Just because they can swim around the seas doesn't mean that's all they need. Intelligent species aren't simply content, they want more. They want to make things easier and to shore up the future for generations.

Man, while possessing some unique physical advantages such as sweating and bipedal locomotion--the former which helps us chase prey until they overheat, the latter which helps us observe our prey with our eyes in a fashion that leaves most of us hidden, are actually quite physically unprepared for our planet. We have no fur, thus we get cold or freeze in the higher latitudes, we run quite slow compared to other mammals, and our hands lack claws as well as the rest of our bodies lack natural weapons to harm our prey and other creatures--compared with the most successful of predators such as lion teeth or bear claws or snake venom, or ram or rhinoceros horns or stegasaurus tails, etc. We were forced through these genetic disadvantages to use our minds even harder, so the argument could be made that because of our weaknesses we've come so far, but I posit that this is not so, for even around 12,000 BC, around the advent of agriculture, man had already developed the tools and means needed to live safely--no, like kings among much of the animal kingdom. For all intents and purposes we were the same as elephants and whales. Yet still, our appetite for discovery continued and we've gone from living in adobe huts, crapping in holes in the floor to evacuating our waste matter out of our space suits as we explore the moon.

We didn't have to go to the moon, nor did we have to send probes to the outer planets. We could have remained content to stay on this Earth. But we haven't. Our curiosity is boundless, and for true intelligence to be measured, I think we must look at the aptitude for curiosity any species has, their compulsion to act on it, and the lengths they'll go.
Posted By: Dart

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 03:16 PM

Blade, not true.

Adaptability is not a measure of intelligence in and of itself. Spores are hardy and so yes, some plants and animals can survive in a variety of environments. I addressed this - the only species to survive the long haul of history are simple organisms; in order to beat the odds for complex creatures, useful intelligence is required.

We're talking intelligence.

I believe we will find - if we go enough places outside of Earth - that life itself that we can recognize isn't going to be that difficult to discover. Life came to Earth shockingly early, after all. However, I'm not ready to get all excited and shout "WE ARE NOT ALONE!" when a simple bacteria is found under the ice of Europa.

Scientists are pretty sure homo sapiens went through a near extinction event, and because of intelligence were able to overcome this and spread to every corner of the globe. Even drastic climate change can't kill us.

As to the claim that writing is new, it isn't. People have been writing through pictographs, drawings, and other decorations pretty much since the species evolved. When they weren't carving on stones, they were scarring and tatooing themselves. Tally marks (used for counting) have been found dating to the Neolithic, going back 35,000 years. Math, it would seem, evolved nearly as quickly as language.

Whales don't need math, as they perform no trade. They perform no trade because they are not in control of their resources. A beaver may build a dam on an existing stream, but it can't move the stream to where it wants it to be (to jump ahead of the discussion).

[edit]

Quote
Man, while possessing some unique physical advantages such as sweating and bipedal locomotion--the former which helps us chase prey until they overheat


I'm glad you mentioned this - it's the one evolutionary advantage that put us above all of our prey on the plains of Africa.
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by Dart
Blade, not true.

As to the claim that writing is new, it isn't. People have been writing through pictographs, drawings, and other decorations pretty much since the species evolved. When they weren't carving on stones, they were scarring and tatooing themselves. Tally marks (used for counting) have been found dating to the Neolithic, going back 35,000 years.

.


There is no consensus still on what pictography means, dreams, story tales or recount of the world around it.

writing is recent 3400 and 3300 BC for sumerians 300 BC for americas, homo sapiens or even modern human have been on earth for how long ?100.000 years at least.....so very very recent. even proto writing is not more recent than that.
Posted By: 462cid

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 04:50 PM

Originally Posted by Blade_RJ


what use has a whale for space rockets,internet and trains ? it comunicates through the ocean , can travels great distance on its own,and they already experience zero g gravity. They got it made fam, we are the ones struggling ,creating the need to supplant our inabilities with tools.



I have to point out that gravity exists all over this planet; being inside an ocean does not negate gravity.
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 07:52 PM

Out in space two alien life forms are speaking with each other.

The first alien says, "The dominant life forms on the earth planet have developed satellite-based nuclear weapons." The second alien, who looks exactly like the first, asks, "Are they an emerging intelligence?" The first alien says, "I don't think so, they have them aimed at themselves."
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 07:55 PM

Originally Posted by 462cid
Originally Posted by Blade_RJ


what use has a whale for space rockets,internet and trains ? it comunicates through the ocean , can travels great distance on its own,and they already experience zero g gravity. They got it made fam, we are the ones struggling ,creating the need to supplant our inabilities with tools.



I have to point out that gravity exists all over this planet; being inside an ocean does not negate gravity.


Buoyancy can and does - and on Earth being inside an ocean is by far the most common way any living things experience buoyancy...
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/06/19 11:47 PM

Originally Posted by Zamzow
Out in space two alien life forms are speaking with each other.

The first alien says, "The dominant life forms on the earth planet have developed satellite-based nuclear weapons." The second alien, who looks exactly like the first, asks, "Are they an emerging intelligence?" The first alien says, "I don't think so, they have them aimed at themselves."


lol

Exactly. smile
Posted By: 462cid

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by Zamzow
Originally Posted by 462cid
Originally Posted by Blade_RJ


what use has a whale for space rockets,internet and trains ? it comunicates through the ocean , can travels great distance on its own,and they already experience zero g gravity. They got it made fam, we are the ones struggling ,creating the need to supplant our inabilities with tools.



I have to point out that gravity exists all over this planet; being inside an ocean does not negate gravity.


Buoyancy can and does - and on Earth being inside an ocean is by far the most common way any living things experience buoyancy...


That is not zero G. You still have contact forces, and buoyancy is not the same as gravity.

Posted By: Dart

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 05:34 AM

Whales have it made - until they encounter a Japanese research vessel.
Posted By: No105_Archie

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 04:07 PM

and they are not smart enough to escape wink
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 04:42 PM

Aye, and if they were so bright, they would have come up with a way to fight back against all the whalers. wink
Posted By: Lieste

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 05:34 PM

They have sunk some of them. Essex is a known loss.
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 07:07 PM

Those damned whales, packing quite the resistance. Perhaps we should churn the seas full of liquid crisco, asap, as to sink their buoyant humors to the coral marshes?

Depraved blubberates.

Drown them out, I say. The world of air belongs to us and us alone!
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 07:37 PM

Originally Posted by 462cid
Originally Posted by Zamzow
Originally Posted by 462cid
Originally Posted by Blade_RJ


what use has a whale for space rockets,internet and trains ? it comunicates through the ocean , can travels great distance on its own,and they already experience zero g gravity. They got it made fam, we are the ones struggling ,creating the need to supplant our inabilities with tools.



I have to point out that gravity exists all over this planet; being inside an ocean does not negate gravity.


Buoyancy can and does - and on Earth being inside an ocean is by far the most common way any living things experience buoyancy...


That is not zero G. You still have contact forces, and buoyancy is not the same as gravity.



"Counteract" is probably a better word than "negate" here. Consider being in orbit - people often say "There's zero gravity in space". That is of course technically never true even in deep space, but in low Earth orbit you are still subject to very nearly the same Earth gravity as someone on the ground - it's just being counteracted by being in orbit and thus providing a zero G environment. But from the point of view from anywhere else in space you are still gravitationally bound to the Earth just as much as people on the ground.

But there's no science needed to get that "floating" around underwater MUCH more closely resembles a zero G environment than being on land...
Posted By: CyBerkut

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by Blade_RJ

our bias may make us blind to intelligence much closer.


OK... if they are "intelligent", but it is so unrelatable to us... it begs the question. Why should we care all that much?

If extraterrestrial intelligent life forms show up in ships that travel near the speed of light, possibly with weapons that can wreak destruction beyond our current capacity... that is technology that we could be interested in, and or very scared of. Whales or dolphins telling us about their oceanic existence really doesn't have quite the same zing.

Considering all the radio frequency emissions we have sent out, I'd say it is prudent to keep listening to see if we have gained the interest of someone out there who may not have good intentions toward us. I think the probability of that E.T.I. is lower than many seem to wish for, but the potential cost of being wrong about it warrants keeping our ears and eyes open.
Posted By: CyBerkut

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 07:48 PM

Originally Posted by Blade_RJ
Originally Posted by Clydewinder
i there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.





and you know that HOW exactly? we only recently found out elephants do that, and its been especulated since i was a kid, but "scientists" could not acept it. if we see earth from space we will not have any clue from humans intelligence other then we live in big colonies. would an extraterrestrial even understand what "work" is when observing us ?


I imagine seeing all those lights on at night would be a pretty significant visual clue. If they can detect Radio Frequencies, they certainly would have to conclude there was intelligence down here... ( at least until they figure out how to decode and interpret those transmissions, anyways... )
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by CyBerkut

Considering all the radio frequency emissions we have sent out, I'd say it is prudent to keep listening to see if we have gained the interest of someone out there who may not have good intentions toward us. I think the probability of that E.T.I. is lower than many seem to wish for, but the potential cost of being wrong about it warrants keeping our ears and eyes open.


I imagine that any ET capable of traversing space between one star to another either through luminal, superluminal or intradimensional travel via folding/tunneling/shifting, that wanted to kill us, could, and there wouldn't be anything we could do about that.

Think about it--we're type 0 on the Kardashev scale. Any star faring civilization that visits us will be a type 2+. Star Trek and Star Wars are type 2.x, whereas a "god" would be type 4. To us, a lowly type 0, we'd perceive a type 2 as gods, given their exponential degrees of progress beyond us. If they want us dead, we're dead, so no amount of preparation could save us, short of ourselves surviving long enough to progress to type 1 and beyond.

[Linked Image]

I don't think we need to be worried about whales--they can't even build a bubble fire or manufacture their own "air suits."
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 08:50 PM

Originally Posted by CyBerkut
Originally Posted by Blade_RJ
Originally Posted by Clydewinder
i there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.





and you know that HOW exactly? we only recently found out elephants do that, and its been especulated since i was a kid, but "scientists" could not acept it. if we see earth from space we will not have any clue from humans intelligence other then we live in big colonies. would an extraterrestrial even understand what "work" is when observing us ?


I imagine seeing all those lights on at night would be a pretty significant visual clue. If they can detect Radio Frequencies, they certainly would have to conclude there was intelligence down here... ( at least until they figure out how to decode and interpret those transmissions, anyways... )


It's very possible any sufficiently advanced civilization has moved past radio frequencies. We've only been broadcasting for a hundred years or so--so even if we're transmitting, they might not even be listening because RF is quite primitive.
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by CyBerkut


Considering all the radio frequency emissions we have sent out, I'd say it is prudent to keep listening to see if we have gained the interest of someone out there who may not have good intentions toward us. I think the probability of that E.T.I. is lower than many seem to wish for, but the potential cost of being wrong about it warrants keeping our ears and eyes open.


Due to the inverse square law radio frequencies originating from Earth (unless specifically focused in a certain direction) become indistinguishable from all the "background noise" of the universe after "only" a few light years distance (yeah, after "only" a few tens of trillions of miles...).
Posted By: Blade_RJ

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/07/19 09:45 PM

Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by CyBerkut
Originally Posted by Blade_RJ
Originally Posted by Clydewinder
i there is no evidence that knowledge or stories are passed from one generation of whales to the next which puts them at a permanent LEVEL ZERO in the field of bettering themselves.





and you know that HOW exactly? we only recently found out elephants do that, and its been especulated since i was a kid, but "scientists" could not acept it. if we see earth from space we will not have any clue from humans intelligence other then we live in big colonies. would an extraterrestrial even understand what "work" is when observing us ?


I imagine seeing all those lights on at night would be a pretty significant visual clue. If they can detect Radio Frequencies, they certainly would have to conclude there was intelligence down here... ( at least until they figure out how to decode and interpret those transmissions, anyways... )


It's very possible any sufficiently advanced civilization has moved past radio frequencies. We've only been broadcasting for a hundred years or so--so even if we're transmitting, they might not even be listening because RF is quite primitive.


Also wasnt a few years ago explained that our transmissions won't go as far as previously imagined because of background radiation ? (or something like that), so maybe no one will ever watch i love lucy...i'm sure they would deem us worthy if they had watched that show.
Posted By: wheelsup_cavu

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 06:07 AM

Originally Posted by Blade_RJ
[quote=Mr_Blastman]Also wasnt a few years ago explained that our transmissions won't go as far as previously imagined because of background radiation ? (or something like that), so maybe no one will ever watch i love lucy...i'm sure they would deem us worthy if they had watched that show.

I remember something of that nature too but I thought it had to do with the signals degrading to a point they were no longer intelligible. Either way the theory we were told as kids that the transmission just radiated into space forever and could be reconstituted when they reached another receiver was refuted.


Wheels
Posted By: Arch0001

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 06:38 AM

Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.
Posted By: Lieste

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 08:16 AM

Our radio signals are only visible for a hundred-ish light years, no matter how powerful they were/are, or how tightly focussed.

The start-date of the transmission strongly limits how far the EM can be seen at any particular time. 1 light year per year of time since the broadcast.
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.

That is a simplification that is, most likely, wrong.
I'm saying "most likely" because there's a loophole in modern physics:
  1. Gravity is ridiculously weak compared to all other natural forces (magnetic, electric, weak, and strong force); it's actually weaker than the weakest of the four by a factor of 10 to the power of 30, the only reason why a magnet the site of your fingernail can actually lift anything against the gravity created by this entire planet --- which makes no sense at all when you start thinking about it.
    As a consequence, it's exceptionally hard to gather hard measurements of such a weak force as soon as your involved masses go down, so the current model of gravity cannot be experimentally falsified below a certain threshold since the gravitational pull gets lost in the noise of other forces that influence tiny things so much more, such as collisions with molecules.
    This leaves room for speculation that gravity might show certain discontinuities at the quantum level, but again:
    - there is no accepted scientific theory that predicts this
    - there is no experiment to falsify such a claim (and if a statement cannot be falsified, is it still science?)
  2. Some people wish that gravity would show discontinuities at the quantum level since it would make it so much easier to develop a Grand Unified Theory. We have two competing physical models at the time, the Theory of Relativity which has been tested in an extraordinary number of cases, and always "won" over the critics - starting with the light bending that was observed in 1910 during a solar eclipse. And then there's Quantum Physics, which also works exceptionally well to describe the behavior of tiny things, such as electrons. Millions of experiments have supported Quantum Physics, we're applying its laws in everyday electronic appliances. So, both theories could be considered as about as hard science as it gets, except that there's no quantum explanation of gravity that could be falsified in experiments; which is one of the reasons physicists convinced politicians to invest billions into the Large Hadron Collider, in the hope of finding such a trace. Unfortunately, it found nothing but the Higgs boson, and it's increasingly likely that they won't find anything else.
    (Yes, modern theoretical physics is in a crisis.)

- Very light further reading about the topic
- Light further reading about this
- Super-speculative reading about this, the polar opposite view to that of Ms. Hossenfelder (the second suggestion).
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by Lieste
Our radio signals are only visible for a hundred-ish light years, no matter how powerful they were/are, or how tightly focussed.

...except for that one unfortunate Arecibo transmission.
Posted By: Lieste

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 08:51 AM

Originally Posted by Ssnake
Originally Posted by Lieste
Our radio signals are only visible for a hundred-ish light years, no matter how powerful they were/are, or how tightly focussed.

...except for that one unfortunate Arecibo transmission.


That is only visible for 44-45 light years. It is 'aimed' at something 25,000 light years away, but it will take a wee while to get there and by then it will be SEP.
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/08/19 05:05 PM

Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.


Oh please. Just because there isn't a unanimously accepted unified field theory yet uniting quantum mechanics with general relativity doesn't mean that fermions magically get to ignore gravity and can do whatever they want. Like a pot of boiling water, if you send them into a gravity well, time dilation will apply the same to them as anything else. This can be seen with atomic clock experiments in space versus those on Earth. Gravity doesn't "go away" unless you ascend to a higher dimension(in theory), and bosons such as the Higgs boson bind fermions with spacetime.
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/09/19 01:55 AM

Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.


Oh please. Just because there isn't a unanimously accepted unified field theory yet uniting quantum mechanics with general relativity doesn't mean that fermions magically get to ignore gravity and can do whatever they want. Like a pot of boiling water, if you send them into a gravity well, time dilation will apply the same to them as anything else. This can be seen with atomic clock experiments in space versus those on Earth. Gravity doesn't "go away" unless you ascend to a higher dimension(in theory), and bosons such as the Higgs boson bind fermions with spacetime.


Not to mention gravitational singularities (aka black holes) are smaller than molecules - those tend to have pretty big gravitational effects.......

I think what he's getting at is how at the molecular level the electromagnetic force is roughly ten decillion times stronger than the gravitational force. It's also a frame of reference thing - imagine a cloud of gas hurtling toward a star (thus experiencing an extreme gravitational event). Assuming there actually are molecules (say, a water cloud instead of a gas cloud like hydrogen) - there is a gravitational force between all particles involved at the molecular level, but the electromagnetic force is so much stronger the gravity is irrelevant (again, relative to each other, not relative to the star they're all falling into). Gravity becomes dominant the minute you start going toward the macroscopic, because at that point you have so many positive and negative charges the electromagnetic force cancels itself out.
Posted By: Arch0001

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/09/19 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by Ssnake
Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.

Millions of experiments have supported Quantum Physics, we're applying its laws in everyday electronic appliances.


Thanks Ssnake. That was very informative.
This sentence is very convincing. It's that it's laws are applied in everyday electronic appliances that is the true test for me, though I would also have given a couple of examples.
Posted By: Arch0001

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/09/19 08:09 PM

Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.


Oh please. Just because there isn't a unanimously accepted unified field theory yet uniting quantum mechanics with general relativity doesn't mean that fermions magically get to ignore gravity and can do whatever they want. Like a pot of boiling water, if you send them into a gravity well, time dilation will apply the same to them as anything else. This can be seen with atomic clock experiments in space versus those on Earth. Gravity doesn't "go away" unless you ascend to a higher dimension(in theory), and bosons such as the Higgs boson bind fermions with spacetime.


Yup, I am inclined to agree. It's the reason I typed "said". That is, "said not to act", though I generally get your point.
Posted By: Arch0001

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/09/19 08:13 PM

Originally Posted by Zamzow
Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.


Oh please. Just because there isn't a unanimously accepted unified field theory yet uniting quantum mechanics with general relativity doesn't mean that fermions magically get to ignore gravity and can do whatever they want. Like a pot of boiling water, if you send them into a gravity well, time dilation will apply the same to them as anything else. This can be seen with atomic clock experiments in space versus those on Earth. Gravity doesn't "go away" unless you ascend to a higher dimension(in theory), and bosons such as the Higgs boson bind fermions with spacetime.


Not to mention gravitational singularities (aka black holes) are smaller than molecules - those tend to have pretty big gravitational effects.......

I think what he's getting at is how at the molecular level the electromagnetic force is roughly ten decillion times stronger than the gravitational force. It's also a frame of reference thing - imagine a cloud of gas hurtling toward a star (thus experiencing an extreme gravitational event). Assuming there actually are molecules (say, a water cloud instead of a gas cloud like hydrogen) - there is a gravitational force between all particles involved at the molecular level, but the electromagnetic force is so much stronger the gravity is irrelevant (again, relative to each other, not relative to the star they're all falling into). Gravity becomes dominant the minute you start going toward the macroscopic, because at that point you have so many positive and negative charges the electromagnetic force cancels itself out.


I think your last sentence is an interesting view - especially about the electromagnetic force cancelling itself out.
Posted By: Zamzow

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/12/19 03:37 AM

Originally Posted by Arch0001
Originally Posted by Zamzow
Originally Posted by Mr_Blastman
Originally Posted by Arch0001
Gravity is said not to act at the molecular level. Brownian motion. Drunken walk.


Oh please. Just because there isn't a unanimously accepted unified field theory yet uniting quantum mechanics with general relativity doesn't mean that fermions magically get to ignore gravity and can do whatever they want. Like a pot of boiling water, if you send them into a gravity well, time dilation will apply the same to them as anything else. This can be seen with atomic clock experiments in space versus those on Earth. Gravity doesn't "go away" unless you ascend to a higher dimension(in theory), and bosons such as the Higgs boson bind fermions with spacetime.


Not to mention gravitational singularities (aka black holes) are smaller than molecules - those tend to have pretty big gravitational effects.......

I think what he's getting at is how at the molecular level the electromagnetic force is roughly ten decillion times stronger than the gravitational force. It's also a frame of reference thing - imagine a cloud of gas hurtling toward a star (thus experiencing an extreme gravitational event). Assuming there actually are molecules (say, a water cloud instead of a gas cloud like hydrogen) - there is a gravitational force between all particles involved at the molecular level, but the electromagnetic force is so much stronger the gravity is irrelevant (again, relative to each other, not relative to the star they're all falling into). Gravity becomes dominant the minute you start going toward the macroscopic, because at that point you have so many positive and negative charges the electromagnetic force cancels itself out.


I think your last sentence is an interesting view - especially about the electromagnetic force cancelling itself out.


The electromagnetic force is one reason gravity doesn't just compress everything into black holes. Sometimes this is overcome - a white dwarf star gaining material can exceed electron degeneracy pressure and become a neutron star, a supernova, a black hole, and there are other ways this chain can start...
Posted By: Alicatt

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/12/19 09:23 AM

Originally Posted by Arch0001


I think your last sentence is an interesting view - especially about the electromagnetic force cancelling itself out.

It's kind of like fishing for mackerel, fish for one and you get a good fight for such a small fish, but if you have a lot of lures on your line and catch a few mackerel at the same time their fighting kind of cancels out each other and all you are doing is lifting the weight of the fish.
Posted By: Arch0001

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/12/19 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by Alicatt
Originally Posted by Arch0001


I think your last sentence is an interesting view - especially about the electromagnetic force cancelling itself out.

It's kind of like fishing for mackerel, fish for one and you get a good fight for such a small fish, but if you have a lot of lures on your line and catch a few mackerel at the same time their fighting kind of cancels out each other and all you are doing is lifting the weight of the fish.


Yes, very allegorical Alicatt. smile
Posted By: Alicatt

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/12/19 04:15 PM

Fished for a lot of mackerel in my day biggrin
Posted By: Dart

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/12/19 04:38 PM

I'm pretty content to live in my "gooder enough" Newtonian worldview.

smile
Posted By: Mad Max

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 04:19 AM

I would have thought that the Fermi paradox would have got at least a mention.

Me? I think we are the first and only intelligent tech species around at this time.
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 08:25 AM

IF the dinosaurs developed intelligence and a technological civilization, chances are we would never learn about it from petrified skeletons, and their buildings, vehicles, and other gadgets would have dissolved over the millions of years since their extinction/transition into birds. Could very well be that THEY caused the mass extinction themselves 65 million years ago, and that the comet was just a coincidence. Or maybe it was just as the scientists say, except that maybe it was massive rift volcanos that made this planet near uninhabitable, and the comet was just the icing on the cake.
Posted By: DM

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by Mad Max
I would have thought that the Fermi paradox would have got at least a mention.

Me? I think we are the first and only intelligent tech species around at this time.


Fermi paradox assumes that advanced aliens use technologies detectable by current human technologies. It might be the case that human technology-detectable civilizations cover maybe a few hundred years before switching to advanced non-radio tech, so essentially they have "shells" of detectable broadcast expanding out from their locations, making it even more unlikely for us to be lucky enough to catch them.
Posted By: MarkG

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 03:03 PM

Having read this fascinating thread with such deep and thought provoking questions, I've come to what I believe is the only reasonable conclusion... biggrin

Attached picture nerds.jpg
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 03:48 PM

Originally Posted by Ssnake
IF the dinosaurs developed intelligence and a technological civilization, chances are we would never learn about it from petrified skeletons, and their buildings, vehicles, and other gadgets would have dissolved over the millions of years since their extinction/transition into birds. Could very well be that THEY caused the mass extinction themselves 65 million years ago, and that the comet was just a coincidence. Or maybe it was just as the scientists say, except that maybe it was massive rift volcanos that made this planet near uninhabitable, and the comet was just the icing on the cake.


I think we can safely assume that the dinosaurs were never as technologically advanced as we are now--there'd be something, somewhere, however miniscule, but we'd have found some evidence now that they did possess technology--something not iron based that would rust away. I say this because the opposite is frightening to consider, lest our lizard overlords are looking down upon us now, mockingly.

Can you imagine a flying T-Rex on a Back to the Future hoverboard? That's scary as hell. Forget sharks with laser beams. Scaly, giant dinos surfing Manhattan, mouths agape devouring brains for sport. Should they ever return from their lair in the core or their outpost on Phobos, we're doomed. Godzilla might seem like a paradise fantasy.
Posted By: PanzerMeyer

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 03:53 PM

Our sun is due to become a Red Giant and will thus expand and consume the Earth and destroy it in about 5 billion years.

Imagine the disappointment if we haven't made any contact with aliens by then. biggrin
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 04:50 PM

[Linked Image]
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 09:34 PM

Originally Posted by DM
Originally Posted by Mad Max
I would have thought that the Fermi paradox would have got at least a mention.

Fermi paradox assumes that advanced aliens use technologies detectable by current human technologies.

The Fermi paradox makes no assumptions at all.
It just looks at the Drake formula, and (almost) no matter how pessimistic you are about the various factors and the speed with which an interstellar civilization would colonize the galaxy, the sheer number of stars and the billions of years since which our galaxy exists, the Drake fomula more or less predicts that our galaxy should be teeming with life (and thus with communication signals (if we could read those signals)). So, "where are they?"
  • Maybe we just can't detect their signals (for a few decades Earth was brighter in the radio spectrum than the sun, until we largely switched to digital transmission, so our very own history might already provide an explanation why we can't find them - weak digital signals would simply disappear in the background noise)
  • Maybe, and that is the scary explanation, there's the Big Filter. Either technological civilizations usually kill themselves before they reach the interstellar stage due to unforeseen technological risks (such as nano machines, nuclear warfare, ecosystem collapse, artificial intelligence, ...) which suggests that, in all likelihood, this is the fate that awaits us. Or the galaxy is dominated by a sinister predatorial race that kills all competition in its infancy, whenever they detect them - the one race that developed interstellar colonization first and/or which won the first interstellar war, and all the other ones ever since.
  • ...and about 18 other major explanations
Posted By: Mad Max

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/14/19 11:05 PM

There was no civilisation of any sort in the Mesozoic. There are simply too many predators running loose. Virtually 60% of animals on land and more in the sea were very fierce predators. Any civilisation would have found that situation untenable, just imagine creatures like T rex and the allosaurs being tolerated wandering about, not to mention the hundreds of species of smaller predators. It is almost a hallmark of any civilisation, even Bronze Age examples, that predators are quickly eliminated and the herbivores domesticated.
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/15/19 01:33 AM

Well, Allosaurs and T-Rexes certainly didn't live during the same time period. If you count Australopithecus, the human race is five million years old and developed the current technological civilization, if you're generous and count the Pyramids, within the last 5,000 years (and 99% of that progress was made in the last 500 years). Humanity eliminated most megafauna and competing predators about 10,000 years ago (or turned them into dogs).
If that acceleration of the cultural evolution is typical for sentient beings, our ability to separate the time of the petrification of fossils simply doesn't have the resolution to even identify a five thousand year period. All that we know is that most dinosaurs disappeared some time about 65 million years ago, +/- 1 million years. IF one dinosaur species developed intelligence AND a technological civilization, it could very well be responsible for their own extinction due to some self-inflicted ecosphere collapse that merely coincided with a comet's impact, and we simply wouldn't know it. What we do know is that over the last 10,000 years the overall biodiversity on our planet has plummeted in an unprecedented manner as a result of our shaping of the environment - whether it's the turning of forest into arable land, or just polluting the air, the water, and the ground with toxic byproducts of our industrial activities, or by eliminating certain species that were of vital importance to other species. Like, the biomass of insects in Germany going down by 80% over the past 40 years, and with it the bird population.

So, if overburdening the capacity of ecospheres to compensate for environmental changes is a hallmark of technological civilizations it is entirely possible that our planet may have had up to four intelligent species so far, three of which may have killed themselves and disappeared without a trace (except, mass extinction events). I'm not saying that THIS is THE explanation. There is no indicator other than the mass extinction events themselves to support that thesis, and natural causes such as giant rift volcanos as a result of Pangaea and other megacontinents breaking up are a far more likely explanation of these ecological catastrophes. All I'm saying is, there's evidence that technological civilizations develop very fast in geological terms (=our own history), and there's an almost negligible likelihood that we would find any trace of civilizations from millions of years ago, unless they were space-faring and left their vehicle parked on the lunar surface. In that case there's excellent chances that we may eventually find them, unless we're killing ourselves first.

If all humans would die today, geologically there would be very few traces of our existence in a million years from now; the radioactive glass spheres under the Nevada desert (but they are few, and must be found), and probably an unusual carbon-rich 1mm global layer of sediment where all of our plastic ended. The Pioneer and Voyager space probes. And the lunar landers, and possibly the satellites in geostationary orbit.
That'd be it.
Posted By: Mad Max

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/15/19 01:53 AM

Exactly what can end a tech civilisation? Even nuclear war has winners and losers. AFAIK and the historical record bears witness even massive disasters like the epidemics of the past have failed to even slow down human progress. It would take something like a Permian or Cretaceous extinction event to do the trick, and even there I believe we could preserve a nucleus of civilisation given some sort of pre-knowledge of the events not available to the dinosaurs or other ancient animal types. I am sceptical of past civilisations rising and falling, once progress starts it seems that nothing can stop it. Naturally when we begin to establish self-supporting communities on other planets we are unstoppable, it would take the Sun going nova to do that.
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/15/19 09:31 AM

Look around. Geologically speaking, we are in the middle of an extinction event, the most severe one since the Permian, as far as the velocity of the extinction is concerned. A geological extinction event does not necessarily mean that all life gets exterminated, just that the ecosystem that supports a certain species collapses (and with it, the species disappears). Sabertooth cats for example were so successful, they hunted their prey to their own extinction. The rest of the planet shrugged their shoulders, and went on.

We don't have to kill everything in a technological civilization induced extinction event, just ourselves. That could be genetic modifications with unforeseen long-term consequences, nano machines, AI, or an unlucky combination of several factors - just like there's not one singular factor for the current decline in biodiversity (which, again, is geologically unprecedented ... maybe a fact worth contemplating real hard). As a species, mankind just happens to remodel the planetary ecosphere with pollutants, general deforestation, or hunting multiple species to extinction. There's no big plan behind this, just the individual desire to live prosperous, and the elimination of leading causes of death which means that an increasing number of humans only die of old age (and we're working on that, too). Now, don't get me wrong. In the short run and at the individual level that's great news. As a species and as a technological civilization we have never done better than today. It's just not sustainable. We're using up the planetary ecosphere - which you can do for a while, but not forever.

As it can happen to us, it could have happened to others as well. I'm not saying that this was "it" in the past. I'm just saying that if it was, it's not in contradiction to the (very few) traces that we found. We're making up the early history of mankind and the human evolution from maybe 30, 40 (partial) skeletons that we found over the last 200 years. That's not really much, and these are finds for the very recent past. With dinosaurs, it's proportionally much worse. It's just because they ruled the planet for such long periods that so many fossils can be found, and our means to date fossils is rather coarse.
Posted By: Mad Max

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 01/15/19 10:53 PM

You see, Ssnake, I just don't go with your arguments on this. I don't think that barring a nova, mankind can be exterminated. The genie is out of the jar. Sure our civilisation can be trashed, we can have new dark ages, but will always recover. Check out the Toba volcanic event or bottleneck 75,000 years ago. We were down to approx. 10,000 individuals globally but still came back. Our technology is our salvation as a species.
Posted By: oldgrognard

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 08:43 AM

Here is an interesting look into evolution and the likelihood of intelligent life.


https://www.realclearscience.com/ar..._might_be_the_only_intelligent_life.html
Posted By: PanzerMeyer

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 12:46 PM

So now the debate has gone from debating whether or not intelligent life exists outside of Earth to debating about climate change and the possible extinction of humans?


Gotta love the idiosyncrasies of SimHQ.
Posted By: Bernardo

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 01:07 PM

I think the best course to follow is..if some life form is different from us, they should be considered a threat and be annihilated at once. If in the course of our hostility towards them, we find out they are not a threat then we can find a way to enslave them for our benefit. The minute they become unable to perform that function or decide on a way of fighting back/defending themselves, they should then be annihilated.

I look at the human race from day one. We have been doing that with people of different religions, customs, color and opinions on earth since time has been recorded......so it must be the right thing to do.

Unfortunately people of science and those with compassion try and stop this path,,,..but thankfully we only listen for a few years before we get back on track.
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 05:22 PM

Originally Posted by Mad Max
Exactly what can end a tech civilisation?


Our propensity for greed.



If man does not evolve philosophically, it is inevitable that we die by our own fire.


And it is this required philosophical evolution that relies on an interstellar species to relinquish their primitive instincts and nature as to why I believe the odds are reasonably high that any intelligent alien species we encounter will not be warmongers, but benevolent and value life. They may also deem us a risk to the galaxy and slap a slave shield around our planet to trap us in, but I doubt they'll fly from star system to star system leaving a trail of bodies and bones in their wake as they fuel their blood lust.
Posted By: Haggart

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 06:04 PM

Mad Max ......"Our technology is our salvation as a species"

Not ready to agree to that given the fact that humanity is greatly burdened by greed, destructive wars and persistent stupidity
Posted By: Wklink

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 09:20 PM

Originally Posted by Ssnake
Well, Allosaurs and T-Rexes certainly didn't live during the same time period. If you count Australopithecus, the human race is five million years old and developed the current technological civilization, if you're generous and count the Pyramids, within the last 5,000 years (and 99% of that progress was made in the last 500 years). Humanity eliminated most megafauna and competing predators about 10,000 years ago (or turned them into dogs).
If that acceleration of the cultural evolution is typical for sentient beings, our ability to separate the time of the petrification of fossils simply doesn't have the resolution to even identify a five thousand year period. All that we know is that most dinosaurs disappeared some time about 65 million years ago, +/- 1 million years. IF one dinosaur species developed intelligence AND a technological civilization, it could very well be responsible for their own extinction due to some self-inflicted ecosphere collapse that merely coincided with a comet's impact, and we simply wouldn't know it. What we do know is that over the last 10,000 years the overall biodiversity on our planet has plummeted in an unprecedented manner as a result of our shaping of the environment - whether it's the turning of forest into arable land, or just polluting the air, the water, and the ground with toxic byproducts of our industrial activities, or by eliminating certain species that were of vital importance to other species. Like, the biomass of insects in Germany going down by 80% over the past 40 years, and with it the bird population.

So, if overburdening the capacity of ecospheres to compensate for environmental changes is a hallmark of technological civilizations it is entirely possible that our planet may have had up to four intelligent species so far, three of which may have killed themselves and disappeared without a trace (except, mass extinction events). I'm not saying that THIS is THE explanation. There is no indicator other than the mass extinction events themselves to support that thesis, and natural causes such as giant rift volcanos as a result of Pangaea and other megacontinents breaking up are a far more likely explanation of these ecological catastrophes. All I'm saying is, there's evidence that technological civilizations develop very fast in geological terms (=our own history), and there's an almost negligible likelihood that we would find any trace of civilizations from millions of years ago, unless they were space-faring and left their vehicle parked on the lunar surface. In that case there's excellent chances that we may eventually find them, unless we're killing ourselves first.

If all humans would die today, geologically there would be very few traces of our existence in a million years from now; the radioactive glass spheres under the Nevada desert (but they are few, and must be found), and probably an unusual carbon-rich 1mm global layer of sediment where all of our plastic ended. The Pioneer and Voyager space probes. And the lunar landers, and possibly the satellites in geostationary orbit.
That'd be it.


I'm not sure why you are banging this 'Dinosaurs could have been intelligent' drum of an argument. You are partially right that most of what would indicate that dinosaurs were intelligent would have disappeared but not every trace. If fossils can show imprints of leaves and feathers of dinosaurs from the period then it would have left some kind of imprint of items that would have at least indicated some sort of tool use by dinosaurs. Some part might have been found in tar pits and anything showing primitive knowledge of tools, especially the use of stone tools would have been found. If the dinosaurs did have an advanced species there would have been some traces of it, any traces of it. And intelligence would have been a biological advantage to dinosaurs and would have transferred to birds, which are the descendants of those dinosaurs.

As for our extinction. It will take a little more than a 1-2 degree change on our planet to do that.

Population degredation? Possible. Famine and drought could cause a loss of many lives in places that are currently on the cusp of population oversaturation.

Extinction? Very difficult.

Even in an event like the eruption of Yellowstone I honestly doubt the whole human race would die out. Maybe 90% of it but there has been no creature that has been as adaptable as human beings. As a species we not only survive but thrive on the plains of Africa, in areas like Saudi Arabia. We've sailed across the Pacific in primitive rafts and colonized every habitable island from the Philippines to Hawaii. We have civilizations in the Amazon and near the Arctic Circle. Short of something that completely destroys the planet and ALL life on it we will survive as a race. Our intelligence and our ability to adapt and use what is around us to survive is what will lead to our survival as a species.

In some respects something like massive climate change might have some beneficial evolutionary effects for our race. I'm talking strictly evolutionary, I'm not referring to the loss of humanity, which would be horrible, but the idea that as a race it might make us stronger. Lets face it, from a strictly evolutionary standpoint we have a lot of traits finding their way into our race that aren't particularly advantageous. The blind (which I count my myopic self in), the physically and mentally handicapped, the less intelligent and the older people would all die out in a climate catastrophe. For the most part these folks wouldn't make it. One problem with being as far up on the food change is we have no real reason to weed out the weaker of our species. A catastrophe wouldn't give us this option. Lets face it. Most of us wouldn't make it. Civilization as we know it probably would collapse. But Homo Sapiens would survive.
Posted By: Wklink

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/20/19 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by Haggart
Mad Max ......"Our technology is our salvation as a species"

Not ready to agree to that given the fact that humanity is greatly burdened by greed, destructive wars and persistent stupidity


Not every human being is technically advanced. There are still societies that aren't burdened with technological dependence like ours is. Even in the US there are places and people that know how to survive with minimal tech. It isn't like the knowledge of the 19th Century and before is gone. Even with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire there were still traces of that knowledge available that allowed Europe to survive during the Dark Ages. After the first 10 years, when the vast majority of those that couldn't adapt have died off are gone, then those that remain will probably be able to deal with what is left.
Posted By: Mr_Blastman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/21/19 12:18 AM

Originally Posted by Wklink
Originally Posted by Haggart
Mad Max ......"Our technology is our salvation as a species"

Not ready to agree to that given the fact that humanity is greatly burdened by greed, destructive wars and persistent stupidity


Not every human being is technically advanced. There are still societies that aren't burdened with technological dependence like ours is. Even in the US there are places and people that know how to survive with minimal tech. It isn't like the knowledge of the 19th Century and before is gone. Even with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire there were still traces of that knowledge available that allowed Europe to survive during the Dark Ages. After the first 10 years, when the vast majority of those that couldn't adapt have died off are gone, then those that remain will probably be able to deal with what is left.


Kind of hard to deal with nuclear winter with Medieval level knowledge. Everything dies when the ICBMs launch. Radiation does not discriminate.


And after a few years pass, the giant cockroaches and scorpions take care of the rest.
Posted By: Tarnsman

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/21/19 12:37 AM

Charlton Heston will blame us.
Posted By: Pooch

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/21/19 01:20 AM

"Here is an interesting look into evolution and the likelihood of intelligent life.


https://www.realclearscience.com/ar..._might_be_the_only_intelligent_life.html"

That was an absolutely fascinating article.
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/21/19 07:15 AM

Originally Posted by Wklink
I'm not sure why you are banging this 'Dinosaurs could have been intelligent' drum of an argument.

Not because I'm convinved that it's true. Just because it is so unlikely that we would find a proof for it that it's a thesis that can't really be falsified, but it's an interesting supporting argument when discussing the Fermi Paradoxon, especially when examining the Big Filter argument. All the Dinosaur fossils that we dug up cover a period of about 150 million years; if there was a technological Dinosaur civilization that lasted only 5,000 years, of which only 150 years could be considered "industrialized", only one in a million fossils would be from that period, and even then we wouldn't know if that skeleton was from an "intelligent Technosaurus" or a non-intelligent dinosaur that just happened to live at the same time, just like there's still more non-sentient animals around us today than there are humans.
I'm just trying to point out why we can't rule it out, since some here made the bold claim that it couldn't possibly be the case.
Posted By: Ssnake

Re: Stop looking for inteligent life in space - 10/21/19 07:23 AM

Originally Posted by oldgrognard
Here is an interesting look into evolution and the likelihood of intelligent life.
https://www.realclearscience.com/ar..._might_be_the_only_intelligent_life.html

Thanks for that one.
At the end of the day, we just don't have enough data. We need more samples of habitable worlds and see if life developed there to start guessing the probabilities with more confident. At the moment anything is still possible.
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