Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

I just finished Pandoras Star by Peter F Hamilton, and the Primes made me think of something.What sort of real Aliens are there in Fiction. It seems to me they go from Anthromorphic aliens, such as in Star Trek where they are all human with funny noses or pointy ears, to Aliens with human motivations like giant cat people or beings that look like whales or elephants that the humans look up to as founts of wisdom. What I want to read of is real Aliens. Theres the Bahgs, ok they are Alien, but they're basically Aliens with a single human emotion, predominantly in races like that its Aliens with one emotion, kill or eat everything else. Are there any real Aliens in Fiction whose behaviour, as well as their physiology, is "Alien" to humans?. I do supppose "real Aliens" would be hard to write. They might be enemies to fight, but an ALien might stop fighting half way through because their thought processes see a reason to stop that we emotional, 3 dimensional humans don't see.

[ March 25, 2004, 06:44: Message edited by: Randallw ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

i think that it is impossible for the human mind to really construct something that is totally alien to it. We'll always boil it down to something we can relate to - something that speaks to us, that resonates.

A case in point - how often have we looked at something totally inhuman and ascribed it emotions, thought processes, intent. We essentially create this whole world for something that's not even alive in many cases; the sea or a computer or an object. "this stupid wrench broke!" or "The sea washes over the land calmly" - these things arne't alive, they have no brain, no intent, no abilities. The wrench can't be stupid because the wrench isn't alive. The ocean can't be calm, because it has no emotions.

So, in conclusion ..no, i don't think we can ever create from within ourselves something totally alien; it's just against the hardware of our brains.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Exactly. To write of something Alien you need to understand something that is Alien. But the very definition precludes understanding, thus it is impossible to think of what something "Alien" can or would do. I guess the closest we can come to "Aliens" is to remove everything we consider rational and, such as the Bahgs or Primes, focus on one emotional reaction to an "Alien" degree.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Well, I think human emotions are logical filler for every need - that there isn't a need that you could come up with that isn't covered by a human emotion and/or a human thought process, with the exception that a human brain at our current level of thought might not reach the complexity needed, but still cover the bases. Or in other words, you can't simulate 16,000,000 atoms, even as only geometric spheres on todays computers, but that's a failure of speed and possibly memory, not basic capabilities.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

We already live with aliens: As well as being physically very different to us- animal have utterly alien thoughts comaprted to ours. Obviously you're talking about intelligent aliens and I'm talking about sub-sentient animals, but I think many animals are much smarter than we give them credit for and I do believe that some animals on this earth *are* clever enough actually to look at their lives and think abstractly. Whales & dolphins, almost certainly- chimps, too. Some dogs and cats as well, i think.

The point is that they have a completely different way of looking at life than we do.
We often try to fit animal behaviour into human patterns, and sometimes they are experiencing things that humans also experience(hunger, fear) but I think we could expect aliens to understand these basic emotions as well, simply because they make such good sense from an evolutionary point of view.

Anyway, on the whole- shared DNA heritage aside- I think animals are almost as different from us as we could expect any alien to be.

And there have been some excellent "utterly alien" writings on this forum! Some of the races in the "xenology" thread were really far from humanity in thought as well as form, (although my KanesS turned out very 'human', despite my best efforts.) and someone- Unknown enemy, i think- wrote a fantastic story just before that about the Cryslonite that opened up whole new understandings of consciousness for me.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks, but the Cryslonite writings were not mine, but they gave the idea to start the Xenology game. Too bad it failed.
It was the now MIA civ2buf that created the crystalline religion.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=008747#000000
Good read.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Hmm, Dogscoff, I agree that animals think, and think abstractly, but I wouldn't call their thoughts "totally alien". They're very easy to relate to - not very far from human thoughts and emotions in many ways, even if there are differences, and even if humans seem to reason in many ways that animals don't seem to (most of which is of course facilitated for humans due to language, writing, teaching, etc.).

Aliens from another evolutionary history might think in extremely different ways.

PvK

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Snif.

I miss Xenology.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">- Cat lovers may not want to read this, but everything I know says it's true and you should read it anyway. -

Cats are essientally qualifiable as nonsentient 'working sociable' sociopaths(sp?). That is to say, they have a loose pack mentality and care for the young of the pack; however, they do so in a manner that is sociopathic. One of my uncles female cats, obseving a bunch of kids in a birthday party, had her maternal instincts kick in - a pack behavior - and went and got a gopher and cut it's spinal cord, leaving it alive and brought it back for the kids to play with - sociopathic behavior, that is, behavior focused on simply pleasure, no matter what it costs.

No, that cat was not evil, it was simply acting on her insticts. But humans are capable of both pack behavior and sociopathic behaivor.

- And on to dogs, which I like more. Contains some things you might not want to hear about fido, but should. -
A dog is a clannish pack animal with a clan chieftan focus. To a dog, unless you've been really remiss in training, you are the pack leader. Depending on it's courage, it may be willing to die for you and it's pack. In any case, the dogs loyalty is to you, as the leader of the pack and the pack. And your dog, like your cat, is a predator. This means that the only thing keeping your dog, as well as your cat, from bringing you dead birds as presents, is the degree of seperation from natural instincts provided by domestication.
However, wild dogs are even more dangerous, in my opinion, than wolves. For one thing, they tend to have no fear of man and, unlike wolves, don't have survival instincts dedicated to surviving in the wild, which encourages cautious behavor around dangerous things, like guns and the men who use them.

No, fido is not good or evil either. He's just following his instincts to. And having domesticated them, I think we have the responcibility to care for them. Wild dogs are definitly our failure.

But, back to how human emotions, instincts, and thought processes cover those things. Forgot humans have instincts. One, humans have E,I and T for loose social interactions. Forums are an example. People in some forums will help some and pick on those they percieve as weak - like cats. People also may be sociopaths, it's a known psychraitric problem.
People also display pack behavor's. Biker gangs. People also have a predatory nature. This includes such things as eating meat and getting irratable in a crowded elevater. I want space! ROWR!

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I disagree with that. Both the evolutionary part http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif and the different ways. Well, not that they may think differently, but the type of different. A gas being from the gas giant Gafefaf would percieve it's environment differently, it's environment would shape it's reactions and thought processes, but it would still need social behavior, or it would die out.

And it would need emotions, to give it reasons to do things. It would need thought processes, to process information. And it would need instincts, to tell it what to do when the others failed or wouldn't be fast enough.

And all the things you can think of that it might have can be done with a human brain.

But, what about trees? They have no brain. True, but they have counterparts for those things, which can be simulated by a human brain. Maybe not fully, but I addressed that in a previous post.

[ March 25, 2004, 09:22: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The only reason that their behaviour doesn't seem "totally alien" to us is that we are used to it. We understand (or think we do) the way animals think because we have studied them and/ or domesticated them and/or try to interpret their behaviour using our human behaviour as a template. If we landed on an alien planet and saw a bunch of creatures with the exact same behaviour, intelligence and level of communication as dolphins we would spend decades trying to communicate with them because we would think there was a chance they were sentient.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As I said, there are similarities but they will occur almost everywhere we find life. Any life form on any planet that needs to learn the value of running away will develop fear- or something very similar to fear. Parallel evolution.

Any life form that benefits from living ina society will evolve bonds with others within its society- friendship, love, comradeship, pack mentality- call it what you will.

U_E: Yeah, I miss xenology too, although I really didn't have time for it, and my KanesS story didn't make any damn sense at all. It was a great idea, and it spawned some really promising stories.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

so, Dogscoff, what your saying is that they may develop a fear reaction, but they won't be feeling fear? So, your thinking of neural and chemical reactions? I still say a human can replicate, same thing as simulate when your talking about the brain, any of those. Ok, maybe not the exact chemical interactions, but there results.

[ March 25, 2004, 11:16: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, if it serves the same purpose as fear, and it provokes the same response as fear... why don't we just call it fear? There will undoubtedly be biological differences but the end result is the same. After all, how do i know that when *you* feel fear you feel the same thing as me? How do I know you don't see red as what I would call call blue?

It's like the Turing test for AI: You can't know for sure whether a machine is actually intelligent or just doing a really good impression of one that is, but when it gets to that stage there's very little point trying to tell the difference anyway.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

No, I was never aware that there were 15 other Types. (a Type is above a Genus, right? or is that a Family? I cant remember much biology) But I would be very interested if you could post links to information.

It would be good for fictional race creation, if not edification for its own sake.

The most alien races i have read about are probably H.P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, unfathomable intelects that operate in more dimensions than we can understand. they are often misrepresented as evil, but im sure their motivations are perfectly sane to them, we just cant understand them.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

How much of what we know as the fear emotion in ourselves is merely a biological and chemical reaction? What if we can demonstrate some day that our own "intelligence" is merely the result of an incredibly complicated set of chemical and biological reactions, as some people believe.

If we meet aliens some day, I will be less concerned with whether we can understand it and recognize it as intelligent, and more concerned with whether we can convince them that we are actually intelligent, and not merely doing a very good "impression". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

okay, a quick web search reveals that it goes CLASS > ORDER > FAMILY > GENUS > SPECIES

where class is things like insect or mamal, which is probably what we have five of and you say there are 15 more. I believe there is something above class with three enteries, Plant, Animal, or Fungus.

actually, on further reading it seems that class is far mor specific, containing things like insect, crustation, molusk, arachnid. maybe its not more specific, but there are more things in that Category than i gave credit for.

AH! more reading brings back the old memories! Kingdom and Phylum are the higher level categores, kingdom being Animal, Plant, or Fungi. Phylum is probably what we are talking about, being a much broader classification than Class.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

my god, theres certainly more than 5 Phylum. The vast majority of them are worms various kinds of worms of dubious distinction, while snails, clams, squids, and octopi all get lumped together as mollusks. is there really all that much setting those worms apart?

should we come up with a new clasification method based on DNA, rather than whaever observational methods we were using when we developed the current method? Id wager its at least a hundred years old, possibly two or three.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm pretty sure there are a number of microscopic squidgies that fit into none of the above, kind of the way a duck billed platypus doesn't sit happily as either mammal, bird or reptile. I think amoebas and protozoa are somewhere between fungus and animal, for instance. Bacteria and virii might be others. It's a long time since i had to know these things...

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

hey, mollusk seems to exist at both the class and phylum level, what gives? thats what i get for using the Internet as a source of information...

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, stuff is being recategorised all the time as DAN information comes to light.

For instance, rabbits used to be rodents, but now they're not. They go into a group with hares.

[ March 25, 2004, 15:49: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Please try Jack L. Chalker's "Well of Souls" books. There is a planet sectioned off. Each section has it's own race of aliens. They are alien and act alien. He was my favorite author for a long time because of the alien viewpoints he creates.

JLC's web page

[ March 25, 2004, 15:57: Message edited by: Parasite ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

The platypus sits well as a mammal, as it has mammaries. It's not a 'placental' mammal, it is instead a 'monotreme', and is only one of three known species of monotremes.

hmm... shouldn't talk science without a spellcheck, but I will anyway.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm pretty sure there are a number of microscopic squidgies that fit into none of the above, kind of the way a duck billed platypus doesn't sit happily as either mammal, bird or reptile. I think amoebas and protozoa are somewhere between fungus and animal, for instance. Bacteria and virii might be others. It's a long time since i had to know these things... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They are constantly tinkering with the system, but currently (I think) there are five 'kingdoms'.

Animals, Plants, Fungi, Prokaryotes, and Protists

Yes, the Last two are microscopic organisms only.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Actually... I think the consensus amongst the biological community is that there are at least 7 kingdoms now, one of which is halobacterium. The stuff that lives in moisture on top of really high salt content salt flats and such.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I thought it was only two known species of monotremes? The platypus and the echidna are the only known survivors of this primitive class of mammals. Are there multiple species of either? I thought each was unique? Barring some 'great discovery' in a hidden pocket of Australian wilderness, all other monotremes are apparently extinct.

And the platypus does not have mammaries, which is one of the characteristics that makes it a monotreme. It simply 'sweats' milk out on its belly and the baby laps it up. The distinct mammary gland comes later with 'true' mammals.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I may be getting OT, but I started this thread so I get to bring up new stuff.
Does anyone know of the dicovery where fossils from a billion years were found. Now we are one "form" in so far as we have a Skeletal system AND a backbone AND symetry (2 arms, 2 legs, 1 on each side). I am no expert so I will say in my example there are 5 forms of animal still living, we mammals and 4 others (such as worms, with no backbone or skeleton etc). Anyway in the example I mentioned there were 20 "forms" of animal found. Thats the 5 current ones, and 15 "types" that are extinct. basically 1 billion years ago there were 20 possible templates for the creatures that would occupy the earth but 15 got covered with a landslide and only the other 5 survived (I am simplifying this a lot, and my numbers might be wrong, but I am trying to point out something). So what if instead of the 5 that survived, 5 others survived. The earth might be populated by animals with no backbone and 3 legs and a head with an extendable mouth. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You need to get the details and 'unsimplify' so we can figure out what is being said. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I gather that some very old fossils showed variant types of animals but the details would be important. Were some of them NOT symmetrical?

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Randallw, have you seen some of the ocean-bottom life forms that have been discovered fairly recently using submersibles? (The Blue Planet series has a spectacular episode on them, for example.) Lots of ancient and bizarre stuff there.

PvK

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The only reason that their behaviour doesn't seem "totally alien" to us is that we are used to it. We understand (or think we do) the way animals think because we have studied them and/ or domesticated them and/or try to interpret their behaviour using our human behaviour as a template. If we landed on an alien planet and saw a bunch of creatures with the exact same behaviour, intelligence and level of communication as dolphins we would spend decades trying to communicate with them because we would think there was a chance they were sentient.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I guess I don't understand your definitions of terms very well. We seem to mean very different things when we each say "totally alien." One one level, sure, anything from this planet is not totally alien. On another, I can relate to and recognize in myself many of the behaviours exhibited by animals.

I don't really follow your example of alien dolphin-like animals, either. Of course scientists would study the heck out of any alien life form. Scientists study dolphins, too.

Other scientists do preposterous things like tell a dog not to eat food, then leave it alone with the food, and get excited to discover that the dog will go eat the food when humans aren't looking. This German study made the BBC world news a year or two ago. Meanwhile, non-scientists who know dogs generally know this anyway. What that demonstrates to me is that many scientists, like when I studied cognitive science a bit a decade ago, are severely confused about animal intelligence.

Quote:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">not very far from human thoughts and emotions

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As I said, there are similarities but they will occur almost everywhere we find life. Any life form on any planet that needs to learn the value of running away will develop fear- or something very similar to fear. Parallel evolution.

Any life form that benefits from living ina society will evolve bonds with others within its society- friendship, love, comradeship, pack mentality- call it what you will.

...</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well the difference is that these animals evolved on the same planet we did, in the same environment, with the same kinds of conditions and competitors, and from common ancient ancestors.

Humans, animals, fish, reptiles, insects, all have eyes, brains, spines, nervous systems, mouths, digestive tracts, limbs for locomotion, sexual reproduction, etc.

Not all environments require running away. Not all ecologies involve predation. Not all imaginible life forms even have "societies". Not all societies need have the same elements, even if human ones, or human and animal ones, tend to.

Yes there are some situations that seem like they would exist or need to exist in most environments. But even life on this planet shows that there are many solutions to most problems.

PvK

[ March 25, 2004, 17:56: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I disagree with that. Both the evolutionary part http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif and the different ways. Well, not that they may think differently, but the type of different. A gas being from the gas giant Gafefaf would percieve it's environment differently, it's environment would shape it's reactions and thought processes, but it would still need social behavior, or it would die out.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you say so. You haven't defined "social behavior" though, and I would think that "social behavior" could still be extremely different. Defining "social behavior" as an extremely broad term just gives it plenty of room for extremely different types of behavior within that term.

Meanwhile, on the gas planet Ugwahuk, perhaps the intelligent life there acts like a planetary gestalt, with no individuals, just a flow of life an consciousness spread throughout the Ugwahsphere. That probably defies any definition of "social behavior".

Quote:

And it would need emotions, to give it reasons to do things. It would need thought processes, to process information. And it would need instincts, to tell it what to do when the others failed or wouldn't be fast enough.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Robots don't need emotions to have reasons to do things. Neither, presumably do plants. The German scientists who were surprised the dog knew about sneaking an illicit bite to eat would probably try to tell you that animals don't have emotions. Of course, he's a close-minded fool, but still. I have a hard time seeing exactly what you're saying, and why I would think it'd contradict "extremely different thinking".

Quote:

And all the things you can think of that it might have can be done with a human brain. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"> An imagination challenge? Ok, so suppose an alien race has interchangable brains. Maybe they converse by sharing grey matter, mixing it around and forming new individual consciousnesses as their fancy strikes them. Can humans do that?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But, what about trees? They have no brain. True, but they have counterparts for those things, which can be simulated by a human brain. Maybe not fully, but I addressed that in a previous post. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So you are saying that you are disagreeing that trees think in extremely different ways from humans? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

PvK

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

oh man...
this discussion looks like its getting to the "if a tree falls in a forrest"
stage...

heh

the buggers in enders game I thoguht were quite well done. and I think they mentiond annother race that after meeting the humans just all decided to die.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's actually a bit different than that... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

In reference to animals, there are actually 34 basic forms "phyla" currently classified. Although they've developed at different times in history, I don't believe any have gone extinct. Mostly they've just gotten more complex (but not always sort of)! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

From an evolutionary and multicellular viewpoint, things have progressed like this:

Sponges "Porifera" - No tissues; like a colony of single-celled organisms

Jellyfish, Corals "Cnidaria" - True Tissues (two); radial symmetry; partial digestive cavity; nerve net

Flatforms "Platyhelminthes" - no body cavity; bilateral symmetry; full digestive cavity; 3 tissues; head ganglia (nerve center)

Rotifers "Rotifera" / Roundworms "Nematoda" - pseudocoelom (sort of have a body cavity); 3 tissues; have "butts" and mouths http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif ; head ganglia with primitive nerve cord

Segmented Worms "Annelida" - body cavities; 3 tissues; exoskeleton; circulatory and digestive system; head ganglia, simple nerve cord

Insects, Crustaceans "Artropoda" - body cavities; 3 tissues; exoskeleton; circulatory, digestive, and respiratory systems; head ganglia, increased nerve network

Octopus, Snails "Mollusca" - body cavities; 3 tissues; exoskeleton; circulatory, digestive, and respiratory (gills, lungs) systems; brain; nerve network

Sea Stars, Urchins "Echinodermata" - bilateral symmetry (but radial adults!), 3 tissues, body cavity, endoskeleton, no circulatory or excretion system, no brain, nerve network in skin

Vertebrates (Us!) "Chrodata" - 3 tissues; bilateral symmetry; developed digestive, circulatory, respiratory systems; developed brain; nerve cord; endoskelton

I'd imagine alien life given similar conditions as Earth (O2 + water) would progress in a similar fashion. I don't think its nearly as random as you'd think. If you want to have complex organs like eyes and ears, you're going to require some sort of sophisticated nerve system and brain to process and interpret that info. Big brains require lots of energy, so you'll need to be mobile and have sophisticated respiratory, circulatory, and digestive/excretion systems for that to be possible, and so on.

Of course, other factors like the planet's gravity or surface conditions may dictate physical appearance or types of sensory organs (i.e. sonar, electromagnetic, etc), but the internal mechanisms would be probably be quite similar. After all, evolution is just a process of selection - and given the same sort of conditions you'd expect given enough time, to see the same end results.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think your end conclusion is a little far-fetched, but your general idea holds true on a smaller scale, i.e., Dinosaurs vs. Mammals sort of scale. If the Dinosaurs had been able to hang around longer, then perhaps we'd be more of a Reptillian-humanoid...however, we'd still have the same body systems and macroorgans that we do now. It's just a good setup for evolutionary success. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Now, talking about other types of planets and possible life or intelligent Alien behaviour - that's just another serious can of worms.

[ March 25, 2004, 19:43: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My point is that we assume dolphins aren't sentient because we have thousands of years of history defining them as 'dumb animals'. SUppose dolphins didn't exist on Earth, but on planet Blarg. Now suppose we sent a spaceship to Blarg and discovered the dolphins, frolicking and singing to each other. WOuold we say "they're just a bunch of clever but sub-sentient animls" or would we start with the assumption that they might be sentient and work our way up? And if we did the latter, what would we find?

I guess what I'm saying is, we take the various life forms we already have for granted. If we were to look at them with fresh eyes we might be surprised.

But I can't remember what this has to do with xenodiversity. someone remember to ask me when I sober up.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My point is that we assume dolphins aren't sentient because we have thousands of years of history defining them as 'dumb animals'. SUppose dolphins didn't exist on Earth, but on planet Blarg. Now suppose we sent a spaceship to Blarg and discovered the dolphins, frolicking and singing to each other. WOuold we say "they're just a bunch of clever but sub-sentient animls" or would we start with the assumption that they might be sentient and work our way up? And if we did the latter, what would we find?

I guess what I'm saying is, we take the various life forms we already have for granted. If we were to look at them with fresh eyes we might be surprised.

But I can't remember what this has to do with xenodiversity. someone remember to ask me when I sober up. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sounds like what happened in "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish"

Slick.

[ March 25, 2004, 20:39: Message edited by: Slick ]

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, if it serves the same purpose as fear, and it provokes the same response as fear... why don't we just call it fear? There will undoubtedly be biological differences but the end result is the same. After all, how do i know that when *you* feel fear you feel the same thing as me? How do I know you don't see red as what I would call call blue?

It's like the Turing test for AI: You can't know for sure whether a machine is actually intelligent or just doing a really good impression of one that is, but when it gets to that stage there's very little point trying to tell the difference anyway. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What you seem to be saying is that 'you can't know how other beings think, so they might be thinking differently'. I'm saying, if stimuli and responce can be made to match up, then why should they be different?

I'm also saying that any different stimuli and responce can be simulated with the human brain.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My point is that we assume dolphins aren't sentient because we have thousands of years of history defining them as 'dumb animals'. SUppose dolphins didn't exist on Earth, but on planet Blarg. Now suppose we sent a spaceship to Blarg and discovered the dolphins, frolicking and singing to each other. WOuold we say "they're just a bunch of clever but sub-sentient animls" or would we start with the assumption that they might be sentient and work our way up? And if we did the latter, what would we find?

I guess what I'm saying is, we take the various life forms we already have for granted. If we were to look at them with fresh eyes we might be surprised.

But I can't remember what this has to do with xenodiversity. someone remember to ask me when I sober up. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I'll also ask what the disagreement with what I was trying to say was, because I entirely agree with you on this. In fact, the humans that assert that animals (from dolphins to rats) are "not intelligent" or "sub-sentient" are either just plain wrong, or are framing their questions in ways that I think are rather off.

PvK

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

hmm, I seemdd to have generated some replies. If only I could rememebr what the hell I was talking about. But, to reply to everyone at once: Yes/no/thanks/of course/sorry/curses!/oops (delete as appropriate)

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

There are no aliens living on other worlds. It is mathamatically improbable that sentient space faring life could have evolved on another world given the absolute uniqueness that spawned life here. The chances for another life giving planet are so astronomically rare that if you could explore space in its entirety in one day it would take you a trillion years to find one planet like Earth. We are it and until one lands on this planet and proves me wrong, I am going to stick by this narrow minded concept.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Atrocities:

I'll give you the chance that Aliens visiting us here is next to nothing, but I sincerely doubt your assertion that there is no alien life elsewhere in our galaxy. Once we have better tools in place, we'll start identifying planets much more like our own than the ones they've found so far.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

CK I have to tell you that our being here is an accident of epic proportions. The simple fact that life evolved on Earth is such a rare event that chances of it occuring twice or more in the universe is so great that if you took the number 1 and put 0 behind it to the point that it could circle the universe a centrillion times to the billionth power you might be within 1% of the chance.

This planet is so rare that it equals 1 10th of a grain of sand compared to the entire galaxy. And we are wasting it away.

No CK, life does not exsist "out there" it only exsists here.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Wow, did this thread take off. I bow to Captain Kwok and others superior knowledge, as I explained I am no expert I was simply trying to put forth some limited knowledge I had. So my numbers might be wrong but I seemed to remember it was a proportion such as 5 out of 20. It could well be 3 out of 15, but I'm pretty sure the number of fossils was less than 20 "types". The types I was referring to are (using my simple example)
1. creature with a backbone and 4 limbs.
2. creature without a backbone.
3. Creature with a backbone but 3 unsymetrical limbs spaced around torse (like Cygnans from Jupiter theft).
4. Creature with 20 legs and backbone (sort of like a centipede but not an insect).
5. creature with a tubular body and circular mouth studded by teeth in 3 sets (like a lamprey).
6-20 various other types.
basically think of 20 really alien variations on possible forms, but only (in my example) 5 survived.

I read this in a magazine many years ago and it stuck in my mind. The magazine could have been Popular Science, National Geographic or Time for all I know. I apologise for being unable to provide links or detailed information, really I was hoping for someone with more knowledge to elaborate on what I knew. For the person who wanted to know the 3 types of Monotremes, they are 1 type of Platypus and there are 2 type of Echidnas.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

...and what do you base this on? Your own pessimistic view?

Nah, I'm hoping that one of the Mars rovers will accidently stumble upon some microfossils to spite you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

All in good humour of course.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

RandallW:

Are these real examples of lifeforms from Earth's past? Or possible forms that life could have taken?

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

They are real. basically someone found a set of fossils from long ago (whenever simple life was forming, but a bit above amoeba and such) they looked at this set of fossils and it was "Ok, I recognize these ones with the backbone and legs, but what are all these fossils with no bones or odd numbers of legs?". (ME) Then again how do you have a fossil with no bones?. I seem to recall the circumstance was there were all the different forms of life coexisting in a lake when a cliff fell on top of them.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would love to be proved wrong CK, but I won't be. I have spent a life dreaming about other planets and such and over the course of it, I have gained a new appreciation for our world and how rare and unique it really is. Doing essays on it, and researching the probability of life on other worlds and how life began here has lead me to my "own pessimistic view" of things. I am not alone, and more and more people are coming to understand just how rare our little blue planet is.

I am not trying to be negative CK, I am simply stating the fact that there is no life like us out there. If life exsists it will be ooze and geew.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I may be getting OT, but I started this thread so I get to bring up new stuff.
Does anyone know of the dicovery where fossils from a billion years were found. Now we are one "form" in so far as we have a Skeletal system AND a backbone AND symetry (2 arms, 2 legs, 1 on each side). I am no expert so I will say in my example there are 5 forms of animal still living, we mammals and 4 others (such as worms, with no backbone or skeleton etc). Anyway in the example I mentioned there were 20 "forms" of animal found. Thats the 5 current ones, and 15 "types" that are extinct. basically 1 billion years ago there were 20 possible templates for the creatures that would occupy the earth but 15 got covered with a landslide and only the other 5 survived (I am simplifying this alot, and my numbers might be wrong, but I am trying to point out something). So what if instead of the 5 that survived, 5 others survived. The earth might be populated by animals with no backbone and 3 legs and a head with an extendable mouth.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

The most alien aliens that spring to mind for me are the kif in C. J. Cherryh's Chanur stories. The main thing I remember about them is that the rare times they communicated, the "translation" was a two-dimensional matrix of words, rather than "normal" sentences.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

I basically agree with you Atrocities. I think that IF life is found on other planets:

1. I will be long gone.
2. It will at the most be plant life, or something similar, not sentient life.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Holy bitterness Batman! You might want to rethink that whole uniqueness aspect though. Just look at our own solar system. Just in this one tiny corner of the universe there were three potential candidates. Earth seems to have won out (yeah us!), but Mars seems to have had a good start (plenty of water, just needed a little more gravity/sunlight), and even the hellhole that is Venus seems to have had some promise (before its greenhouse effect went all coo-koo).

Think about that. Three possible candidates all around one little star that is distressingly mundane. Chances were pretty good for life to develop in this system. The odds may not be so bleak for others.

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Don't forget about Europa! There could be a nice big sea under that icy exterior. And you know what they say about water...

Re: Alien, I mean really Alien.
 

Atrocities:

While I believe you are correct in that we may never meet another sentient species, I find that I cannot agree that it does not exist.

It is generally accepted that there are approximately 200 Billion stars in the Milky way galaxy. Furthermore, most scientists agree there are approximately 100 Billion galaxies (some suggest upwards of 125 billion). Seeing as our milky way is of average size, a pessimistic view holds that there are 20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif . While the chance of life springing up in any one star system is remote, there are a huge, huge number of stars.

If you wish to believe that no life exists elsewhere, well, not much I can do to change that. You're entitled to your opinions, as am I http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif