Alien, I mean really Alien.

[PvK]

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

[Unknown_Enemy]

Snif.

I miss Xenology.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
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.

- 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!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by PvK:

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

PvK

I disagree with that. Both the evolutionary part 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 ]

[dogscoff]

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

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.

not very far from human thoughts and emotions

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.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

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 ]

[Randallw]

Originally posted by PvK:


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

PvK

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.