Alien, I mean really Alien.

[PvK]

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

[PvK]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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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.

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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:

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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.

...

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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 ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:

quote:

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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.

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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".

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.

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".

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

quote:

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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?

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.

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So you are saying that you are disagreeing that trees think in extremely different ways from humans?

PvK

[se5a]

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.

[Captain Kwok]

Originally posted by Randallw:
Anyway in the example I mentioned there were 20 "forms" of animal found. Thats the 5 current ones, and 15 "types" that are extinct.

It's actually a bit different than that...

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)!

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 ; 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.

Originally posted by Randallw:
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.

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.

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 ]

[dogscoff]

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.

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.

[Slick]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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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.

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.

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Sounds like what happened in "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish"

Slick.

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