Aliens

[A380]

If there is other intelligent life out there that wonders if there is other intelligent life out there, I doubt we will ever see it. Distances are too big.

But if it exists elsewhere, I suspect that evolution constrains solutions to certain kinds of things. Starting off as something like a cell with a membrane to distinguish me/not me. Some kind of replicating code. At some point, certain organisms evolve that make their living by eating other organisms rather than fixing energy from a star or vent or whatever. To get to intelligent life that is able to reflect on its own existence, you would need something like multicellular organisms, probably mobile like animals, and probably with a psychology that has evolved in the context of both intraspecies cooperation and intraspecies competition.

I suspect that they'll be fucked up like us.

Have you read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (who wrote The Martian)? It's got one of the best aliens in fiction and explores many of these issues. It's a great story too.

 

[A380]

Pfft, who needs windows or semiconductors?

Or rubbish, so called, castles that are only eight inches high mounds with paper flags on the top?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Or concrete.

 

[A380]

Or smooth wood?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Cixin Liu's Three Body Problem trilogy is a brilliant if utterly depressing version of how contact with aliens might actually play out. Goes batshit mental by the end of the third book mind you.

 

[WouldBe]

Pfft, who needs windows or semiconductors?

Been reading backwards through the thread and thought that was partially what the message was about. "Can we interest you in double glazing?" "We can fit them in about 3 millennia."

 

[A380]

Been reading backwards through the thread and thought that was partially what the message was about. "Can we interest you in double glazing?" "We can fit them in about 3 millennia."

If they are only three light millennia away then we should get a local discount.

 

[frogwoman]

There might be a planet of intelligent ants doing their thesis on 'Monkey infestations of habitable planets in the Milky Way - a tentative hypothesis' or something

 

[frogwoman]

If there's a planet of dinosaurs that haven't been hit by the asteroid yet that would also be interesting.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If there's a planet of dinosaurs that haven't been hit by the asteroid yet that would also be interesting.

Remembering that birds are dinosaurs really, we've got crows and parrots out of evolution since then.

These things are incredibly hard to predict, though. If the big dinos had stayed around, they might have dominated in a way that didn't provide the same selection pressures for greater intelligence.

 

[A380]

If there's a planet of dinosaurs that haven't been hit by the asteroid yet that would also be interesting.

Or a planet of the apes? You could make a film about that, no idea what they would call it though.

 

[frogwoman]

Frogs?

 

[A380]

Frogs?

Why would you call a film about a planet of the apes "Frogs"? Makes no sense...

 

[frogwoman]

Why would you call a film about a planet of the apes "Frogs"? Makes no sense...

No I meant a planet dominated by frogs or something.

 

[A380]

No I meant a planet dominated by frogs or something.

Could it be about the sex lives of frogs?

Frogspawn if you will....

 

[frogwoman]

Over 50% of the earth is covered with water and was mostly water for a very long time after it was formed. If the rainfall was a bit higher and the land to water ratio was slightly higher, you could have a planet more favourable to amphibians tbh.

 

[frogwoman]

Of course, amphibians can't really cope with sea water. If there were more lakes and marsh type areas on another planet plus a high level of rainfall it could end up with frogs dominating the planet.

 

[frogwoman]

Humans tend to view monkeys quite affectionately as some of our closest relatives, there are laws about experimentation on primates that don't exist for other animals for example. How would an intelligent frog view a 'normal' frog, or an intelligent ant when seeing a normal ant? I don't know.

 

[agricola]

Over 50% of the earth is covered with water and was mostly water for a very long time after it was formed. If the rainfall was a bit higher and the land to water ratio was slightly higher, you could have a planet more favourable to amphibians tbh.

TBF I am not sure its ideal conditions that make for species dominance so much as it is learning to (or an ability to) adapt to less than ideal conditions, which then opens up a load more opportunities (probably including the development of intelligence).

 

[A380]

Humans tend to view monkeys quite affectionately as some of our closest relatives, there are laws about experimentation on primates that don't exist for other animals for example. How would an intelligent frog view a 'normal' frog, or an intelligent ant when seeing a normal ant? I don't know.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Humans tend to view monkeys quite affectionately as some of our closest relatives, there are laws about experimentation on primates that don't exist for other animals for example. How would an intelligent frog view a 'normal' frog, or an intelligent ant when seeing a normal ant? I don't know.

There's a short story by Olaf Stapledon about a super-intelligent dog. He's conflicted over feeling sexually attracted to other dogs at the same time as feeling contempt for their minds.

 

[NoXion]

There's a short story by Olaf Stapledon about a super-intelligent dog. He's conflicted over feeling sexually attracted to other dogs at the same time as feeling contempt for their minds.

Olaf Stapledon's work is great stuff, unlike a lot of pop sci-fi it's unafraid to deal with big ideas and deep time; he conceptualised the idea of the Dyson sphere before Freeman Dyson popularised the concept. I highly recommend The Last and First Men and Star Maker.

His stuff is a bit dated given modern science, but Stapledon's vastness has been very influential on my own attempts at writing a science fiction universe. For over a decade now I've been working on my own fictional future timeline spanning from the 21st century all the way to heat death of the universe.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not a big reader of sci-fi, but Stapledon's ideas are brilliant. I was introduced to him a few years ago having not previously heard of him. Definitely deserves to be more widely appreciated.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Looking up the dog story, it's called Sirius. Wikipedia says it's a novel, but I'm certain I read it as a short story. Maybe he wrote two versions.

 

[Pickman's model]

Could it be about the sex lives of frogs?

Frogspawn if you will....

or a story with a chess plot, frog's pawn

 

[frogwoman]

or a story with a chess plot, frog's pawn

An intelligent frog in rage at the plight of his kind challenges a French diplomat to a game of chess lol

 

[frogwoman]

I listened to a podcast yesterday in which a scientist working on SETI was saying that we should treat very seriously the possibility that aliens could send a malicious probe to our planet within 20 years and that governments should start thinking about what to do and treat it as a national security risk.

 

[frogwoman]

Where's xes

 

[JimW]

I listened to a podcast yesterday in which a scientist working on SETI was saying that we should treat very seriously the possibility that aliens could send a malicious probe to our planet within 20 years and that governments should start thinking about what to do and treat it as a national security risk.

That's a "come and fund me" plea you'd suspect.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

That's a "come and fund me" plea you'd suspect.

It's almost as if the bloke in question would like to continue in his well-paid job for a few more decades.