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No Intelligent Life on Earth


KAL 9000

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And the assumption that we know what aliens would think of us is based on......what?

Seeing as how HUMANS reach a whole bunch of different viewpoints about the SAME things, it's just as likely those aliens are going "wow, the humans are just like us, this galaxy is boring". It's most likely some aliens are going "those critters are too violent" and others are going "those critters are pacificst sissies" and still others are going "where can we get more of their TV shows??".

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48 minutes ago, GeneralVeers said:

And the assumption that we know what aliens would think of us is based on......what?

Seeing as how HUMANS reach a whole bunch of different viewpoints about the SAME things, it's just as likely those aliens are going "wow, the humans are just like us, this galaxy is boring". It's most likely some aliens are going "those critters are too violent" and others are going "those critters are pacificst sissies" and still others are going "where can we get more of their TV shows??".

Agreed. Human culture is incredibly diverse (at least to us). We have no idea what another intelligent species would think of us. I once saw a video where Neil DeGrasse Tyson mentioned that humans and chimps have 98% identical DNA. Imagine a species with an extra 2% difference to us in the same way we are different from chimpanzees. Would they consider us "intelligent?" We can barely even leave the atmosphere because we're so caught up in our made-up economics, politics, and selfishness. They would see us in the same way we see chimps in terms of intelligence. Yes, they're very smart compared to other creatures, but they're nothing compared to us.

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2 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

And the assumption that we know what aliens would think of us is based on......what?

Seeing as how HUMANS reach a whole bunch of different viewpoints about the SAME things, it's just as likely those aliens are going "wow, the humans are just like us, this galaxy is boring". It's most likely some aliens are going "those critters are too violent" and others are going "those critters are pacificst sissies" and still others are going "where can we get more of their TV shows??".

It's a joke, satirizing how humans do similar thing.

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3 hours ago, cubinator said:

Agreed. Human culture is incredibly diverse (at least to us). We have no idea what another intelligent species would think of us. I once saw a video where Neil DeGrasse Tyson mentioned that humans and chimps have 98% identical DNA. Imagine a species with an extra 2% difference to us in the same way we are different from chimpanzees. Would they consider us "intelligent?"

We humans were able to figure out that creatures not at all like us, such as dolphins and mice, are intelligent.

It's possible the aliens' physiology might affect their perceptions; a race of sentient trees, for example, who spend most of their time in one place and spend months thinking about one thing at a time (i.e. the Two Towers trope; trees that are very slow and patient), might find us humans so speedy as to be beyond their comprehension.

But that's getting a bit sci-fi-ish. Most likely an alien race will be able to figure us out the same way we can figure other terrestrial species out.

 

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

We can barely even leave the atmosphere because we're so caught up in our made-up economics, politics, and selfishness.

Yet we're obviously intelligent. And you're assuming aliens won't have economics, politics, and selfishness of their own........

 

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

They would see us in the same way we see chimps in terms of intelligence. Yes, they're very smart compared to other creatures, but they're nothing compared to us.

Chimps can't build skyscrapers. When aliens see human skyscrapers, they'll likely realize (just as we humans were able to figure out the difference in technological development between a wasp nest and a Sioux teepee) we're simply behind them on the same path--assuming they're more advanced than us! THEY might be the chimps, arriving in clunky ramshackle spacecraft, with fidgety FTL drives that barely work and weapons even more primitive than ours.

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9 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

*snip*

All good points. However, even though we recognize chimps, dolphins, etc. to be intelligent, they are not intelligent enough that we decided to integrate then into our "intelligent" customs like education, economics, and politics. (Dolphins might get here sometime on the next hundred million years, but we'll all be too busy flying on Titan to notice.) The point is, we can't speculate about what intelligent aliens would think of us because we have only ourselves to compare, and you can't compare one thing to itself and get an idea of what a totally different thing is like.

Edited by cubinator
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I once read this interesting theory about aliens, that basically there could be hyper-advanced aliens that know about Earth and its life, but they just ignore it. I think it was explained like this: "The life of the aliens is so different to ours that they don't see a point in contacting us, in the same way that we humans have no interest in "communicating" with ants or worms for example, also because it's not really possible. For all we know, Earth could be some "nature reserve" part of some larger organization, like a Galactic Republic :D or something. For example, ants don't know or care which country they are in, they don't realize there are more intelligent beings that technically own their territory, they think their ant hill is fully under their control. In the same way, us humans could be part of something we don't realize even exists" (Not directly quoted, just more or less what I remember put in my own words) 

It's quite an interesting theory, even though hard to accept.

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48 minutes ago, A35K said:

I once read this interesting theory about aliens, that basically there could be hyper-advanced aliens that know about Earth and its life, but they just ignore it. I think it was explained like this: "The life of the aliens is so different to ours that they don't see a point in contacting us, in the same way that we humans have no interest in "communicating" with ants or worms for example, also because it's not really possible. For all we know, Earth could be some "nature reserve" part of some larger organization, like a Galactic Republic :D or something. For example, ants don't know or care which country they are in, they don't realize there are more intelligent beings that technically own their territory, they think their ant hill is fully under their control. In the same way, us humans could be part of something we don't realize even exists" (Not directly quoted, just more or less what I remember put in my own words) 

It's quite an interesting theory, even though hard to accept.

The Zoo hypothesis, which states that all intelligent species that don't have, say, interstellar travel are watched over by other, more intelligent civilizations, and it may be why we haven't seen any evidence of intelligent Aliens..

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6 hours ago, cubinator said:

All good points. However, even though we recognize chimps, dolphins, etc. to be intelligent, they are not intelligent enough that we decided to integrate then into our "intelligent" customs like education, economics, and politics.

That's not the problem. The problem is we can't fit them into our intelligent customs because that requires a few things. Such as a written language. Dolphins in particular are going to have a bit of a problem with that.......

Certainly several species on Earth are capable of picking up the concepts of if we teach them; it's been done with elephants, cats and dogs, dolphins and other aquatic types, and of course monkeys. We've even been able to teach monkeys how to use money. Animals can figure these things out, they simply haven't developed them on their own.

In that respect, humans may be a fluke; consider the fact that several other species besides humans have the capability to develop spoken and written language and start on the path towards civilization--they can, but they haven't. On a planet filled with opportunities for it to happen, it's only happened once. So I would theorize that humans could be the only species in the entire galaxy that got past rubbing two sticks together to make fire. All the other intelligent life in the galaxy might all be stuck at the "wild animals" level.

 

Quote

The point is, we can't speculate about what intelligent aliens would think of us because we have only ourselves to compare, and you can't compare one thing to itself and get an idea of what a totally different thing is like.

You're assuming the aliens would be totally different. You can't make that assumption. They might turn out to be very similar to us, aside from having, say, a different number of heads.

Even if they do think very differently than we do, they are still very likely to recognize that the Sears Tower is not a natural rock formation; that the crisscrossing squarish patterns drawn on the planet's surface are not natural; that the big shiny things sailing headlong through the air and in orbit are not natural. No matter their thought processes, they're very likely to figure out this planet has intelligent life on it.

The reason I pointed out various examples of humans figuring this out with other species is, in those cases, we are the "the totally different aliens". We are capable of recognizing signs of intelligence in beings very different from us. Aliens probably will too.

 

2 hours ago, A35K said:

I once read this interesting theory about aliens, that basically there could be hyper-advanced aliens that know about Earth and its life, but they just ignore it. I think it was explained like this: "The life of the aliens is so different to ours that they don't see a point in contacting us, in the same way that we humans have no interest in "communicating" with ants or worms for example, also because it's not really possible.

Or because they're afraid of accidentally transmitting communicable diseases to us. Or they're afraid of one of their ships crashing on our planet and causing an extinction event. Or they're thinking "we shouldn't be messing around with them, it's none of our business".

If there is intelligent life out there that's avoiding us.....we don't know why they're avoiding us. There's lots of possible reasons.

 

Edit: You know what, here's the most likely reason aliens avoid contact with humans. A35K pointed out the theory that aliens don't consider us worth talking to. There are other theories that say "we humans are too violent" or "too "primitive" and a bunch of other possibilities.

What these theories have in common is that they all paint humans in a very poor light. They express various levels of self-hatred. Why do aliens avoid you humans?? Because you're depressing to be around!! Buck up a little. Geez.

(errr.....did I say "you humans"?? I meant "US humans". Sorry. Typo.)

Edited by GeneralVeers
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People have been saying that my whole life. Not impressed.

Some humans have in fact become idiots as a direct result of technology. Other humans have become smarter as a direct result of technology. The Internet in particular, has given ordinary people access to vast amounts of information and greatly improved our ability to learn things.

There were idiots before technology existed. There are idiots now. A thousand years from now, there will be idiots. A billion years from now, when the Sun's fusion zone has expanded enough to cook the Earth and the human race is dying out, there will be one last idiot.

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1 hour ago, GeneralVeers said:

People have been saying that my whole life. Not impressed.

Some humans have in fact become idiots as a direct result of technology. Other humans have become smarter as a direct result of technology. The Internet in particular, has given ordinary people access to vast amounts of information and greatly improved our ability to learn things.

There were idiots before technology existed. There are idiots now. A thousand years from now, there will be idiots. A billion years from now, when the Sun's fusion zone has expanded enough to cook the Earth and the human race is dying out, there will be one last idiot.

Knowing a lot of facts is not the same as being smart.

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