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Fermi Paradox


PB666

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34 minutes ago, todofwar said:

... If we discover unobtanium, ... you'll see that outer space treaty ignored faster than a computer geek in a 1980s high school movie.

I expect the opposite. No private venture from the US, Russia or China would be able to move without the blessing of the other two countries. It'll look like sabotage by Greenpeace-type protestors (who would be involved anyway, naively or knowingly), but determined hacking by State-sponsored groups on the other side would make it virtually impossible to exploit the seam. Other countries not in on the act would be forced to rely on the OST, and they'd milk it for all it's worth.

So an unobtanium find would probably be great at concentrating minds on a common approach.

Branching off from that, in galactic terms that unobtanium is certainly not an element or compound but is actually time. Time to make a place habitable for advanced lifeforms. Time to wash the poison from the atmosphere and the salts out of the dust. So again, this is a reason for an intelligent species not to expand: the only place you want to go is a place that already has life, because otherwise you'll be condemned to living a pitiful existence in caves trying to create a self-sustaining system until the most vital components finally break down and can't be replaced, and you all die. You're therefore limited to worlds which have had time, with some sort of life, to become habitable. And so you return to the same situation as finding unobtanium on Europa - the intelligent spacefaring species has to cooperate, or face stiff internal resistance.

You say we're living in enlightened times, and we are. A big reason is that the technology which made space explorable, also massively enabled the dissemination of information and everyday involvement in politics, which creates dangers (populism, extremist groups and the like) but also involves a much broader part of the population in decision-making.
At the time when the Fermi Paradox was being expounded, people thought very much in terms of leaders and nation states: the people that dismissed "sociological reasons" limiting expansion back then seemed to reason in terms of leader A of civilisation A being able to send ships out to colonise the stars, without considering that a significant number of people A (let alone B, C and D) would have very strong reasons and the ability to stop them from doing so. The social pyramid which underpinned their reasoning then has changed dramatically, and has drastically limited the scope of independent action of any particular group to their own backyard. Outer space being nobody's backyard by any definition, groups (private companies, states or anything in between) cannot simply colonise it "just because they can". It'll need consensus, and consensus to expand through space will (in my most humble opinion) be impossible for an educated, intelligent people to obtain.

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20 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

We are nice. We have pets that we take care of, livestock that, while used for food, owe their large numbers to us. We clawed our way to the top of the food chain be being smart, which involved being nice. Well, relatively nice. And mainly to the animals that suit us, of course. And that means that their survival is almost guaranteed. Only issue is that we may not need them eventually. Even so, that also comes with other things that are not so nice.

BEGIN SIDE NOTE:

I would argue that using pets as example of how nice we are is a bit counter-productive. 

Modern day pets are quite literally the results of centuries of inbreeding and eugenics that turned wild animals into our possessions, because people saw wolves and big cats and said "Hey, those look cool, I want to own one and be its master". There is very little that's nice about that!

END SIDE NOTE

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Just now, Steel said:

I would argue that using pets as example of how nice we are is a bit counter-productive. 

Modern day pets are quite literally the results of centuries of inbreeding and eugenics that turned wild animals into our possessions, because people saw wolves and big cats and said "Hey, those look cool, I want to own one and be its master". There is very little that's nice about that!

Some(in the context of an unknown amount) modern pets are a result of eugenics and inbreeding, though not all of them. Anyways, defining "niceness" as how much we've messed with a species genes isn't a good definition, seeing as how we still dedicate resources to feeding them and taking care of them.

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On 10/14/2016 at 9:04 AM, Scotius said:

We are nice? *blinks* Since when? We didn't claw our way to the top of food chain by being nice :) The same goes for our cousins - gorillas ofthen fight to the death, chimps are ferocious hunters, bonobos...uh...OK. Bonobos are the flower children of our disfunctional ape-family, with their "make love not war", general approach, lack of interpersonal aggresion and so on.

Imagine an intelligent alligator society with an atom bomb and tell me you'd be just as at ease with Mutual Assured Destruction as the Yanks and Russkies were mutually :wink:

Worse, would be if E.T. didn't even regard us as "intelligent" or "life!" Think of the Vogon! 

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On 15/10/2016 at 10:08 PM, Bill Phil said:

Some(in the context of an unknown amount) modern pets are a result of eugenics and inbreeding, though not all of them. Anyways, defining "niceness" as how much we've messed with a species genes isn't a good definition, seeing as how we still dedicate resources to feeding them and taking care of them.

Similarly, there would be no such thing as a chicken or a cow without human intervention. We created those species through centuries of cross-breeding and artificial selection and now they only exist because they provide food. Most domestic animals would not be viable as wild animals. If we all went vegan, then pigs, cows, and chicken would go extinct. 

Ethics are subjective and depend on our cultural bias, but our treatment of farm animals can hardly be called "nice".

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11 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

 If we all went vegan, then pigs, cows, and chicken would go extinct. 

And horses.

The clever an animal species - the more chances to stay alive as a companion. Spacecats will eat synthetic spacewhiskas.

(Also, bright-colored fishes. Stupid as a roach, but easy to keep and nice to watch)

57 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

Imagine an intelligent alligator society with an atom bomb

Alligator society would be very polite... Wait, dont we have a kind of?

Edited by kerbiloid
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On 10/14/2016 at 0:45 PM, justidutch said:

Do you think a species or being that is predicated on wiping everything else out is likely to be the species or being that will learn how to expand across multiple worlds?  I don't.  I very much doubt that even given another billion years alligators or ants will eventually reach space on their own. My guess is that a species intelligent enough to make contact would be the top of their food chain, but you don't become top by wiping everything out, you become top by co-existing.  At least here on earth, which is the only model we have to go by.

It is a good question. At the moment the universe began, the probability that biological organisms would ever organize out of that initial field of hot stuff might have been so close to zero that the number of zeros to the right of the decimal point would exceed the total number of atoms in the universe. Nonetheless, it eventually happened on at least one rock orbiting around one sun that eventually "turned on" (some 7 or 8 billion years after the universe got underway).

We have no idea if that initial probability was close to 1.0 or close to -infinity. So the safest bet at this point is: that the probability was "halfway" between 1.0 and -infinity (a conception that pushes the boundary of my understanding of math and statistics and very likely is not even possible to express as a consistent equation?). I don't think there are any observations we can make at this point which can improve our predictive model beyond that.

Life existed for billions of years before it passed through the next big bottleneck: nuclear membrane (or intra-cellular membrane-bound organelles more generally), at which point there was a gigantic "explosion" in the evolution of diversity.

From that point on in Earth's history, my gut intuition is that: the emergence of complex highly derived forms like modern animals and plants is dependent primarily on the "richness" of the planetary ecology (generally pretty forgiving or generally pretty harsh?) as well as the periodicity of extinction punctuation events--and not so much on the incredibly low probability of the emergence of life itself or the emergence of "modular life" (eukaryotes). In the case of Earth, the probability that something with extraordinarily derived and complex systems like modern vertebrates or angiosperm plants would seem to have been sufficiently above "zero" that it was just a matter of time; that is my coarse read of the paleoontological record.

And then we get the last "bottleneck:" the emergence of "intelligence." Well that is the toughest one of them all, and depending on your criterion it hasn't even emerged on Earth yet! :sticktongue:

But getting back to your original question . . .: is it unlikely or even impossible for "intelligent" life to evolve from a "mean" ancestral form, i.e., an ancestral form which is completely lacking in empathy, self-reflection, compassion, restraint, self-sacrifice, humility, sustainable reward harvesting, etc.?

I'd have to say, 50/50 either way. For one thing, we humans are even _slightly_ questionable in this regard. Given the emergence of "life" at all may have been very close to "impossible," in the first place and the emergence of "modular life" (eukaryotes) might have also been pretty close to impossible, it seems difficult to speculate about how likely the emergence of advanced intelligence was. Once you get eukaryotes, and if the planets ecology is "rich" enough, the emergence of complex forms that use highly-derived neural systems, and thus allow for the evolution of "intelligence" (as we think of it from our anthropocentric viewpoint) might be pretty common, though evolution of human-level intelligence might not be so common.

It is generally regarded as axiomatic that highly K-selected species tend to be more solicitious toward offspring as a requite part of investing more parental investment into each offspring, and that directional selection for those behavioral sensitivities and proclivities is the foundation of "sociality" at least in the mammalian sense of the term "social." These behaviors are regarded as generally pretty common to the mammals as a whole and arguably "elaborated" to high degrees in some more than others (cetaceans, primates, canids, maybe even felids . . .). From my standpoint, I would regard all these clades to be "nice." I wouldn't worry too much about an E.T. that evolved from a form that was similar to any of the Earth mammals, even honey badgers! :P

However, the Hymenoptera and other eusocial insects exhibit rather remarkable degrees of social coordination and complexity which are achieved in species largely incapable of learning, apparently completely lacking in individual identity or a sense of self, and apart from behavioral nepotism which bears more resemblance to "immune function" than to anything like empathy, compassion or "solidarity," virtually zero ability to engage in empathy, self-reflection, compassion, restraint, humility, sustainable reward harvesting.

I'd say we are just damn lucky that arthropod designs are so damn good exactly how they are (i.e., WITHOUT 'intelligence') and apparently no adaptive niches ever opened up which selected for more advanced neural apparatus along the lines of a brain-spine elaboration. Had that sort of thing happened in a clade like the wasps or one of the other highly evolved eusocial insects (and assuming other changes that could select for increased body size) a creature something like the "Xenomorph" from the aliens fictional universe is one possible imagined result.

Dinosaurs are of course enigmatic, and their image has changed over the years. Some may have even been caring mothers I suppose. But I think it is pretty obvious that many of them were about as "intelligent" as a crocodile or shark: very good at predating, almost incapable of empathy, self-reflection, compassion, restraint, humility, sustainable reward harvesting. In this case, there are no extant examples of elaborate social cooperation among reptiles so it is an even bigger leap of imagination to envision tyrranical lizard E.T.s . . .

But when we consider the seemingly random sequence of events that led to the elaboration of basic mammalian forms into primates and thence into "highly social primates" (monkeys) and thence into "brainy" primates (apes) and thence into Imperial Apes (humans) . . . well, it almost seems like anything that can happen in evolution has been tried by the Blind Watchmaker at least once . . .

Edited by Diche Bach
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Actually, at least some species of ants are capable of "restraint" - when there is enough food, workers of the species Manica rubida do not kill other ants intruding on their territory. Unwanted guests are picked up and carried away, then released unharmed. Only in case of food scarcity this behaviour changes to predation and intruders are killed and eaten. Other species of european ants do not attack nests of their competitors directly - they lay siege, harassing enemy workers and repeatedly plugging the entrance to their nest with sand and pebbles. It continues until besieged ants give up and relocate to another location with their queen and brood.

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That is interesting Scotius; it seems any generalization one wishes to make in biology, always has some exceptions. In fact, the "exceptions" often seem to be more representative than the "norms."

One area of my research when I was an academic was obesity. One day I was chatting with a colleague who was an entymologist; we shared a common grounding in sociobiology so we were hitting it off. I noted that it only seemed to be mammals, and in particular humans who suffered from obesity, and he paused for a moment to think about if it was not true of the spiders he studied. If I recall, he actually did think of a special circumstance where spiders would suffer from having access to too much food, but it sounded like a bit of a stretch to call it "obesity."

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10 hours ago, Diche Bach said:

It is a good question. At the moment the universe began, the probability that biological organisms would ever organize out of that initial field of hot stuff might have been so close to zero that the number of zeros to the right of the decimal point would exceed the total number of atoms in the universe. Nonetheless, it eventually happened on at least one rock orbiting around one sun that eventually "turned on" (some 7 or 8 billion years after the universe got underway).

We have no idea if that initial probability was close to 1.0 or close to -infinity. So the safest bet at this point is: that the probability was "halfway" between 1.0 and -infinity (a conception that pushes the boundary of my understanding of math and statistics and very likely is not even possible to express as a consistent equation?). I don't think there are any observations we can make at this point which can improve our predictive model beyond that.

Life existed for billions of years before it passed through the next big bottleneck: nuclear membrane (or intra-cellular membrane-bound organelles more generally), at which point there was a gigantic "explosion" in the evolution of diversity.

From that point on in Earth's history, my gut intuition is that: the emergence of complex highly derived forms like modern animals and plants is dependent primarily on the "richness" of the planetary ecology (generally pretty forgiving or generally pretty harsh?) as well as the periodicity of extinction punctuation events--and not so much on the incredibly low probability of the emergence of life itself or the emergence of "modular life" (eukaryotes). In the case of Earth, the probability that something with extraordinarily derived and complex systems like modern vertebrates or angiosperm plants would seem to have been sufficiently above "zero" that it was just a matter of time; that is my coarse read of the paleoontological record.

And then we get the last "bottleneck:" the emergence of "intelligence." Well that is the toughest one of them all, and depending on your criterion it hasn't even emerged on Earth yet! :sticktongue:

But getting back to your original question . . .: is it unlikely or even impossible for "intelligent" life to evolve from a "mean" ancestral form, i.e., an ancestral form which is completely lacking in empathy, self-reflection, compassion, restraint, self-sacrifice, humility, sustainable reward harvesting, etc.?

I'd have to say, 50/50 either way. For one thing, we humans are even _slightly_ questionable in this regard. Given the emergence of "life" at all may have been very close to "impossible," in the first place and the emergence of "modular life" (eukaryotes) might have also been pretty close to impossible, it seems difficult to speculate about how likely the emergence of advanced intelligence was. Once you get eukaryotes, and if the planets ecology is "rich" enough, the emergence of complex forms that use highly-derived neural systems, and thus allow for the evolution of "intelligence" (as we think of it from our anthropocentric viewpoint) might be pretty common, though evolution of human-level intelligence might not be so common.

It is generally regarded as axiomatic that highly K-selected species tend to be more solicitious toward offspring as a requite part of investing more parental investment into each offspring, and that directional selection for those behavioral sensitivities and proclivities is the foundation of "sociality" at least in the mammalian sense of the term "social." These behaviors are regarded as generally pretty common to the mammals as a whole and arguably "elaborated" to high degrees in some more than others (cetaceans, primates, canids, maybe even felids . . .). From my standpoint, I would regard all these clades to be "nice." I wouldn't worry too much about an E.T. that evolved from a form that was similar to any of the Earth mammals, even honey badgers! :P

However, the Hymenoptera and other eusocial insects exhibit rather remarkable degrees of social coordination and complexity which are achieved in species largely incapable of learning, apparently completely lacking in individual identity or a sense of self, and apart from behavioral nepotism which bears more resemblance to "immune function" than to anything like empathy, compassion or "solidarity," virtually zero ability to engage in empathy, self-reflection, compassion, restraint, humility, sustainable reward harvesting.

I'd say we are just damn lucky that arthropod designs are so damn good exactly how they are (i.e., WITHOUT 'intelligence') and apparently no adaptive niches ever opened up which selected for more advanced neural apparatus along the lines of a brain-spine elaboration. Had that sort of thing happened in a clade like the wasps or one of the other highly evolved eusocial insects (and assuming other changes that could select for increased body size) a creature something like the "Xenomorph" from the aliens fictional universe is one possible imagined result.

Dinosaurs are of course enigmatic, and their image has changed over the years. Some may have even been caring mothers I suppose. But I think it is pretty obvious that many of them were about as "intelligent" as a crocodile or shark: very good at predating, almost incapable of empathy, self-reflection, compassion, restraint, humility, sustainable reward harvesting. In this case, there are no extant examples of elaborate social cooperation among reptiles so it is an even bigger leap of imagination to envision tyrranical lizard E.T.s . . .

But when we consider the seemingly random sequence of events that led to the elaboration of basic mammalian forms into primates and thence into "highly social primates" (monkeys) and thence into "brainy" primates (apes) and thence into Imperial Apes (humans) . . . well, it almost seems like anything that can happen in evolution has been tried by the Blind Watchmaker at least once . . .

Yes the nuclear membrane was an hard one, it looks like life started early but eukaryotes took 1.5 billions of years
Agree that the rest came more or less by itself.

Think intelligence require an social animal, other humans was far the most complex thing in the stone age. it probably started to become better at getting food and survive but at some point the social effect took over an become the driver, without it you would just get an smart animal, yes  far smarter than an chimpanzee but nothing even close to humans, you probably have some tool use however outside of lot of communication ideas would not spread and get improved. No chance of anything resembling civilization. 
Childcare is just as likely, they take an long time growing up and teaching them that they need to know also take an long time. 
I also wonder if human level intelligence is very rare it has only happened once and had plenty of problems in the start. Yes another mammal might like tree climbing wolfs or dwarf elephants might become intelligence in 30 million years, one issue is that as long as you are an smart animal its easy to loose intelligence again if no huge use for it, birds are very small for their size, however flightless birds are stupid as ostriches. 

Regarding humans and probably aliens too lots if not most of niceness will be cultural. We have seen all sorts among humans, generally the trend has been improvement, more education and more wealth is probably the reason for this, but also an social evolution societies who behave like bloodthirsty lunatics tend to get lots of enemies. 
 

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