Do You BELIEVE there is life outside Earth?

[kerbiloid]

5 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

This is not how palaeolithic groups functioned. Birth control was unnecessary. This view reflects modern day living.

Palaeolithic women did not always have children, that is impossible for groups that move with the herds. Many groups actually might have had a number problem. Women did hunt at least in the upper palaeolithic

As I can see, you always talk about palaeolythic people in past tense.
Don't we have living examples now?
Didn't we have living examples in near past (say, North American)?

Move with herds? Which herds? Herding as farming appeared in neolythic age.

Edited December 10, 2017 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

This is not how palaeolithic groups functioned. Birth control was unnecessary. This view reflects modern day living.

Palaeolithic women did not always have children, that is impossible for groups that move with the herds. Many groups actually might have had a number problem. Women did hunt at least in the upper palaeolithic.

This, note that one reason why humans live so long after stopped reproducing is that old people works well for camp chores and teaching kids. 
And we have lots of historical records from hunter gatherer societies the last 200 years from all over the world, it would be a lot of variations. 

[Green Baron]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

As I can see, you always talk about palaeolythic people in past tense.

I did so here in reaction to @PB666's statements about the palaeolithic (p). Eurasian p ended with end of the Pleistocene age and the beginning of the Holocene. It was a complete change of lifestyle. The p is followed by the mesolithic period.

Africa and the Americas is different, i know too little about the far east like China to give a definitive statement.

Quote

Don't we have living examples now?

No. Only analogies. Anthropologists in the 19th and 20th century worked with late hunter/gatherer groups, especially the circumpolar people and African groups.

Quote

Didn't we have living examples in near past (say, North American)?

Nope. North American Indian lifestyle was different of how we archaeologists think that p. lifestyle in the Pleistocene was. I limit myself here to modern humans (homo sapiens sapiens) in the late Pleistocene, like ~45000 to ~12000bp. That picture is quite clear, though it spans different cultural and technological appearances in a changing environment.

Quote

Move with herds? Which herds? Herding as farming appeared in neolythic age.

Nope. Herds are as old as animals. A herd does not need a shepherd, a shepherd simply uses the naturally built in ability of animals to life and strive in large numbers. Only if the animals are able to multiply under human control can we speak of "herding" or better domestication. Antelopes for example, though living naturally in herds, cannot be domesticated because they multiply while running around.

Wild herds are a natural appearance, the large number and uniform appearance secures survival in the food pyramid.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Green Baron

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

This, note that one reason why humans live so long after stopped reproducing is that old people works well for camp chores and teaching kids. 

The role of the grandparents in human evolution :-) Actually worth studying !

Quote

And we have lots of historical records from hunter gatherer societies the last 200 years from all over the world, it would be a lot of variations. 

Absolutely.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Green Baron

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

I did so here in reaction to @PB666's statements about the palaeolithic (p). Eurasian p ended with end of the Pleistocene age and the beginning of the Holocene. It was a complete change of lifestyle. The p is followed by the mesolithic period.

Africa and the Americas is different, i know too little about the far east like China to give a definitive statement.

No. Only analogies. Anthropologists in the 19th and 20th century worked with late hunter/gatherer groups, especially the circumpolar people and African groups.

Nope. North American Indian lifestyle was different of how we archaeologists think that p. lifestyle in the Pleistocene was. I limit myself here to modern humans (homo sapiens sapiens) in the late Pleistocene, like ~45000 to ~12000bp. That picture is quite clear, though it spans different cultural and technological appearances in a changing environment.

Nope. Herds are as old as animals. A herd does not need a shepherd, a shepherd simply uses the naturally built in ability of animals to life and strive in large numbers. Only if the animals are able to multiply under human control can we speak of "herding" or better domestication. Antelopes for example, though living naturally in herds, cannot be domesticated because they multiply while running around.

Wild herds are a natural appearance, the large number and uniform appearance secures survival in the food pyramid.

North American Indian culture was post apocalyptic. Population had crashed because of diseases so the old kingdoms had fallen apart and nobody remembered them after the chaos. 
Many went back to being hunter gatherers as population fell so low and it was easier. 

True about herds, fish shoal works the same way making this older than the dinosaurs. Reindeer is an interesting side case, they do their migrations while being at pretty domesticated as in tolerate humans and can even be used as draft animals. 
 

[PB666]

4 hours ago, Green Baron said:

It is not, it is, of course, 1:1. Palaeolithic spans 2.6 million years and different species, the concept "typical" is not applicable at all. Where is that from ? Modern day polygamic subcultures spread such nonsense.

Eh ? Source please ! We can discuss an example in the Asian solutrean where women's bones are stronger than men's, but there is no "tendency" and no "matriarchy" !

No houses in the palaeolithic, no rulers in assumed equal societies  ! The whole statement makes no sense at all.

And no villages ! You are confusing some very basic things here !

That is a somewhat chauvinistic view with comical elements. We do not know who hunts and there clearly is no war in the palaeolithic. Magdalenian depictions show women hunting as well. "Man, the hunter" is an outdated view strongly influenced by modern culture of the 60s, where in the public view men went to work and women stayed at home. That is modern times ! And the whole thing was of course overthrown quickly.

Again: no villages in palaeolithic, no murder. Big pile of confusion here ! If there is a consistent feature over the (Eurasian upper) palaeolithic then that of very slowly developing (10.000s of years) mobile groups and occupation of landscapes.

But i can show you neolithic (not palaeolithic) places where things are exactly opposite to what you say, women are missing !

Source please ! Because there is an ongoing discussion in archaeology about the time when humans reached the Americas ! Human presence may be older than that and voyages across the Bering straight may have taken place several times. The concept of single groups erring around is surely not the correct view.

 

Really, sir, you should overwork this ! It is far from everything science has worked out !

 

It is 2 fem : 1 male based on the genetics (I stick by this, you need to do more research). That is an average in some peoples there are no cohesive breeding units, in other places its 1:1. The unit does not have to be chronologically intact, it can male can have a mate for one period lose her and acquire another. This is the  reason mitochondrial eve coalesces later and adam (although less so now than it used to be, so it might actually be 1.5:1). It has also been noted in the merger of cultures were males have annihilated they xeno-male counterparts (or collective wife stealing incidences). Matriarchy has the advantage in many cultures that send the males out to 'prove' themselves, the resources under the control of the women. Males then join other groups (cause 50 individuals is too small to retain genetic viability over long periods). Oh yes, there were houses, people carried their houses with them, in the same way that nomadic reindeer herding groups in siberia carry their houses. This was particularly true in Europe where the winters were devistatingly cold, there are sites in Europe that have evidence of prolonged and repeated habitation at spots. Europe was not one climate in the ice age, it was a generally bad climate that became worse from time to time, and peoples would migrate back to the refuges in Iberia, then flow out, this of course was late paleolithic behavior. (off topic however in this group so  . . . )

When you say village, what you mean is a permanent habitation. The late paleolithic is characterized by activities of individuals generally in the lead up to the end of the Younger dryas. This basically means for Europe if you build a permanent settlement outside of the ice-age refuges, your group was dead. But they did travel out with the protection of mobile habitats (i.e. the village moved), they did keep them and repitch these places in France (some areas showing long durations) as they harvested favored resources (one of the questions is what did people do when they were not at the site since 95% of their carbon came from seafood, did they simply move to another warmer site in iberia). In the Mesolithic however, the major focus of what I was talking about things began to change, there was alot of trading going on. Mesolithic people were very mobile, but that does not mean they lack favored places of camping out, the difference between Neolithic and Mesolithic peoples left the sometime harsh conditions of N.Central Europe. But there is one major difference, the Mesolithich people drafted trade even with Neolithic into these migrations. In Europe you see migrating tracks of items that come from the Black Sea, Iberia, Ionian sea that cycle in and out of different parts of C and Western Europe.

Which Neolithic Europe are you talking about, there is the LBK, there is the Iberian mesolithic/neolithic transition, there are two French neolithic cultures, there is the Iron gorges culture, there is the Ionian neolithic there is invisible transition that takes place in anatolia (cultivation for them begins 12 kabp). But this is off-topic, the minutia of how intelligent culture from one spot to the next on earth is immaterial

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

This, note that one reason why humans live so long after stopped reproducing is that old people works well for camp chores and teaching kids. 
And we have lots of historical records from hunter gatherer societies the last 200 years from all over the world, it would be a lot of variations. 

Yep, tremendous amounts of cultural variation. Only the genetics show us what the averages are.

[PB666]

46 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

North American Indian culture was post apocalyptic. Population had crashed because of diseases so the old kingdoms had fallen apart and nobody remembered them after the chaos. 
Many went back to being hunter gatherers as population fell so low and it was easier. 

True about herds, fish shoal works the same way making this older than the dinosaurs. Reindeer is an interesting side case, they do their migrations while being at pretty domesticated as in tolerate humans and can even be used as draft animals. 
 

Not always the truth, some of them became nomadic (e.g. the pueblo revolt - Apaches - they wanted the horses) because of European culture not in-spite of it. There are several sites of continuous NA settlement in New Mexico. Europeans were arrogant and abusive and often failed to recognize the contribution of NA culture, some groups took offense and went back into the jungles (Lacodan Maya, Achue as examples). Many settled native American farming groups don't exist any more, that is because they are American (waves hand). Compatible cultures do that sort of thing. If Mexico was purely a colonial state, when New Spain was forced to severe ties with Spain during the Napoleanic period, they would have rejoin Spain afterwards, but that is not what happened. If you look at Mexico per say, its 5 or 6 million NA population dropped to 100,000 individuals,  but now Mexico (about 2/3rds native American by gene weight) is 100s of millions. At some point after Cortez 'broke' the population it did rebound in great numbers. This gets into a basic problem with colonials, not all . . .For example the Basque were extremely well suited for pastoral agriculture and fishing in Northern Mexico, but colonial settlements north of the Rio grande faired poorly for 200 years, people were given huge land grants . . and left back to Spain. If you are going to settle in someone else's territory (planet) you better make sure you have studied the culture well or you might end up on the menu.
The Comanche had a bad habit of allowing the settlers to recover gain livestock, breed horses . . . .and then they would attack steal women, cows and horses take off and not be seen again for 20 years. The utes were a fairly quite culture that occupied the high plains area of western US until the colonials came, then their splinter groups blossomed or less like Atilla the Hun.

BTW. Its not just NA groups. Slaves sent to Caribbean Islands revolted and resettled in Honduras, slave groups in South America revolted and resettled in the jungles.

Edited December 10, 2017 by PB666

[Green Baron]

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

It is 2 fem : 1 male based on the genetics (I stick by this, you need to do more research).

No, sir. The ratio of male to female births is around 0.51 to 0.49.

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/16/E2102

Or, in simpler words, there are 101 males to 100 females born in general all over the world. We have no reason that this was fundamentally different in prehistoric times.

If you have different data then bring it on !

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

 It has also been noted in the merger of cultures were males have annihilated they xeno-male counterparts (or collective wife stealing incidences).

Not in the palaeolithic. That's modern stuff. And sounds, to be honest, a little lurid.

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Matriarchy has the advantage in many cultures that send the males out to 'prove' themselves, the resources under the control of the women.

Not in the palaeolithic. Matriarchy for example in wary culture. It is not oberved in "many" cultures.

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Males then join other groups (cause 50 individuals is too small to retain genetic viability over long periods). Oh yes, there were houses, people carried their houses with them, in the same way that nomadic reindeer herding groups in siberia carry their houses.

This has nothing to do with the palaeolithic.

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

This was particularly true in Europe where the winters were devistatingly cold, there are sites in Europe that have evidence of prolonged and repeated habitation at spots. Europe was not one climate in the ice age, it was a generally bad climate that became worse from time to time, and peoples would migrate back to the refuges in Iberia, then flow out, this of course was late paleolithic behavior. (off topic however in this group so  . . . )

What do you want to say ? I miss a point ? I know well about the climate in Europe during the past 250,000 years with local variations. Leads to far here.

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

When you say village, what you mean is a permanent habitation. The late paleolithic is characterized by activities of individuals generally in the lead up to the end of the Younger dryas.

???

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

This basically means for Europe if you build a permanent settlement outside of the ice-age refuges,

There.are.no.settlements. Why is it so difficult to understand that ?

There are seasonal yurts (Gönnersdorf) in the Magdalenian.

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

 But they did travel out with the protection of mobile habitats (i.e. the village moved),

There.are.no.villages. Give me one source, only one, sir ! A peer reviewed paper !

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

they did keep them and repitch these places in France (some areas showing long durations) as they harvested favored resources (one of the questions is what did people do when they were not at the site since 95% of their carbon came from seafood, did they simply move to another warmer site in iberia).

??? What exact cultural appearance are you referring to ? Sounds mixed up to me ...

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

In the Mesolithic however, the major focus of what I was talking about things began to change, there was alot of trading going on. Mesolithic people were very mobile, but that does not mean they lack favored places of camping out,

In the late Mesolithic, maybe. In the beginning not. You confuse and lump different things together here ...

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

the difference between Neolithic and Mesolithic peoples left the sometime harsh conditions of N.Central Europe.

Climate was exceptionally well then, warm and moist. Early holocene climate optimum ;-) No harsh conditions nowhere at that time. I get the feeling you just type something out of the wrist without actually reflecting. Is that so ?

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

But there is one major difference, the Mesolithich people drafted trade even with Neolithic into these migrations. In Europe you see migrating tracks of items that come from the Black Sea, Iberia, Ionian sea that cycle in and out of different parts of C and Western Europe.

I know well, i have studied that ;-)

6 minutes ago, PB666 said:

Which Neolithic Europe are you talking about,

No, sir, which palaeolithic were you talking about when writing down your statements ?

 

[Kerbal7]

With so many stars and planets, I have no doubt there is life somewhere out there.

But, with the vast distances involved, I doubt we'll meet it anytime soon. 

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

No, sir. The ratio of male to female births is around 0.51 to 0.49.

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/16/E2102

Or, in simpler words, there are 101 males to 100 females born in general all over the world. We have no reason that this was fundamentally different in prehistoric times.

If you have different data then bring it on !

Not in the palaeolithic. That's modern stuff. And sounds, to be honest, a little lurid.

Not in the palaeolithic. Matriarchy for example in wary culture. It is not oberved in "many" cultures.

This has nothing to do with the palaeolithic.

What do you want to say ? I miss a point ? I know well about the climate in Europe during the past 250,000 years with local variations. Leads to far here.

???

There.are.no.settlements. Why is it so difficult to understand that ?

There are seasonal yurts (Gönnersdorf) in the Magdalenian.

There.are.no.villages. Give me one source, only one, sir ! A peer reviewed paper !

??? What exact cultural appearance are you referring to ? Sounds mixed up to me ...

In the late Mesolithic, maybe. In the beginning not. You confuse and lump different things together here ...

Climate was exceptionally well then, warm and moist. Early holocene climate optimum ;-) No harsh conditions nowhere at that time. I get the feeling you just type something out of the wrist without actually reflecting. Is that so ?

I know well, i have studied that ;-)

No, sir, which palaeolithic were you talking about when writing down your statements ?

 

I see you are looking to pick a fight so I will deal with your aversion to facts one step at a time.

Have you never heard of effective breeding ratios? N_e Is this the first time? because its been used in the Molecular anthropology literature since Brown et al. 1979, and after that in 1988 by Vigilante et al and so on. Go look up effective breeding populations, after you have spent a few days researching it we can talk about it. When you talk about breeding ratios you are not talking about birth ratios, thats a different thing. You seem to have no familiarity at all with molecular phylogenetics.

While you are at it look at climate conditions in Europe during the Younger Dryas.

"The Younger Dryas is a climatic event from c. 12,900 to c. 11,700 years ago (BP). It is named after an indicator genus, the alpine-tundra wildflower Dryas octopetala, as its leaves are occasionally abundant in the Late Glacial, often minerogenic-rich, like the lake sediments of Scandinavian lakes. Physical evidence of a sharp decline in temperature over most of the Northern Hemisphere, discovered by geological research, has been the key physical evidence found for the Younger Dryas. This temperature change occurred at the end of what the earth sciences refer to as the Pleistocene epoch and immediately before the current, warmer Holocene epoch. In the social sciences, this time frame coincides with the final stages of the Upper Paleolithic." The global optimum occurred about 9000 years before present, however the stand rate did not inflect until after the optimum and continental glaciers were still melting in the Irish Sea, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. While the climate of the entire world generally stabilized after the Younger Dryas, in Europe the climate was not particularly stable until almost the onset of the C.European Neolithic ~7800 years ago. To be fair it was nearly stable about 8500 years ago but then again there is evidence of bovid culture in England about the same time. There are a couple of reasons, before and following the Younger Dryas Europe is characterized by dense pine forest, its not a particularly good place to support humans, and most of the populations subsist on sea-food. (you can look up the literature), within the period that follows the conifers slowly give way to deciduous trees such as Hazelnut, Oak . . . . . . )

As for sources, I am preoccupied going through the on-topic video collection of Isaac Arthur so you will have to wait until I vacuum my papers so I can breath long enough to quote them. Plus it will give you a chance to control your emotions.

 

 

[Green Baron]

17 minutes ago, PB666 said:

I see you are looking to pick a fight so I will deal with your aversion to facts one step at a time.

Have you never heard of effective breeding ratios? N_e Is this the first time? because its been used in the Molecular anthropology literature since Brown et al. 1979, and after that in 1988 by Vigilante et al and so on. Go look up effective breeding populations, after you have spent a few days researching it we can talk about it. When you talk about breeding ratios you are not talking about birth ratios, thats a different thing. You seem to have no familiarity at all with molecular phylogenetics.

Correct. I am not. I didn't even understand the PCR method because i refused to see why a multiplication of the same information is a gain. These guys then scoffed at me, went into a laboratory with their neanderthal bones and came back with the triumph that neanderthal and humans never interbread ! The genes had spoken.

Every classic archaeologist was baffled because it was against anything we had worked out before. It took 5 years and the same people (lets call them svantesians), now a little wiser, turned to the opposite side, the light side if i may so so, claiming that we all have 20% (or so, don't cite me) neanderthal genome in us. The world was as it should be :-)

Still, it is general knowledge that the ratio of males and females is roughly one to one, in almost all sexual species, and humans aren't special. Mormons and religious Islams do not accept this. That gives you enough room for opposition i guess :-)

As to climate, unnecessary to tell me, i have all the data here ;-)

 

Your statements were:

- sexual ration 0,5 to 1 (see above)

- matriarchy in palaeolithic

- war and herding in palaelothic

- men missing in mass murder in palaeolithic

- villages and housing in the palaeolithic

I have criticised that heftily, partly backed with actual research in the field. If we can focus on these initial points, maybe moving the discussion to email, i'll be happy go on with the dispute. If not, then i will back up because pointless.

Says the good(*cough*) old

Green Baron

Edited December 10, 2017 by Green Baron

[PB666]

2 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Correct. I am not. I didn't even understand the PCR method because i refused to see why a multiplication of the same information is a gain. These guys then scoffed at me, went into a laboratory with their neanderthal bones and came back with the triumph that neanderthal and humans never interbread ! The genes had spoken.

Then you don't apply ecological models to humans, which makes archaeology a soft science.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, PB666 said:

Not always the truth, some of them became nomadic (e.g. the pueblo revolt - Apaches - they wanted the horses) because of European culture not in-spite of it. There are several sites of continuous NA settlement in New Mexico. Europeans were arrogant and abusive and often failed to recognize the contribution of NA culture, some groups took offense and went back into the jungles (Lacodan Maya, Achue as examples). Many settled native American farming groups don't exist any more, that is because they are American (waves hand). Compatible cultures do that sort of thing. If Mexico was purely a colonial state, when New Spain was forced to severe ties with Spain during the Napoleanic period, they would have rejoin Spain afterwards, but that is not what happened. If you look at Mexico per say, its 5 or 6 million NA population dropped to 100,000 individuals,  but now Mexico (about 2/3rds native American by gene weight) is 100s of millions. At some point after Cortez 'broke' the population it did rebound in great numbers. This gets into a basic problem with colonials, not all . . .For example the Basque were extremely well suited for pastoral agriculture and fishing in Northern Mexico, but colonial settlements north of the Rio grande faired poorly for 200 years, people were given huge land grants . . and left back to Spain. If you are going to settle in someone else's territory (planet) you better make sure you have studied the culture well or you might end up on the menu.
The Comanche had a bad habit of allowing the settlers to recover gain livestock, breed horses . . . .and then they would attack steal women, cows and horses take off and not be seen again for 20 years. The utes were a fairly quite culture that occupied the high plains area of western US until the colonials came, then their splinter groups blossomed or less like Atilla the Hun.

BTW. Its not just NA groups. Slaves sent to Caribbean Islands revolted and resettled in Honduras, slave groups in South America revolted and resettled in the jungles.

With horses it became easy to go after buffalo as you could intercept, why work harder for you food than you have to
And this was just some groups, other farmed, the Cherokee was so effective assimilating new ideas they scared the colonists and got hit hard. 
North america had higher causality because of diseases hit harder or population and town size was lower from the start creating an total breakdown.
Comanche looks like standard steppe nomad behavior. 

The Spanish put themselves up as lord of the conquered country in an pretty standard pattern for invaders. Yes they was very brutal even for conquerors, but they did not kill the population they did not have the numbers even if they wanted to, disease killed the population. After the diseases population rebound but then the Spanish had an power structure in place. 

[GoSlash27]

All of this arguing back and forth about human behavior in the paleolithic is fascinating and all... but I fail to see the relevance.

Best,
-Slashy

[PB666]

1 minute ago, magnemoe said:

The Spanish put themselves up as lord of the conquered country in an pretty standard pattern for invaders. Yes they was very brutal even for conquerors, but they did not kill the population they did not have the numbers even if they wanted to, disease killed the population. After the diseases population rebound but then the Spanish had an power structure in place. 

Yes but the structure began to erode. First because New Spain tried to control Spanish holdings from Africa to the Philippines. Second political instability in Europe undermined their control. Third, while New Spain was an Iberian holding, the church was an Italian holding, and basically during the second revolt the church to the side of the colonist and Spain lost. You throw in a megalomaniac like Santa Ana and you have an independent colony.

This will always be a problem in colonies. Similar processes took place in the Americas between England and the Colonist.  If we talk about where the middle east problem came from, people in the west tend to think of it as a Palestinian problem in origin, but that is not true, the problem started with the Mandates (which was in a sense a deflating colonialism) which then broke down because of purely European events (the rise of nationalism in Europe). The irony of the palestinian problem is that palestine never existed, the Ottoman empire broke down, it became a mandate as part of transJordon, which then crumbled in 1948 despite the intervention of the United Nations. In effect the west so messed up transjordon that will of the entire world could not fix it. We talk about Hamas and the PLO as the 'enemy', the enemy can be found in Wilson, Rothchilds, a variety of British Prime Ministers.

This brings up at least one important Sci-Fi context, the prime directive, if you find intelligence you either prepare to exterminate because you think its a threat or you leave it alone until its prepared to meet you on some sort of level playing field.

 

Just now, GoSlash27 said:

All of this arguing back and forth about human behavior in the paleolithic is fascinating and all... but I fail to see the relevance.

Best,
-Slashy

exactly

[Green Baron]

14 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

All of this arguing back and forth about human behavior in the paleolithic is fascinating and all... but I fail to see the relevance.

Best,
-Slashy

Hi,

you are, of course, correct.

The relevance, if there is one in the context of a nice game forum, a forum of a nice game, nice people in a forum of a game and so on, is that we should be able and willing to correct ... incorrect assumptions :-)

 

I still do not believe in life outside earth. Mainly because i am not that much into believing. But i am looking forward to what the future has in store :-)

[Piatzin]

29 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

I still do not believe in life outside earth

GASP

Any friendship we might have had is now forfeit

~Earthlinger, AKA Random Stranger

[magnemoe]

13 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Hi,

you are, of course, correct.

The relevance, if there is one in the context of a nice game forum, a forum of a nice game, nice people in a forum of a game and so on, is that we should be able and willing to correct ... incorrect assumptions :-)

 

I still do not believe in life outside earth. Mainly because i am not that much into believing. But i am looking forward to what the future has in store :-)

Future telescopes will give pretty good answers within 15 years.
Intelligent life, my old joke render is probably the most realistic fist contact scenario https://i.imgur.com/QNnA8iM.png

Its an remarkable lack of dyson spheres or similar. 

 

[Green Baron]

8 minutes ago, Earthlinger said:

GASP

Any friendship we might have had is now forfeit

~Earthlinger, AKA Random Stranger

:-) you mean friendship with hypothetical aliens ?

Hmm, otoh a hundred ways of conquering earth for its resources/water/air/women/fun/because-the-script-said-so are averted.

 

[Piatzin]

1 minute ago, Green Baron said:

Hmm, otoh a hundred ways of conquering earth for its resources/water/air/women/fun/because-the-script-said-so are averted.

I doubt any hypothetical aliens would come to earth for resources. There's no reason for it. It'd be much easier to make some sort of molecular assembler, and manufacture elements from other elements.

Rearrange the structure of atoms, and one could technically make any element by simply adding or removing protons/neutrons/electrons.

[Green Baron]

7 minutes ago, Earthlinger said:

I doubt any hypothetical aliens would come to earth for resources. There's no reason for it. It'd be much easier to make some sort of molecular assembler, and manufacture elements from other elements.

Rearrange the structure of atoms, and one could technically make any element by simply adding or removing protons/neutrons/electrons.

Well, Star Trek's replicator. Makes for an easy living ("Tea, hot !") and nice scripts like first-coffee-then-cup ... something is wrong.

Edited December 10, 2017 by Green Baron

[kerbiloid]

I believe, if we want to meet really hi-tech aliens, we should stop searching the Earth-like planets, Dyson spheres and other bucolic stuff and pay attention for the neutron stars and especially for the dissipating remains of their collisions.

Who needs that Earth when you can send space scoops right into a heavy metal cloud and collect several earths of gold, uranium, so on.
Who needs AU-sized dyson spheres when you can build a 30 km swarm of magnetic receivers-transmitters around a pulsar.
And also produce or collect antimatter there as much as you want.

10 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

and nice scripts like first-coffee-then-cup ...

Powered by asynchronous JavaScript.

Edited December 10, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Green Baron]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Powered by JavaScript.

Another reason to disable it :-))

[Diche Bach]

On 12/9/2017 at 2:50 PM, GoSlash27 said:

YNM,

 That's the thing about theories; there's always room for improvement.

The fact that there are so few intelligent species on this planet despite all the biodiversity and time leads me to conclude that intelligence is simply not something that natural selection tends to select for. Thus... the higher apes and humans must've developed the hardware for intelligence as a byproduct of some other selection, and only after began to breed to select higher intelligence.

 If that's the case then it's reasonable to conclude that, while life may be abundant on other planets, intelligent life is liable to be a fluke just as it is here.

Best,
-Slashy

I wanted to respond to that bit I put in bold and italic. I would propose an alternative perspective, not as an authoritative final word or necessarily as a rebuttal to the idea, but as food for thought.

First let me change the sentence to reflect a message that I think is less  . . . controversial ""The fact that there are so many intelligent species who lack the special types of human psychological abilities . . ." There. That probably conveys at least some of the idea. But just to toss out a few more tidbits (as I'm not in a mind to produce a dissertation like PB666 is gifted at doing!  )

Chimpanzees HAVE CULTURE

Honey Bees can communicate navigational data to one another.

Bats have the most sophisticated sonic analysis software imaginable between their ears.

Dogs are better at detecting trace scents than any machine that can compare in terms of cost, size, and versatility.

Sharks can smell prey miles away.

Whales can communicate across thousands of miles of ocean

Migratory species somehow manage to find their way

 . . . on and on we could list scores if not hundreds of examples of the other animals of Earth doing things that no human can do and in many cases which our machines cannot even do as well as the animals.

Yes, we humans are exceptionally gifted at symbolic association, symbolic creativity, productivity and displacement and derived from these unique imaginative abilities, we (unlike apparently all other animals of Earth aside from MAYBE [though unlikely] some of the cetaceans) have full-blown theory of mind. You know who among humans really excel at all of these abilities!?  Psychopaths! Difficult to accept I reckon, but there it is: in terms of high levels of mastery at the core abilities that arguably define human intelligence, it is those among us whom we would wish were NOT among us who seem to consistently excel the most! 

Quite a few other animals have some degrees of capability in one or more of these abilities, but none seem to come anywhere near we humans. We are imaginative symbol makers and I would argue that, most of our native notions of "intelligence" center on these abilities, but at the expense of failing to acknowledge that many other animals have similarly largely innate, though facultatively learned abilities at which we suck. Try to learn to distinguish the thousands of other bats signals from your own so that you can navigate without light; you will fail. You lack the brains and other organs to even compete on that index of "intelligence" just as all of us humans do.

The other things we humans have which are not so much related to our central nervous system abilities as to overall bauplan and physiology: upright posture-> hands-free locomotion->more fully opposable thumbs->precision grip-> incredible hand-eye coordination-> amazing shoulder mobility = tool making and missile throwing forelimbs.

And all of this is to say nothing of the myriad dimensions "intelligence" can take even within humans.

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Diche Bach said:

I wanted to respond to that bit I put in bold and italic. I would propose an alternative perspective, not as an authoritative final word or necessarily as a rebuttal to the idea, but as food for thought.

First let me change the sentence to reflect a message that I think is less  . . . controversial ""The fact that there are so many intelligent species who lack the special types of human psychological abilities . . ." There. That probably conveys at least some of the idea. But just to toss out a few more tidbits (as I'm not in a mind to produce a dissertation like PB666 is gifted at doing!  )

Chimpanzees HAVE CULTURE

Honey Bees can communicate navigational data to one another.

Bats have the most sophisticated sonic analysis software imaginable between their ears.

Dogs are better at detecting trace scents than any machine that can compare in terms of cost, size, and versatility.

Sharks can smell prey miles away.

Whales can communicate across thousands of miles of ocean

Migratory species somehow manage to find their way

 . . . on and on we could list scores if not hundreds of examples of the other animals of Earth doing things that no human can do and in many cases which our machines cannot even do as well as the animals.

Yes, we humans are exceptionally gifted at symbolic association, symbolic creativity, productivity and displacement and derived from these unique imaginative abilities, we (unlike apparently all other animals of Earth aside from MAYBE [though unlikely] some of the cetaceans) have full-blown theory of mind. You know who among humans really excel at all of these abilities!?  Psychopaths! Difficult to accept I reckon, but there it is: in terms of high levels of mastery at the core abilities that arguably define human intelligence, it is those among us whom we would wish were NOT among us who seem to consistently excel the most! 

Quite a few other animals have some degrees of capability in one or more of these abilities, but none seem to come anywhere near we humans. We are imaginative symbol makers and I would argue that, most of our native notions of "intelligence" center on these abilities, but at the expense of failing to acknowledge that many other animals have similarly largely innate, though facultatively learned abilities at which we suck. Try to learn to distinguish the thousands of other bats signals from your own so that you can navigate without light; you will fail. You lack the brains and other organs to even compete on that index of "intelligence" just as all of us humans do.

The other things we humans have which are not so much related to our central nervous system abilities as to overall bauplan and physiology: upright posture-> hands-free locomotion->more fully opposable thumbs->precision grip-> incredible hand-eye coordination-> amazing shoulder mobility = tool making and missile throwing forelimbs.

And all of this is to say nothing of the myriad dimensions "intelligence" can take even within humans.

You mean like the whale intelligence in Star Trek series. You have the metric wrong.

To be intelligent of a level meaningful in a xenobiotic context you left out one very important point that most of these other examples lack in magnitudes. Humans are one of the most manipulative, environmentally exploitative, resource-heavy dependencies of any species that has ever lived on the planet. We leverage our intelligence with machines, beasts of burden, irrigation systems, roads, shipping. The most social ant in the world cannot skype another ant on the otherside of the world asking for advice on how to deal with anteaters. Other animals manage to leverage their cognitive facilities in a few directions. Crows are of advanced EQ and they can take clams and bust them on rocks, find clever ways out of cages, octopus are great at getting into things and escape and mimicry artist. Dolphins are able to sense prey blind and feed as if they had x-ray vision. Wolves work together in packs to take down prey several time their composite size. All these measures of skill and learning are not to be discounted. But the day the first human sat down and crafted an adze, hollowed out a canoe and went beyond the line of site to a new land, where he and his mate(s) learned to exploit new resources human-kind would see the power of serial problem solving that is magnitudes above the manipulative ability, at its peak in societies, compared to other animals. This is why we are here talking about these things and crows are not. There have been many crow level species since the dawn of the Earth, there has only been one space-race.