What things would be universal knowledge among intelligent civilizations?

[bradley101]

Binary would be a start as any civilization that had invented computers would us binary as it is easiest for a computer to use but what else?

[Ralathon]

Depends how far they are along their development of course. Humanity was an intelligent civilization 10k years ago, but nobody knew binary at that point.

Anyway, all natural science and mathematics should be available to any intelligent civilization. The interpretations may differ, but the rules of the universe are the same regardless of where you are.

The concept of language and some form of information storage (books, computer memory w/e) are also likely to occur. It seems rather difficult to me to make a functioning and complex society without those. The language doesn't have to be based on sounds and posture like ours, but they certainly need some way to transfer info.

[lajoswinkler]

What's the level of development we're discussing here? Civilizations capable of sending messages into space? Or just self-aware people living in groups, starting to paint and count, etc.?

[-Velocity-]

I would think that the laws of physics and math would be pretty universal, as they are the "operating system" of the universe, and we all live in the same universe. Once they decoded our own particular way of representing mathematical equations, intelligent civilizations that are as advanced or more advanced than us should recognize Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, Relativity, etc. While these sets of laws are not the full description of the universe, they are simplifications (even Newtonian physics is very accurate under most conditions) to whatever the full description of the universe really is, and they should recognize them for what they are. We haven't been able to unify Relativity and quantum mechanics largely because these laws are such good approximations for how the universe really works that we have, as yet, been unable to make an experiment that defies their predictions.

[sojourner]

The periodic chart. the atomic makeup of elements are universal.

[Moon Goddess]

As asked before how far in their development, and additionally are you asking what are things that are universal to their life, such as the periodic table, or universally known, such as things fall down.

No matter where they are in their development the laws of physics works the same for them, and so as soon as they group together and star being self aware they'll figure out things fall, but it will be much much longer till they work out how gravity works.

[Omicron314]

I don't doubt that nuclear weaponry is or was used at some point in nearly every civilization's history. I mean, once you learn that matter is comprised of atoms, which are held together by enormous amounts of energy, it doesn't take such a huge intellectual leap to say: "This would make a pretty awesome bomb."

So if an alien civilization invades, nuclear weaponry will in all likelihood be completely ineffective. Sorry, Hollywood.

[bradley101]

Binary would be a start as any civilization that had invented computers would us binary as it is easiest for a computer to use but what else?

I am thinking allow the lines of a civilization of our level of technology or at the most a partly devloped type two civilazation.

[Diche Bach]

Depends how far they are along their development of course. Humanity was an intelligent civilization 10k years ago, but nobody knew binary at that point.

Anyway, all natural science and mathematics should be available to any intelligent civilization. The interpretations may differ, but the rules of the universe are the same regardless of where you are.

The concept of language and some form of information storage (books, computer memory w/e) are also likely to occur. It seems rather difficult to me to make a functioning and complex society without those. The language doesn't have to be based on sounds and posture like ours, but they certainly need some way to transfer info.

Actually! one of Claude Levi-Strauss'es most famous theories of "primitive culture" was that it was universally based on "binary opposition!

What Lévi-Strauss believed he had discovered when he examined the relations between mythemes was that a myth consists of juxtaposed binary oppositions. Oedipus, for example, consists of the overrating of blood relations and the underrating of blood relations, the autochthonous origin of humans and the denial of their autochthonous origin. Influenced by Hegel, Lévi-Strauss believed that the human mind thinks fundamentally in these binary oppositions and their unification (the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad), and that these are what make meaning possible. Furthermore, he considered the job of myth to be a sleight of hand, an association of an irreconcilable binary opposition with a reconcilable binary opposition, creating the illusion, or belief, that the former had been resolved.[20]

So even if people had not explicitly stated a formal binary theory of information that manifested in a form like modern computer science, it is arguable that an implicit or broadly symbolic intuition for binary opposition is at the heart of all human culture

[bradley101]

Would their interpretation or the rules of mathematics and physics influence their inventions?

[Ralathon]

I don't doubt that nuclear weaponry is or was used at some point in nearly every civilization's history. I mean, once you learn that matter is comprised of atoms, which are held together by enormous amounts of energy, it doesn't take such a huge intellectual leap to say: "This would make a pretty awesome bomb."

So if an alien civilization invades, nuclear weaponry will in all likelihood be completely ineffective. Sorry, Hollywood.

You're assuming the civilization consists of creatures that compete with one another. A safe bet (most creatures on earth work like that) but an alien civilization doesn't have to play by our rules. It could very well be a superorganism where the collective is very advanced, but the individual workers barely have brains. Kind of like beehives or anthills. If every drone on the planet is part of that superorganism there is absolutely no reason to make nukes. Guns or some equivalent are more than enough to survive against the wilderness.

[Moon Goddess]

Binary would be a start as any civilization that had invented computers would us binary as it is easiest for a computer to use but what else?

Also I should point out, Ternary computers -1, 0, +1, are possible, have certain advantages over binary, and while being harder to make electronically where a thing when mechanical computer were a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer

So if a species does grow up with Ternary mechanical computers, I can see them going to the effort of making ternary electronic computers. So even Binary wouldn't be a universal communication method.

[Ralathon]

Also I should point out, Ternary computers -1, 0, +1, are possible, have certain advantages over binary, and while being harder to make electronically where a thing when mechanical computer were a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer

So if a species does grow up with Ternary mechanical computers, I can see them going to the effort of making ternary electronic computers. So even Binary wouldn't be a universal communication method.

I think that if a civilization gets to the point that it understands the complicated mathematics and algorithms involved in computer science that base conversion isn't going to pose much of a challenge to them. They would probably figure out pretty quickly what's going on when we start talking to them in binary.

[cantorobriar]

Just think about how we are discovering new minerals and such. This means that the periodic chart is undoubtley incomplete, so this is NOT a universal thing. Some things in math, like the fibonnanci sequence, can be used to create shapes. The fibonnanci sequence played a role in building the Parthenon, and several other masterpieces. Which in result, means math is a universal language. Another thing to think about is, what if aliens ARE NOT as advanced as humans? Maybe instead of aliens coming to us, we will develop means to go to them first?

[-Velocity-]

I don't doubt that nuclear weaponry is or was used at some point in nearly every civilization's history. I mean, once you learn that matter is comprised of atoms, which are held together by enormous amounts of energy, it doesn't take such a huge intellectual leap to say: "This would make a pretty awesome bomb."

So if an alien civilization invades, nuclear weaponry will in all likelihood be completely ineffective. Sorry, Hollywood.

We are on the verge of launching telescopes that will be able to characterize the atmospheres of Earth-like planets within a few dozen light years. So, Earth's spectral signature has been SCREAMING "Oxygen!" "Water!" "Biology is here!" "Habitable world!" across hundreds (thousands, really) of light years for any reasonably advanced intelligent civilizations to see for the 2.4 BILLION years it has had an oxygen atmosphere, and yet, here we are, no one has invaded or tried colonization. We only see evidence of one origin of life (as all life shares the same DNA bases, protein chiralities, etc), and any serious alien colonization would have left evidence behind (such as a separate tree of life, artifacts, orbiting structures, etc.).

The only logical reason I can think of for an alien invasion is that they might see us as threats. But why would we be threats to them? Already, the pristine and untouched nature of our ideal habitable world argues against the idea that civilizations expand and colonize habitable worlds. So why would we be viewed as a threat when we would would not seek to expand and try to colonize their worlds, invading their territory?

I find it more likely that advanced alien civilizations, if they exist, do not undergo the expensive process of interstellar travel very often, because you can find billions of years of energy and abundant building materials around your own home star. There's no real need to go ANYWHERE, other than just basic exploration- much of which can be carried out from afar with telescopes anyway.

Edited September 5, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Diche Bach]

You're assuming the civilization consists of creatures that compete with one another. A safe bet (most creatures on earth work like that) but an alien civilization doesn't have to play by our rules. It could very well be a superorganism where the collective is very advanced, but the individual workers barely have brains. Kind of like beehives or anthills. If every drone on the planet is part of that superorganism there is absolutely no reason to make nukes. Guns or some equivalent are more than enough to survive against the wilderness.

It is a very interesting idea that a eusocial organism like a wasp or a bee could could evolve into a sentient form that founded a civilization. As there are no 'intelligent' arthropods on Earth (including all of the eusocial insects) it is a bit difficult to imagine how intelligence and civilization could evolve among such creatures. I think I've read that there are some serious allometric and metabolic limitations to tetrapod invertebrates and that might impose a kind of 'thermodynamic boundary' on how large bodied and intelligent eusocial insect like creatures could evolve to be.

However, there is even one species of eusocial mammal, the naked mole rat. They are quite successful, though not very "intelligent." Given how incredibly effective the eusocial adaptation is for the hymenoptera and ants, it seems puzzling why there are not more eusocial mammals . . .

We are on the verge of launching telescopes that will be able to characterize the atmospheres of Earth-like planets within a few dozen light years. So, Earth's spectral signature has been SCREAMING "Oxygen!" "Water!" "Biology is here!" "Habitable world!" across hundreds (thousands, really) of light years for any intelligent civilizations to see for the 2.4 BILLION years it has had an oxygen atmosphere, and yet, here we are, no one has invaded or tried colonization. We only see evidence of one origin of life (as all life shares the same DNA bases, protein chiralities, etc), and any serious alien colonization would have left evidence behind (such as a separate tree of life, artifacts, orbiting structures, etc.).

The only logical reason I can think of for an alien invasion is that they might see us as threats. But why would we be threats to them? Already, the pristine and untouched nature of our ideal habitable world argues against the idea that civilizations expand and colonize habitable worlds. So why would we be viewed as a threat when we would would not seek to expand and try to colonize their worlds, invading their territory?

I find it more likely that advanced alien civilizations, if they exist, do not undergo the expensive process of interstellar travel very often, because you can find billions of years of energy and abundant building materials around your own home star. There's no real need to go ANYWHERE, other than just basic exploration.

There is also the idea that, the evolution of life might actually be quite rare for a variety of reasons, an idea often referred to as the Rare Earth Hypothesis. To me this is a beautifully parsimonious explanation to the Fermi Paradox.

A corollary of this hypothesis is that, even if life evolves, the emergence of complex biology (1) nucleated cells and (2) multicellular organisms might be equally rare. The fact that life on Earth only developed these astounding innovations after very prolonged periods (about 1.5 to 2 billion years of strictly prokaryotic life before the first eurkaryotes seem to have appeared; and then another billion years before the emergence of multicellular life) but has subsequently undergone astoundingly (relatively) rapid adaptive radiation and complexity also fits with the idea that intelligent life is rare to form.

Edited September 5, 2013 by Diche Bach

[Moon Goddess]

Just think about how we are discovering new minerals and such. This means that the periodic chart is undoubtley incomplete, so this is NOT a universal thing.

Um, no...

When we discover new elements they are at the end of the table. If you'll take a quick look at the table you'll notice there are no holes to be filled, the elements are no arranged in random order, Hydrogen is 1 because it literally has 1 proton, Helium has 2 protons. Lithium 3 protons and so on. There are no gaps to be filled in. from 1 to 118. And since 118 naturally only lasts 0.89 milliseconds, if another species has been able to check the box for 119 it's really not a big deal, They still understand the first 118 in the same order we do.

And when you say new minerals you're probably talking about molecules and compounds, they are all made out of these 118 elements (actually they are all made out of 1-92 skipping over 43 which doesn't have a stable form). Nothing new there, EVER.

EDIT: somewhere I missed a line I thought I wrote about how anything beyond 98 has never been found naturally and has to be made in a nuclear reactor.

Edited September 5, 2013 by Moon Goddess

[magnemoe]

You're assuming the civilization consists of creatures that compete with one another. A safe bet (most creatures on earth work like that) but an alien civilization doesn't have to play by our rules. It could very well be a superorganism where the collective is very advanced, but the individual workers barely have brains. Kind of like beehives or anthills. If every drone on the planet is part of that superorganism there is absolutely no reason to make nukes. Guns or some equivalent are more than enough to survive against the wilderness.

Or lots of other options, first one who industrialized made an world empire with steam and telegraph. Because of different politic and an different species it lasted.

Nuclear was an low priority, lower then the first reactor in the middle of an city melted down and a lack of large war or even an cold war, then nukes finally was developed they had had advanced smart weapons a long time and a large war was unlikely. (Earth with no WW2 and no Soviet/cold war) Note if WW2 ended earlier nukes would probably not been used in war.

[NGTOne]

It is a very interesting idea that a eusocial organism like a wasp or a bee could could evolve into a sentient form that founded a civilization. As there are no 'intelligent' arthropods on Earth (including all of the eusocial insects) it is a bit difficult to imagine how intelligence and civilization could evolve among such creatures. I think I've read that there are some serious allometric and metabolic limitations to tetrapod invertebrates and that might impose a kind of 'thermodynamic boundary' on how large bodied and intelligent eusocial insect like creatures could evolve to be.

However, there is even one species of eusocial mammal, the naked mole rat. They are quite successful, though not very "intelligent." Given how incredibly effective the eusocial adaptation is for the hymenoptera and ants are, it seems puzzling why there are not more eusocial mammals . . .

I think because eusociality can cause genetic bottlenecking - a species with defined "castes", with major physiological differences, would have a lower "extinction threshold" - i.e. what percentage of the species has to die before it's no longer genetically sustainable? For the overwhelming majority of mammals, you only need a few thousand individuals to maintain genetic diversity, because all individuals are capable of reproduction and random genetic mixing (whether they want to is another matter - giant pandas, for example). But if your species is reliant on a certain "caste" to do all the reproducing, you may have lowered that threshold significantly - imagine that half the species is reproducers, and half is workers, and only the reproducers can produce more reproducers. What happens if a large number of your reproducers suddenly die, as though by disease? The net result is that there aren't enough reproducers to keep the number of workers high, which eventually means the species hits a negative feedback loop (less workers = less food = less reproducers = less workers, repeat until extinction). The same problem occurs if the number of workers suddenly decreases, though it's a bit more immediate - you don't have to wait for the current generation of workers to die off. The end result either way is that the species is in for extinction within a few dozen generations, and likely less (depending on the severity of the die-off). And this is, naturally, an optimistic example - the ratio of workers to reproducers is usually well over 10:1, and (especially with insects), more like 1000:1.

I imagine that naked mole rats are actually the "tail end" of the mammal-eusociality evolutionary experiment - a species around long after any of its evolutionary "cousins" have died off, and so hyperadapted to its environment that any change in it might as well be a sentence to extinction.

Edited September 6, 2013 by NGTOne

[Diche Bach]

I think we can be confident that a 'civilized' alien life will exhibit the following:

1. Language: the capacity for the creative production (meaning virtually infinite permutations) of abstract symbolic representations unbounded by immediate perception (meaning the capacity to reference things distant in time and space from the interlocutor) as a means to affect very specific changes in the minds of conspecifics, i.e., to communicate information to them. Math, physics, and the majority of human technology depend on language.

2. Tool-making: many animals make and use tools, and there are even plenty who teach tool use to one another. However, human tool use is distinctive in that it involves degrees of indirect inference that no other animal seems troubled to try. By this I mean, that humans have for a very long time, created a seemingly useless 'tool' (or one with very limited utility) as a way to create a second tool, as a way to create third, etc. Modern industry takes this principle to the extreme, but it is arguably at the heart of 'modern' human tool use (although interestingly it may have been present in incipient stages for a long time before we were fully modern). Projective thinking or the ability to imagine the opportunities and constraints that alterations to an object will afford is thus seemingly essential to the emergence of civilization. I tend to think that what we are really talking about here is "Imagination" something we humans tend to have a LOT of and most animals seem to have not too much of.

3. Apart from that, about the only other thing I can think of that would be absolutely requisite is intense sociality of some sort. Arguably in order for culture to emerge you need to have social groups that are large enough, consist of a sufficient diversity of ages and sexes, but the exact details of that could be pretty broad. Something like black bear social organization might not suffice (a species which is social with its mother, but then becomes essentially solitary except for brief interactions between mating males and females) but something as intensely social as most anthropoid primates might not even be necessary.

[-Velocity-]

There is also the idea that, the evolution of life might actually be quite rare for a variety of reasons, an idea often referred to as the Rare Earth Hypothesis. To me this is a beautifully parsimonious explanation to the Fermi Paradox.

A corollary of this hypothesis is that, even if life evolves, the emergence of complex biology (1) nucleated cells and (2) multicellular organisms might be equally rare. The fact that life on Earth only developed these astounding innovations after very prolonged periods (about 1.5 to 2 billion years of strictly prokaryotic life before the first eurkaryotes seem to have appeared; and then another billion years before the emergence of multicellular life) but has subsequently undergone astoundingly (relatively) rapid adaptive radiation and complexity also fits with the idea that intelligent life is rare to form.

To me, the idea that the intelligent life is rare seems an unlikely explanation for the pristine, untouched nature of our world. Considering the size of the galaxy and the sheer number of habitable worlds, unless intelligence is VERY rare, I think it is more likely that Earth's pristine nature is saying something about the typical behavior and/or technology of intelligent civilizations. But I grant that intelligent life being just very rare could alone account for this, I just feel it unlikely on nothing more than a hunch. Hopefully, we'll know more in a few decades after a few spectral surveys of nearby Earth-like planets, enough to base our guesses on hard evidence instead of hunches.

Edited September 5, 2013 by |Velocity|

[lajoswinkler]

If we're talking about a civilization that started considering outer space as something worth travelling, then obviously the fact everything is made of particles. It might sound stupid, but people used to think you could chop matter endlessly. Realizing there are particles around us opens a whole new world.

Other universal stuff, yet more sophisticated: binary system, elementary mathematical operations, logic, language, Newton's laws of motion, chemical elements, etc.

[Diche Bach]

To me, the idea that the intelligent life is rare seems an unlikely explanation for the pristine, untouched nature of our world. Considering the size of the galaxy and the sheer number of habitable worlds, unless intelligence is VERY rare, I think it is more likely that Earth's pristine nature is saying something about the typical behavior and/or technology of intelligent civilizations. But I grant that intelligent life being just very rare could alone account for this, I just feel it unlikely on nothing more than a hunch.

Not quite sure what you mean by "Earth's pristine nature?" Anyway, have a read of that wiki page if it interests you! It seems to be a pretty well done page. The question of how common life is 'out there' is a bit OT for what the OP asks so we might want to start a separate thread if you want to talk about that more.

I remain undecided either way, and would be delighted if we learn that there is life (of ANY sort!) anywhere else except Earth. That would be without a doubt the single most important discovery ever in all of human existence.

But at the same time, I find the specific arguments on which the Rare Earth hypothesis is founded to be very difficult to refute or discount. Add to this that, we have virtually no evidence for life anywhere else . . . it is alluringly simple to guess that maybe we are alone in the Milky Way, if not more broadly than that.

Also a couple other points that I cannot resist replying to: presently I see that many of the exoplanet researchers are reaching conclusions about their being "hundreds of millions of Earth like exoplanets." However, to my knowledge they have yet to actually confirm any of these planets as having oxygen in their atmospheres. "Earthlike" in this instance really means: planets which are within a size range, density, orbital and rotational period, etc. to put it in the hypothetical "Goldilocks zone" to make it _possible_ for liquid water, and oxygenated atmospheres. Of course even the lack of an oxygen atmosphere does not exclude the possibility of anaerobic life, but what we are really hoping for (and the dream that researchers are trying to 'sell' when the talk about 100 million Earth like exoplanets) are planets which could harbor biologies similar to Earths, be homes to intelligent life and/or viable targets for us to colonize. In this sense, I think that researchers are being a _tad_ bit reckless and creating a false sense of how much they can actually say for certain. The James Webb is probably going to be earth-shattering for this stuff, and I do hope I am alive to hear about that stuff

The overall point of the Rare Earth hypothesis vis a vis these "Hundreds of millions of exo-Earths" rhetoric is that . . . the conditions that facilitate the evolution of life, much less complex life, let alone intelligent life, might be far more specific and constrained than the fairly simple parameters that exoplanet researchers are currently considering.

All that said, I do not begrudge anyone leaning one way or the other in the 'debate,' as long as everyone is willing to acknowledge that relative rarity or abundance of extraterrestrial life is an about equal possibility at this stage of our knowledge that is good enough for me. In 5 or 10 years when we have even more data on these exoplanets, the balance of evidence one way or another might well shift, and shift quite dramatically. Even though we may be many generations from getting anywhere near any other star, it is nonetheless a very exciting time to be alive in large part because of the incipient revelations of exoplanetary astronomy.

Edited September 5, 2013 by Diche Bach

[SargeRho]

Pi, Phy, c, hubble's constant, e=mc^2, f=ma, all the basic laws of physics we have. Also evolution, nuclear fusion...

[magnemoe]

It is a very interesting idea that a eusocial organism like a wasp or a bee could could evolve into a sentient form that founded a civilization. As there are no 'intelligent' arthropods on Earth (including all of the eusocial insects) it is a bit difficult to imagine how intelligence and civilization could evolve among such creatures. I think I've read that there are some serious allometric and metabolic limitations to tetrapod invertebrates and that might impose a kind of 'thermodynamic boundary' on how large bodied and intelligent eusocial insect like creatures could evolve to be.

However, there is even one species of eusocial mammal, the naked mole rat. They are quite successful, though not very "intelligent." Given how incredibly effective the eusocial adaptation is for the hymenoptera and ants, it seems puzzling why there are not more eusocial mammals . . .

Main problem with the eusocials is that each individuals has to be intelligent anyway, serious problem to get enough bandwidth to link the brains thigh enough otherwise, an organism who merges and grows together might work but would then become an new organism, something like the neural usb connectors in the avatar movie, but it would only work then connected and don't see how it could evolve.

Another issue if an society like this would be able to become technological.

There is also the idea that, the evolution of life might actually be quite rare for a variety of reasons, an idea often referred to as the Rare Earth Hypothesis. To me this is a beautifully parsimonious explanation to the Fermi Paradox.

A corollary of this hypothesis is that, even if life evolves, the emergence of complex biology (1) nucleated cells and (2) multicellular organisms might be equally rare. The fact that life on Earth only developed these astounding innovations after very prolonged periods (about 1.5 to 2 billion years of strictly prokaryotic life before the first eurkaryotes seem to have appeared; and then another billion years before the emergence of multicellular life) but has subsequently undergone astoundingly (relatively) rapid adaptive radiation and complexity also fits with the idea that intelligent life is rare to form.

One option, however it seems likely that planets where life like on earth can live is pretty common, not everywhere but more than 1 in 100 stars.

Life started on earth shortly after it become possible so either it evolves easily or is spread between planets easily.

Photosynthesis came early, complex multicellular life then the oxygen content became high enough, not an oxygen rich environment before this.

Intelligence only happened once and pretty late, we don't know if other animals would became intelligent without us.

An planet with lots of impacts might have problems holding on to complex life.

Once you become pretty intelligent it look like its an magnifying effect among humanoids, interacting with other humans would be the most complex activity they did.

Many species probably stayed at the early humanoid level it was smart enough for their daily life.

Food is another issue, intelligence uses a lot of energy so you need energy rich food. You either eat meat or fruits an berries both are pretty rare so you population stays low, with no animals or plants to domesticate you stay hunter gatherer, you might also be restricted to one area because of diet as most animals are.