Re: Alien Life
From: Country Loon (fitlikemin_at_mearns.fairmers.co.uk)
Date: 10/13/04
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Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 06:13:48 +0000 (UTC)
"Erwin Moller"
<since_humans_read_this_I_am_spammed_too_much@spamyourself.com> wrote in
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> Country Loon wrote:
>
> > New to this group but an ardent evolutionist I have a question.
> > I have noticed a similar thread but this is not quite the same.
> >
> > Suppose a spaceship lands in central park and out pops the aliens - what
> > (logically) will they look like. For instance they are unlikely to look
> > like a green blob of jelly as they would have no mechanism for building
> > tools and steering a spaceship.Can we therefore assume that such
creatures
> > would have hands similar to us, one head,two eyes and two ears and
> > probably two legs. Maybe the star-trek idea of alien life is not far
from
> > the truth. I am not saying that green blobs will not exist but that
> > space-travellers must necessarily look similar (though not identical to
> > us). A dolphin cannot pilot a machine however smart it is unless there
are
> > 'speech' driven controls and even then there would have to be an
evolution
> > in technology from the primitive stage to get there in the first
place.Or
> > is this arrogance?Can somebody invent a fictional character that could
> > pilot a spaceship that was radically different from the basic human form
> > and that makes sense in an evolutionary framework.
> >
> > Tom
>
> Hi Tom,
>
> Good question. Intrigueing question.
> You also received a lot of good answers.
>
> Many alien species can exists, but for a species to develop spacetravel,
> some things are almost mandatory to develop in some fashion.
> I think you can assume that the following ingredients are needed for a
> species to develop spacetravel:
>
> 1) inputorgans (Good ones preferably. :P)
> 2) brains (inputprocessing)
> 3) hands/tentacles to manipulate the environment.
>
>
>
> 1) Species needs input from environment.
> To name a few:
> electromagnetic sensors are great, like our eyes.
> vibrationdectection (ears)
> temperaturesensors
> Chemical sensors (like our nose)
>
> Sidenote: At least 2 inputorgans gives better input.
> There also is a good case to be made for having (at least) 2 of some
> inputorgans.
> Two organs makes it possible to orient a lot better, like hearing the
> direction of a sound, and seeing depth with your eyes.
> More doesn't hurt, probably making the imput better, but 2 at least sounds
> very good because of the obvious advantages (seeing depth/hearing
> direction)
>
>
> 2) Species need to develop intelligence
> This step is of course needed to allow the species to understand enough of
> their environment to manipulate it enough to discover laws of nature and
> ultimately build that beforementioned spaceship.
>
> This implies that a certain information-processing-unit must develop, in
the
> individual or in the group as a whole. (Like ants behaving quite smart in
> groups, but behave less efficiently alone)
> Discovering the laws of nature is not cheap. It takes a lot of research
and
> the right way to approach to make progress.
> Also: Brains developed by evolution are bound to be effective for the the
> situation/environment where they developed, and can be expected to be
> really 'retarded' when it comes to laws of nature that are 'far' from the
> everyday life. eg: My brains have a really hard time understanding dualism
> in quantummachanics. Newtons Laws however make a lot more sense because
> they describe stuff in my environment I see every day. My brains are
better
> fit for Newtons laws than for quantummechanics.
>
> We humans are also easily fooled by optical illusions.
> Many of these optical illusions are based on the fact that our brains have
> evolved certain 'shortcuts' for efficiency, processing the data while
> making a lot of assumptions (like the sun is always above you.)
>
> (Check Scientific American 'A look inside' themenumber earlier this year
for
> a lot of explanation on this subject.)
>
> I expect alien species to have similar 'blind spots' while they develop,
> which could be very interesting when we meet them. :-)
>
>
> 3) Toolmaking and 'handlike' organs.
> To gain control over their environment, which is needed to build that
> spaceship, the need for hands/tentacles/extended-mouthpieces/whatever
seems
> like a must. How can a species study the laws of nature without the
ability
> to conduct experiments?
>
>
> Things I am unsure about:
> - Why bipedal? Worms are ok too, as long as the have hand-like organs. Or
> green blobs with tentacles.
> - No need to put all these organs in a humanlike fashion. Ear-like organs
> could be placed in the feet maybe.
> Placing eyes high on the organism makes sense on a planet where the
species
> develop on land: higher placed eyes see more.
>
>
> So I expect the aliens landing in Central Park to have:
> - good inputdevices
> - a good brain able to discover the laws of nature and develop
spacetravel.
> - some tentacles/hands to build all the stuff.
>
> Just my 2 cents.
>
> Regards,
> Erwin Moller
>
Thanks,
good points - I am surprised that this sort of thing has not been
studied/speculated on more as it also tell us a lot about ourselves.
Tom
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