X-Message-Number: 14587 Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 03:41:56 EDT Subject: Message #14575 "Highly unlikely" Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 21:38:39 -0400 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Re: Alien humanity, highly doubtful In a message dated 9/29/00 5:05:38 AM, writes: << Message #14575 Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 21:38:39 -0400 From: James Swayze <> Subject: Re: Alien humanity, highly doubtful References: <> At the risk of stunting my growth, going blind or having hair grow on my pal..er ah inside my scalp...I must respond to this "Off Topic" subject. ;) Although I agree with the possibility of the basic premise here I do have trouble with some of the assumptions. Oh and I do run the program. See responses below. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message #14556 > From: > Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 11:24:28 EDT > Subject: Re: SETI off topic? Maybe not > > SETI discussion may have more direct relevance than indicated by posts I have > read so far. Considerable thought over the last few years and a passing > knowledge of current SETI activity leads me to this conclusion. I believe > that the very first messages we receive after contact may well tell us how > to suspend human animation in such a way that reanimation without damage or > loss is certain. The main reason: it buys us time so that a subsequent > stream of enlightening life-saving messages can be absorbed and implemented > by us in an orderly manner. <snip> Good idea. Logical assumption, but... > In > brief, my theory rests on these assumptions: [1] life is a reasonably common > occurrence throughout the universe; Agreed > [2] life inevitably evolves toward > human-like intelligence on its way to something much more amazing; Not agreed. This is anthropomorphism. Other intelligences could be wholly undechipherable by us and totally incomprehensible. We have alien inteligences here on Earth we may never comprehend. Take cetacean or cephalpod intelligence for instance. You can say also that all life on Earth is related and from a common DNA template. Other world life may not be even close. May not have anything even like DNA. So if we have trouble understanding DNA based bretheren imagine the problems with the unimaginable variations out there. This also doesn't take into account difference in levels of development. For instance, Australopithicene humans could hardly, even with lots of help from us, understand us and again we are very related. It once was common to assume the "humanoid" model of higher development ie: two eyes (stereocopc vision), two ears (stereoscopic aural information gathering), bipedalism, brain near to these senses for shorter transmition distance thus smell sense also with the rest all grouped on a head at the highest point of the body etc. etc., would be a universal result of evolution anywhere. I disagree. For instance the mechanism for intelligence and sense gathering could be modular and parallel. Transmission distance needn't lead to a centrally located brain if a being has multiple independant yet connected sensory devices with localized processing. There might be aliens with brains in each finger and having hundreds of those. I doubt a being like this would think anything like a human. It has been speculated that had the dinasours not gone extinct (by the way, I can prove the KT event did not kill the dinos...if anyone is interested email me) a humanoid being might have evolved from their stock. This may well have been possible but one must remember we are cousins. Same DNA template. They already had the beginning parameters including even for some five fingers. Even an octopus so alien to our design has two eyes, same Earth centric template. Something from another entirely different evolutionary impetus might have, most likely will have, totally different expressions in response to evolutionary presures. If evolution were re-run on this planet nothing even close to human would arise. RH: We know only that we are here and we can trace more or less how we got here from primal ooze. There may be other paths [I doubt that they would vary a great deal] that would work but we know this one does. There may be life not based on "DNA template" [I doubt it] but we know that the DNA template works here. We also know that the universe is filled with the same stuff we are made of, that ours is a very ordinary star and that planetary systems around stars are commonplace. That means that there are billions [count em] of earth-equivalent environments just in our own galaxy, let alone other galaxies. Some will have DNA template life. If they've got that then some will have intelligent life which evolves through our stage and beyond to who knows where. Some number of them will be very similar to us in the way they think and the way they look. The more we know about ourselves, the more we realize how ordinary and reasonable the process is. Evolutionary steps are not predictable in the short run but they are in the long run. The more we know about ourselves and our world the more our cherished uniqueness evaporates. > [3] there > already exists a universe-wide interconnected intelligent culture containing > millions of worlds which are more advanced than we are right now; Again not agreed. First of all, "Universe-wide" communication is not likely possible if indeed even galactic-wide is. RH: this has to do with the nature of diffusion of knowledge. As soon as anyone with less advanced knowledge and technology starts to receive from a more advanced source, they rapidly absorb the knowledge and adopt the technology. We know that electromagnetic radiation can transmit mesages of any complexity at the speed of light, traversing distances across galaxies and even between galaxies if the time spread is long enough. For new receivers, of course, it is strictly a passive process and may remain so for hundreds of years, but dialog is not necessary for full knowledge utilization any more than we need to dialog with the long dead Shakespeare to enjoy his plays. If we manage to make passive contact in the manner imagined by SETI or in some other way, we will not be the first such recipients. Rather we will only be the latest in a long line of receivers who have been connected for millions of years. > [4] more > advanced human cultures have a highly developed sense of caring for a > collective universal humanity which, fortunately for us, includes us; Here again not agreed. What human cultures? What universal humanity? Humanity is us, here, on Earth, only on Earth, so far. Aliens might have societies akin to ants or bees or so far removed from even that and so alien to our culture we couldn't begin to fathom it. I don't understand this popular opinion that advanced society brings altruism. This again is anthropomorphism and isn't even guaranteed in our own society. In the show Babylon 5 there was a scene where the G'Kar character was explaining an encounter a scientist had with a supposedly to the plot older more highly advanced race. The scientist asked what were they? The G'Kar character picked up an ant that had found a ride on an imported plant and placed it back down. He then said to the scientist that the ant asking his fellows what just picked him up and placed him back down was equivalent to her question to G'Kar. We step on ants all the time and hardly are concerned if billions are wiped out in the everyday machinations of our cultural needs. A more advanced alien race may have no more or even less concern for us. RH: I fully admit that moral evolution is a tough case to prove, especially for thos of us who have lived part of our lives in the first half of the 20th century. I partly think it is tough to prove because we are only now beginning to go clearly in that direction. I can cite a few examples that apply mostly to "the developed world", e.g. the abolition of slavery, the acceptance [not universal] of the UN declaration on human rights. On the other hand, if there is no moral evolution, then the cryonics movement is doomed because there will be no future people with any concern to revive us. > [5] > this collective sense of caring has led to the establishment of powerful > light house beacons located at various point throughout our galaxy; the > purpose of these beacons is to bring new cultures into the collective through > the dissemination of their advanced knowledge in a carefully shaped sequence > of messages; and In the words of the main character in Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises", "It's pretty to think so". > [6] within the last decade we may have reached a level of > sophistication in our electromagnetic wave receiving capacity to passively > locate and connect to such a beacon. We can only hope. I'd like to reiterate I do think we are not alone in the universe. However, unless they are related to us they won't look or think like us. They won't be human and may not be humane. RH: all I can say is that you may be right, but I think otherwise. It is confusing enough to imagine civilized intelligence that is millions of years ahead of us without going into all the other ways in which intelligent life might manifest itself. We know of only one way in which it has happened so far and I think that is a reasonable model to go on. Finally, I fear that we are now going grievously 'off topic' into issues which can never be settled in definitive fashion, each deserving its own essay. James -- Some of our views are spacious some are merely space--RUSH >> Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14587