Metaphysic Storm

Post by PZ Myers a member of the out cAmpain.

That smart guy, Carl Zimmer, has written an article on those smart molluscs, the octopus. I like that his conclusion is that we can’t really judge their intelligence, because it is different than our own.

That’s the same answer I give to questions about the existence of intelligent life in the universe. I suspect that it’s there (but rarer than most astronomers seem to think — intelligence is an extremely uncommon adaptive strategy here on Earth, as is probably likewise elsewhere), but that it will be radically different in intent and action than our own, as different as we are from a squid, or a dolphin, or an elephant, to name a few forms that have evolved large brains. Often, the question of alien intelligence is more like, “Are there people like us out there?”, and I think the answer to that one is clearly no, almost certainly not. There are too many alternative pathways.

I think that life is far rarer than most science enthusiasts assume. I know the numbers are big and there most certainly are many planets with water and the proper temperatures in this enormous universe. But the actual conditions that are required for replication to begin is in my guess very, very rare. However, once replication does begin convergence seems highly probable. Heads with sight, sound and smell detectors are going to be vital in any environment. Legs for locomotion and arms with hands are essential for environment manipulation. We’re so close in abstract terms to all the vertebrate mammals. Nearly identical when you use relativity as a judgment.

I also believe in an infinitely cycling universe because of the conservation of energy. Therefor, I think that life emerging from non life is inevitable when limited time isn’t a consideration. So even though I’m an atheist and don’t give any credence to personal reincarnation, I believe that there are indeed “people like us” out there, a “divine” natural design. The real question is when.

Stephen Wells said, Why would a head be vital to the gas giant airbags of zebulon-B, whose senses operate at radio wavelengths and whose intellect is dispersed among the swarm? Or to the megaclams of Gwflhrx, whose perimeter is studded with a thousand eyes and whose nerve ganglia are safely protected deep within their mighty shells?

J said, Sorry PZ, but that’s way too broad to actually mean anything substantial. What are you talking about when you say “people”? Bipedal and two-eyed, with penises and vaginas? Nobody subscribes to that notion of extraterrestrial life.

On the other hand, some traits of human life which are special on Earth (e.g. language) might conceivably have evolved many times in the observable Universe. Maybe they’re what Dan Dennett calls “Good Tricks”, which are prone to being converged upon independently.

Even within the swarm there are individuals and the head is a most efficient way to give the body the ability to navigate. I’ll have to give the megaclams of Gwfhrx more thought but I don’t know how far they would get manipulating their environment. Environment manipulation, I think, is a fair way to judge intelligence. Too much manipulation by the highly intelligent might be a good sign of idiocity.

J said, Sorry PZ, but, “Often, the question of alien intelligence is more like, “Are there people like us out there?”, and I think the answer to that one is clearly no, almost certainly not. There are too many alternative pathways.” [is] way too broad to actually mean anything substantial. What are you talking about when you say “people”? Bipedal and two-eyed, with penises and vaginas? Nobody subscribes to that notion of extraterrestrial life.

On the other hand, some traits of human life which are special on Earth (e.g. language) might conceivably have evolved many times in the observable Universe. Maybe they’re what Dan Dennett calls “Good Tricks”, which are prone to being converged upon independently.

Even within the swarm there are individuals and the head is a most efficient way to give the body the ability to navigate. I’ll have to give the megaclams of Gwfhrx more thought but I don’t know how far they would get manipulating their environment. Environment manipulation, I think, is a fair way to judge intelligence. Too much manipulation by the highly intelligent might be a good sign of idiocity.

@J “Nobody subscribes to that notion of extraterrestrial life.”

I do.

J said, @”I do.”

Only a lunatic would insist that extraterrestrial intelligence has to be two-eyed, bipedal, etc.

I didn’t insist it had to be. I said that I think their is a high probability. Less is more most times. Two eyes are all that’s required for stereoscopic vision. And I would be pleasantly surprised to discover the evolutionary path of a one legged land animal. Hoppidy hop hop.

RamblinDude said, Oh, so many possibilities! I rather hope that the answer to the question “Are there people like us out there?” is “no”. Here we are on the verge of space exploration and all our money is going into warring with each other.

It’s seems probable that we live in a predatory universe, but honestly, I hope there aren’t many other intelligent species out there “like us” or all that smartness will end up blowing up the damn galaxy in the rush to enslave and dominate.

My guess is that the Galactic Federation has quarantined us because the other worlds have no desire to be subjected to french fries and Jesus.

There is something fascinating, though, about the fact that in our little corner of a big, impersonal universe, we have the capacity to imagine other kinds of intelligence. Weird.

Perhaps the ultimate demise of every highly intelligent species isn’t war but their united world particle physics research gone horribly wrong.

Alex said, I have heard it more than once that other beings would be totally different. I don’t understand that. Sure, there are many pathways, but the physics and chemistry that are required for human (or like and kind) level of development are very fine filters. In my view, it almost forces convergence. Now I’m not saying that primates are the only functions capable of intelligence. Nature’s first try on Earth were dinosaurs. That experiment ended prematurely. Furthermore, Earth offers a huge assortment of environments. Just about every extreme imaginable. We’re just now able to contemplate similar environs on other worlds - mostly moons around the Jovians. And yet with all that diversity we only find creatures like us to support intelligence. Bipedalism is not random, nor is 5 point symmetry. Sure there are other types of symmetry, but symmetry is still significant and apparently necessary for many things.

I guess I haven’t come across a convincing argument as to how or why intelligent life would look so much different than what we already experience. And I don’t mean to argue from ignorance. I am open to all information. If anyone can offer information other than just anecdotal assumptions that life must look so different I would appreciate it. I find it fascinating.

Chris Crawford said, Let me present a REALLY weird line of thinking:

Assume that there exists a species with enough intelligence to create technology. It will then create technology to alter its environment in such a manner as to improve its living conditions (on earth, for example, homo sapiens came up with agriculture as a means of altering its environment to improve its living conditions.) Each improvement in its living conditions will increase the population of that species, which will in turn permit greater specialization of effort. That greater specialization of effort will permit faster development of new technologies that further improve the environment. Therefore, you get a virtuous circle in which the population grows at an accelerating rate, creating technology that expands at an accelerating rate. However, as its environment-altering technologies expand in scope and complexity, the second-order consequences of these environment-altering technologies must increase in complexity even faster than the technology itself changes (because the technologies are getting bigger in scope AND interacting with each other). The rate of change of the second-order is therefore greater than the rate of change of the population. Accordingly, at some point the species will find itself altering its environment at a rate faster than it can adapt to the changes. After only a short period of this situation, the species must find itself in a situation in which it is no longer adapted to its environment — and we all know what happens to a species whose environment changes in such a way that it is no longer adapted to that environment.

To put it another way, let’s think in terms of evolutionary time scales. Do you really think that earth 10 million years from now will still have homo sapiens?

It truly would be ironic if the condom is what brings salvation to humankind.

RamblinDude said, Do youthink that earth 10 million years from now will still have homo sapiens?

No. With our advances in bio-genetics and such, we will eventually be able to control our own evolution and adopt whatever suit of flesh strikes our fancy. Primate bipedalism will be so blasé.

Except for the appendix, I think we’re perfect. Blazé Bourgeoisie.

J said, @”I didn’t insist it had to be. I said that I think their is a high probability. Less is more most times. Two eyes are all that’s required for stereoscopic vision. And I would be pleasantly surprised to discover the evolutionary path of a one legged land animal. Hoppidy hop hop.”And do you think there’s also “high probability” that they would have anything resembling a penis and vagina? There’s no reason you should be so confident. As best, it’s an interesting guess.

Yes there is a reason I think that a penis and vagina is likely. When a species reproduces sexually the goal is to get a seed into an internal egg. The penis is really nothing more than a stick prob. And the vagina is a glorified hole. I can even intelligently guess at reasons why the the nuts and clitoris are highly probable in completely separate evolutionary chains.

I have no doubts about the validity of evolution. The molecular evidence and witnessed micro evolution and mutation is quite sufficient. There’s no god planting junk DNA or burying the fossils to deceive us. But seeing as though radio carbon dating is only functional up to 60K years and the fact that only a tiny fraction of all the life that has existed on earth will be found in a fossil form means that the history of our evolution will always have a certain level of speculation involved. But from what I’ve read about the subject, a great deal of the “facts” of evolutionary history is already intelligent guessing.

Brownian said, @”seeing as though radio carbon dating is only functional up to 60K”

That’s why God invented lutetium-hafnium dating, potassium-argon dating, rhenium-osmium dating, rubidium-strontium dating, samarium-neodymium dating, uranium-lead dating, uranium-protactinium dating, uranium-thorium dating, paleomagnetic dating, fission track dating, and thermoluminescence, among other techniques.

Tulse said, @”there is a reason I think that a penis and vagina is likely. When a species reproduces sexually the goal is to get a seed into an internal egg.”

Many fish and plants use external fertilization (e.g., female salmon lay eggs, then male salmon swim over them secreting sperm). And even in species where that is “the goal”, you don’t always get penises (the males of some species, such as spiders, insert their sperm via manipulators that are separate from the sperm producing organ). It’s also the case that even when eggs may be held internally for development, they are not held internally via a vagina (think of all the animals that brood their young in pouches, or where the males brood the young in their mouths).

And all this presumes that alien life will involve “sexual reproduction”, at least in a manner that we know it. (There may be other mechanisms used to promote genetic shuffling, for example — bacteria don’t have sex, yet readily incorporate foreign genetic material.)

J said, @”Yes there is a reason I think that a penis and vagina is likely. When a species reproduces sexually the goal is to get a seed into an internal egg. The penis is really nothing more than a stick prob. And the vagina is a glorified hole. I can even intelligently guess at reasons why the the nuts and clitoris are highly probable in completely separate evolutionary chains.”

Reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes novel. You’re indulging in pure speculation and asserting unwarranted confidence in your conclusions.

I could easily contest your notion that a “stick probe” is a Good Trick. Maybe, for instance, genetic information is on Planet X fired over moderate distances. (I accept that there are fairly good reasons for supposing they’d be sexually reproducing.)

Try as you might, you can’t prove using this a posteriori method that various physical properties of humans were inevitable. I have no problem with your taking an interesting, informed guess. But it’s absurd to say, “Two eyes, two legs, and a penis or vagina are all highly probable features in any intelligent organism.”

J said, Many fish and plants use external fertilization (e.g., female salmon lay eggs, then male salmon swim over them secreting sperm).
Yes, exactly. And bear in mind that evolution on Earth has been subject to all sorts of constraints which mightn’t be in place on an alien planet. There could be all sorts of novel, effective, non-Earthly ways of transmitting genetic information.

amphiox said, I think some kind of stereoscopic sense organ(s), some organ for manipulating the environment, and some means of communicating with others of its kind, would be highly likely in any intelligent and technologically capable lifeform.

How similar/analogous these things on an alien would be to our human equivalents (eyes, hands, language, etc) is an open question. It’s difficult to make meaningful hypotheses when you have a sample set of one.

Quiet Desperation said, Primate bipedalism will be so blasé.

No, they will be retro, and hugely popular once a century or so.

Egaeus said, I’d say that while intelligent life may be very different from us, there would likely be some similarities between us and an intelligent organism capable of developing technology:”Breathing” gases: A liquid environment is not amenable to fire. Fire is necessary for pretty much all of our technology, and it’s difficult to imagine a case where technology could arise without it.

The “5 senses”: It seems that the ability to develop technology would rely on the ability to perceive the environment. Most of these would seem to be the minimum necessary to do this, though taste/smell would be the most variable, and other means to do this, such as say electromagnetic communication instead of hearing, would seem unlikely.

At least 2 “hands”: The ability to manipulate objects would seem to be necessary for developing technology.

Without those, it would seem that developing advanced intelligence on par with humans would not provide an evolutionary advantage. Of course, I am subject to my biases, but I see no reason that natural selection would work differently anywhere else.

@”Reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes novel. You’re indulging in pure speculation and asserting unwarranted confidence in your conclusions.”

That sounds to me like what a lot of evolution history is. Without being able to compare the genome of ancient animals aren’t we left with a lot of unwarranted confidence in many conclusions?

I obviously don’t completely grasp the method of dating fossils. And I did know that there were other radioactive decay methods but I assumed that carbon was the only one that’s used to date animals because that’s the end of the carbon 14 and 12 equilibrium exchange ratio.

At any rate, I’m kind of shocked at the almost hostile response I’ve received from speculating that the human form is one of great natural and eternal significance. What if rephrased it so as to say that we follow a significant template? Would that be better;)? You people make me feel like a fundie. A radical Naturalist, that’s cool.

I also think aborting post 7 week fetuses is murder and I even have reasons for that. I better put on my bloggetproof vest.

J said, @”[Pure speculation] sounds to me like what a lot of evolution history is. Without being able to compare the genome of ancient animals aren’t we left with a lot of unwarranted confidence in many conclusions?”Much less speculatory than what you’re doing, for plenty of reasons. The genetic machinery of life on other planets may very well be entirely different from what we have on Earth. And while it seems a good bet, it’s nowhere near certain that intelligent life has to be sexually reproducing.

Your educated guesses are intriguing and were fun to read, but I think calling them “very probable” is definitely going to far.

@”Much less speculatory than what you’re doing, for plenty of reasons.”

I’m well aware of that. All of my “evidence” is purely metaphysical. At least evolution has fossils and DNA.

Anyway, perhaps I’m missing something, but how is this relevant?

I know I’m missing something. I don’t know how a rock can be dated. The elements that make the rock can, but doesn’t that only date when the elements that composed the rock were made?

CJO said, How we date rocks, from the USGS:When igneous rocks crystallize, the newly formed minerals contain various amounts of chemical elements, some of which have radioactive isotopes. These isotopes decay within the rocks according to their half-life rates, and by selecting the appropriate minerals (those that contain potassium, for instance) and measuring the relative amounts of parent and daughter isotopes in them, the date at which the rock crystallized can be determined. Most of the large igneous rock masses of the world have been dated in this manner.
Most sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone, and shale are related to the radiometric time scale by bracketing them within time zones that are determined by dating appropriately selected igneous rocks

That’s just a short explanation. Follow that link for specifics, with examples.

Thanks

kcrady said, imagine a race of intellgent, social cephalopods who evolve a way to take in, manipulate, and exchange DNA similar to the way bacteria do. Perhaps initially using DNA molecules the way we use pheremones. At some point, their ability to do this becomes highly sophisticated. They develop a “sense organ” that lets them percieve the shapes of these exchenged molecules, and perhaps also evolve the ability to spread them via retroviruses.In time, they develop a kind of animal husbandry that includes “tasting” the genomes of tamed animal species. Instead of an “Industrial Revolution,” they have a “Genetics Revolution,” in which they discover how to intentionally manipulate the genomes of other species. So, if they want a vehicle, they genetically engineer a fast-swimming fish to incorporate a carrying pouch with a large enough “window” (derived from eye-lens material) for them to see through, and little appedages inside the pouch the cephalopods can manipulate with their arms as controls.

Someday they could develop “jellyfish blimps” to explore the atmosphere and land surface of their world. I imagine getting into space would be more difficult for them than for us. Even so, I can imagine a huge, high-altitude “jellyfish zeppelin” with a large surface area for solar energy collection that uses bioelectricity for propulsion in a manner similar to the mechanism of a Myrabo disk. If it is able to generate enough energy to overcome air resistancce in the upper atmosphere, it could conceivably accelerate gradually until it reached orbit or escape velocity.

Once in space, it could maneuver around the inner solar system, where solar energy is abundant enough to provide power. If the aliens’ mastery of genetics is advanced enough, they might be able to launch diaphenous jellyfish-like ’starwisp’ probes or engineered microbes out into the rest of their solar system and beyond.

None of this seems physically impossible to me. I am not a biologist or physicist, so maybe there’s some limiting factor I’m unaware of.

On the other hand, we humans with our vaunted fire haven’t done so well as space explorers. We sent a few members of our species to the nearest available rock for short visits, then turned the job over to machines. Apart from some magic “antigravity” physics, the economics of space travel will always favor machines over humans. Machines are getting smaller, lighter, and smarter all the time. Astronauts (and the tons of oxygen, water, and food they need to survive) aren’t. As long as you’ve got to throw stuff out of the back of a spaceship to get anywhere, smaller/lighter is better.

My guess is, if we ever see an “alien,” it’ll be a lot more likely to look like V*ger (or maybe a microscopic machine or genegineered bacterium) than like a “bumpy-headed human.”

This thread is like a conversation with the alien creators of Star Trek and Steven Hawking. The producers complain that all the aliens look too humanoid demanding more pizza monster types. Steven counters stating that what we really need to do is grow humans outside of the mother so the brain size isn’t limited to the birth canal.

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