Aliens? (the ones that aren't from Earth)

[Perfection]

If a similar result would come from either scenerio--it definitely would not, by the way--then why avoid discussing either one?

Why wouldn't it? The distance and speed needed to be traveled would be mostly agreed upon by planets A and E.

And I avoided it because it's easier to work without the additional complications.

It's just an example of what I was talkin' about, dude.

 

[Fifty]

Why wouldn't it? The distance and speed needed to be traveled would be mostly agreed upon by planets A and E.

And I avoided it because it's easier to work without the additional complications.

It's just an example of what I was talkin' about, dude.

Yeah whatever, Perfection solves the laws of the universe till the end of time.

Full of it as ever. Don't listen to this guy, has no idea what she's talking about ever. And isn't qualified to make statements about the eternity in science, or about FTL for that matter, ignore it, it's physics garbage from the school of robotic followers.

This is your problem you don't know enough about the currently researched theories outside of what they preached in university to make such statements, in other words your too ignorant to make assumptions. And I for one am getting tired of your self proclaimed expertise. And all expansive absolutism, it's not viable, and you aren't qualified to say it. So stop saying things you have not the first shred of grounding in to posit with such confidence, it's laughable.

Too many sycophants on this site. Perfection is wrong to assert there is no doubt that relativity is correct, and I'm tired of how vacuous and knowless about real research her claims are, check out current research at least before you make that claim. i have linked this on another thread about french potential leader lying, if you don't want to read it don't but don't come around claiming there is no contradiction or no questioning of relativity without getting of your arse and looking at the current research, that's just ignorant.

I don't know anything?My knowledge is lacking my arse, oh go away troll. Like you and your little miss ego problem are experts, get off your high horse and go bother someone else.

In the interest of science, I think it's best if I ignore you, as your so full of it I don't want to get contaminated by your foolish nonsense.

 

[Perfection]

Oh excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Fifty

Don't think that because you read a couple of popular sciences while lounging around your bartending school's break room instead of going to class (I mean honestly, who fails a test on glassware?) that you know anything about the topic. I've seen you make a physics argument based off the technojargon you heard on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I mean seriously, what kind of moron does that.



You know what, I'm sick of you treating me like crap. I left you for a reason, you manipulative psychopathic jerk.

Oh and remember that time in Hawaii when you were so proud of yourself for making me feel so good? Well I faked it!

 

[CurtSibling]

Just as insane to think we aren't.

You seem to just say the opposite for the sake of it.

Pretty pointless.

...

 

[brainpan]

Why wouldn't it?

There is a lot less for us to argue over since you abandoned a challenge of my original post.

I guess I'll just keep lurking for the time being until something new catches my interest.

 

[Perfection]

You seem to just say the opposite for the sake of it.

In fact not Curt, if you were to read my other posts here you'll see it's in line with one consistant viewpoint, that we don't have a friggin' clue and ayone who says otherwise is full of nonsense.

There is a lot less for us to argue over since you abandoned a challenge of my original post.

I guess I'll just keep lurking for the time being until something new catches my interest.

So in other words you're abandoning all criticisms of my posts here?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Natural selection does not fundamentally drift toward greater intelligence.

Not unless it is given the right environment. If such an environment forms, then the evolution of intelligence likely.

(Some) Scientists attribute the development of higher intelligence in apes, to the complex thought processes needed to swing through trees. So it follows that if life develops into a complex tree-branch-like maze, and some species develop the ability to swing through it, then that species is likely to evolve to develop intelligence.

Admittedly, my statement depends on a few very shaky suppositions.

This very question is tackled in Nonzero by Robert Wright. He argues persuasively that evolution does have a direction and it is toward greater complexity. He does not argue that "humans" are the inevitable outcome of evolution, but that highly complex life with similar traits is. His book looks at both biological evolution and cultural evolution.

http://www.nonzero.org/index.htm

The Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg once ended a book on this note: "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless." Far be it from me to argue with a great physicist about how depressing physics is. For all I know, Weinberg's realm of expertise, the realm of inanimate matter, really does offer no evidence of higher purpose. But when we move into the realm of animate matter—bacteria, cellular slime molds, and, most notably, human beings—the situation strikes me as different. The more closely we examine the drift of biological evolution and, especially, the drift of human history, the more there seems to be a point to it all. Because in neither case is "drift" really the right word. Both of these processes have a direction, an arrow. At least, that is the thesis of this book.

You might even say that non-zero-sumness is a nuts-and-bolts, materialist version of Bergson's immaterial elan vital; it gives a certain momentum to the basic direction of life on this planet. It explains why biological evolution, given enough time, was very likely to create highly intelligent life--life smart enough to generate technology and other forms of culture. It also explains why the ensuing evolution of technology, and of culture more broadly, was very likely to enrich and expand the social structure of that intelligent species, carrying social organization to planetary breadth. Globalization, it seems to me, has been in the cards not just since the invention of the telegraph or the steamship, or even the written word or the wheel, but since the invention of life. All along, the relentless logic of non-zero-sumness has been pointing toward this age in which relations among nations are growing more non-zero-sum year by year.

You may be under the impression that you have a single set of genes, arrayed along chromosomes in the nucleus of each cell. A common misconception. The nucleus is just one of many little subcellular bodies called organelles. And one kind of organelle the mitochondrion, which processes energy—has its own genes, passed down separately from the genes in your nucleus. Whereas your nuclear genes were drawn equally from your mother and father, all your mitochondrial genes came from your mother. And if you are male, you have no chance of passing them to future generations.

Why on earth would each cell have two sets of DNA? The answer, now generally acknowledged after decades of resistance, is this: Once upon a time, before there were multicelled organisms, the distant ancestor of your mitochondria was a free-living, self-sufficient cell, something like a simple bacterium; and the distant ancestor of the cells the mitochondria now inhabit—your nucleated cells—was also a free-living, self-sufficient cell. Then the two free-living cells merged; the mitochondrion specialized in processing energy, and the larger cell handled other matters, such as locomotion. The two lived happily ever after in blissful division of labor.

I'm such a romantic—always stressing mutual benefit. Some biologists would say that the story as I've rendered it glosses over ugly details. According to the Nobel laureate Renato Dulbecco, the once-autonomous mitochondria are now "subservient to the needs of the cells in which they reside." According to John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary, authors of The Major Transitions in Evolution, mitochondria are "encapsulated slaves," subject to ruthless "metabolic exploitation. "

As we'll see, one can argue with such cynical interpretations of the mitochondria's plight, but for now the point is just that biologists actually talk this way—as if a mitochondrion,, a dinky blob presumably lacking sentience, had a plight. What do they mean? In what sense could an organelle be a "slave" that gets "exploited"? You would think, to hear this kind of talk, that a mitochondrion, like a person, has interests that are either served or not served. Is there any sense in which that's true?

Yes, in a Darwinian sense. In Darwinian terms, living things are "designed"—by natural selection—to get their genes into subsequent generations. To serve their "interests" is to aid this genetic proliferation. To frustrate their interests—to "exploit" them, for example is to reduce their genetic legacy.

With this vocabulary in hand, we can apply game theory to biological evolution. When two organic entities can enhance each other's prospects for survival and reproduction, they face a non-zero-sum situation; to the extent that their interests are at odds, the dynamic is zero-sum. In this light we will see that biological evolution, like cultural evolution, can be viewed as the ongoing elaboration of non-zero-sum dynamics. From alpha to omega, from the first primordial chromosome on up to the first human beings, natural selection has smiled on the expansion of non-zero-sumness...

 

[Fifty]

Jesus BJ, have you become like a full-time guerrilla marketer for that freaking book?

 

[Perfection]

I'm siding with Pinker

http://www.slate.com/id/2000143/entry/1004510/

Dear Bob,

Congratulations on another outstanding book--original, thought-provoking, rich in data, audacious in aims but nuanced in argumentation. I was convinced by many of the main claims.

First, that both living things and human societies get more complex over time because agents compete better when they team up and specialize in pursuit of a common interest ("non-zero-sumness"), as long as they solve the technological problems of communicating and detecting cheaters. Second, that human nature--in particular, an ability to figure out how the world works and a desire to expand one's circle of cooperators--put our species on an escalator of cultural and moral progress, culminating in today's globalization. I see the book's main achievement as explaining an obvious fact--that organisms and cultures get more complex and cooperative over time--in sober cause-and-effect terms, without mystical forces, Victorian sentimentality, or Western chauvinism.

But I'm not as convinced by your next suggestion--that the cosmos has, in some sense, the "goal," "end," "purpose," or "destiny" of producing complex life, intelligent species, societies, and global cooperation. One attributes a "goal" to an entity only if it has a feedback mechanism that makes the entity approach the goal despite obstacles or perturbations. Granted, natural selection is a feedback process with a kind of "goal," and so is human striving. But do the two have the same goal, and is that goal an increase of complexity in the service of cooperation?

Here is an alternative, in which nonzero-sum interactions are just one of many handy things to have, rather than the destiny of life on earth:

1. Natural selection has the "goal" of enhancing replication, period. An increase in complexity and cooperation is just one of many subgoals that help organisms attain that ultimate goal. Other subgoals include increases in size, speed, motor coordination, weaponry, energy efficiency, perceptual acuity, parental care, and so on. All have increased over evolutionary time, but none is the "natural end" of the evolutionary process. Would anyone single out lethal weaponry as "highly likely" or our "destiny," just because weapons have become more lethal over organic and human history?

2. A species with humanlike intelligence was no more "in the cards" than a species with an elephantlike trunk--both are just handy biological gadgets. (Of course, given enough time, humanlike intelligence is near-certain to evolve; but given enough time, anything with nonzero probability is near-certain to evolve, including an elephantlike trunk.) A brain with the intelligence necessary for cooperation and specialization is metabolically expensive and biomechanically hazardous, and evolves only when the evolutionary precursor and current ecosystem make the benefits exceed the costs. Most lineages (e.g., of plants) never got smart, and all lineages of animals on earth except ours were stuck well beneath the subgenius level.

Perhaps (as I speculated in How the Mind Works) the outsize brain of Homo sapiens evolved because our ancestors lived in groups, hunted, had hands, and saw in color and stereo. Perhaps without that rare conjunction, big brains aren't worth the cost, and don't evolve.

3. Humans do not directly seek wider cooperation and more complex societal organization; they care only about comfort, sex, family, friendship, knowledge, pride, being entertained, and so on. An increase in social complexity is just one way of getting more of these good things. So the similarity in the histories of organisms and societies is a coincidence, not a single process:

Complexification often helps organisms reproduce better, and it often helps humans become happier, so we see it in both of their histories. But other things make people happy and don't help replicators reproduce--for example, music, humor, and dance--and we see them improve only in human history; plants and animals haven't gotten funnier or more musical or better at dancing. Only by cherry-picking trends that are similar across organic history and human history can one claim that the two processes are fundamentally the same.

4. As a result of (3), global cooperation and moral progress will not increase toward some theoretical maximum or Teilhardesque Omega Point, but will level off at a point where the pleasures resulting from global cooperation (having more stuff than you had before) are balanced by the pleasures resulting from non-cooperation (having more stuff than your neighbors, or the warm glow of ethnic chauvinism).

This picture is compatible with the modest proposal that organisms and societies get smarter and more cooperative over time, but denies the more ambitious proposal that those developments are somehow inherent to the nature of things. I'd be curious to see how you would defend the stronger position.

Best wishes,
Steve

 

[Souron]

Well souron, having a reason to be intelligent is only half the battle, the ability to become intelligent is also quite important. Human intelligence is actually pretty damn pricey. Our huge brains force us to be born relatively prematurely (or else we'd kill our mothers with our huge heads, and even still we do that a fair bit) and thus require extreme care by our parents. Plus we need a crap ton of calories to feed our noggin'.

We can't say that aliens will even have the ability to become intelligent.

Yet, there are many animals, across different Classes that are born prematurely such that the mother has to take care of and teach the child. That actually makes my point stronger: since birds an mammals both evolved sufficient intelligence teach their young, primitive intelligence is shown to be useful and able to evolve in a variety of niche's, and therefore likely to evolve.

And If we conclude that dolphins are smarter than humans, then my argument is all but won.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Jesus BJ, have you become like a full-time guerrilla marketer for that freaking book?

Well have you bought the book yet? If not, I'm sure Amazon has it on sale at a special price just for you.

I am a fan of those things that push the edges of how we look at things. By questioning the status quo thinking & learning takes place. I happen to like his theory.

I'm siding with Pinker

http://www.slate.com/id/2000143/entry/1004510/

I like Steve Pinker too. Your quote was interesting. I will look to see if there was any follow up by Wright. There are always alternate explanations for "smushy" cultural data and given that each of those smart men begin with different assumptions (and have turf to defend), it is no surprise that they end up in different places.

In the evolution arena I liked Wright's explanation of how nonzero summness worked; his framework for the data makes as much sense as does Pinker's.

EDIT: Ah your link has a whole dialog between Pinker and Wright. I'm sure your only posting Pinker's opening salvo was just an oversight because of your haste in getting a reply in place here.

 

[brainpan]

So in other words you're abandoning all criticisms of my posts here?

I stated that since you take no further interest in offering criticism of my post, I would pay less attention to the thread. That's about it for now.

 

[Perfection]

Well have you bought the book yet? If not, I'm sure Amazon has it on sale at a special price just for you.

I am a fan of those things that push the edges of how we look at things. By questioning the status quo thinking & learning takes place. I happen to like his theory.



I like Steve Pinker too. Your quote was interesting. I will look to see if there was any follow up by Wright. There are always alternate explanations for "smushy" cultural data and given that each of those smart men begin with different assumptions (and have turf to defend), it is no surprise that they end up in different places.

In the evolution arena I liked Wright's explanation of how nonzero summness worked; his framework for the data makes as much sense as does Pinker's.

EDIT: Ah your link has a whole dialog between Pinker and Wright. I'm sure your only posting Pinker's opening salvo was just an oversight because of your haste in getting a reply in place here.

I tihnk Pinker sums it up best here:

One criterion for distinguishing the "goal" of a feedback system from its byproducts is how directly and specifically its effector mechanisms bring about the supposed goal. A thermostat can be said to have the goal of regulating temperature rather than helping house plants grow, because it is wired to a heater (which affects temperature directly), and because if the plants droop despite the thermostat's effects, the thermostat is not equipped with an alternative mechanism that helps the plants (such as a dispenser of water or fertilizer). But by this criterion it's hard to describe natural selection--whose immediate effector is merely differential replication--as having the "goal" of producing a biosphere or a human brain. It does produce them, of course, more as byproducts, I would think.

In a similar vein: I agree that the human brain is more interesting and consequential than the elephant trunk, but if natural selection were (metaphorically speaking) intent on building that brain, or something like it, why did it bother with so many side projects--trunks and snail shells and acorns and all the rest? We both know the (no-doubt apocryphal) story in which J.B.S. Haldane was asked by an interviewer what a lifetime of studying the living world had revealed about our Creator, and he replied "An inordinate fondness for beetles."

The model of evolution being something that makes things organize to become more complex or intelligent simply doesn't work. There are numerous examples of things in nature becoming dumber and simpler. Yes natural selection does allow for increasing complexity and Wright's use of game theory is spot on, but to say that evolution (and even moreso alien evolution) has the end goal or pupose of making life more intelligent or complex is not correct.