Most interesting type of ET intelligent aliens?

[Kyriakos]

Another alien thread. See that hieroglyph that looks like a human? It is an alien /Giorgio Tsoukalos

Poll question:

-Which of the following type of ET intelligent alien is the most interesting one in your view?

Poll options:

1) Humanoid, 3d-based
2) Non- humanoid, 3d based
3) Non 3d based (in which case one cannot really say even if it 'looked' humanoid)
4) Other/ stranger

Examples of the options:

1) Something like 'the grays' or similar human-like beings, which function identifying a 3d sensed-environment generally like our own.
2) Something not looking at all like a human (eg it could be a ten headed massive milipede, or worse. But it still would appear to function in a 3d-sensed environment.
3) No way to tell it apart from stuff we tend to view as 'inanimate', such as a rock, or a physical phenomenon such as waves forming. Clearly if 'alive' and 'intelligent' it would not identify stuff like humans do, or tied to human ways.
4) Anything else. Eg the alien life might be a whole planet or solar system, or bits of the cosmos which to us seem non connected, etc etc etc.

 

[BvBPL]

3d? What does that mean? As opposed to the four to six dimensional ones in Slaughter House Five?

 

[Kyriakos]

^The examples are about what is meant by 3d

Basically a 3d-based being seems to identify the environment (and its own self i suppose) as being in 3 dimensions, similar to how we do. So it can be expected to have some isomorphisms to us mental-wise, and so it likely also would be visible as a live and intelligent being to us.

Whereas some very different life form might not be evident to us as either.

I am between 3 and 4 (i mean in voting, not as a type of being )

 

[bhavv]

How about none because those assumptions are not factual?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I'd prefer to meet a species close enough to us that we can communicate with them and make use of their science & technology. If contact occurred in the near future, this extraterrestrial species would necessarily be far more advanced than we are, at least in a few, course-of-history-changing ways. For example, they could have a source of energy that would render most human politics moot. Imagine travel, communications, fresh water, and the transportation of goods costing one-thousandth or one-millionth of what it does now. If contact occurred in the far future, when we have space travel, alien tech would still be different from ours, even if it were no more advanced.

If we encountered an intelligent species too far outside our own existence, there's a chance we wouldn't even recognize it. There's a good chance we would abuse it. Just look at how we treat the more intelligent animals here on Earth. Would we suddenly behave radically differently toward an animal that had a written language, had myths and music, and could make tools? Maybe, but I doubt it.

An extraterrestrial whose intelligence was even further outside our understanding of intelligence (no written language, no "culture", no crafted tools) might be injured just by our mining and settling on their "uninhabited" planet. Or vice-versa. Maybe our first alien contact will be more like The Andromeda Strain, some kind of sentient fungal spores that kills us all by accident.

 

[El_Machinae]

Would 4) necessarily imply that the universe contained additional dimensions that could interact with ours?

 

[Kyriakos]

Would 4) necessarily imply that the universe contained additional dimensions that could interact with ours?

Dimensions? Yes. Beings that actually function in them in a way similar to how we function in 3d? No. Option 3 is for that

Basically option 4 is for a type of being that is not consisting of individuals of a species, while option 3 still is.

 

[bhavv]

Ok, I like the idea of an alien sentient microorganism that wipes us all out.

It can also be 4th dimensional so there's absolutely nothing we can do to try and stop it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Would 4) necessarily imply that the universe contained additional dimensions that could interact with ours?

I would say no, although we would have no way of knowing that a realm of existence outside of our ability to interact with even existed.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Ok, I like the idea of an alien sentient microorganism that wipes us all out.

It could even be totally accidental. Like they're trying to make contact and we just all die. "Whoops. We had no idea that your olfactory organs connected directly to your brains like that. I mean, who thought that was a good idea?"

 

[El_Machinae]

Dimensions? Yes. Beings that actually function in them in a way similar to how we function in 3d? No. Option 3 is for that

Basically option 4 is for a type of being that is not consisting of individuals of a species, while option 3 still is.

Oh, 3 is vastly more interesting that the first two then. Like "it would blow our minds".

Though people who believe in the supernatural already believe in something like this. But I'm more materialist in my thinking, and I'm 'used' to the other dimensions not being truly accessible from our universe.

 

[Kyriakos]

It could even be totally accidental. Like they're trying to make contact and we just all die. "Whoops. We had no idea that your olfactory organs connected directly to your brains like that. I mean, who thought that was a good idea?"

Going by the (quite likely, i think) possibility that time is a oneness of repetitions and already happened before it happens once, such an event may not actually mean annihilation as much as some speck of dust or irregularity observable in some part of the cosmos. Ie maybe species (including the human one) actually have died, but death does not mean they stop existing from the human point of view anyway.

I mean, you cannot take away (or even sense) a 2d object anyway in our 3d sensory input. So in theory there may be myriads of (to humans) 2d events taking place right now infront of your computer screen.

 

[Zelig]

Imaginary things aren't very interesting.

 

[Perfection]

Soccer balls that scream when you kick them.

 

[BenitoChavez]

3) Non 3d based (in which case one cannot really say even if it 'looked' humanoid)
4) Other/ stranger

Examples of the options:

3) No way to tell it apart from stuff we tend to view as 'inanimate', such as a rock, or a physical phenomenon such as waves forming. Clearly if 'alive' and 'intelligent' it would not identify stuff like humans do, or tied to human ways.
4) Anything else. Eg the alien life might be a whole planet or solar system, or bits of the cosmos which to us seem non connected, etc etc etc.

How on Earth would we be able to determine if we encountered a life form of type 3 or 4? Like take your rock example, if it looks like a rock, feels like a rock, and has all the other properties that are rocklike, how would we determine if it is sentient?

 

[Kyriakos]

You don't need to prove or know they are there (or there as such) so as to deem such a hypothetical type as more interesting than the others proposed

 

[Leonel]

I'd be extremely interested in seeing a 2 dimensional alien.

 

[CavLancer]

The nice ones.

 

[bhavv]

I really don't understand how 2 dimensional organisms or planes could exist, as even the tiniest atoms still have a height.

1D and 2D beings are physical impossibilities.

 

[Perfection]

I really don't understand how 2 dimensional organisms or planes could exist, as even the tiniest atoms still have a height.

1D and 2D beings are physical impossibilities.

By that token if you are to believe superstring theory anything less than 11 dimensions are physical impossibilities.

The question really is what dimensions matter to the being. If beings move about on a surface like [wiki]Tangrams[/wiki] sliding on a table then it doesn't matter what their height is. Hell from our perspective they might even be taller then they are wide. So long as their interactions don't allow for anything to change height, they won't need to think about height and from their perspective height just doesn't exist.