Alien Intelligence

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except Cleon was clear when he posited the initial example: the alien would resemble a bug, but would actually have a different structure in reality.

You and Tom are arguing against something not put forth. A straw...bug.

Edit: apologies- Cleon didn't posit the original example. No strawbug fallacy exists.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You have me wrong. I'm not saying intelligent aliens would avoid us because we're not smart. It's just, as a species, we are currently horrible people despite the fact that we are smart enough to know better. We have the intelligence to be better people, we just don't have the motivation. Maybe that will change, or maybe some other life form will find the radioactive ruin of our civilization.

There are horrible people, but there are also people that are decidedly not horrible, and you're selling them short, and basically implicitely demotivitating people that try to do good.
It's doubtful that any alien intelligence was "nice" from the start. At best, any terms of niceness might be meaningless for it, say for an intelligence like in Solaris.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's doubtful that any alien intelligence was "nice" from the start.

"And they haven't gotten any nicer since then. They're all a bunch of..."

 

[Umbran]

"And they haven't gotten any nicer since then. They're all a bunch of..."

Psst! That's one right there! On his head! Isn't it obvious that hair isn't from this planet?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It would explain a bunch or things...

 

[Ryujin]

Psst! That's one right there! On his head! Isn't it obvious that hair isn't from this planet?

Clearly a Saurian in disguise, likely descended from some alien dino like Dimetrodon.

 

[Cleon]

But, that sidesteps the point: A creature which has the common physical structure of an insect can't survive as a land dwelling terrestrial organism if enlarged to be 30' tall. Basic physics and limits on material properties prevent it.

I don't remember anyone specifying it had to be a land dwelling terrestrial organism, it'd be a lot easier if it was floating in water or freefall.

Anyhow, I fear we're talking at cross-purposes here. We need to agree on what we mean by 30-foot insect.

If it's literally an insect in a taxonomic sense (i.e. a member of the class Hexapoda, or rather Insecta), its evolutionary ancestors would have to originate on Earth and then somehow get transplanted to an extraterrestrial environment were they become the aforementioned ten yard arthropod. Maybe a bunch of ants hitch-hiked a ride on a UFO.

You seem to be talking about a class of alien lifeform that just happened to evolve identical biology to earth insects - chitinous exoskeletons, six legs, division into head-thorax-abdomen, tracheal respiration, and so on and so forth.

In both the former cases, I hope we can all agree that growing one to 30 feet is, ah, problematic. Insect anatomy is just not compatible with sizes longer than a few inches. I suppose it's theoretically possible if it's an entirely aquatic insect with very, very elongated body. If it's 30 feet long and half an inch wide, at least its trachea would still be able to diffuse oxygen through its tissues. It'd probably be unable to intake enough food through its comparatively tiny mouth, so it'd likely have to feed through its skin - some kind of symbiotic photosynthetic or chemosynthetic bacteria would be a likely solution. It'd be extremely fragile and unsuited for life anywhere with violent weather, let alone predators.

However, while such a hypothetical creature may be a "30 foot insect" in a technical sense, it'd look more like a giant Polychaete worm. I'm visualizing a Lamellibrachia luymesi with a half-dozen legs at one end.

Then, to make the poor thing's physiology even more implausible, we're talking about making it intelligent. Some kind of communal mind, perhaps, with a lot of these insect-worms networked together. Or maybe they have information-processing symbiotes under their chitin as well as food-producing ones, which allow them to reach sapiency.

If we want a 30 foot intelligent alien that, say, looks like a praying mantis as big as a house, I don't see any way it can be an actual "insect" in any real sense. It just looks like one, but its physiology would have to work in very un-insect like ways for it to be viable.

 

[tomBitonti]

I don't remember anyone specifying it had to be a land dwelling terrestrial organism, it'd be a lot easier if it was floating in water or freefall.

Anyhow, I fear we're talking at cross-purposes here. We need to agree on what we mean by 30-foot insect.
If we want a 30 foot intelligent alien that, say, looks like a praying mantis as big as a house, I don't see any way it can be an actual "insect" in any real sense. It just looks like one, but its physiology would have to work in very un-insect like ways for it to be viable.

Hi,

Yeah. To clarify. I'm not really interested in the properties of 30' insects, other than as an example. And I'm not talking about 30' alien insects. The idea is of an insect, say, a praying mantis, enlarged with minimal alterations other than size.

That's absurd, of course, a 30' praying mantis would collapse on itself, or would suffocate, or would fail to transport heat away, &etc.

But, television has had no problem depicting a 30' praying mantis despite the absurdity.

Similarly, science fiction authors (mostly) have no trouble postulating interstellar voyages using more-or-less known physics. And little trouble postulating multi-generation ships. Most, but not all: A few have approached the problem with a more realistic bent, or have focused the story one of the engineering problems.

Now, an interstellar crossing sounds possible. But, when you look at the engineering details, is it actually possible, working within known materials and our known understanding of physical processes?

My assertion is that we don't actually know. An interstellar crossing might fall to any number of physical limitations, in a similar fashion that a 30' praying mantis collapses on itself.

I think the flaw is similar; we've just changed a different dimension of the problem.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

Now, an interstellar crossing sounds possible. But, when you look at the engineering details, is it actually possible, working within known materials and our known understanding of physical processes?

My assertion is that we don't actually know. An interstellar crossing might fall to any number of physical limitations, in a similar fashion that a 30' praying mantis collapses on itself.

I think the flaw is similar; we've just changed a different dimension of the problem.

I think we need to look at two different scenarios:

We started this line of discussion considering unmanned, robotic probes. Barring technology we don't know is possible, an interstellar crossing for it would mean centuries running without maintenance. That's a problem.

A generation ship, with capacity to recycle, and people to make new parts and even entire new systems? It still takes centuries, but is a much different question.

 

[tomBitonti]

I think we need to look at two different scenarios:

We started this line of discussion considering unmanned, robotic probes. Barring technology we don't know is possible, an interstellar crossing for it would mean centuries running without maintenance. That's a problem.

A generation ship, with capacity to recycle, and people to make new parts and even entire new systems? It still takes centuries, but is a much different question.

Yeah, whole different domains. I put in both domains because they track the two most common scenarios: Sending a small(ish) robotic probe at relatively high speeds, and sending a large multi-generational ship, at much lower speeds. I think the end result is the same for either: We don't know if the problems in either domain are solvable. But very different problems.

My assertion is a stronger take on the "don't know if the problems are solvable" statement. That is, I assert that the problems might not be solvable due to fundamental physical limitations. That is the difference between saying "we haven't found a material which would work" and "we haven't found a material which would work, and the underlying science predicts that no workable material is possible". Otherwise, the comparison to the absurd 30' praying mantis doesn't work.

Or, in a slightly different form: Not only do we not know if interstellar travel is possible. We don't even know if the idea of interstellar travel is less absurd than the idea of a 30' praying mantis.

Thx!

TomB