Intelligent LIfe

A place where you can chat about anything that isn't to do with games!

Do Aliens Exist?

No.
6
5%
Yes, and they've been to Earth.
17
13%
Yes, but they've not been to Earth.
43
32%
Probably, but I need empirical evidence.
45
34%
I don't give a shit.
22
17%
 
Total votes: 133

User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6116
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by BryanM »

It amuses me on some level that dogs are the only other species to understand what the hell a pointing finger means.

Many animals like music. Just not necessarily the sort we enjoy. Didn't a guy make a thing to generate random music for monkeys to enjoy?

I'm in the same bucket that "stuff" is the main difference between us and chimps.
PSX Vita: Slightly more popular than Color TV-Game system. Almost as successful as the Wii U.
Randorama
Posts: 3503
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:25 pm

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by Randorama »

Chris wrote: Well my only caveat is that everything I know is super general. I know in our previous discussions you've got a way more technical background than me. As long as you can keep it relatively simple, I'm in!
Well, I am in the field (looking for a post-doc right now...), but I taught this stuff to freshmen and gave a class to high-schoolers, even. In general if you think I am packing too much information in my comments, please ask which points require "de-compression", I pride myself in presenting "the very technical" in everyday language ;)
Chris wrote:This is more or less what I was thinking about when I was referring to 'abstract and symbolic thought', which yes, is a way of organizing and chunking. While some other animals demonstrate a little of this, it's more like we process everything through this filter. Everything we see is through language, or at least though a system of organization that seems very different than the way other things perceive the world.

As far as I understand, it is not at all clear if e.g. primates' vision is completely different from humans' vision. It has to be based on "symbolic thought" because, even if primates were only be able to recognize fixed shapes, they would do so by "recording" the input in their visual cortex and then processing it. Technically, that is symbolic thought, since it involves manipulation (thought, or more accurately mental processes), although not conscious, of information standing for something else (symbols). No matter how basic (and pace half-witted people saying the contrary...), even reflex-like mental processes are symbolic, and "thought".

The difference between humans and other species seems to be this. It seems that our way of organizing visual information, however, is more complex, and based on discerning very basic visual inputs and putting them together in complex representations. When we see even something as simple as a box, we recognize edges, surfaces, orientation of surfaces...and we put together this information into a single 'value', the box (object). I don't know much about e.g. primates, but virtually all insects do not really 'see' objects in the world, but rather have ways of recognizing certain fixed key shapes (very roughly, mates, enemies, food), and eventually act upon recognizing these shapes. On the other hand, we appear to be remarkably good at recognizing any kind of shapes, even new ones.
Language is very much a human invention (a biological one), but yeah, I think those language centers are a construct upon (or perhaps in conjunction with) whatever parts of our brain that are responsible for processing information in this unique way.

So can I just start quoting Rilke's 8th Duino Elegy here?
It is is not clear if there are parts of the brain that do NOT process information in other ways. I have studied Vision and event processing and published something on the matter; I know a bit about music and "action planning" (how we organize our physical actions), and I understand that they are governed by principles which appear to be really the same. My guess is that, say, if we can pin down a list of 20 cognitive faculties that make up the human mind, we discover that the basic principles work in the same way across these faculties, and can be represented in the same way.
I read the abstract. I hadn't thought about there being something equivalent to syntax in music. I would have guessed this was one of the few areas of experience that might be PURE, but on the other hand, the lack of music among other species does suggest it too is a byproduct of the way our brain works. Again, I think we are both suspecting the same thing--that language and music both are springing out of a fundamental brain change.
I tend to abhor the way generative linguists use the term 'Syntax'. Insofar as a type of process consists in putting together "things" (say, "information"), then this type of process will have principles that can be called as "Syntax", literally a way to join things together. A lot of linguists (David Pesetsky being one...) graze their navel too much and think that only language involves such principles, so they come up with things such as "ehi, let's see if music has syntax". Music involves putting together notes, very roughly speaking, so it has syntax (principles of combination). Nevertheless, these kinds of work at least give an idea that there seems to be some principle that seems to cut across cognition, and appear to be the key ingredient to our "uniqueness".

In other words, whatever "music" exactly is, human beings do it in rather complex ways, which appear to be deeply different from other species.
Yeah, I've only heard speculation about what might have driven this change. It's still a huge question What we do know is that there no evidence that humans 100 thousand years ago thought like we do, even though they would have looked more or less identical to us. There's no evidence anyway of any of the hallmarks of symbolic thought. Even the lack of burial ritual is significant if some current thinkers are correct in suspecting that the whole notion of a mind/body seperation, an afterlife, etc. springs from symbolic thought (I was watching a video of this on TED, but can't be arsed to look it up now.) So what drives this brain change? Or better yet, which comes first--the complex social life, or the brain that allows complex social life? I'm sure no one can currently answer that.
The brain (the hardware), then the mind (the software) that allows complex social life. You can't have social life if you can't represent what others are thinking, and try to build up a mental model of it. Again, "symbolic thought" is technically way less complex than it seems to be, but it is also true that if you want to cry about the dead, the kind of symbolic thought appears to be way more complex than the one involved in e.g. recognizing a red blob. On a similar note, there is a beautiful but a bit dense book by Thomas Metzinger, called "the ego tunnel", which offers a lot of evidence that in general we event represent "ourselves", not just the world, as units within our models of reality. Let's say that if someone asks, I can share...
GP wrote: For you linguists: So what's up w/ whales?
I don't really know, technically linguists study human language. I guess that somebody claimed that whales "think" and "talk" because he found out that their songs are pretty complex and structured: maybe just complex, as the notion of "structure" appears to be alien to a lot of scientists making these kinds of claims. I think that one should check if this kind of language has, for instance, anaphorae (e.g. pronouns, indexicals). A characteristic of human languages is that we use words such as "he", "she" "tomorrow", "here" or "even" to as markers that refer to previous words/sentences. Example: in "Mario praises himself", the reflexive pronoun "himself" refers back to "Mario".

It is fair to say that the properties of anaphorae offer most of the key insights about the underlying processes regarding Language. If whale language lacks such distinguishable parts of speech with those properties, it will not be the same type of Language as the ones used by humans, and probably represents a difference in how whales' minds work.
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
Gardenia
Posts: 30
Joined: Sat Oct 31, 2009 11:02 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by Gardenia »

lol
User avatar
CMoon
Posts: 6207
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:28 pm

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by CMoon »

Randorama wrote: Well, I am in the field (looking for a post-doc right now...), but I taught this stuff to freshmen and gave a class to high-schoolers, even. In general if you think I am packing too much information in my comments, please ask which points require "de-compression", I pride myself in presenting "the very technical" in everyday language ;)
Cool, well I hope you'll be patient with my ignorance in the field. I finished my course work in biology/psychology back in the late 90's and only at the bachelors level. Everything else I know is from reading popular science books or watching documentaries!

As far as I understand, it is not at all clear if e.g. primates' vision is completely different from humans' vision. It has to be based on "symbolic thought" because, even if primates were only be able to recognize fixed shapes, they would do so by "recording" the input in their visual cortex and then processing it. Technically, that is symbolic thought, since it involves manipulation (thought, or more accurately mental processes), although not conscious, of information standing for something else (symbols). No matter how basic (and pace half-witted people saying the contrary...), even reflex-like mental processes are symbolic, and "thought".
The depressing part about this is that while I have been referring to abstract and symbolic thought, it is in a more philosophical way. There is a notion that without language, if you see a tree, you see it purely as that individual thing, but with language (or 'language-thought') it is immediately catagorized, and by being named it is essentially 'chunked'. The pure experience of the tree is traded out for a word for a generic tree. But I do not have neurological data to support any real difference between an abstract concept of a tree and the pure, real experience of one.

I thought it had been shown that the way children think before language development and afterward was fundamentally different and supported the notion of two seperate ways of processing information, but again, this may not be supported by the neurological evidence--which seems to be what you are saying.

As far as chimps, I was thinking of this study:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTgeLEWr614

Basically we see chimps having something closer to photographic memory than humans, and the idea being that if you can't chunk information into words (or abstract thought?) you'd instead have to depend on raw memorization skills. These are just hunches I've had though, and don't mean much without any sort of evidence.
The difference between humans and other species seems to be this. It seems that our way of organizing visual information, however, is more complex, and based on discerning very basic visual inputs and putting them together in complex representations. When we see even something as simple as a box, we recognize edges, surfaces, orientation of surfaces...and we put together this information into a single 'value', the box (object). I don't know much about e.g. primates, but virtually all insects do not really 'see' objects in the world, but rather have ways of recognizing certain fixed key shapes (very roughly, mates, enemies, food), and eventually act upon recognizing these shapes. On the other hand, we appear to be remarkably good at recognizing any kind of shapes, even new ones.
That's pretty damn cool. Is this actually a difference in the visual cortex (recognizing edges, etc.) or is it more the way the images are being processed and put together to imagine space/objects in the mind? Probably both I'd imagine. I know there have old studies of primate visual cortexes, but I don't know to what extent it's been done with humans due to obvious moral issues.
It is is not clear if there are parts of the brain that do NOT process information in other ways. I have studied Vision and event processing and published something on the matter; I know a bit about music and "action planning" (how we organize our physical actions), and I understand that they are governed by principles which appear to be really the same. My guess is that, say, if we can pin down a list of 20 cognitive faculties that make up the human mind, we discover that the basic principles work in the same way across these faculties, and can be represented in the same way.
This brings me back to the question if pre-lingual children process information in a fundamentally different way than older children (7+)? Or is it just that certain faculties haven't been established yet? Perhaps all thought/processing is really qualitatively the same from flatworm to human, and it's just neuron count??? I don't want to think this is true, and feel that we are seeing qualitatively different thought processes between species, and even different ages in our own species. But if there is no mechanism to support this I'd start growing suspicious.



The brain (the hardware), then the mind (the software) that allows complex social life. You can't have social life if you can't represent what others are thinking, and try to build up a mental model of it. Again, "symbolic thought" is technically way less complex than it seems to be, but it is also true that if you want to cry about the dead, the kind of symbolic thought appears to be way more complex than the one involved in e.g. recognizing a red blob. On a similar note, there is a beautiful but a bit dense book by Thomas Metzinger, called "the ego tunnel", which offers a lot of evidence that in general we event represent "ourselves", not just the world, as units within our models of reality. Let's say that if someone asks, I can share...
Here's where I finally get to flex my biology muscles a little bit in regards to evolution. What we're finding more and more is that of course all meaningful adaptations (like symbolic thought as an important and necessary component of a complex and social life) appear significantly earlier for an entirely different purpose, and are later co-opted for something entirely different. The roots of symbolic thought (and whatever neurological framework is needed to support it) may go quite a ways back with mammals. I'm actually rather impressed in the 'Dogs Decoded' nova special a Border Collie can retrieve one object as cued by another object which appears the same but is a fraction of the size. It makes me think that at least the foundation for symbolic thought was laid a really long time for a completely different purpose than burial rituals or lying to your fellow apemen.

I might check out that book. I'm reading a lot these days (though mostly fiction). I hope I'm smart enough to read it :oops:

Oh, and while I mentioned it before, I'm curious: Have you read Rilke's 8th Duino Elegy? I think it does such a good job of showing how philosophy and poetry have churned over these same thoughts long before science got a chance at them.
Randorama wrote:ban CMoon for being a closet Jerry Falwell cockmonster/Ann Coulter fan, Nijska a bronie (ack! The horror!), and Ed Oscuro being unable to post 100-word arguments without writing 3-pages posts.
Eugenics: you know it's right!
SHMUP sale page.
User avatar
CMoon
Posts: 6207
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:28 pm

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by CMoon »

Ha! This will turn into a thread where it's just me responding to myself.

Reading more of 'Life Ascending', and keep realizing how unlikely life really is. Just looking for planets capable of sustaining life is just a beginning. There's no way to know the real statistics, but clearly it is highly improbably that the right physical environment would exist (mineral cells, thermal vents, etc. etc.) for life to start, but now I get to the photosynthesis chapter, and it becomes so apparent right away that if oxygen based photosynthesis (there are other types that don't produce oxygen as a byproduct) doesn't evolve, the world's water is all split to oxygen and hydrogen (which escapes out the atmosphere) by solar radiation before complex life can evolve. The world starts looking a lot more like mars. When all the water is gone, no life will survive.

Is this the story of countless worlds? Life starts up, but because Oxygen freeing photosynthesis never evolves, the world is never protected from solar radiation and in short order (a billion years or two), the water that made life possible is gone? I don't want to consider the odds against the same kind of photosynthesis evolving elsewhere--it seems a weird mosaic hodgepodge of parts co-opted from other systems. With so many stars and so many worlds, life must be out there, but the odds of that life sustaining a world like ours seems more and more remote.

The search for life must ultimately become the search for worlds with water.
Last edited by CMoon on Thu Mar 03, 2011 2:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Randorama wrote:ban CMoon for being a closet Jerry Falwell cockmonster/Ann Coulter fan, Nijska a bronie (ack! The horror!), and Ed Oscuro being unable to post 100-word arguments without writing 3-pages posts.
Eugenics: you know it's right!
SHMUP sale page.
User avatar
greg
Posts: 1851
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:10 am
Location: Gunma-ken, Japan
Contact:

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by greg »

I'd like to find out if there are such things as alien lifeforms, but I'm more interested in finding out why Saul of the Mole Men hasn't been released on DVD yet.

CMoon wrote:I hate how the Discovery channel (which at least used to be more educational) has become the ghost and ufo channel. Why not rename it the Superstition channel?
QFT. And why is the History Channel showing specials on Star Wars and Star Trek? Ridiculous. It's the dumbing down of America.
Undamned is the leading English-speaking expert on the consolized UD-CPS2 because he's the one who made it.
User avatar
BryanM
Posts: 6116
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:46 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by BryanM »

Because Hitler just gets better ratings by the morons who fill out Nielson questionnaires.

I liked that Ground War series. Ground wars!!

Oh. Topic? Europa Europa Europa Europa Europa. Superintelligent space whales.

Which look exactly like our whales but smaller and with creepy eyes because natural selection is boring and optimal forms constantly turn up again and again.
PSX Vita: Slightly more popular than Color TV-Game system. Almost as successful as the Wii U.
User avatar
JBC
Posts: 3818
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:14 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by JBC »

A quick search didn't turn any results up for this so I'm hoping no one's mentioned it yet.

Fermi Paradox wiki

It's the response to the Drake Equation that sort of maps out all the problems we'll be facing in the search for extraterrestrial life. It's a damn good read and gives alot of food for thought.

Image

As well I think I'm going to insult people on Facebook by sending them this image from now on :wink:

My interest in this has really started to peak ever since Kepler's discoveries started appearing in the news. Good stuff.
Godzilla was an inside job
User avatar
CMoon
Posts: 6207
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:28 pm

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by CMoon »

To be honest, even though I suspect there is probably life teaming throughout the universe, I think the problem is addressed best in the Rama trilogy by Clarke & Lee, namely that it is not so much an issue of space (which is a tremendous hurdle), but time. Certainly, there has been life on earth for at least 3.5 billion years, but for how long has their been truly sentient life, for how long has there been life that an alien space traveler would actually want to meet, and for how long has their been life that might actually recognize alien life for what it was? I think the space hurdle is almost insurmountable, but the time hurdle may truly be insurmountable. How would you ensure that upon visiting a planet with life that there would in fact be life with which interaction would be worthwhile and compelling? The odds are staggering in a way that make powerball odds look half reasonable. It is for instance far more likely that a mass-extinction event (like the K-T) will occur during our lives than a space visitor, yet we don't spend out lives worrying about it. Time itself is what most likely culprit in separating all life in the universe.
Randorama wrote:ban CMoon for being a closet Jerry Falwell cockmonster/Ann Coulter fan, Nijska a bronie (ack! The horror!), and Ed Oscuro being unable to post 100-word arguments without writing 3-pages posts.
Eugenics: you know it's right!
SHMUP sale page.
User avatar
burgerkingdiamond
Posts: 1567
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:56 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by burgerkingdiamond »

I think that a civilization would destroy itself or run out of natural resources long before it was ever able to aquire sufficient technology to travel much farther then even it's own solar system. So while I think it's so obvious that E.T. life does exist, however many billions of alien races there may be in the universe will always remain in their own isolated corners without any direct physical interaction with their neighbors.

Of course it's possible that communication could occur if a planet is has "people" looking out for signals from others. So I do think it's possible although unlikely to find indirect evidence of E.T. life.
Let's Ass Kick Together!
1CCs : Donpachi (PCB - 1st loop) Dodonpachi (PCB - 1st loop) Battle Bakraid (PCB) Armed Police Batrider (PCB) Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 (360 - Original) Mushihimesama Futari BL (PCB - Original)
User avatar
JBC
Posts: 3818
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:14 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by JBC »

I know it's the title of the thread but I think people worry too much about finding intelligent life on other planets. What I think we NEED to realize is that space isn't up there just for us to find some new friends or enemies, however interesting the prospect mày be. The need for us to get off this rock is becoming more & more apparent with each passing day. It's a damn shame America's space program has taken such a hit as I believe in the near future people will begin to wake up to the fact that space, the universe itself, is FILLED with inexhaustible resources. The answer to all our woes is floating directly above our heads.

What we've done to the Earth is a mistake that had to be made in order for us to learn from it. If we can get there, we'll have opened the door to an infinite amount of opportunity. An infinite amount of fresh starts and chances to get it right. There are a lot of people who may want to cry fowl at that due to our sordid history as a species but the fact of the matter is its better than staying here and choking to death on our own shit.
Godzilla was an inside job
User avatar
burgerkingdiamond
Posts: 1567
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:56 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by burgerkingdiamond »

circuitface wrote:I know it's the title of the thread but I think people worry too much about finding intelligent life on other planets. What I think we NEED to realize is that space isn't up there just for us to find some new friends or enemies, however interesting the prospect mày be. The need for us to get off this rock is becoming more & more apparent with each passing day. It's a damn shame America's space program has taken such a hit as I believe in the near future people will begin to wake up to the fact that space, the universe itself, is FILLED with inexhaustible resources. The answer to all our woes is floating directly above our heads.

What we've done to the Earth is a mistake that had to be made in order for us to learn from it. If we can get there, we'll have opened the door to an infinite amount of opportunity. An infinite amount of fresh starts and chances to get it right. There are a lot of people who may want to cry fowl at that due to our sordid history as a species but the fact of the matter is its better than staying here and choking to death on our own shit.
what other planet in our Solar System has any resources that we could actually use? Assuming that we would even be able to set up the infrastructure to harvest it?
Let's Ass Kick Together!
1CCs : Donpachi (PCB - 1st loop) Dodonpachi (PCB - 1st loop) Battle Bakraid (PCB) Armed Police Batrider (PCB) Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 (360 - Original) Mushihimesama Futari BL (PCB - Original)
User avatar
JBC
Posts: 3818
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:14 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by JBC »

All of them.
Godzilla was an inside job
User avatar
burgerkingdiamond
Posts: 1567
Joined: Wed Oct 06, 2010 9:56 pm
Location: Virginia, USA

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by burgerkingdiamond »

circuitface wrote:All of them.
Ok, take Mars for instance. What usable resources does it have? I don't think that it really has anything we need. It could be used just for space though I guess to set up a colony to deal with overpopulation.

I'm just speculating though. To me the obvious things like wood/water/fuel aren't abundant elsewhere in our Solar System.
Let's Ass Kick Together!
1CCs : Donpachi (PCB - 1st loop) Dodonpachi (PCB - 1st loop) Battle Bakraid (PCB) Armed Police Batrider (PCB) Mushihimesama Futari 1.5 (360 - Original) Mushihimesama Futari BL (PCB - Original)
User avatar
JBC
Posts: 3818
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:14 am

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by JBC »

That depends on your definition of water, food, and fuel (all essentially the same things). Don't underestimate our ability to figure things out and adapt. At the same time, don't overestimate what we know of those planets in our solar system. That little go-cart may have sent us some pretty pictures back but when it comes down to it we still don't know anything about Mars and we especially don't know anything about the other planets. Not until we set foot on them and really get our hooks in. Until then, everything is postulation.

But believe me when I say that the very existence of those likey uninhabited, likely attainable celestial bodies means that we are standing underneath an apple tree and only have to reach up and pluck the fruit to survive.
Godzilla was an inside job
User avatar
TransatlanticFoe
Posts: 1736
Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 11:06 pm
Location: UK

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Well Europa is theorised to have water for a start but we're still pussy-footing around when it comes to actually finding out. Other planets may lack our fossil fuel resources but they still have mineral resources. As far as sustaining life is concerned, all you really need is hydrogen (the most abundant element in the universe), oxygen and nitrogen - that basically caters for your atmosphere and water. Whether it's possible to set up a self-sustaining atmosphere on a Mars base or similar remains to be seen. But essentially you just need gases and they're all out there, waiting to be harvested.

It's bizarre that we just went to the moon and then stopped, especially considering how far technology has moved on since then. The are plenty of obstacles to space exploration, not least that we can't travel fast enough yet, but it is daft that we're only now doing things like simulating a mission to Mars.
User avatar
CMoon
Posts: 6207
Joined: Tue Jan 25, 2005 10:28 pm

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by CMoon »

I think vonnegut had a great solution in Slap Stick when he suggested that we just start making humans smaller.
Randorama wrote:ban CMoon for being a closet Jerry Falwell cockmonster/Ann Coulter fan, Nijska a bronie (ack! The horror!), and Ed Oscuro being unable to post 100-word arguments without writing 3-pages posts.
Eugenics: you know it's right!
SHMUP sale page.
Estebang
Posts: 1437
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:22 pm

Re: Intelligent LIfe

Post by Estebang »

CMoon wrote:I think vonnegut had a great solution in Slap Stick when he suggested that we just start making humans smaller.
If we starve for long enough, evolution might take care of that for us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism
Post Reply