Sometimes a picture is worth thousands of words

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:52 am

krenshala wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:Please tell me folks, what is the physical trace of "intelligence"? For all we know there have been 50 sapient species on this planet, only one of which chose to go the "technology" route. What trace would a race of a-technical genius philosophers leave?
I think Douglas Adams said it best:
Douglas Adams wrote:Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars and so on...while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man...for precisely the same reason.

So, these two points are precisely why I suggested 'farming' is the signal I would regard as 'intelligence', in the context of extra-terrestrial life.

Dolphins don't farm. By not farming, they [like any other species] limit their numbers to growth and make impossible the settlement of a particular location. This means that it becomes difficult to avoid predation, and that they cannot begin to devise 'culture'.

By not farming, a species remains dependent on what the capricious environment around them provides. Even with fire or 'energy control', they are still dependent on nature if they do not have their nutrients under control. Hence, and within the definition I am giving, tribal hunter-gatherers do not classify as 'intelligent', unless their 'farm' on which they depend are mobile herds that are under their control.

Sure, dolphins are 'intelligent', within the general english usage. As were neanderthals and as are North American tribes who roamed the plains, and aboriginal tribes in Australasia/Polynesia. But I would disagree that they are 'intelligent civilisations' capable of even comprehending motivations for colonising space.

Which brings me back to traceability - a farming civilisation will leave a genetic legacy behind which can be traced for aeons for the effect it has on the planet's biota, both in regards the genetics and distributions. For sure, that is not guaranteed, but I do think it'll last far longer than any physical structures. For example, in 100 million years time I am confident there will be traces of hexaploid wheat in the biota of the planet, but a hexaploid organism is so unlikely to appear in nature that it can only come about by intensive mono-crop farming of a sterile artificial species for many generations, until random genetic variations lead to a few fertile samples.

There are also changes to the landscape. Even in UK where there is continuous erosion and weather that degrades the surface of the land, there is evidence of farming practices 10,000 years old, without any other signs of civilisation remaining. So as those traces get buried or move into more arid climates, these landscape modifications may last almost indefinitely, eventually being overlaid with stratifications of sand, and the very shape and distributions of the stratifications themselves will leave indelible evidence of farming in the rock itself.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 10:06 am

Sorry, I should also add to this thesis that, certainly, on earth, it is not until a recognition of seasonal variations that individuals begin to become conscious of a universal space beyond the earth's surface, because it is inevitable that measurement of the star around which a civilisation orbits will be taken, to improve farming planning, and at that point they may begin to wonder and comprehend [with good reason, rather than just a superstitious guess] that to go beyond the earth is possible. At that point, we have a civilisation that might, one day, head off from the planet, and that it is unlikely before such measurements of the star's location/behaviour is made. The only motivation to do such measurements and begin that thought-process would be; farming.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 3:20 pm

I guess the main often overlooked problem is that all of this have to be working for millenia. Which means today ship would have to be really big to take away the complete technological base AND resources to rebuild any device onboard after it fails (and everything has to be there 3 times to achieve acceptable redundancy).

Why for millenia? I think 150 years would be enough (as I calculated earlier). Yes still challenging for engineers to make sure that something keeps running for that long, I agree, but I do think that even with todays technology things can easily be built to run for 150 years with minor repairs and maintenance. Some of the submarines in the US fleet kept running for decades and were only decomissioned because they were outdated and not because they were falling apart...
I would think that the environments are pretty much comparable in regards to how hostile they are. I would actually claim that the ocean is a more hostile environment.
Yes maintenance would be needed, but IMHO there is no reason why you cant implement sufficient reduncancy and the ability to self repair the thing during the mission.
The biggest danger and reason for damages might be micro meteorite strikes, IMHO. There are a few things that can be done about that though.

Even today, most people do not compete by breeding. I guess at least for humans, competitivness is about status seeking, not breeding.

A rather recent development that will not last long. The corrective forces of evolution will fix that within a few generations. The ones that do not compete by breeding will die out ending this little genetic error once and forever.

By not farming, they [like any other species] limit their numbers to growth and make impossible the settlement of a particular location.

Chris, ants do livestock farming and cultivation (e.g. mushroom cultivation and the holding of livestock of lice) .
Would you therefore classify them as an intelligent life form, higher than dolphins (who are not THAT intelligent, btw)?

Luzr · Post by **Luzr** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:08 pm

Skipjack wrote:
Even today, most people do not compete by breeding. I guess at least for humans, competitivness is about status seeking, not breeding.
A rather recent development that will not last long. The corrective forces of evolution will fix that within a few generations. The ones that do not compete by breeding will die out ending this little genetic error once and forever.

It is a meme, not a gene. And it iseems to be associated with more advanced societies.

See, there is much more people in poor countries of the world that in developed ones. Still, developed countries are those that are forming future. Those more lucky of poor counties adapt "good" memes and become developed. Those less lucky are simply in misery.

It is not about genes anymore...

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 6:20 pm

Skipjack wrote:Chris, ants do livestock farming and cultivation (e.g. mushroom cultivation and the holding of livestock of lice) .
Would you therefore classify them as an intelligent life form, higher than dolphins (who are not THAT intelligent, btw)?

If they qualitatively select the harvest and change the genetic lines by doing so, leaving behind a detectable genetic legacy of deliberate modification, then I suppose I'd have to cover them by my definition. But I don't think they do.

Do they also do the other part of the farming definition, whereby they can choose their environment for the farming, thus take their source of nutrition away from predation and risky environments?

There again, termites work well to create alignments with the sun. Maybe they've started thinking about travelling to the stars, and might do so in a few million years time.

CaptainBeowulf · Post by **CaptainBeowulf** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:20 pm

Yeah, I was thinking about crows when I was talking about intelligent birds.

However, I've seen what I what call rudimentary tool use in many species. Even some breeds of dog seem to have limited abstract thought. Nothing as complex as the crow, but - I've seen dogs do things like pull open a cupboard door by grabbing the handle in their teeth. Or, trying to get a bone through fenceposts, reach through and roll it around with a paw until it gets close enough that they can reach their muzzle through and grab it.

CaptainBeowulf · Post by **CaptainBeowulf** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:37 pm

... already here, as WE are the aliens! (unlikely, but a possibility that should be considered)

Very unlikely, unless similar gene sequences arise on different planets (this is a possibility - perhaps DNA tends to organize similar sequences to code for the same functions all over the place, just like water molecules look like water molecules wherever you are in the universe).

Basically, we seem to share genes not only with other mammals but even with things like fruit flies. Of course the sequences are a bit different due to millions/billions of years of genetic drift... but it appears that everything is descended from the same original single cellular life.

Of course, if you mean that EVERYTHING living on earth are the aliens... maybe we're all descended from some microbe that arrived here in an asteroid, or on the dirt on the shoe of some ancient astronaut, a few billion years ago.

Or, it's remotely possible that someone seeded the planet with a primitive microbe to see what would develop, or because they felt that they were somehow obliged to spread life through the galaxy.

... monitoring us (as a control?) in a science experiment

As above... it is certainly conceivable to me that there could be intelligences which live for billions of years, so the timeframe of our evolution would be a reasonable period for an experiment to run for them.

Maybe we're not the control... maybe things like asteroid strikes were deliberate, and somewhere else is the control... where life evolved linearly without any mass extinctions.

.. ignoring our planet because better ones are available

Possible.

... using comms we can't detect, either due to direction, range, or type (ignoring the issue of timing, though it should also be considered)

I find this the most likely scenario. For instance, read about weak measurement of quantum entangled particles - measuring the state of the particle without disrupting the superimposed state. Who knows if it can be done? But if it can be, it could open the door to FTL communications like the "ansible" invoked by science fiction writers such as Ursula K. LeGuinn and Orson Scott Card. Not FTL flight of solid objects, mind you, just FTL transfer of information. A species with access to such a technology wouldn't bother with radio.

... are busy with something more important to them than a backwater planet 3/4 of the way out from the galactic core (aren't what we consider useful resources supposed to be better closer to the center?)

Or maybe they don't need resources from planets (plenty of res in asteroids, comets, etc.), but they just don't find us interesting. If we were more philosophically/culturally/technologically advanced, they might want to drop by and chat, but they figure we have nothing to say that would be worthwhile.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 11:16 pm

If they qualitatively select the harvest and change the genetic lines by doing so, leaving behind a detectable genetic legacy of deliberate modification, then I suppose I'd have to cover them by my definition. But I don't think they do.

http://whyfiles.org/shorties/ant_farm.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant-fungus_mutualism

http://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/BE/Kingd ... 4041e.html

Luzr · Post by **Luzr** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 6:49 am

CaptainBeowulf wrote: I find this the most likely scenario. For instance, read about weak measurement of quantum entangled particles - measuring the state of the particle without disrupting the superimposed state. Who knows if it can be done? But if it can be, it could open the door to FTL communications like the "ansible" invoked by science fiction writers such as Ursula K. LeGuinn and Orson Scott Card. Not FTL flight of solid objects, mind you, just FTL transfer of information.

I always thought that this is still impossible with STR, solid object or information, does not matter...

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 7:02 am

although ants don't keep farmers' almanacs, they do leave a genetic trail of their activities in the cultivated varieties -- cultivars -- of fungus they raise. this looks appetizingThink of it this way: After an ant domesticates a fungus, that fungus changes genetically, becoming different from the wild variety. From the number and variety of genetic differences, a family tree can be constructed.

Excellent! Well, what I would say here is that ants are clearly an intelligent species, then! But rather than jump to the conclusion that they are sentient and capable of now developing scientifically, the next criteria is that they choose where to put their nests - because they can carry their nutrients with them - reducing predation and increasing the amount of ant-freetime for them to develop a culture.

I don't think they yet have these latter aspects, but, hey, give them another few 100,000 years...

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:55 am

Chris, I think you would be surprised about how organized ants are.
Anyway, I would say that you should reconsider the "fire" definition that seedload and I brought forth. There really is not other animal that is using fire like humans are.

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:40 am

Skipjack wrote:Chris, I think you would be surprised about how organized ants are.
Anyway, I would say that you should reconsider the "fire" definition that seedload and I brought forth. There really is not other animal that is using fire like humans are.

Sure, but if you were arrive here on earth and the only signs left by humans were pieces of burnt stuff, then how would you distinguish that from something that happened naturally?

A planet might conceivably have an excess of oxygen and flammable gases, and fire is/was something to be avoided. I don't think it is a distinguishing feature.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 2:33 pm

Sure, but if you were arrive here on earth and the only signs left by humans were pieces of burnt stuff, then how would you distinguish that from something that happened naturally?

Uhm, how realistic is that?
As you know, many archeological and paleontological clues that we have are the tools and manufactured items that our ancestors (and died of branche) have left behind. Among them were actually even fireplaces and scorched items that gave us a hint at their capabilities of taming fire.

A planet might conceivably have an excess of oxygen and flammable gases, and fire is/was something to be avoided. I don't think it is a distinguishing feature.

At some point, earth did indeed have an excess of oxygen and very little CO2. Plants were starving then. However (and I do admit that I am not 100% sure here), the amounts of oxygen were still not in a way that would prohibit the use of fire. I do think that this would be a pretty weird planet. It would have to have absolutely no plate tectonics and vulcanism (or they would cause huge fires). There would also have to be no meteorite strikes (again can cause fires) and no thunderstorms (lightning strikes are among the most common causes auf forrest and bush fires).
I would think that the oxygen level on any planet would be self regulating because of that. To much oxygen favors fires, which in turn bind the oxygen in other molecules. Oxygen levels are reduced and the system gets into a less volatile balance again.

Giorgio · Post by **Giorgio** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:32 pm

Flammable limits of oxygen in air by VOLUME:
Lower: 4.0%
Upper: 75.0%

chrismb · Post by **chrismb** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:36 pm

Giorgio wrote:Flammable limits of oxygen in air by VOLUME:
Lower: 4.0%
Upper: 75.0%

Can you explain these numbers, please?