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The official cliche list; What should we try and avoid perhaps?
Topic Started: Jan 21 2011, 12:18 PM (6,364 Views)
Rick Raptor
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Sapient aliens in general are cliché.


A lot of people still seem to think another planet has to have something human-like (whether appearance-wise or intelligence-wise) and not be populated only by "stupid animals" as was the case in most periods of prehistoric earth.
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Zoroaster
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I agree with you - despite my exobiology project...

I believe life will be rare in the universe, complex life even rarer, and intelligent complex life exponentially rarer still, and interstellar capable intelligent life intinitesimally rare...

but - where complex life exists, I believe there will be instances where convergent evolution has produced organisms that have similarities to organisms on Earth that fulfull similar ecological niches - but any complex organisms will be limited by the legacy their ancestors grant them - e.g. bauplan etc...
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Scrublord
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Rick Raptor
Feb 12 2011, 10:15 AM
Sapient aliens in general are cliché.


A lot of people still seem to think another planet has to have something human-like (whether appearance-wise or intelligence-wise) and not be populated only by "stupid animals" as was the case in most periods of prehistoric earth.
Yet you could likewise argue that it's a cliche to have projects with NO sapient species, as is the case with many of the projects on this very forum.
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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
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Zoroaster
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

Quote:
 
The degree to which convergence affects the products of evolution is the subject of a popular controversy. In his book Wonderful Life, Stephen Jay Gould argues that if the tape of life were re-wound and played back, life would have taken a very different course.[7] Simon Conway Morris counters this argument, arguing that convergence is a dominant force in evolution, and that, since the same environmental and physical constraints act on all life, there is an "optimum" body plan that life will inevitably evolve toward, with evolution bound to stumble upon intelligence - a trait of primates, crows, and dolphins - at some point.[1] Convergence is difficult to quantify, so progress on this issue may require exploitation of engineering specifications (e.g., of wing aerodynamics) and comparably rigorous measures of "very different course" in terms of phylogenetic (molecular) distances.


I tend to agree with Stephen Jay Gould - I think it's a bit sapient-centric to believe that life actually has a purpose or a goal, a pre-ordained date with sapience - life's (on Earth as we know it anyway) only goal is to be successful, and insects have proven you don't have to be intelligent to be successful.

I believe that life is like a kind of cosmic accident.

And "A Wonderful Life" is one of my favourite popular science books.
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Holben
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Humanoid, on this site, means two arms, two legs, erect stance.

Humanesque is human with stuff added on. Eg, Vulcans, elves, people with tails.

I think that were life can arise, it will. And from the planet-hunting evidence, there look to be a lot of earth-like planets. So lots of life. Maybe three-quarters is all simple, and only a tenth of multicellular worlds get sapients. But that's still a lot.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Zorcuspine
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Enjoying our azure blue world

Even if sapience happened in one of a billion habitable planets, it would still be an inconceivably high number of sapient species. The universe is just that big
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Holben
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And it's likely to be a higher poportion that that, far higher.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Scrublord
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Well, in a story I'm working on, the Milky Way has five sentient species, but only two of them--Humans and a species called the Xyleth-- have even developed space travel.
My Projects:
The Neozoic Redux
Valhalla--Take Three!
The Big One



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In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado.
--Heteromorph
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Holben
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The universe i've done most for has had dozens of sapients in a single galactic arm. More than forty.
And many, many more worlds with non-sapient life.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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bloom_boi
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Theres 2 teams here. The "saganists" or optimists and the "realists" or pessimists. I'm afraid I'm a realist, any galaxy I create only have a maximum of 10 sapient species.
"You shall perish, whatever you do! If you are taken with arms in your hands, death! If you beg for mercy, death! Whichever way you turn, right, left, back, forward, up, down, death! You are not merely outside the law, you are outside humanity. Neither age nor sex shall save you and yours. You shall die, but first you shall taste the agony of your wife, your sister, your sons and daughters, even those in the cradle! Before your eyes the wounded man shall be taken out of the ambulance and hacked with bayonets or knocked down with the butt end of a rifle. He shall be dragged living by his broken leg or bleeding arm and flung like a suffering, groaning bundle of refuse into the gutter. Death! Death! Death!"



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Holben
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That's far too low.
Drake equation says millions, just in this galaxy, which want to communicate.
it's not realism to say only 10- it's madness!
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Zoroaster
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I'm with the pessimists camp (but not the SeaScorpion "camp")

If life was predestined to evolve complexity then sapience, what explains the 3 billion year gap that separates unicellular life and multicellular organisms (okay - a fossil was recently found that dates complexity possibly as far back as 1.8 billion years ago).

I agree that life is highly likely given the right conditions, but not complexity...
Edited by Zoroaster, Feb 14 2011, 12:08 AM.
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Kamidio
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El Squibbonator
Feb 13 2011, 03:36 PM
Well, in a story I'm working on, the Milky Way has five sentient species, but only two of them--Humans and a species called the Xyleth-- have even developed space travel.
*bitch slaps Squib*

For the last time, a toad is sentient, a human is sapient. Sentient means self aware, which is almost every damn thing on this planet.
SSU:NC - Finding a new home.
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macgobhain
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Personally I don't want to turn this into a God argument but I just feel the need to say something. Honestly it takes a lot more faith to believe that life is a "cosmic accident" than it does to believe that there's a God and life is "sapient-centric". I mean, how can you even believe with all honesty that human beings evolved from apes? Sure, we have A LOT in common, but how the hell would man survive those few million years as he devolved everything that in the animal kingdom allowed him to be successful and evolved a bigger brain?

Apparently none of you have spent a lot of time in the wilderness without any gear, have you? Put yourself naked in the middle of a predator filled savannah like those in Africa that we supposedly evolved in and take away that lovely brain that makes you smart enough to use tools to make weapons. You're an animal, you think like an animal, so just what weapons do you have? Every predator on the savannah is bigger, stronger, and faster than you. You have no claws, no teeth to speak of, and no strength. You're not all that well adapted to get up trees as fast as other primates either, and if you're a dude like me you're supersized penis and balls (by animal standards in proportion to our seize) flail around and ultimately impede your over all speed when trying to run, which is the only thing you have going for you if something decides your food.

How did these mentally and physically weak ancestors survive when they were so helpless in a world full of big cats, dogs, and mustelids that wanted to tear their heads off? Doesn't make sense to me at all.

The other thing that makes no sense is the big bang. What exploded exactly? If there was nothing then how does everything suddenly explode? Even Einstein said that all life was too perfect to have happened by "accident". Like I said, to believe that all of the sudden everything exploded from nothing requires a lot more faith than the belief in an eternal cycle of God, Gods, and Heaven, that's simply beyond the comprehension of human beings.

Besides, if there's no God and no after life, then there's really no right or wrong either, because what does it matter if there's no eternal consequence? Right and wrong would be the inventions of man, and you might as well just have anarchy because it doesn't matter if people starve or die because we live in a competitive cycle of evolution.

Simply put I think it's silly... just had to say it. Anyways, cliches... I'll have to read the rest of the thread and I'll post later.
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Carlos
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What the hell has that to do with the topic!?
Lemuria:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/topic/5724950/

Terra Alternativa:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Conceptual_Evolution/forum/460637/

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