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Science News General; Stuff that doesn't need its own topic
Topic Started: Apr 9 2014, 07:11 AM (11,240 Views)
Flisch
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LittleIslander
Aug 3 2016, 08:04 PM
I doubt we're the first first, but I wouldn't be all that shocked if we're pretty high up there.

Why not? Somebody has to be the first, might as well be us. And honestly we currently have literally no evidence or indicators that there is other intelligent life in our galaxy, while having a (very very weak, admittedly) piece of evidence that we might be the first. Nothing is proven, and I wouldn't even go as far to say that it's likely the case, but, you know.

Dr Nitwhite
Aug 3 2016, 09:11 PM
I always thought it was a bit silly to assume intelligence is inevitable given multicellularity on any one planet. (This oddly seems to be a pervading view of several scientists, that if multicellularity occurs, intelligence is an inevitability.) There always seems to be a jump from the possibility of multicellulariy to the guarantee of intelligence. That's my personal answer to the paradox, we just happen to be an evolutionary quirk, a unique path unlikely to be tread again. That isn't to say ET intelligence is an impossibility, its just not an inevitable convergence.

Statistically, intelligent life is a matter of time. We just don't know if the average time for intelligent life to evolve is longer than the average lifespan of a planet and/or the sun.

Parasky
Aug 4 2016, 04:56 AM
It also doesn't make sense for a sapient species to engage in nuclear war, but it's very nearly happened. Your logic isn't very sound and is based on incorrect assumptions about how evolution works. Traits evolve in response to environment pressures, not necessarily for specific reasons. If that were the case then there would be no war or competition among humanity since those run counter to maximizing reproduction and resource extraction.

Err, what. 100% absolutely not. Wars do not run counter to reproduction and resource extraction. They are fought for the very same reason why territorial animals defend their territory or try to drive out other animals from theirs. It's done to acquire new land/resources or to cut off your rivals from it, which in turn gives you a better chance to survive.

Also you'll get ideological reasonings, which can get a lot more complex. Some people want to "prove" something, trying to become more influential, thus increasing their own standing, which goes back to the primal instinct of trying to find a mate. Other ideologies fight wars because they perceive a certain group of people as threats, again something that is a very primal notion. (Most) Wars may not make sense in a "rational" way, but they are perfectly explainable when viewed through the lens of evolution.
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LittleLazyLass
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Why not? Somebody has to be the first, might as well be us. And honestly we currently have literally no evidence or indicators that there is other intelligent life in our galaxy, while having a (very very weak, admittedly) piece of evidence that we might be the first. Nothing is proven, and I wouldn't even go as far to say that it's likely the case, but, you know.
Probability. Assuming it's likely that it'll appear plenty of times in the future, it's just unlikely we happen to be the exact first, that not a single other race of sapients came around before us.
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We have 4 nearly-there's. Now, we can't look at prehistoric animal behavior directly, but similar levels would probably have existed in the past (though we have decent evidence of social interactions like pack-hunting).
No, because we know intelligence has been getting higher and higher over time. At the end of the Mesozoic, we can confidently say that nothing was on the level of intelligence of your average mammal today, unless something that goes against all known trends managed to escape the fossil record, an idea which we can safely cast aside.

Pack hunting is not on the level of sapience.
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Relatively high intelligence, tool use, and/or complicated social interaction are also very common outside the four you listed (perhaps they aren't all nearly-there's) in animals such as: wolves, other primates, woodpecker finches, nuthatches, old-world vultures, pigs, other corvids, etc...
Again, relatively high is not near-sapience. Tool use isn't either/ So your examples are also intelligent, but not the kind of intelligence we're looking for. Other high primates and other corvids would fall under the same evolutionary event as humans and the smartest corvids - their extreme intelligence didn't come about independently.
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We appeared in millions of years that could be counted on fingers
No we didn't. We appeared in the number of millions of years since life first appeared on earth.
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But I think it a bit presumptuous to assume that more ancient animals would have been unintelligent.
I never said that, but we know they were less intelligent, unless, again some completely trend breaking group of animals we somehow know nothing about existed, an idea which can be ignored unless some evidence towards it appears.
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Flisch
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LittleIslander
Aug 4 2016, 11:49 AM
Quote:
 
Why not? Somebody has to be the first, might as well be us. And honestly we currently have literally no evidence or indicators that there is other intelligent life in our galaxy, while having a (very very weak, admittedly) piece of evidence that we might be the first. Nothing is proven, and I wouldn't even go as far to say that it's likely the case, but, you know.
Probability. Assuming it's likely that it'll appear plenty of times in the future, it's just unlikely we happen to be the exact first, that not a single other race of sapients came around before us.
Yeah but, as soon as a species has become far enough to build advanced technology, able to venture into space, don't you think they will take over the galaxy relatively quickly?

Personally, I do, which means that there will likely be only one intelligent species per galaxy, unless you also count uplifted species. If this is true (and again, this is just my assumption based on how humanity has developed so far) then it would mean that we are indeed the first, and by extension only.

(Disclaimer: I know I am using the word "intelligent" but what I mean for the sake of shortening text is "able to invent spacetravel". Limbless species as well as aquatic species (and species living on gas giants) may also become sophonts and even build civilization, but will likely not be able to leave their homeplanet.)
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LittleLazyLass
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Yeah but, as soon as a species has become far enough to build advanced technology, able to venture into space, don't you think they will take over the galaxy relatively quickly?
Even if all sapient species are highly expansionist, which is in itself an assumption, think for a second how huge an entire galaxy is. Is it really likely for them to conquer an entire galaxy before something else appears as well?
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If this is true (and again, this is just my assumption based on how humanity has developed so far) then it would mean that we are indeed the first, and by extension only.
What? Even if we're the only species in our galaxy, what about the innumerable other galaxies out there?

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(Disclaimer: I know I am using the word "intelligent" but what I mean for the sake of shortening text is "able to invent spacetravel". Limbless species as well as aquatic species (and species living on gas giants) may also become sophonts and even build civilization, but will likely not be able to leave their homeplanet.)
Well now you're cherry picking.
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Flisch
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LittleIslander
Aug 4 2016, 12:20 PM
Quote:
 
(Disclaimer: I know I am using the word "intelligent" but what I mean for the sake of shortening text is "able to invent spacetravel". Limbless species as well as aquatic species (and species living on gas giants) may also become sophonts and even build civilization, but will likely not be able to leave their homeplanet.)
Well now you're cherry picking.

Fine, let's be unnessecarily verbose then.

LittleIslander
Aug 4 2016, 12:20 PM
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Yeah but, as soon as a species has become far enough to build advanced technology, able to venture into space, don't you think they will take over the galaxy relatively quickly?
Even if all sapient species are highly expansionist, which is in itself an assumption, think for a second how huge an entire galaxy is. Is it really likely for them to conquer an entire galaxy before something else appears as well?

I would say so, yeah. Technological progress happens at an exponential rate. As does population growth. I doubt it'll take more than a few million years, if it even takes one million. That is a very narrow timeframe for another space-faring species to evolve.

LittleIslander
Aug 4 2016, 12:20 PM
Quote:
 
If this is true (and again, this is just my assumption based on how humanity has developed so far) then it would mean that we are indeed the first, and by extension only.
What? Even if we're the only species in our galaxy, what about the innumerable other galaxies out there?

I was only talking about our galaxy. If I said universe before, my bad, I meant galaxy.
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peashyjah
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What if the universe continues to expand for about several billion years from now?
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LittleLazyLass
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I was only talking about our galaxy. If I said universe before, my bad, I meant galaxy.
I interpreted that the original article linked was talking about the universe, so I assumed that was what was being discussed.
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Flisch
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I was specifically addresing the Fermi paradox, which only takes into account our galaxy. (And also only spacefaring civilizations.)
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Dr Nitwhite
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No, because we know intelligence has been getting higher and higher over time. At the end of the Mesozoic, we can confidently say that nothing was on the level of intelligence of your average mammal today, unless something that goes against all known trends managed to escape the fossil record, an idea which we can safely cast aside.

Pack hunting is not on the level of sapience.


Would you mind pointing me in the direction of this trend you mention? I hadn't heard of it before.

Of course pack-hunting isn't on the level of sapience. Complicated social interaction is on the path toward it.

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Again, relatively high is not near-sapience. Tool use isn't either/ So your examples are also intelligent, but not the kind of intelligence we're looking for.


My initial point (though I may not have articulated it well) was not that these animals where necessarily on par with one another, but that they where of an exceptional level and in a certain grade. Near Human levels doesn't beget itself, it would've started somewhere.

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Other high primates and other corvids would fall under the same evolutionary event as humans and the smartest corvids - their extreme intelligence didn't come about independently.


Fair enough.

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No we didn't. We appeared in the number of millions of years since life first appeared on earth.


Not quite sure what you mean here. The 2-3 million years the genus Homo has been around is still 2-3 million years to the present day no matter how you cut it, since the beginning of the universe or the earth. I can count to 2 and 3 on my hands.

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I never said that, but we know they were less intelligent, unless, again some completely trend breaking group of animals we somehow know nothing about existed, an idea which can be ignored unless some evidence towards it appears.


To sum up, yes, corvids and primates are recent developments, and we can't prove anything like them existed in the past. But the possibility of something intelligent evolving from something of slightly less intelligence wasn't intrinsically missing. Creatures of lesser (but still of some) intelligence would have existed, and I don't think there is any rule saying that they couldn't have progressed further into something like us. They of course, did not, which brings me back to my original point. Intelligence could have developed, but did not. Thereby, I don't think it is an inevitably. I'm still not privy to this trend you mention.

Sorry if I come off as rude or possibly insane, but anything outside of an in-person conversation will lead to weird speech patterns, overthinking, and confusion.
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LittleLazyLass
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Not quite sure what you mean here. The 2-3 million years the genus Homo has been around is still 2-3 million years to the present day no matter how you cut it, since the beginning of the universe or the earth. I can count to 2 and 3 on my hands.
How long we've been around is irrelevant, you said "appeared". We've been evolving just as long as anything else on this planet, Homo didn't just pop out of nowhere. It took the length of time life has been evolving on earth for us to appear.

Our last ancestor outside the genus Homo, and the first individual within Homo were equal in intelligence; not the least because you can't have a first member of the genus Homo without it the ancestor species being paraphyletic.
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Would you mind pointing me in the direction of this trend you mention? I hadn't heard of it before.
The most intelligent species at the end of the Mesozoic were below average intelligence of today. Troodon was the smartest known dinosaur in the Mesozoic, but it was only as smart as an emu. Emus are not particularly smart birds. The average level of intelligence in dinosaurs has evidently gone up. Mammals tell a similar story.
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But the possibility of something intelligent evolving from something of slightly less intelligence wasn't intrinsically missing.
But it takes time. You can't go from emu-level intelligence to parrot level intelligence in a few million years.
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They of course, did not, which brings me back to my original point. Intelligence could have developed, but did not.
Yes, they did, it's called humans. We're descended from them. Dolphins, parrots, and crows are also descended from less intelligent creatures that existed back then.
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Flisch
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Dr Nitwhite
Aug 4 2016, 12:58 PM
The 2-3 million years the genus Homo has been around is still 2-3 million years to the present day no matter how you cut it, since the beginning of the universe or the earth. I can count to 2 and 3 on my hands.

The definitions of texonomic ranks are just that: Definitions. They only exist to make it easier for humans to categorize them. They have no inherent meaning. You cannot use the lifetime of a taxonomic rank to prove a point, really.

Dr Nitwhite
Aug 4 2016, 12:58 PM
Creatures of lesser (but still of some) intelligence would have existed, and I don't think there is any rule saying that they couldn't have progressed further into something like us. They of course, did not, which brings me back to my original point. Intelligence could have developed, but did not. Thereby, I don't think it is an inevitably. I'm still not privy to this trend you mention.

Just because they didn't doesn't mean they wouldn't have if given enough time. It's like saying that not all things sink to the bottom of the sea when dying, maybe because they were snatched up by a scavenger on the way down and then concluding that gravity doesn't exist. (I know, terrible example, but you get the point. (Hopefully))

There is a clear trend for life to become more and more complex. Part of this trend is the nervous system in animals becoming more and more complex. In a completely hypothetical environment in which the lifespan of a planet and its sun is indefinite, then intelligence is an inevitability.

Though, I don't even think we need to go into hypotheticals. As LittleIslander has pointed out, there are already multiple groups of animals alive today that, if given as little as 50 to 100 million years, would probably evolve sapience.
Edited by Flisch, Aug 4 2016, 02:10 PM.
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Dr Nitwhite
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Alright...you lot got me. I concede (most of) the points.

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However-

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The definitions of texonomic ranks are just that: Definitions. They only exist to make it easier for humans to categorize them. They have no inherent meaning. You cannot use the lifetime of a taxonomic rank to prove a point, really.


You are entirely correct, but what I meant to say is that our particular strain of intelligence, and that of our close relatives come to think of it, has been around for an insignificant amount of time. Also, human like intelligence doesn't seem to take too long, geologically, to develop from something chimp-like. So I think 50-100 my might be a little long.
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Flisch
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Dr Nitwhite
Aug 4 2016, 02:37 PM
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The definitions of texonomic ranks are just that: Definitions. They only exist to make it easier for humans to categorize them. They have no inherent meaning. You cannot use the lifetime of a taxonomic rank to prove a point, really.


You are entirely correct, but what I meant to say is that our particular strain of intelligence, and that of our close relatives come to think of it, has been around for an insignificant amount of time.

It still didn't just "appear".

Dr Nitwhite
Aug 4 2016, 02:37 PM
Also, human like intelligence doesn't seem to take too long, geologically, to develop from something chimp-like. So I think 50-100 my might be a little long.

I was being generous. :P

Edit: Wow, this really should have needed its own topic.
Edited by Flisch, Aug 4 2016, 02:46 PM.
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Dr Nitwhite
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It still didn't just "appear".


No, of course not. But it was a very rapid change. I think I also may be using appeared wrong. I didn't mean it zapped into existence as if by magic. Perhaps I should have used the word "developed".

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Edit: Wow, this really should have needed its own topic.


Yes. Yes it did.
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About this point specifically:
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Even if all sapient species are highly expansionist, which is in itself an assumption, think for a second how huge an entire galaxy is. Is it really likely for them to conquer an entire galaxy before something else appears as well?
Yes, quite more likely than the opposite. It is doable in less than five million years and with technology just somewhat more advanced than ours. Five million years is quite a tiny timespan for a new advanced civillisation to appear out of just intelligent creatures.
Wait but why on the Fermi paradox
 
One hypothesis as to how galactic colonization could happen is by creating machinery that can travel to other planets, spend 500 years or so self-replicating using the raw materials on their new planet, and then send two replicas off to do the same thing. Even without traveling anywhere near the speed of light, this process would colonize the whole galaxy in 3.75 million years, a relative blink of an eye when talking in the scale of billions of years:

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