have they found anything?

[arthwollipot]

At the minute wormholes are science fiction. Black holes are different. Some astrobiologist claim there's one in the center of each galaxy. At least one is suspected to exist in the center of ours.

Allow me to correct you.

At the moment wormholes are theoretical. Black holes are different. Astrophycists predict that there's one in the center of each galaxy. One has been observed in the centre of ours.

 

[amb]

I think you mean astrophysicists.



Again, if intelligence occurred by accident, then everything that happens happens by accident. You seem to have this false dichotomy in mind where things are either done by a God/Creator/Intelligent Designer/Fine Tuner or they happen by accident.

If that's true, the workings of chemistry is just as much an "accident" as the workings of evolution by natural selection.

Of course I meant Astrophysicist. Sorry about that. It's just an oversight. Clicking submit before I read the post.

Here is a question I would like you gentlemen to answer as honestly as possible.
If homo sapiens for whatever reason was to become extinct next week.
Do you honestly believe another species will automatically take it's place as the most intelligent species on the Earth??

 

[amb]

We must ask the question, how many of the features of Earth Life are due to chance, and how many to necessity? In particular, is intelligence a random accident, or the outcome of a ''trend''? Most biologists seem to regard it as an accident.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Here is a question I would like you gentlemen to answer as honestly as possible.
If homo sapiens for whatever reason was to become extinct next week.
Do you honestly believe another species will automatically take it's [sic] place as the most intelligent species on the Earth??

No. That's not the way evolution works. Nothing is "automatic".

However, it does not follow that you are therefore correct in your assertion that there is something special or unique about the Earth.

ETA: In another way, the answer to your question is yes: if the most intelligent species were wiped out, then whatever the second most intelligent species (arguably chimpanzees) would "automatically" become the most intelligent species on the Earth. I don't think that's what you meant (though that is what you asked). It is like asking, "If the tallest kid in the classroom left the room, would someone else automatically become the tallest kid in the classroom?"

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

We must ask the question, how many of the features of Earth Life are due to chance, and how many to necessity? In particular, is intelligence a random accident, or the outcome of a ''trend''? Most biologists seem to regard it as an accident.

False statement.

Again, you're using the language of the Creationists. Biologists do not speak in terms of intelligence as an "accident". Either nothing is an accident (because everything that happens obeys natural laws--the laws of chemistry and physics) or everything is an accident (because there is no Creator, Intelligent Designer or Fine-Tuner intending anything).

In evolution, variation happens randomly (within the laws, again--for example, point mutations can be said to be random, but polyploidy is not). However natural selection is NOT random. So when you consider something like "intelligence", you have to look at a million advantageous changes that were selected for over a long period of time. Humans are not, in this regard, unique except that we occur at one end of the continuum of intelligence.

You're speaking of "intelligence" the same way some Creationists have argued that the human eye is irreducibly complex. In fact, "intelligence" refers to a host of mental capacities that exists to a greater or lesser degree in many organisms. Every one of these traits that natural selection favored helped the organism to have better reproductive success. Intelligence (and structures like the human eye) did not pop into being out of nothingness with no antecedents and no selective advantage on the way to some pre-defined end result.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

AMB, could you kindly respond to my post number 539 and the point I brought up below?

I have been answering your questions, yet, you keep ignoring these points.

As for Fermi's Paradox, I've shown already that the absence of probes from other civilizations in no way proves that other civilizations do not exist. By that standard, we ourselves would no exist since we have not sent out self-replicating probes that are now ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. Yet we exist.

A similar argument can be made for any argument that uses the SETI results to reach the conclusion that other ET intelligences don't exist. We ourselves have not been sending a continuous narrow beam radio signal out long enough to reach even nearby stars yet. (Our broadbeam radio signals would not be detectable outside our own solar system even with a radio telescope two orders of magnitude more sensitive than Arecibo.) So if no result from SETI means ETI's don't exist, then using the same logic would suggest that we ourselves don't exist.

 

[arthwollipot]

Personally I think that intelligence is such a good survival trait it would be favoured by natural selection wherever it appeared. So yes, I do believe that if there is life outside of our solar system, and I think it's extremely likely that there is, then I think that it is almost inevitable that some of them would be intelligent.

And if human beings were to magically disappear from this planet, then another species would eventually gain our level of intelligence.

My opinion only.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

Here is a question I would like you gentlemen to answer as honestly as possible.
If homo sapiens for whatever reason was to become extinct next week.
Do you honestly believe another species will automatically take it's place as the most intelligent species on the Earth??

Assuming you mean "would another species on our planet evolve to our level of intelligence AND civlization", I'd have to go with, "Hard to tell."

Depending on what species ends up filling out place(s) in nature, and which ones manage to develop any sort of civilization, perhaps all the artifacts we left behind would serve as some sort of warning. They may employ their intelligence in a totally different way. It's such a speculative answer that it's probably best left to science fiction story tellers moreso than a conversation regarding extra terrestrial intelligence. I mean, would we consider them intelligent even if they eschewed technology for philosophy? Much like the problem we run into in trying to identify and categorize ET intelligence, we'd have the same problem with any that replaced us.

But, since intelligence is a beneficial survival trait, eventually something would probably come about.

Sort of along the lines of my position from the start. We just can't relaibly tell with the datapoints we have.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I don't think intelligent (like ours--a pretty extreme version) is one of those basic things that's adaptive in a great many niches (like say--eyesight of one form or another). I think it evolved in most primates as an adaptation for living in increasingly complex social groups.

It could well be now that primates are around, the only thing that can compete with them are other animals living in very complex social groups. I don't know.

Some structures (like the eye, or the sabertooth in big predators) evolved again and again. Other traits maybe aren't so generally adaptive.

About all we can say to AMD's question is, "We don't know."

However, that's not the same as making a claim that you know it won't happen again.

 

[amb]

AMB, could you kindly respond to my post number 539 and the point I brought up below?

I have been answering your questions, yet, you keep ignoring these points.



A similar argument can be made for any argument that uses the SETI results to reach the conclusion that other ET intelligences don't exist. We ourselves have not been sending a continuous narrow beam radio signal out long enough to reach even nearby stars yet. (Our broadbeam radio signals would not be detectable outside our own solar system even with a radio telescope two orders of magnitude more sensitive than Arecibo.) So if no result from SETI means ETI's don't exist, then using the same logic would suggest that we ourselves don't exist.

How can you compare our puny efforts by the Seti results? If civilizations exist out there, they could be billions of years ahead of us. Surely they would be as curious as we are and would have searched the cosmos for other civilizations by now. Hence Fermi's Paradox. Could it be that low level life is teeming all over the universe, but that human like intelligence is a once in a trillion chance of happening twice?

 

[amb]

Personally I think that intelligence is such a good survival trait it would be favoured by natural selection wherever it appeared. So yes, I do believe that if there is life outside of our solar system, and I think it's extremely likely that there is, then I think that it is almost inevitable that some of them would be intelligent.

And if human beings were to magically disappear from this planet, then another species would eventually gain our level of intelligence.

My opinion only.

Then why hasn't it done so already? Our nearest family member, the chimps have been here longer than us, yet they haven't advanced one percent from their original state. No Wolli. If the human species were to suddenly become extinct, nothing would change. All the species that rely on us would also become extinct. And the chimps would continue as they have always done.
The The Planet Of The Apes was just a movie, a good one at that, but only science fiction.

 

[amb]

False statement.

Again, you're using the language of the Creationists. Biologists do not speak in terms of intelligence as an "accident". Either nothing is an accident (because everything that happens obeys natural laws--the laws of chemistry and physics) or everything is an accident (because there is no Creator, Intelligent Designer or Fine-Tuner intending anything).

In evolution, variation happens randomly (within the laws, again--for example, point mutations can be said to be random, but polyploidy is not). However natural selection is NOT random. So when you consider something like "intelligence", you have to look at a million advantageous changes that were selected for over a long period of time. Humans are not, in this regard, unique except that we occur at one end of the continuum of intelligence.

You're speaking of "intelligence" the same way some Creationists have argued that the human eye is irreducibly complex. In fact, "intelligence" refers to a host of mental capacities that exists to a greater or lesser degree in many organisms. Every one of these traits that natural selection favored helped the organism to have better reproductive success. Intelligence (and structures like the human eye) did not pop into being out of nothingness with no antecedents and no selective advantage on the way to some pre-defined end result.

Please don't even think of me and creationist in the same breath.
I repeat here that most biologists worth their salt regard that the course of evolution does not follow any law-like trend but is purely random. This 'blind watchmaker' thesis is defended robustly by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould and many others. If these esteemed gentlemen are correct, then a feature of life such as intelligence is purely chance phenomenon, exceedingly unlikely to arise elsewhere independently.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

How can you compare our puny efforts by the Seti results? If civilizations exist out there, they could be billions of years ahead of us. Surely they would be as curious as we are and would have searched the cosmos for other civilizations by now. Hence Fermi's Paradox.

The problem is that your argument based on Fermi's Paradox says that they MUST BE way ahead of us, not "could be". In fact, as I've shown, by your reasoning, we ourselves don't exist since we haven't sent out probes that are now ubiquitous in the galaxy.

There could be thousands of civilizations at roughly the same level as our own, and there would be no sign of them available to us right now. They wouldn't be detectable. Similarly, we would be undetectable to them. They could be sitting there considering XGherYl!#or's Paradox and insisting that Earthlings don't exist because if they did, we'd be way in advance of their own civilization and our self-replicating probes would already be ubiquitous.

Could it be that low level life is teeming all over the universe, but that human like intelligence is a once in a trillion chance of happening twice?

I've already answered that. Yes, it could be. Is there any reason to think that it is so? No. (By the way, once in a trillion whats? Species? Planets? Biospheres?)

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Please don't even think of me and creationist in the same breath.

I call 'em as I see 'em. You keep referring to things as "accident".

For example:

In particular, is intelligence a random accident, or the outcome of a ''trend''? Most biologists seem to regard it as an accident.

I keep pointing out to you that the only way "accident" is meaningful is as opposed to "on purpose" or "by intention", which certainly smacks of theism.

If you don't mean something like that, then it is meaningless, as I've shown. Either everything is accidental or nothing is accidental.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Then why hasn't it done so already?

First, only one species can be "the most intelligent" species. This points out that intelligence exists as a continuum and not a hard-line between animals with it and those without it. Chimpanzees are intelligent animals. If we discovered a species at their level of intelligence on another planet, I would certainly consider that to be "ET intelligence"--and news of a planet with organisms that complex would be truly amazing!

Second, our fabulous success might mean that we have out-competed our nearest relatives. It could be that ecologically, "There can be only one." (To borrow from The Highlander.)

Third, there is evidence that in the past our family tree was somewhat bushier. Even in relatively recent times, we know that Neanderthals and Modern Humans both existed at the same time. The fact that chimpanzees aren't our peer doesn't mean that there haven't existed at one time or another other animals that were even closer.

 

[LarianLeQuella]

AMB, exactly how long have humans been around? It's a comparative eyeblink. I think there have been a few lucky breacks in our technology (not our intelligence) that may have leapfrogged us compared to what I would GUESS is a typical developmental track. That said, we have absolutely no frikkin idea at all about how things normally go. We have one example, and one example only. All our views are biased by our own history. AMB, your viewes in particular do seem to indicate an incredibly human/earth centric point of view. Step back from what we do know and realize how much we really don't know.

 

[arthwollipot]

Then why hasn't it done so already? Our nearest family member, the chimps have been here longer than us, yet they haven't advanced one percent from their original state.

No, they haven't They've been here exactly as long as us. Humans and chimps are descended from the same common ancestor, which was neither a human nor a chimp.

No Wolli. If the human species were to suddenly become extinct, nothing would change. All the species that rely on us would also become extinct. And the chimps would continue as they have always done.

So something would therefore prevent chimps from developing increased intelligence through evolution. It'd have to. We know that intelligence is an evolutionary trait. We can see it in varying levels in the animal kingdom with us at one end of the spectrum and nematodes at the other. Intelligence undoubtedly evolves.

Why haven't chimps evolved that level of intelligence yet? Presumably, they never got the mutation that we did that vastly accelerated our development. Have you seen how quickly in geological time our hominid ancestors' brain cases grew?

Humanity has been here for an eyeblink in evolutionary time. Perhaps the chimps just haven't had the time. Perhaps we're somehow preventing them through competition. The animal rights movement and the study of nonhuman intelligence have been around for a tiny fraction of humanity's eyeblink - how do you think we treated chimps before about the middle of the 20th century?

The The Planet Of The Apes was just a movie, a good one at that, but only science fiction.

I don't think it was even a particularly good movie, but YMMV.

 

[amb]

Intelligence in any species is for the survival of that species. Mankind seems to have an overkill of the trait. We don't need to be so smart for survival purposes. An ant that possesses a brain the size of a half grain of sand seems to survive just fine with what it's got.
A microbe hasn't even that. It's taken homo sapiens, more than 4 billion years to reach the stage of intelligence we now enjoy. How many planets out there have the luxury of such a huge time span? Larian is correct, we only have this one example. But this example has taken a hell of a long time to develop. A third of the time the universe has existed, almost. Perhaps animal life is widespread in the cosmos, but has it our capacity of brain power? Until we know otherwise, we have to assume we could well be alone, at least in this galaxy.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Intelligence in any species is for the survival of that species. Mankind seems to have an overkill of the trait. We don't need to be so smart for survival purposes. An ant that possesses a brain the size of a half grain of sand seems to survive just fine with what it's got.

Are you saying there's something special or magical about any organism that's not like an ant?

It's taken homo sapiens, more than 4 billion years to reach the stage of intelligence we now enjoy.

Homo sapiens hasn't existed for that long. Also, you seem to think of intelligence as a pre-determine goal. It's already been pointed out to you that intelligence exists on a continuum in many organisms.

How many planets out there have the luxury of such a huge time span?

Do you mean, how many planets in the galaxy (or universe) have been around for 4 billion years? I suspect the number is very very high. You made this "time" argument before, and I still don't understand it. You seem to think more time has elapsed here than elsewhere in the galaxy or universe.

Larian is correct, we only have this one example. But this example has taken a hell of a long time to develop. A third of the time the universe has existed, almost.

And again, no more time has passed here than anywhere else in the universe. This argument makes no sense. It also seems to argue the exact opposite of your argument that we are unique based on Fermi's Paradox. In that one, you say that if intelligence exists, it must have existed already for a long time and filled the galaxy with probes.

Perhaps animal life is widespread in the cosmos, but has it our capacity of brain power?

Unknown.

Until we know otherwise, we have to assume we could well be alone, at least in this galaxy.

No, we don't have to make any such assumption. Why do you think we do?

It seems to me that assuming knowledge we don't have quashes curiosity and the drive to learn more.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Why haven't chimps evolved that level of intelligence yet? Presumably, they never got the mutation that we did that vastly accelerated our development. Have you seen how quickly in geological time our hominid ancestors' brain cases grew?

Also it could be one of the two reasons (in the series of 3--the first one addressing what AMB asked rather than what he meant to ask) I listed earlier.

It could be that the reason a chimpanzee with that extra little change was wiped out due to our huge success. (When our ancestors got that last increase in brain size, there wasn't an already-established competitor in place.)

And it could be that something that evolved from our common ancestor with chimpanzees already did in fact reach intelligence levels similar to humans. (After all, a chimpanzee that evolved human-like intelligence would no longer be a chimpanzee, would it?) There is evidence that our ancestors may have coexisted with other hominid species that are now extinct.