Minds that think alike...(re: Aliens)

[Michael Redman]

While minerals would obviously not be a reason to travel to Earth, life might be. Even a very advanced civilization may find unique discoveries in the products of life on Earth, anywhere from chemical compounds to human behavior.

Also, while we may assume some characteristics about what gets a species to the point it can master the technical challenges of spaceflight, we don't know that the species will retain these characteristics once many of the underlying drivers, like scarcity or natural mortality, go away. We really don't have any basis, I think, from which to predict alien motivations.

 

[quarky]

I imagine something akin to slime molds. The conglomerate intelligence has the ability to produce dry spores, which manage escape velocity by accident.

I think I just inhaled one.

 

[godless dave]

Yeah, its not the first time I hear such concerns about aliens contact. Honestly I don't find the idea and the arguments very convincing. Its built over "maybes" and "what ifs" based on a single-point dataset and bias.

It's not really a single-point dataset. Pretty much every encounter in human history between two civilizations with differing levels of technology has ended the same way.

 

[Ashles]

It's not really a single-point dataset. Pretty much every encounter in human history between two civilizations with differing levels of technology has ended the same way.

STDs?

 

[godless dave]

I don't share Hawking's concern, not because I trust aliens to be benevolent, but because, as noted above, traveling intergalactic distances to exploit one planet doesn't seem very cost effective. And by the time they get any messages we send, I will have been dead for, at the very least, thousands of years.

 

[Cainkane1]

What this man says makes perfect sense to me...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100425/sc_afp/scienceastronomyextraterrestrialhawking

Aliens would love us because we sent them a Beatles song. They might get excited by the naked woman and man we sent them and enjoy the gold record.

 

[Marduk]

Why was it necessary to point this out, I wonder? Why not just say "images of humans"?

You still don't get it Art, its not about the connotations, its a blatant attempt to say "Look at us, we're helpless, come exploit us"

any alien falling for a trap that simple deserves to be ripped off by us

the smart Aliens are the ones too scared to come here because they watch Hollywood movies and understand how militarily xenophobic we are

 

[Marduk]

STDs?

Worse

Ethnic fast food restaurants

 

[Correa Neto]

It's not really a single-point dataset. Pretty much every encounter in human history between two civilizations with differing levels of technology has ended the same way.

Sure, but it depends on how you see the dataset. As you wrote, its certainly not if you consider it as examples of contacts between human civilizations, but its a single point dataset if you are looking for examples of contacts between civilizations from diferent species.

Some could say its actually a zero-point dataset, since its all about historical contacts between civilizations built by a single species: Homo sapiens. Actually we do have some data for a (single) contact between sentient beings of diferent species (Homo sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis). As far as I know there is no consensus on how to interpretate the available evidence. I have the impression most researchers tend towards at least some conflicts, but I can be mistaken.

 

[Rramjet]

What makes you think that aliens don't have DNA? Or that the form of DNA that we have is superior to theirs?

These beings are capable of travelling here from realms outside of what we would call reality, but biochemistry is too hard for them?

Seriously?

You completely miss the point. It is the unique products of DNA that the aliens are after. It is those same products that we are now just beginning to realise we alos must go after - and day by day we reduce the number of species that are available for such study - and therefore we are reducing the potential for amazing discoveries arising from the variety of DNA available to us.

Are you seriously contending that potential aliens would not recognise the incredible exotic chemical production potential of DNA? Potential that we have not imagined and probably could not imagine? It is only through direct examination that we can find out what that potential actually is. So it is with potential aliens.

 

[Resume]

Do you mean this talk?

http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_hawking_asks_big_questions_about_the_universe.html

He actually goes further than that, in that he doesn't say it about alleged abductees, but merely those who say they've seen aliens/UFOs.

At 5:02 he says "On the other hand, we don't seem to have been visited by aliens. [...] Why would they [UFOs] only appear to cranks and weirdos?"

Yeah, this it the talk I was thinking about, thanks for posting it.

 

[Robo Sapien]

I see a correction needed almost right off the bat ...

Negative. First we did get smart. It wasn't until the advent of professional wrestling that we started regressing.

 

[quarky]

Negative. First we did get smart. It wasn't until the advent of professional wrestling that we started regressing.

Well, a few decades ago, the WWF, as it was called then, had a "poet lauriet" of wrestling. I believe his name was Lanny Poffo, and was possibly the brother of Randy (macho-man) Savage. He at least pretended to be smart, but he also got his ass kicked.

There was also "Bobby the brain Heenan", another alleged intelligent wrestler.


I say it was Roller Derby that caused the regression.

 

[Robo Sapien]

Or NASCAR perhaps. I know energy drinks have something to do with it..

 

[BaaBaa]

NASCAR has electrolytes?

 

[Brainache]

You completely miss the point. It is the unique products of DNA that the aliens are after. It is those same products that we are now just beginning to realise we alos must go after - and day by day we reduce the number of species that are available for such study - and therefore we are reducing the potential for amazing discoveries arising from the variety of DNA available to us.

By products of DNA you mean, what? Animals, Bacteria, Viruses and plants?
If these beings have evolved someplace other than Earth, then I fail to see why they would need or want the products of Earth DNA at all. (except maybe as biological curiosities or zoological specimens).

Are you seriously contending that potential aliens would not recognise the incredible exotic chemical production potential of DNA? Potential that we have not imagined and probably could not imagine? It is only through direct examination that we can find out what that potential actually is. So it is with potential aliens.

Potential Aliens would have evolved on other planets and they are unlikely to have the same four amino acid bases in whatever analogue of DNA natural selection provided them with from their environment. So, if they even rely on a similar system of genetic variation as Earth life does, it seems very unlikely to me that our Earthling DNA would be any good for them.

I also assume that if they are technologically advanced enough to fly all the way out here at faster than lightspeed, synthesising any type of organic molecule or process they wanted would be a piece of cake.

 

[TheSkepticCanuck]

Of course, the main thing that an alien species would likely want from us is our biosphere. Way out here in the galactic hinterland, we are probably worth more as a viable colonization target than a mining one. Get rid of the pesky humans, and suddenly Earth makes a nice colony for their own species, all ready for the selling of intergalactic time shares. As we ourselves have observed, minerals are much easier to find throughout the galaxy than habitable planets are, and that is what would make our little blue marble an attractive target.

 

[Brainache]

Of course, the main thing that an alien species would likely want from us is our biosphere. Way out here in the galactic hinterland, we are probably worth more as a viable colonization target than a mining one. Get rid of the pesky humans, and suddenly Earth makes a nice colony for their own species, all ready for the selling of intergalactic time shares. As we ourselves have observed, minerals are much easier to find throughout the galaxy than habitable planets are, and that is what would make our little blue marble an attractive target.

Not if they breathe ammonia and eat mothballs.

 

[Cainkane1]

Imagine what we would do if we could travel to other planets; extrapolate; hide the children.

I've asked this question myself. Turn this around. What would a human expedition do if mars was water covered with useful plants and such. Say it was oil rich with an oxygen atmosphere. Say it was inhabited by a race of beings whose physical appearance and habits were similar to houseflys on earth. Say they had a bronze age civilization and were hostile to humans? What if anything would we do to them?

 

[McHrozni]

I think it is a cope out and a bad one at that. We can infer that for some part their mind will work on similarly as ours, like concentrating on protecting one own's specie, and furthering one own's specie knowledge, as well as primordial requirement, food, reproduction. They might have mysterious social structure and belief, but I doubt seriously as a whole that they would depart so far away from the schema above that every single of their action would be incomprehensible or that their goal would be fully undecipherable.

Perhaps, but unless we see some examples, this too is a speculation fueled by our own prejudice. Certainly, the reasoning makes sense - a species not interested in protecting itself would not survive in the first place. That, however, is not at odds with what I said.

I didn't necessarily mean completely inconceivable reasons, just reasons that would be completely nonsensical or just plain stupid to us. For example they could be looking to exterminate all other intelligent life for no obvious reason. They could be looking for another intelligent life to be enslaved to. The second reason in particular is completely ridiculous to a human but may seem sensible to an alien mind. It could also be important to them just to visit, not to share any information and not to receive any important information. This would have a human equivalent of a religious pilgrimage, but perhaps this hypothetical alien society would have a much different set of values. There are also other possibilities, I just named three.

Of course if they're anything like us, they would be after information or resources or both. But my point was that their mindset could be completely different from ours

McHrozni