If ET exists, odds it's intelligent

[Buffy]

Why do we compare the intellect of chimps and dolphins to our own in this discussion? Neither is capable or has interest in interstellar communication. I doubt chimps have even looked to the stars and wondered if there is other life out there. And I don't believe they've even left drawing on cave walls as far as an effort to communicate.

You''re using a very limited definition of "intelligence", and you're ignoring the fact that although we are the first to go to writing and mega-tool-use, we have proven its a *very* efficient mechanism for dominating an ecosystem (although the question of can such intellectual abilities lead to self-extinction is still open!). Dolphins and whales both have brain capacities that exceed humans, but they've used it in very different ways: to answer one of damocles' questions, if big brains are used for memory storage and communications is concentrated through verbal/visual means, symbology is not necessarily required for very sophisticated intelligence, although we probably won't see a dolphin on the Moon without that opposable thumb....

There is generally little use for the level of intelligence that we have obtained, in propegating our existance to the next generation; everything down to microorganisms can and does do that. So why intelligence to the level that we've obtained and why believe it would result elsewhere?

We don't know that. Its a recent evolutionary event, and we have only us as a datapoint. It sure seems to be a successful mechanism for gene propagation, and more importantly, considering the massive decline in biodiversity, for gene dominance. No argument exists that this level of efficiency would from an evolutionary view NOT be very popular whereever it evolved...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[damocles]

A question?

 

"if big brains are used for memory storage and communications is concentrated through verbal/visual means, symbology is not necessarily required for very sophisticated intelligence, although we probably won't see a dolphin on the Moon without that opposable thumb...."

 

Buffy

 

 

What form of data storage and transmission would a non-symbol using but tool-using intelligence use to get to a moon?

 

Consider that the Saturn Five had several billion data points, and several million tooled parts to put Neil Armstrong on the moon.

 

Maybe if the answer is obvious enough to see then we can posit a better chance for distributed intelligence detectable locally?

 

Damocles

[Buffy]

What form of data storage and transmission would a non-symbol using but tool-using intelligence use to get to a moon?

 

Consider that the Saturn Five had several billion data points, and several million tooled parts to put Neil Armstrong on the moon.

This is a *facinating* question! Think about it though: we're kind of trapped by our conception of how computers should work. In fact however, entirely analog systems that use no symbology whatsoever are possible. <aside>For the technical, they would not be Turing Machines, or even Finite State Machines, in fact the best analogue to point to is an oil refinery with completely continuous/non-discrete processes!</aside> You could deal with all those "datapoints" with continuous mechanisms that involved no conventional symbology whatsoever!

 

Now on the other hand, symbology can be a very broad term, and as a result, verbal communication alone could be a sole mechanism for communication and be *recorded* but not *written*. Is that symbology? If so, then dolphins definitely already use it and they are closer to us than we imagine....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[damocles]

This is a *facinating* question! Think about it though: we're kind of trapped by our conception of how computers should work. In fact however, entirely analog systems that use no symbology whatsoever are possible. <aside>For the technical, they would not be Turing Machines, or even Finite State Machines, in fact the best analogue to point to is an oil refinery with completely continuous/non-discrete processes!</aside> You could deal with all those "datapoints" with continuous mechanisms that involved no conventional symbology whatsoever!

 

Buffy

 

 

It makes sense to me that if you posit the lifeform as a malleable templater. That is the lifeform can become on demand or create on demand your "boundaryless datum stream artifact producer"(oil refinery analog) using its stored experience or memory, then a non-discrete manufactory is not only possible but would be far more efficient than the incremental symbol transmission system we use to bend metal.

 

Now on the other hand, symbology can be a very broad term, and as a result, verbal communication alone could be a sole mechanism for communication and be *recorded* but not *written*. Is that symbology? If so, then dolphins definitely already use it and they are closer to us than we imagine....

 

Buffy

 

 

That requires the receiver to have eidetic memory and simply retransmit it down the time line? That fits in very well with the above as a tool using scheme.

 

I'm starting to think that maybe a crystalline fractionation and growth approach might lead to something like you describe. But it would be so slow and cold by what we would normally expect of life......

 

Damocles