Our hand in the universe

[Gabe Bixler]

i want to look at this from a philosophical stand point, so please put some thought into this.

 

i do not believe that there is other intelligent life in the universe. i think humans are an anomily and that the universe is ours for the taking. now this thought brings up a lot of over thoughts such as god or the afterlife. i have been pondering this for many days and have formed many beliefs, feel free to ask me any questions, and we'll get a good debate going about this.

[Gabe Bixler]

THE PATTERN OF LIFE

 

I have been thinking about this a lot lately; about things like god, aliens, the afterlife, Albert Einstein, General Patton, and the universe.

 

I believe that there is no other intelligent life in the universe. We are an anomaly, the one unpredictable variable in the entire universe. Think of all life on the planet, dogs, trees, tigers; they all live for the sole purpose of living.

 

In the flow of natural and keeping this planet self sustaining, we were supposed to stay Neanderthals. This is the reason Neanderthals and homosapiens are different; when a tribe of Neanderthals were just stewing around in their own little pack one day, one of them just looked around and said to himself “I wonder what’s over there?” That is the moment humans became an anomaly, we work against the life sustaining harmony of the universe.

 

The universe is ours to explore. I do believe that there is life on other planets, but I do not believe that it is intelligent. Since we are an unpredictable variable in the pattern of life, everything is ours to take.

[Freethinker]

Hi Gabe, Where's Vinnie? :-)

 

You bring up an interesting point. We ahve discussed the possibility of life and specifically intellegent life on other planets. as well as discussing what is intellegence itself. Do we really have any? And I see that as the biggest fly in your ointment. You seem to imply something metaphysical to human intellect. some species can run faster, fly, dig, .... do we assign some metaphysical properties to these metrics? Then why to intellect? Why is it anything more than a sliding scale with us currently at the top of KNOWN species (terrestrial) Are you suggesting that we are the ONLY species with any form of intellect? This would seem to contradict your idea that we crossed some intellect threshold when we wanted to know what was someplace else. Yet that is exactly how an ant colony works. A specific effort to discover what is at other locations and in an orderly fashion no less.

 

Other species are self aware, show purposeful intent and effort, show emotional connections, .... Some to an even greater level than us in one or another aspect.

 

Why is it not only concievable, but almost assured, that some extraterrestrial species, which has had longer to evolve than us, has not reached an even higher level of "mental activity"?

[Gabe Bixler]

i say intelligence is when you think beyond necessities or creature comforts. the arts for example, not only are we the only species that can enjoy art, we are also the only species that can make it.

 

but what if we are the first species in the universe to have this kind of thought? why is there this now almost given assumption that other planets developed intelligent life faster than us?

 

and i think about higher levels on consciousness. what if all life has a certain energy to it. say that is what we really are, our own specific energy signiture that is relocated when these bodies expire. we keep starting over and over again, having our energy recycled through human bodies until we reach a point where we learn how not to come back.

[pgrmdave]

i say intelligence is when you think beyond necessities or creature comforts. the arts for example, not only are we the only species that can enjoy art, we are also the only species that can make it.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0414_040414_bowerbirdsmating.html#main

Quote from site:

"Male bowerbirds are famous for their courtship rituals. They carefully decorate their bowers—U-shaped platforms built from twigs and grass—with strictly blue objects like berries and flowers, and even bottle caps and string, to attract prospective mates. "

 

This sounds like art to me, maybe primative, along the lines of an abstract cave drawing, but art.

[pgrmdave]

but what if we are the first species in the universe to have this kind of thought?

 

Then we would be the first to have that kind of thought, just like there was a first for everything else. Why would the first have to be special?

[Gabe Bixler]

Then we would be the first to have that kind of thought, just like there was a first for everything else. Why would the first have to be special?

i don't undeerstand what you're trying to get at with this question.

[Gabe Bixler]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0414_040414_bowerbirdsmating.html#main

Quote from site:

"Male bowerbirds are famous for their courtship rituals. They carefully decorate their bowers—U-shaped platforms built from twigs and grass—with strictly blue objects like berries and flowers, and even bottle caps and string, to attract prospective mates. "

 

This sounds like art to me, maybe primative, along the lines of an abstract cave drawing, but art.

they do that in order to get a mate. there is a big difference between doing that to further your species. and creating something attractive for the only reason that you wanted to make something beautiful.

[Tormod]

we'll get a good debate going about this.

Now that's the spirit. Welcome to our community, Gabe.

[Gabe Bixler]

thank you. i'm so glad i founf this forum.

[TINNY]

say intelligence is when you think beyond necessities or creature comforts. the arts for example, not only are we the only species that can enjoy art, we are also the only species that can make it.

in other words, free-will? below could be a manifestation of it:

but what if we are the first species in the universe to have this kind of thought?

 

but i dont understand this:

why is there this now almost given assumption that other planets developed intelligent life faster than us?

where did you get it from?

[Gabe Bixler]

where did you get it from?

what i mean by this is usually when people tend to think of aliens they think of creatures that are far advanced beyond us, or a species that has been around longer. you know, its just kind of turned into this universal portrayal that we have of life off of this planet.

[TINNY]

Talking about consciousness and intelligence, some philosophical arguments proposed by Penrose might be of use as below:

A1) Human thought, at least in some instances, is sound , yet nonalgorithmic (i.e. noncomputational). (Hypothesis based on the Gödel result.)

 

A2) In these instances, the human thinker is aware of or conscious of the contents of these thoughts.

 

A3) The only recognized instances of nonalgorithmic processes in the universe are perhaps certain kinds of randomness; e.g. the reduction of the quantum mechanical state vector. (Based on accepted physical theories.)

 

A4) Randomness is not promising as the source of the nonalgorithmicity needed to account for (1). (Otherwise mathematical understanding would be magical.)

 

Therefore:

A5) Conscious human thought, at least in some cases, perhaps in all cases, relies on principles which are beyond current physical understanding, though not in principle beyond any (e.g. some future) scientific physical understanding. (Via A1 - A4)

 

For the scientific explanation, Penrose proposed QM. So it goes like this:

Many people are convinced that humans have free will, and yet are also convinced that the Newtonian-mechanical goings-on of things as large as neurons makes no room for free will. They thus turn to quantum mechanics in the hope that the non-determinism of the collapse of the wave function will provide a foot in the door for free will. Of course the wave function collapse is, according to current theory, random, and it is not clear that this is any better than determinism when it comes to explaining free will. Nevertheless, the hope seems to be that, at least in some cases, consciousness exerts its influence on the world through effecting some collapses, presumable some in the brain somewhere, in one way rather than another.

 

We should also note that consciousness is somewhat unified as a single being. We cannot simply reduce mental cognition to the relation between electromagnetive waves and sub-atomic particles in individual neurons. A single neuron does not manifest human consciousness, but a holistic and unifiying entity offers the possibility.

[Freethinker]

they do that in order to get a mate. there is a big difference between doing that to further your species. and creating something attractive for the only reason that you wanted to make something beautiful.

Beauty is not a requirement for art. There are any number of motivations a human artist may use. Attracking a mate can be and likely is often one of them.

 

That the birds use it in a competitive aspect indicates some level of perception of relative value/ comparisons.

[Freethinker]

what i mean by this is usually when people tend to think of aliens they think of creatures that are far advanced beyond us, or a species that has been around longer.

This is based on factual observations of other parts of the universe being older than us. Thus having had more time to develop than we. Thus having developed farther. A simple logical deduction from verifyable observations.

[Gabe Bixler]

Beauty is not a requirement for art. There are any number of motivations a human artist may use. Attracking a mate can be and likely is often one of them.

 

That the birds use it in a competitive aspect indicates some level of perception of relative value/ comparisons.

yes, beauty was the wrong word to use. what i should have said is that humans are the only species that create art for the sole purpose of the art itself.

 

when a bird creates its decoration it does so in an attempt to achieve something. while a human could draw an endless amount of pictures in a note book with the intent of no one else ever seeing them.

[TINNY]

yes, beauty was the wrong word to use. what i should have said is that humans are the only species that create art for the sole purpose of the art itself.

hmm? :) example?

 

when a bird creates its decoration it does so in an attempt to achieve something. while a human could draw an endless amount of pictures in a note book with the intent of no one else ever seeing them.

that just shows it is not for someone else. it doesn't mean that there is no intention.