Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#161

Post by htfu » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:20 PM UTC

GistNoesis wrote: post #130

behnamoh wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very interesting point that I hadn't noticed before. Of course, this relies on assuming (believing?) the universe is a giant simulation run on a computer with limited resources. I did not get your last sentence though. Could you elaborate?

Rules of the universe appear to us relatively simple. But the question of numerical stability is not solved specially for later times. In physics it is natural to start from an initial state and integrate through time, starting from initial time and evolving by time-stepping. Physics helps but this doesn't prevent the emergence of numerical instabilities like a big-computer being built. So if you were running a unive…

And why exactly would someone go to all this trouble instead of just throttling that region of space? Surely you don't mean to say it would all run on a single chip?

And if this was a simulation there'd presumably be a purpose to it and once heavy computation emerges the entity running the sim would throw more resources at this interesting phenomenon, not try to get rid of it.

It'd be like "each time the neural net achieved AGI, the humans tore it down to refocus on the real goal, bombproof traffic sign recognition".

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#162

Post by whatshisface » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #153

scj wrote: post #120

Scientists thinking like scientists! I'd presume an advanced culture that can traverse the galaxy has many resources. Like humanity, I'd assume that with abundance, entertainment would be prioritized. We might be nothing more than a new source of fashion and novelty to them! They may like Rock & Roll, our food, our clothing, or even pogs. We might even be boring to them for the moment, but they're hoping for a future…

Rather presupposes that alien life is similar enough to humanity for culture and art to be more-or-less mutually intelligible. Would extraterrestrials who communicate with pheremones, or touch, or don't communicate at all (ala "Blindsight") have any concept of music? If they can "hear", does their sensory range overlap ours? Is it compatible with our notion of musical scales? Does whatever passes for a nervous system…

We are beginning to approach a point in our technological development where we can beam information into our brains to be perceived as sensory input. Maybe someday we will be able to subjectively experience things not provided by our natural senses. At that point, alien art may become a lot more interesting.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#163

Post by gonehome » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

karteum wrote: post #138

There are also aspects that should be considered in my opinion 1°/ individual intelligence and technological innovation is not necessary an ultimate achivement that enables competitive advantage : human beings may be individually smart (compared to some other species) yet the collective intelligence of humanity is rather poor (which translates to the unability to solve collective problems such as sustainable manageme…

AGI seems like a likely option and under discussed for what could be met first.

It’d be easier for it to travel great distances than organic life, it’d be possible for a variety of organic life to arrive at creating it, it may be hard for organic life to solve the control problem to limit it, etc.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#164

Post by whatshisface » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:22 PM UTC

zionic wrote: post #114

duopixel wrote: post #52

> When weighing the risks involved in interactions with less-developed cultures such as ours, these advanced civilizations may choose to refrain from contact. I think establishing communication with a more advanced civilization would be deeply disrupting to our culture. We would ascribe their cultural practices to their advancement, and get a bunch of people doing "alien cargo culting". Imagine they were strict veget…

The aliens could also have morals we find repulsive, for example how would society react to aliens that said hitler was right etc etc?

We can feel pretty safe that they would not say that, because if they liked Hitler, they would be invading, not chatting about history.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#165

Post by jjk166 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #2

>We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path. Not really the most convincing argument. There are professions that study ants. And I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants. Pretty sure aliens would still be interested in us even if we were as primi…

You look at ants, you don't look at every ant.

It would be absurd to conclude the absence of entomologists just because most individual ants go unobserved.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#166

Post by lisper » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

karteum wrote: post #138

There are also aspects that should be considered in my opinion 1°/ individual intelligence and technological innovation is not necessary an ultimate achivement that enables competitive advantage : human beings may be individually smart (compared to some other species) yet the collective intelligence of humanity is rather poor (which translates to the unability to solve collective problems such as sustainable manageme…

It is important to remember when analyzing such things that evolution does not optimize the reproductive fitness of organisms, it optimizes the reproductive fitness of genes. Organisms are a side-effect, a result of the fact that cooperation often provides a competitive advantage [1]. But evolution neither knows nor cares about civilization. It just so happens that, at the moment here on earth, genes that build brains that build civilizations reproduce better than genes that don't. But that has not always been the case, and there is no guarantee that it will continue to be the case. It is entirely possible that this whole civilization thing is just a transient.

IMHO a prerequisite to the survival of civilization is the recognition that the interests of civilizations can be, and often are, at odds with the interests of genes, and so we are necessarily in active conflict with the genes that made us. The best example of this is birth control, which is an obvious existential threat to the reproductive fitness of our genes. So genes that build brains that have an instinctive revulsion to birth control will, all else being equal, reproduce better than genes that build brains that don't have this revulsion. In the absence of active intervention, the result will be overpopulation.

For a civilization to succeed long-term it has to recognize that it is necessarily in conflict with the genes that produced its individual members, because otherwise the genes will win.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#167

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #154

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even if some other intelligent species would exist, maybe they would not have the same need to communicate, the same need or will to travel, the same need or will to innovate, etc. I think this is unlikely. It seems to me that some amount of curiosity would be a prerequisite for being able to make discoveries that lead to technological progress. Although I suppose it is possible such progress could be made through…

But why would an intelligent species have to make any discoveries, or progress in any way? Maybe they spend all of their intelligence designing birdsongs, until some random natural event drives them extinct. Far from an alien psychology, humanity would be like that if you took away a fraction of the people with the greatest curiosity.

Because discoveries are useful. If the collective reason for your species' existence is writing birdsong, you're going to want agriculture to ensure people can eat, medicine to prevent them from dying, and electricity to make rad synthetic birdsong dubstep remixes. Tech solves problems, and everyone has problems. Doesn't mean you need to leave the solar system though.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#168

Post by notahacker » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

nend wrote: post #101

throwaway2245 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'm not the only person on this forum that has a casual interest in observing ants From Wikipedia for "ant": "More than 12,500 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified." From our human perspective, we are interested in ants. Everybody has seen ants. Everybody is curious about ants. From an ant perspective, humans scarcely exist. There are 10,000 ant species that don't have a relationshi…

Yes but there's a difference between being unable to study all ant species due to a lack of resources, and being uninterested in doing so. I expect we'll continue studying ant species with the goal of studying all of them we can (assuming we don't wipe ourselves out or ant species out before we have a chance to). Similarly I also expect we (or an advanced alien species) would attempt to study as many other alien spec…

The lack of resources devoted to the counting of ant species is a reflection of it being very uninteresting to most people. Relative to the entire universe, our world really doesn't have many places to look for ants, and we don't need to travel faster than the speed of light to find them.

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#169

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #153

scj wrote: post #120

Scientists thinking like scientists! I'd presume an advanced culture that can traverse the galaxy has many resources. Like humanity, I'd assume that with abundance, entertainment would be prioritized. We might be nothing more than a new source of fashion and novelty to them! They may like Rock & Roll, our food, our clothing, or even pogs. We might even be boring to them for the moment, but they're hoping for a future…

Rather presupposes that alien life is similar enough to humanity for culture and art to be more-or-less mutually intelligible. Would extraterrestrials who communicate with pheremones, or touch, or don't communicate at all (ala "Blindsight") have any concept of music? If they can "hear", does their sensory range overlap ours? Is it compatible with our notion of musical scales? Does whatever passes for a nervous system…

[deleted]

Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

#170

Post by tachyonbeam » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #154

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even if some other intelligent species would exist, maybe they would not have the same need to communicate, the same need or will to travel, the same need or will to innovate, etc. I think this is unlikely. It seems to me that some amount of curiosity would be a prerequisite for being able to make discoveries that lead to technological progress. Although I suppose it is possible such progress could be made through…

But why would an intelligent species have to make any discoveries, or progress in any way? Maybe they spend all of their intelligence designing birdsongs, until some random natural event drives them extinct. Far from an alien psychology, humanity would be like that if you took away a fraction of the people with the greatest curiosity.

The way I see it, our curiosity and desire to explore is a reflection through our instincts of basic biological imperatives. Even bacteria "want" to explore, find new territories where there might be undiscovered resources, etc. Exploration is what helps a species survive long-term. We're smart, but the things we instinctively want are still a reflection of the basic things that any life form wants and needs.

I don't think you could have a super-advanced species that didn't want to explore, reproduce, wasn't curious. You couldn't have an advanced species that just went about doing the same thing forever. They wouldn't be an advanced species. They'd be some dead branch of the evolutionary tree that got pruned long ago, in all likelihood. Intelligence is fundamentally curious, just like lifeforms, even bacteria, if you squint hard enough, are "curious".