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Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?

scientificamerican.com

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

#241

Post by marcus_holmes »

xioxox wrote: post #234
marcus_holmes wrote: post #111

I've always loved the thing about solar eclipses and auroras: in order to see an aurora during an eclipse, the moon has to be the exact same size as the sun (when viewed from the planet). Earth has this (for a while at least - the moon is slowly moving away from us), and it makes us special. So if you want to find aliens, look during a solar eclipse. It's a rare phenomenon and if there are alien tourists, they'll wan…

This is in Iain Banks's book Transition. Did anyone else come up with this before him?

I was struggling to remember where I'd read it :) Thanks :)

No idea if it was his idea or not.

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

#242

Post by throwaway316943 »

notahacker wrote: post #168
nend wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a good supporting point. If you actually quantified the effort and resources it would take to study every species of ant it would likely be quite small although not trivially so. Yet it is still left up to the personal interests of professional biologists to lobby for research programs. It could play out similarly on a galactic scale in which case our first point of contact might be a grad student from the biology department of the local Uni.

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

#243

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Caprinicus wrote: post #17
ballenf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that we're one of (large number) of ant colonies and there's nothing particularly interesting about us vs. any other ant colony. Even if ETs study ants generally, there's nothing unique about us to give us a greater than 1/(large number) chance of being studied.

We have devoted large amounts of time and resources to studying the differences between seemingly similar ant colonies, and we have lived alongside ants for our entire existence as a species. Imagine now that we had never seen an ant, had a totally different biological origin to the ants, and had no idea why they did what they do because we had no cultural conception of them as an entity. We’d only be more interested…

This is missing the point. We might be interested in ants, but the ants would not be interested in us, because ants cannot understand us.

We can prod and research ant hills all we want. But all ants will ever see are some unexpected occurrences - maybe a very unusual scent which they can't place, or some food which wasn't there earlier, or an unexpected plague of ant death - which they will forget almost instantly.

It will never occur to ant-kind that they're even being studied, because ants have no concept of what "being studied" means.

There is nothing at all in the ant (hill) mind capable of understanding that a creature like a human might exist, never mind how to communicate with it.

So we can do what we like, and we will remain not just invisible, but unthinkable - forever.

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

#244

Post by jamesmishra »

I think multicellular life on Earth has likely created complex molecules and other interesting matter that doesn't exist anywhere else in the galaxy. I imagine an alien race would be interested in discovering what is out there--but they may not recognize human life as being any more intelligent than a grove of trees.

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

#246

Post by cwkoss »

jamesmishra wrote: post #244

I think multicellular life on Earth has likely created complex molecules and other interesting matter that doesn't exist anywhere else in the galaxy. I imagine an alien race would be interested in discovering what is out there--but they may not recognize human life as being any more intelligent than a grove of trees.

I would expect highly advanced civilizations would have nanotechnology that makes complex chemical synthesis fairly trivial.

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

#247

Post by devoutsalsa »

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…

Look how excited scientists get when they discover organic compounds in a comet or something that looks like microorganisms in a Mars rock. I'm pretty sure aliens would be interested in studying why I drink Diet Coke instead of water & what consuming 4L a day does to me. Maybe I should also be wondering what it does to me...

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

#248

Post by RandallBrown »

ballenf wrote: post #9
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…

The point is that we're one of (large number) of ant colonies and there's nothing particularly interesting about us vs. any other ant colony. Even if ETs study ants generally, there's nothing unique about us to give us a greater than 1/(large number) chance of being studied.

But if there are so many ant colonies like us (and I would say we're very interested in alien life) then I would assume at least some of them would be interested in us too.

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

#249

Post by f6v »

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.

> But why would an intelligent species have to make any discoveries

Intelligence seems to be rather expensive thing to evolve and maintain. In biology, something that’s expensive has to translate to fitness advantage. Human mind gave humans an ultimate advantage when it comes to survival. All doom and gloom aside, we’re the only species that could potentially survive total annihilation of the planet. It’s not inconceivable that people could design the technology to sustain a civilization in space.

That’s why I think any intelligent species use their mind to build things and expand their knowledge about the universe. That’s the “purpose” of having intelligence.

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

#250

Post by jamesmishra »

cwkoss wrote: post #246
jamesmishra wrote: post #244

I think multicellular life on Earth has likely created complex molecules and other interesting matter that doesn't exist anywhere else in the galaxy. I imagine an alien race would be interested in discovering what is out there--but they may not recognize human life as being any more intelligent than a grove of trees.

I would expect highly advanced civilizations would have nanotechnology that makes complex chemical synthesis fairly trivial.

Sure, but they still wouldn't even be able to imagine some of the things that they could find in a glass of milk.

Presumably a spacefaring civilization would be limited by discovery, not production.

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