Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
scientificamerican.com
Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
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Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#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 primitive as ants.
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#3>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…
Ants are interesting because of the complex behavioral systems emerging from their comparatively simple biological systems, reminiscent of the game of life.
Seeing the insane complexity of the human condition (look at the amount of scientific disciplines we come up with) and thinking "nay, this won't be interesting to a higher mind" feels awfully dismissive.
sure, depending on the leap of sophistication we may appear like... rocks, I guess? But I can't even begin to conceptualize to what in comparison we'd appear like rocks. Anything of that complexity probably is multiple magnitudes beyond our comprehension anyway, and therefore not really part of the discussion
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#4>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…
Do the ants in your example know they're being studied?
When the European powers explored the pacific they wrote off a lot of islands as being devoid of anything useful. Now a few hundred years later these islands, mostly untouched by humans, are a gold mine for various niches of biology. Human presence is still infrequent enough that the seagulls don't seem to notice.
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#5I'm writing a kids story (with my son, its quite fun to discuss the story and plan the laser fights) about an alien that is visiting earth to complete his Alien PhD - I am going to get some sarcastic jibe about backwaters and wasting years away from any decent fun etc.
I think we might consider that level of interest lucky. :-)
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#6I've enjoyed Avi Loeb interviews on Lex Fridman and Joe Rogan. He has a refreshing perspective
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#7>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…
Indeed, Ants do some pretty fascinating stuff, TIL we have stuff like "Ant colony optimization algorithms" [0].
Even if we are as the aliens were 2 millions years ago, there must be something of interest in what we do? I mean, we'd be interested in life 2 billion years ago. I find it more likely that they just don't want to interfere.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization_algori...
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#8I'm writing a kids story (with my son, its quite fun to discuss the story and plan the laser fights) about an alien that is visiting earth to complete his Alien PhD - I am going to get some sarcastic jibe about backwaters and wasting years away from any decent fun etc. I think we might consider that level of interest lucky. :-)
This sounds like a very fun idea to do! May try it as well :)
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#9>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.
Re: Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us?
#10>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…
>There are professions that study ants.
Not only that we've incorporated armies of scientists in to the public realm to advise on such envoirnmental/biodiversity policy issues. It's possible an Interstate Freeway project may not happen because an bunch of endangered ants live along its planned route.