Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

In this case' date=' more like "The Formi Paradox." [/quote']

 

That was funny.

[TSandman]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Heh. The aliens in Watts' Blindsight make octopi look like our intellectual 'next of kin', not to mention a lot more cuddly.

 

 

sounds a bit like Clarke's RAMA stuff... the Octo-spiders they called those...

[TSandman]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

It's still a bit too expensive to CGI aliens. Also if you make the aliens too alien the audience won't really emphasize with them. This is ok if you are going for aliens like the Starship Troopers movie' date=' but if you want to have species that the average person can relate to you have to make them more human.[/quote']

 

Please Keep off the glue-on nose-ridges & earlobes!!! Feed those to the Pakmaras

[dmjalund]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

One thing I've learned is it is amazing what can be done with carefully planned "body language" in making the most alien creature/object emotionally accessible

[Markdoc]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

There's also a danger of making aliens different just for the sake of making them different. Human have many features that are simply the most likely to occur chemically or biologically' date=' if not downright required for sapience. Carbon and water based chemistry[/quote']

 

Why, specifically? There are other chemical combinations which could serve (ammonia, and sulphur derivatives are both considered possible replacements for water: both are abundant in the universe). Carbon is harder to imagine doing without. It is likely that this combination is common, given the apparent ubiquity of Carbon in the bits of the universe we can see, but I certainly can't see any biological reason it's a requirement; silicone (not silica, as often misunderstood), halogenated polymers and phosphogene derivatives have all been suggested.

 

air-breathing

 

Again, why specifically? Heck, we have plenty of species here on earth that don't require air to breath. Why would this requirement be foisted on a totally alien biology? The odds that aliens have an atmosphere enough like ours that we can breathe it strikes me as grossly improbable. There's nothing magic, biologically speaking, about the mix we require.

 

bilateral symmetry' date='[/quote']

 

Again, why? Not all earth species are just bilaterally symmetrical, nor is there any specific advantage that we can identify. Most earth species are bilaterally symmetical, but that's probably because almost all earth species radiated out of a single bilaterally symmetical ancestor. Elevating that to a requirement is like saying that because you and your siamese both have blue eyes that it's requirement that most animals with more than basic intelligence will have blue eyes.

 

upright stance

 

Again, why? Octopuses have nothing resembling an upright stance but they are both relatively intelligent and very adept tool users. They can even travel a fair distance across land - but they don't do it in an upright fashion. If we have smart tool users who are very closely related to us genetically and who don't have an upright stance, I can see no justification for assuming it's a requirement

 

manipulating limbs

 

This I think is likely: I suspect - but it's just a guess - that truly advanced intelligence requires extensive tool use, if only to expand your horizons ... but I'd be doubtful about assuming it's a requirement for sapience.

 

binocular vision

 

Really? Based on what? Can one-eyed babies not grow up to be sapient? How did whales, which lack binocular vision, retain their intelligence? They are not sapient, as I understand it, but there's no biological reason that binocular vision is required for sapience - or depth perception, for that matter. It's a relatively efficient model used by animals of our genetic line, but that doesn't make it a requirement for any reason I can see.

 

minimum head size

 

Ummm. Assuming they have heads. Or that they keep their brains in them.

 

and so forth are probably at least very common' date=' and some of them universal by necessity.[/quote']

 

Perhaps. None of these reasons seem to have much biological force behind them however, and many of them are not even universal among the small tightly-knit genetic line that composes earth animals. In reality, as far as we can tell, everything alive on earth has evolved out of a single, early progenitor line and therefore shares a great deal of similarity (people might object that "they don't share a great deal of similarity with a bacteria" but their own genetic material and the mitochondria that power their cells beg to differ). Yet even so, not everything listed above is requirement for life and none of them - as far as I can tell - is a biological requirement for sapience.

 

It's more a case of "Most everything on this planet looks like us. Therefore everything everywhere must look like us". I haven't seen a single plausible suggestion as to why that would be, yet.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Please Keep off the glue-on nose-ridges & earlobes!!! Feed those to the Pakmaras

 

Reminds me of a throwaway quote from a science fiction novel I read years ago:

"Why are ships engineers always called "Scotty"?"

"I dunno: it's an old space-faring tradition, like making the first officer wear those plastic ears"

 

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

As an aside, most of the "explanations" I have read as to why Aliens must resemble us, strike me to have all the gravitas of those articles written back in the 19th century explaining how any successful society must inevitably come to resemble Victorian England

 

cheers, Mark

[Susano]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

There's also a danger of making aliens different just for the sake of making them different. Human have many features that are simply the most likely to occur chemically or biologically' date=' if not downright required for sapience. Carbon and water based chemistry, air-breathing, bilateral symmetry, upright stance, manipulating limbs, binocular vision, minimum head size, and so forth are probably at least very common, and some of them universal by necessity.[/quote']

 

The dolphin would like to have a few words with your about this whole requirements for sapience thing.

[Susano]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Here's my take on it -- in a book, it's nice to have aliens who are physically and mentally alien because that provides tension (for your human protagonists anyway.) In an RPG, it depends on if you want to go Terracide (aliens are, well, alien), or space opera. The former means your PCs will encounter (if they can encounter) some pretty weird stuff. The latter means you might end up with the SF version of the Fellowship of the Ring. It all really boils down to what you want to get out of your story or game. If you're playing Star Wars, Star Trek, and any four-color Champions game, humanoid aliens are a virtually requirement. If you're playing the Culture or Known Space, not so much.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

(re:water/carbon)

Why' date=' specifically? There are other chemical combinations which could serve (ammonia, and sulphur derivatives are both considered possible replacements for water: both are abundant in the universe). Carbon is harder to imagine doing without. It is likely that this combination is common, given the apparent ubiquity of Carbon in the bits of the universe we can see, but I certainly can't see any biological reason it's a requirement; silicone (not silica, as often misunderstood), halogenated polymers and phosphogene derivatives have all been suggested.[/quote']Yes, they've been suggested, as have many other practical schemes. The water/carbon is simply the most likely, and probably the most common, because it's the simplest and most readily soluble.

(re: air-breathing)

Again, why specifically? Heck, we have plenty of species here on earth that don't require air to breath. Why would this requirement be foisted on a totally alien biology? The odds that aliens have an atmosphere enough like ours that we can breathe it strikes me as grossly improbable. There's nothing magic, biologically speaking, about the mix we require.

The specific mix of the air is secondary. I was referring to air-breathing as opposed to water-breathing. Even at that, it's only a "more likely" scenario; we might after all find something resembling sapience on Europa (probably resembling either octopi or water-breathing dolphins, though that's just a guess). But for a sapient civilization, air is an easier medium to travel through.

 

(re: bilateral symmetry)

Again, why? Not all earth species are just bilaterally symmetrical, nor is there any specific advantage that we can identify. Most earth species are bilaterally symmetical, but that's probably because almost all earth species radiated out of a single bilaterally symmetical ancestor. Elevating that to a requirement is like saying that because you and your siamese both have blue eyes that it's requirement that most animals with more than basic intelligence will have blue eyes.

Again, I'm referring to a more likely scenario for sapience. It's not a requirement, but it's more of an evolutionary survival trait than just an accident. Locomotion on land is simply easier with bilateral symmetry. For that matter, so is most locomotion in water, though the most advanced Earth creature that I can think of that doesn't have it is the octopus and it's no slouch.

 

(re: upright stance)

Again, why? Octopuses have nothing resembling an upright stance but they are both relatively intelligent and very adept tool users. They can even travel a fair distance across land - but they don't do it in an upright fashion. If we have smart tool users who are very closely related to us genetically and who don't have an upright stance, I can see no justification for assuming it's a requirement

From an evolutionary standpoint, a land-dwelling creature with an upright stance has a greater reliance on intellect. It's relying more on vision to evaluate its environment, which requires some processing, as opposed to smell, which is more visceral and instinctive in nature (it literally hooks in to a different part of the brain).

 

(re: manipulative limbs)

This I think is likely: I suspect - but it's just a guess - that truly advanced intelligence requires extensive tool use, if only to expand your horizons ... but I'd be doubtful about assuming it's a requirement for sapience.

That's about my stance.

 

(Re: binocular vision)

Really? Based on what? Can one-eyed babies not grow up to be sapient? How did whales, which lack binocular vision, retain their intelligence? They are not sapient, as I understand it, but there's no biological reason that binocular vision is required for sapience - or depth perception, for that matter. It's a relatively efficient model used by animals of our genetic line, but that doesn't make it a requirement for any reason I can see.

I think you're getting overly tied up on the "required" part of my statement. The "one-eyed babies" part of this is almost insulting, in fact; I'm not referring to individuals here, but species. This is another "more likely" factor, and in fact one of the weakest of my list.

 

(re: head size)

Ummm. Assuming they have heads. Or that they keep their brains in them.

Granted.

 

Perhaps. None of these reasons seem to have much biological force behind them however, and many of them are not even universal among the small tightly-knit genetic line that composes earth animals. In reality, as far as we can tell, everything alive on earth has evolved out of a single, early progenitor line and therefore shares a great deal of similarity (people might object that "they don't share a great deal of similarity with a bacteria" but their own genetic material and the mitochondria that power their cells beg to differ). Yet even so, not everything listed above is requirement for life and none of them - as far as I can tell - is a biological requirement for sapience.

Not a biological requirement, in that sense, but more of an evolutionary need. Can a non-motile life form achieve sapience? The concept is interesting, but it's massively unlikely considering what motility gives us.

 

It's more a case of "Most everything on this planet looks like us. Therefore everything everywhere must look like us". I haven't seen a single plausible suggestion as to why that would be, yet.

The assumption you're making is that all of the traits I listed are simply biological accidents. There are reasons for each of them, and how they contribute to our ability to create, invent, explore, communicate, and civilize. Some of those reasons are weaker than others, of course, a few of the traits are absolute; I expect that, as we get out into the Local Galactic Super-Cluster, we'll find at least one exception to most of them. But looking at how each of these traits actually functions we can see why we are what we are... and, somewhat to my surprise as I've listened to what zoologists have had to say, I find that the "bumpy forehead alien" is rather more realistic than many of the more extremely inhuman creatures.

[Markdoc]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

(The assumption you're making is that all of the traits I listed are simply biological accidents. There are reasons for each of them' date=' and how they contribute to our ability to create, invent, explore, communicate, and civilize. Some of those reasons are weaker than others, of course, a few of the traits are absolute; I expect that, as we get out into the Local Galactic Super-Cluster, we'll find at least one exception to most of them. But looking at how each of these traits actually functions we can see why we are what we are... and, somewhat to my surprise as I've listened to what zoologists have had to say, I find that the "bumpy forehead alien" is rather more realistic than many of the more extremely inhuman creatures.[/quote']

 

Actually any competent biologist would assume they are accidental unless presented with evidence to the contrary - or more accurately would simply point out that we have insufficient data to make any of the claims of causality you have. To quote:

 

Not a biological requirement, in that sense, but more of an evolutionary need. Can a non-motile life form achieve sapience? The concept is interesting, but it's massively unlikely considering what motility gives us.

 

Massively unlikely? Based on what? The truth is, we simply don't know. You're extrapolating from a sample of one, and one thing we can be sure of based on our experience is that such extrapolation is far more likely to be wrong that correct. The zoologists I know who have thought about this topic - and many who have written on the subject - disagree about what likely requirements for sapience are. But the two things they agree on are that 1) we can't make any meaningful predictions about the requirements for sapience and 2) the odds of them being like us are vanishingly small.

 

To take our own planet as an example, groups which are at the top of the tree in terms of intelligence - for example, primates, octopi, cetaceans, corvids - are all closely related, compared to any alien life form - yet only one - us - meets most of your criteria. That's not very encouraging if you want to apply it to something far less closely related to us than an octopus ...

 

cheers, Mark

[Escafarc]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Aliens looking like us could be wishful thinking

 

[dmjalund]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

As to the likelihood of non-motile creatures attaining intelligence. Intelligence required adaptive behavior. Adaptive Behavior requires the ability to behave - to interact with the environment - requires ability to move.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

It seems to me that the point Markdoc was trying to make, is that we can't be certain any of those qualities are "required" for intelligence to develop, based solely on the precedents from this one planet.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Why, specifically? There are other chemical combinations which could serve (ammonia, and sulphur derivatives are both considered possible replacements for water: both are abundant in the universe). Carbon is harder to imagine doing without. It is likely that this combination is common, given the apparent ubiquity of Carbon in the bits of the universe we can see, but I certainly can't see any biological reason it's a requirement; silicone (not silica, as often misunderstood), halogenated polymers and phosphogene derivatives have all been suggested.

 

 

 

Again, why specifically? Heck, we have plenty of species here on earth that don't require air to breath. Why would this requirement be foisted on a totally alien biology? The odds that aliens have an atmosphere enough like ours that we can breathe it strikes me as grossly improbable. There's nothing magic, biologically speaking, about the mix we require.

 

 

 

Again, why? Not all earth species are just bilaterally symmetrical, nor is there any specific advantage that we can identify. Most earth species are bilaterally symmetical, but that's probably because almost all earth species radiated out of a single bilaterally symmetical ancestor. Elevating that to a requirement is like saying that because you and your siamese both have blue eyes that it's requirement that most animals with more than basic intelligence will have blue eyes.

 

 

 

Again, why? Octopuses have nothing resembling an upright stance but they are both relatively intelligent and very adept tool users. They can even travel a fair distance across land - but they don't do it in an upright fashion. If we have smart tool users who are very closely related to us genetically and who don't have an upright stance, I can see no justification for assuming it's a requirement

 

 

 

This I think is likely: I suspect - but it's just a guess - that truly advanced intelligence requires extensive tool use, if only to expand your horizons ... but I'd be doubtful about assuming it's a requirement for sapience.

 

 

 

Really? Based on what? Can one-eyed babies not grow up to be sapient? How did whales, which lack binocular vision, retain their intelligence? They are not sapient, as I understand it, but there's no biological reason that binocular vision is required for sapience - or depth perception, for that matter. It's a relatively efficient model used by animals of our genetic line, but that doesn't make it a requirement for any reason I can see.

 

 

 

Ummm. Assuming they have heads. Or that they keep their brains in them.

 

 

 

Perhaps. None of these reasons seem to have much biological force behind them however, and many of them are not even universal among the small tightly-knit genetic line that composes earth animals. In reality, as far as we can tell, everything alive on earth has evolved out of a single, early progenitor line and therefore shares a great deal of similarity (people might object that "they don't share a great deal of similarity with a bacteria" but their own genetic material and the mitochondria that power their cells beg to differ). Yet even so, not everything listed above is requirement for life and none of them - as far as I can tell - is a biological requirement for sapience.

 

It's more a case of "Most everything on this planet looks like us. Therefore everything everywhere must look like us". I haven't seen a single plausible suggestion as to why that would be, yet.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Repped for pointing out all of the above so I don't have to. One of the most important things to remember about evolution (I'm guessing that's one thing which is nearly universal) is that every organism must be adapted to its environment -- and the variety of possible environments in which some form of life could arise is incredibly diverse. The only case in which I'd expect to see aliens who even remotely resemble us would be if they evolved in an environment quite similar to ours, and even then I wouldn't expect too much common ground. So, how many alien Earth-like worlds have we found so far? I think we're currently at zero, and counting.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

As to the likelihood of non-motile creatures attaining intelligence. Intelligence required adaptive behavior. Adaptive Behavior requires the ability to behave - to interact with the environment - requires ability to move.

 

All organisms interact with their environment, whether they can move or not. Granted, mobility has its advantages, but let's not get carried away.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Here's my take on it -- in a book' date=' it's nice to have aliens who are physically and mentally alien because that provides tension (for your human protagonists anyway.) In an RPG, it depends on if you want to go Terracide (aliens are, well, alien), or space opera. The former means your PCs will encounter ([i']if[/i] they can encounter) some pretty weird stuff. The latter means you might end up with the SF version of the Fellowship of the Ring. It all really boils down to what you want to get out of your story or game. If you're playing Star Wars, Star Trek, and any four-color Champions game, humanoid aliens are a virtually requirement. If you're playing the Culture or Known Space, not so much.

 

Another extremely important consideration for SF-RPG designers: will your aliens be playable as PC's?

 

If Yes, then you'll need to have some 'accessible' aliens which the average gamer can easily grok. (Heh, I said 'grok.') Take Traveller for example: the most commonly played alien race (in my experience) was the Vargr. Being derived from Terran wolves, they were easily the most similar to humans. The least played were probably either the Hivers or K'kree -- both of which were extremely different from humans both physically and mentally. However, it was possible to play them as PC's!

 

If No, then your alien species don't need to be comprehensible to the PC's at all. They can be, and should be, a mystery to everyone except the GM. (If they're so far out even the GM doesn't understand them, then how would he know he's running them correctly? Or not?) Aliens of this type are either NPC's, or purely plot devices with no character sheets required.

 

It's possible, of course, to have both types of aliens in the same SF-RPG setting, if the designer is okay with it.

[Susano]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Exactly.

 

And Wayne Douglas Barlow showed how you can get pretty alien and yet still have a reasonable frame of reference with his book Expedition.

[dmjalund]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

As to the likelihood of non-motile creatures attaining intelligence. Intelligence required adaptive behavior. Adaptive Behavior requires the ability to behave - to interact with the environment - requires ability to move.

The difference is like the difference between software and hardware. In this way, an organism can interact with its environment as a passive non-agent, but this won't create intelligence, because intelligence without capability is wasted intelligence (evolution doesn't like such waste). (I'm referring to intelligence rather than sentience because under this definition insects have a form of intelligence, but absolutely no sign of sentience)

[Markdoc]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

The difference is like the difference between software and hardware. In this way' date=' an organism can interact with its environment as a passive non-agent, but this won't create intelligence, because intelligence without capability is wasted intelligence (evolution doesn't like such waste). (I'm referring to intelligence rather than sentience because under this definition insects have a form of intelligence, but absolutely no sign of sentience)[/quote']

 

Unfortunately evolution doesn't care about waste. Evolution is not a designer, who makes decisions or cares about anything. As a result nature is filled with wasteful, poorly designed biology: all evolution cares about is reproductive success and animals and plants often achieve success with cobbled-together bits.

 

I'm getting the vibe here that people are making a huge number of unwarranted assumptions, probably unconsciously. I suspect that intelligence probably requires motility - but I am not sure, and I certainly would not assert it's a requirement.

 

cheers, Mark

[Utech]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

My brother used to have a poster with a quote I rather liked, but apparently not well enough to have memorized it. It basically stated that no creature of our imagination, no matter how fantastic, can be anything but a collection of the parts of known animals. I rather think we have the same problem in imagining intelligent alien life.

 

It is entirely possible that intelligent alien life would have no cells, no limbs, no sense organs we might recognize, no need to eat, etc.

 

The problem with this sort of speculation, however, is that it's simply unplayable unless you're going the HP Lovecraft route. Then you can cryptically describe your aliens as impossible to describe, shapeless, formless, and intelligent in a way unknowable to the characters. Fun with horror, but probably less fun for most SF.

 

What's most playable is to take what we know about life and civilizations on our planet and take that to an extreme. So you can base aliens on non-human looking creatures such as octopuses, sponges, starfish, and so on. Then you give their civilization some hodge-podge of Earth civilizations and cultures and you are good to go.

[Susano]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

Sir Arthur Eddington

English astronomer (1882 - 1944)

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

My brother used to have a poster with a quote I rather liked, but apparently not well enough to have memorized it. It basically stated that no creature of our imagination, no matter how fantastic, can be anything but a collection of the parts of known animals. I rather think we have the same problem in imagining intelligent alien life.

 

It is entirely possible that intelligent alien life would have no cells, no limbs, no sense organs we might recognize, no need to eat, etc.

 

The problem with this sort of speculation, however, is that it's simply unplayable unless you're going the HP Lovecraft route. Then you can cryptically describe your aliens as impossible to describe, shapeless, formless, and intelligent in a way unknowable to the characters. Fun with horror, but probably less fun for most SF.

 

What's most playable is to take what we know about life and civilizations on our planet and take that to an extreme. So you can base aliens on non-human looking creatures such as octopuses, sponges, starfish, and so on. Then you give their civilization some hodge-podge of Earth civilizations and cultures and you are good to go.

 

The quote appears to be buried in Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan, where Hobbes makes minimising claims about the nature of imagination so as to reduce it to a species of memory, with various ulterior motives that people don't get much into these days, as they are uncomfortable with the idea of Hobbes as a theological thinker. (As with Hume and Descartes, the kind of people who like him, like the idea of secret atheists.)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/#2.1

[Utech]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

The quote appears to be buried in Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan' date=' [/quote']

Thanks for the interesting link, but I'm sure that's not where the quote was from.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Aliens: everything you know is... well, "wrong" doesn't even begin to cover it.

 

Thanks for the interesting link' date=' but I'm sure that's not where the quote was from.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I'm being lazy. The article has a brief blurb about how a centaur is imagined as man plus horse deep in it, but not the quote you're referring to, which I don't exactly remember anyway. If I were being serious about tracking it down, I'd pull out my copy* of Leviathan and [....snore]

 

(Actually, Hobbes is a pretty lively writer for a philosopher. I really am just being lazy.)

 

*One of my copies. I'm so sad.