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

[Lord Liaden]

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

 

You know, there's another side to this debate. While we have no evidence that intelligent life on other planets in any way resembles us, if it exists at all... we also have no evidence that it doesn't. Although the assumption that other worlds would likely evolve life forms physically and psychologically alien to us seems reasonable, it's still based on examples from our single world. We simply don't know if there are undiscovered principles behind the development of life and intelligence which are constant and universal.

[Shadow Hawk]

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

 

Reading here, and some thoughts.

 

1. We have a lack of sample size. We've got one planet where we know intelligent life evolved, so we assume that this is the norm. We have not idea if we are the norm or an outlier.

 

2. Lots of people confuse 'intelligent life' with 'technological civilization'. While all Tech Civs arose from Int Life, this doesn't mean that all Int Life will live in a Tech Civ.

 

3. Refering back to two: A lot of the 'requirements' that have been written for Int Life are actually requirements for Tech Civ. You don't need the equivilent of hands to be intelligent, but they are required for a Tech Civ.

[Zeropoint]

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

 

Dolphins might be smart, but they're going to have a heck of a time making fire.

[Escafarc]

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

 

Not to disagree with anything above. But in the Star Trek Universe they explained the whole most alien races look alike with the "Progenitors" seeding the planets thing.

[BobGreenwade]

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

 

3. Refering back to two: A lot of the 'requirements' that have been written for Int Life are actually requirements for Tech Civ. You don't need the equivilent of hands to be intelligent' date=' but they are required for a Tech Civ.[/quote']This is actually the best counterpoint to my lengthy post, or at least the part on this point.

[dmjalund]

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

 

Not to disagree with anything above. But in the Star Trek Universe they explained the whole most alien races look alike with the "Progenitors" seeding the planets thing.

WHich you'd have to rewrite how evolution works still, to make work.

[Escafarc]

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

 

WHich you'd have to rewrite how evolution works still' date=' to make work.[/quote']

 

Not really since in this case there was no evolution involved. The shape of "Life" on these planets was predetermined by an outside source. I was only bringing it up in the first place to show that not all scifi writers are unaware of this particular debate.

[Zeropoint]

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

 

I just wonder: if you have an immobile life form with no manipulatory limbs, how is intelligence going to give it a survival/reproductive advantage? How would intelligence be selected for in such a species?

[BobGreenwade]

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

 

I just wonder: if you have an immobile life form with no manipulatory limbs' date=' how is intelligence going to give it a survival/reproductive advantage? How would intelligence be selected for in such a species?[/quote']I can see some level of intelligence developing in a species like this -- not sapience or civilization, at least as we would define it, but a level of thought -- given that even without motility or manipulation a creature could have features like camouflage, size manipulation, pheromone release, communication by sound or electric emissions, and so forth.

 

For example, a non-motile animal might need to understand when to camouflage itself and how, under various circumstances. It may need to hide and blend in with nearby plants in the presence of a predator, but take on a bright color to fool its prey (if it's omnivorous) or a different bright color to attract the symbiotes that help it reproduce. That's just one random idea out of several possibilities that could make a form of intelligence a good evolutionary feature.

[Xavier Onassiss]

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

 

Not to disagree with anything above. But in the Star Trek Universe they explained the whole most alien races look alike with the "Progenitors" seeding the planets thing.

 

A great many features of the Star Trek Universe exist for the sole purpose of providing cover for the limitations of special effects. The above rationalization is just window dressing for a series in which most of the 'aliens' had to be played by human actors. Likewise, the ubiquity of 'artificial gravity' in Star Trek (and many other SF tv shows) is really just a concession to the fact that there's no cheap way for Hollywood to do 'artificial weightlessness.' Ironically, it's cheaper to use real gravity and pretend it's artificial.

 

I've often wondered (and I still wonder) why so many SF-RPG's seem to trapped in this exact same paradigm for no reason whatsoever.

[Lord Liaden]

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

 

I just wonder: if you have an immobile life form with no manipulatory limbs' date=' how is intelligence going to give it a survival/reproductive advantage? How would intelligence be selected for in such a species?[/quote']

 

There's an interesting intelligent species described in the Star HERO sourcebook, Worlds Of Empire. These creatures are essentially monoliths of solid mineral, practically ageless, as durable as stone with no natural predators. They have no manipulative appendages, and are only capable of movement at a geological pace, i.e. a few centimeters per year. They perceive across the electromagnetic spectrum, and communicate with each other over great distances via radio waves or shorter frequencies. They're known as profound and diverse philosophers, since thinking is their primary pastime -- at least it was until they encountered extraplanetary civilizations.

 

 

Actually, in the official Hero Universe these creatures are artificial, created by an ancient, highly advanced race. However, it's not impossible to imagine conditions in which they might have evolved naturally. Intelligence wouldn't be a survival trait since threats to their survival would be minimal; but I could see it developing in them cumulatively as they "grow" over centuries or millennia, in response to communication with others of their kind.

 

[Utech]

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

 

I just wonder: if you have an immobile life form with no manipulatory limbs' date=' how is intelligence going to give it a survival/reproductive advantage? How would intelligence be selected for in such a species?[/quote']

We won't know until we find it. And then it will seem obvious. That's the way these things go.

 

Take, for example, the way marsupials reproduce. Prior to finding marsupials, no one even considered the possibility that a species might evolve in such a way as to give birth to helpless, nearly embryonic creatures who must crawl to a pouch on their mother's body before completing development. It seems utterly crazy. And there it is -- working just fine, thank you.

 

We were sure that life required oxygen, sunlight, and water. Until we discovered that life could get by just fine without oxygen, far from sunlight, and living in acid.

 

I figure somewhere out there is an immobile life form with no cells, no limbs, no energy consumption I could recognize. It's using technology I wouldn't know as technology to speculate on how it could possibly be that a life form such as ours could possibly have any intelligence whatsoever.

 

I also figure that sort of being is impossible to actually play in an RPG...

[Markdoc]

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

 

You know' date=' there's another side to this debate. While we have no evidence that intelligent life on other planets in any way resembles us, if it exists at all... we also have no evidence that it doesn't. Although the assumption that other worlds would likely evolve life forms physically and psychologically alien to us seems reasonable, it's still based on examples from our single world. We simply don't know if there are undiscovered principles behind the development of life and intelligence which are constant and universal.[/quote']

 

And that's a fair point ... except that we do have a sample size of more than one when it comes to life-forms. That data tells us two things.

1. Intelligent life, tool-using life doesn't have to look anything like primates. Point in case: Octopuses, corvids. Sure they haven't evolved to the point where they can manage interplanetary flight, but then neither did we, until very, very recently. An octopus is probably at least as smart as our relatively recent ancestors.

2. That various traits are shaped by the environment - although you can get individual traits that look similar by convergent evolution, you don't have to do more than scratch the surface to see how very very different - dare I say alien - these species are to each other. I know of no example of convergent evolution producing two species that resemble each other as much as most "sci-fi" aliens often resemble humans. And yet, they're drawing on a common genetic line, meaning they are more closely related to each other than any alien will be to us.

 

So we don't know what intelligent aliens might look like. Or even if they exist. But everything we think we know about biology so far, says "Probably nothing like us". Saying "We don't know everything" is not the same as saying "We know nothing"

 

cheers, Mark

[phookz]

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

 

I just wonder: if you have an immobile life form with no manipulatory limbs' date=' how is intelligence going to give it a survival/reproductive advantage? How would intelligence be selected for in such a species?[/quote']

 

Not every evolutionary trait provides an advantage. Those traits with advantages tend to have a higher probability of propagating with the species, but not always. It's entirely possible that intelligence could evolve accidentally.

[phookz]

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

 

A great many features of the Star Trek Universe exist for the sole purpose of providing cover for the limitations of special effects. The above rationalization is just window dressing for a series in which most of the 'aliens' had to be played by human actors. Likewise' date=' the ubiquity of 'artificial gravity' in Star Trek (and [i']many[/i] other SF tv shows) is really just a concession to the fact that there's no cheap way for Hollywood to do 'artificial weightlessness.' Ironically, it's cheaper to use real gravity and pretend it's artificial.

 

I've often wondered (and I still wonder) why so many SF-RPG's seem to trapped in this exact same paradigm for no reason whatsoever.

 

It's still easier. Sure, we're not stuck with a SFX budget, but it's easier to imagine aliens that look like us. It's easier to work out the logistics of inter-species interactions if we're all (or mostly all) similar in body composition.

 

But even more than that is we will tend to imagine things that we are familiar with. We are familiar with bipeds and gravity. It's easier for us to imagine it.

[Lord Liaden]

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

 

And that's a fair point ... except that we do have a sample size of more than one when it comes to life-forms. That data tells us two things.

1. Intelligent life, tool-using life doesn't have to look anything like primates. Point in case: Octopuses, corvids. Sure they haven't evolved to the point where they can manage interplanetary flight, but then neither did we, until very, very recently. An octopus is probably at least as smart as our relatively recent ancestors.

 

Well, except that octopi and corvids don't make tools -- they take advantage of the existing physical properties of items in their environment. Reshaping things to our purposes is exclusive to humans and our closest relatives, and displays an imagination that other creatures on our planet at least appear to lack.

 

2. That various traits are shaped by the environment - although you can get individual traits that look similar by convergent evolution' date=' you don't have to do more than scratch the surface to see how very very different - dare I say alien - these species are to each other. I know of no example of convergent evolution producing two species that resemble each other as much as most "sci-fi" aliens often resemble humans. And yet, they're drawing on a common genetic line, meaning they are more closely related to each other than any alien will be to us.[/quote']

 

Then again, we also are fairly confident as to how much manipulative limbs and sensory placement and use, particularly visual, has contributed to the development of our kind of intelligence. Are those universal advantages? Impossible to say at this point, as again, we only have the one example.

 

So we don't know what intelligent aliens might look like. Or even if they exist. But everything we think we know about biology so far' date=' says "Probably nothing like us". Saying "[i']We don't know everything[/i]" is not the same as saying "We know nothing"

 

It's also not the same as saying, "We know what's most important."

 

Personally, I'm more concerned with how aliens might think, rather than how they might look. A radically alien-looking creature migh still have thought processes recognizably like our own, depending on whether "intelligence" really does manifest within one particular definition. Again, no way to be sure.

 

That said, everything you mention sounds very reasonable to me, based, as you say, on what we know so far.

[Susano]

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

 

Well' date=' except that octopi and corvids don't make tools -- they take advantage of the existing physical properties of items in their environment. Reshaping things to our purposes is exclusive to humans and our closest relatives, and displays an imagination that other creatures on our planet at least appear to lack.[/quote']

 

I thought I read/saw something on certain corvids selecting and/or altering twigs to get inside of bottles and the like. Thus, making a tool.

[phookz]

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

 

Well' date=' except that octopi and corvids don't make tools -- they take advantage of the existing physical properties of items in their environment. Reshaping things to our purposes is exclusive to humans and our closest relatives, and displays an imagination that other creatures on our planet at least appear to lack.[/quote']

 

How close are crows?

http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/

This crow spontaneously bent a wire to create a hook so that it could retrieve a food-containing bucket. By the way, watch the video - it's really quite amazing.

[Susano]

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

 

How close are crows?

http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/T

This crow spontaneously bent a wire to create a hook so that it could retrieve a food-containing bucket. By the way, watch the video - it's really quite amazing.

 

Repped for finding the clip I was thinking of.

[Tasha]

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

 

A great many features of the Star Trek Universe exist for the sole purpose of providing cover for the limitations of special effects. The above rationalization is just window dressing for a series in which most of the 'aliens' had to be played by human actors. Likewise' date=' the ubiquity of 'artificial gravity' in Star Trek (and [i']many[/i] other SF tv shows) is really just a concession to the fact that there's no cheap way for Hollywood to do 'artificial weightlessness.' Ironically, it's cheaper to use real gravity and pretend it's artificial.

 

I've often wondered (and I still wonder) why so many SF-RPG's seem to trapped in this exact same paradigm for no reason whatsoever.

 

Because we as players and GMs want to run/play in the same universes as what we see on tv.

[Tasha]

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

 

How close are crows?

http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/crow/T

This crow spontaneously bent a wire to create a hook so that it could retrieve a food-containing bucket. By the way, watch the video - it's really quite amazing.

 

Here's a link that works

 

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/Suppl_3/S88.full.pdf The article

[Xavier Onassiss]

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

 

Because we as players and GMs want to run/play in the same universes as what we see on tv.

 

The question I'm asking is why they'd want to do this to begin with, when they have the opportunity to create something better in RPG format.

[phookz]

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

 

Better is subjective. Using that kind of logic, why do people play Superheroes, or Pulp, or Fantasy? Storytelling is about the human experience - it's our only frame of reference. Even when we try and tell something that is different from human, it's the fact that we are human and can compare that to being human that gives it meaning. Why would Science Fiction have to be different to be better?

[phookz]

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

 

Here's a link that works

 

Oops - fixed it. Thanks, have some rep!

[Susano]

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

 

The question I'm asking is why they'd want to do this to begin with' date=' when they have the opportunity to create something [i']better[/i] in RPG format.

 

Better for you maybe. Some of us just might not want to play a hyper-intelligent shade of blue. I'm rather neutral on the subject. I can appreciate the desire for aliens that are, well, alien. But I can also understand wanting to play within the established tropes of space opera and the like.