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Is Et A Scientist?


sman

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Now, there may be extra-terrestrial life comparable to earth’s bacteria, or an extra-solar stew of replicating molecules or something like that. That would be very exciting, but it’s obviously not what I’m talking about here. The subject of “Is ET a scientist?” is extra-terrestrial intelligence: that old sci-fi fantasy that there may be something out there in the void comparable enough to humans that they might desire - and possess the technology - to communicate with us. So, not life, but a more limited category: The kind of life that’s eligible for mutual contact with ...with what that kind of life would think of as ETIs ...with us.

 

Actually, that’s not true either. The subject of this thread is the nature of science, and whether science is requisite to the kind of technology we‘d look for in the stars if we were looking for our own ETIs. So, now that my baiting title has been whittled down to this boring philosophical inquest, you can decide if you want to continue reading...

 

Is science required for the development of technology? Certainly not all technology. Many technological hallmarks, from stone tools & grass baskets to metallurgy, have pre-dated science here on earth. I, for one, am an avid admirer of many non-scientific technologies like... cheesecake. And bed-sheets. But I can’t help thinking the great bulk of the technology that underpins my civilization - like in-house electricity & refrigeration - owes it’s existence to some rather alien methods of inquiry that a few eccentrics were dabbling in back in the Renaissance. Is experiment & observation necessary for refrigeration? Do hand-tools & bed-sheets & cheesecakes necessarily prequel experimental methods? In any case, before we can learn about ET’s awls & axes, ambrosial or embroidery, we first will encounter their communications.

 

So, moving from dessert ...naturally... to radio astronomy: On earth this technology was pioneered by scientists, and it’s hard to imagine a civilization converging upon it without scientific methods. But is this just an artifact of my limited imagination? Are there other avenues to technologies like this? If so, what would they be? And what would they say about the pipeline of fascinating code suddenly streaming into SETI right now? ...or any moment now?

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...So, moving from dessert ...naturally... to radio astronomy: On earth this technology was pioneered by scientists, and it’s hard to imagine a civilization converging upon it without scientific methods. But is this just an artifact of my limited imagination? Are there other avenues to technologies like this? If so, what would they be? And what would they say about the pipeline of fascinating code suddenly streaming into SETI right now? ...or any moment now?

 

i think radio, whether for astronomy or "local" communication requires scientists. even without the math, developing a radio would take experiments in materials development and circuit design, with experiments constituting the very nexus of scientific enquiry and advance. :smart:

 

as it is, the last seti project going on earth was the private venture using the allen array and that is now shut down as i understand it. (hibernation is the term they are using.) >> Federal and state funding cutbacks for operations of U.C. Berkeley’s Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) force hibernation of Allen Telescope Array

 

can you hear me now? :phone: :lol:

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i think it all depends on this one fact

 

how and where did the life-form evolve

 

 

if a life form evolved in a large asteroid field, then what need would they have for rockets

 

if the lifeform evolved in a system with pulsars, then what if they have a material that allows a bend in space time

 

integrated into their bio system

 

then moving for them would be like moving for us, eccept they move by bending space-time

 

 

what if they had no hands or feet, just conciousness (like a redwood tree)

then they would have to find a symbiotic organism to teach and convince to build for them

( like a huge mushroom that has mosquitos that live on it, where the mosquitos evolved over many milleniua

to the level that humans are at now)

 

 

 

alot of different possibilities

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I think you make an important observation, sman, when you write of “the technology that underpins my civilization” as owing “it’s existence to some rather alien methods of inquiry” – that is, science. Science as we know it is counter-intuitive, and ... weird.

 

Why is that? I think it’s because we H.Sap.Saps have, exactly via science and related disciplines (“discipline”, I believe, is a very apt term here), learned how to “externalize” our intuitive cognitive ability, becoming as a result effectively smarter than we intuitively are.

 

This state is reflected by statement such as Feynman’s famous “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”, by which he was not criticizing physicists for having failed to develop an intuitive understanding of QM yet, but explaining that we can’t, really, develop such an understanding.

 

Now, if an ET had substantially more innate, intuitive “internal” intelligence, he/she/it/they might be able to intuitively understand how to do the things for which we need science without it, in the same manner that a pre-scientific human can intuitively hunt, gather, find, improve, and make shelter, etc., or how a “dumb beast” like a cat or a dog can do some of these things.

 

An ET with substantially less internal intelligence than us might need to develop “externalized” science – including the scribing of data on media, hypothesizing, experimental testing, etc – to succeed at even rudimentary task we Earthlings can do intuitively, such as the above.

 

Another characteristic driving the need for science is limited perception. An ET with perceptual apparatus able to see, feel, taste, or otherwise precisely measure, say, individual molecules, might intuitively understand the molecular biology we had to invent generations of microscopes and chemical analysis techniques and theories to understand. For example, a species that could directly, consciously “see” individual DNA base pairs, and watch them express proteins in realtime, might find genetic engineering as intuitive as we find tossing balls of fishing termites from a stump with a thin stick.

 

A blind, deaf, species able to, say, sense their universe only by bumping their heads against unyielding objects, might have to develop theories as complicated as our modern physics simply to map their surroundings, discover fire and learn to use sharp sticks.

 

A species too small and fragile to lift themselves from hospitable puddles might have to develop sceince and technology as “advanced” as our space programs to travel from one puddle to the next. A species physical capable to profoundly altering their bodies via intuitive, conscious actions might be able to fly in space without having any science or technology worth the names.

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i think radio, whether for astronomy or "local" communication requires scientists. even without the math, developing a radio would take experiments in materials development and circuit design, with experiments constituting the very nexus of scientific enquiry and advance. :smart:

 

That’s my feeling as well - that, without experimental methods, there could be no radios, no radio astronomy, and no astronomy. However, I rarely agree with me & am prone to perpetual self-argument. Here, for example, it seems I’ve articulated the argument from lack-of-imagination: I can’t imagine any other way - therefore - there is no other way.

 

Besides, I can think of one process that we know of (through science, of course) - other than science - by which complicated, delicate machinery with heterogeneous structures of integrated, cooperative, specialized parts - like radios - can arise in the universe. Sonar & echo-location are something like radio. Eyesight is of the same cloth. Visible light is capitalized on for both signaling & receiving, in fireflies & a few other creatures. There are spieces on earth which exploit EM from ultra-violet to infra-red. AFAIK, though, no organism exploits EM wavelengths outside of this narrow range - could be biologically unuseful/ungrowable. The platypus hunts by electrolocation and a few rare eels, I understand, navigate by tasting the electric field emulated from their body/battery.

 

Of course, evolution is - we might say - experimental in nature. Maybe our lofty science is just a natural recapitulation of the very nexus of Natural Selection. <-- me arguing with myself :lol:

 

 

as it is, the last seti project going on earth was the private venture using the allen array and that is now shut down as i understand it. (hibernation is the term they are using.) >> Federal and state funding cutbacks for operations of U.C. Berkeley’s Hat Creek Radio Observatory (HCRO) force hibernation of Allen Telescope Array

 

can you hear me now? :phone: :lol:

 

Well, I’m very sad & sorry to hear that. Though I’d always been against the thing - now that we have it I can’t say I’m for it’s disuse. It seems only recently that we've acquired the kind of fine-grained knowledge of extra-solar systems that we needed in order to know where to point our ears. :angry:

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I think you make an important observation, sman, when you write of “the technology that underpins my civilization” as owing “it’s existence to some rather alien methods of inquiry” – that is, science. Science as we know it is counter-intuitive, and ... weird.

 

Why is that? I think it’s because we H.Sap.Saps have, exactly via science and related disciplines (“discipline”, I believe, is a very apt term here), learned how to “externalize” our intuitive cognitive ability, becoming as a result effectively smarter than we intuitively are.

 

This state is reflected by statement such as Feynman’s famous “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics”, by which he was not criticizing physicists for having failed to develop an intuitive understanding of QM yet, but explaining that we can’t, really, develop such an understanding.

 

 

I remember reading Feynman saying - something like - that theoretical physicists like himself had to balance themselves upon a scaffolding of abstraction to do the work, capturing your point, I feel, about science operating outside of our intuitive zone understanding.

 

Science really is quite weird. While we’re thinking about whether we should expect to see it in the stars, we must admit that it’s very rare even if we limit our look to earth. The situation in Europe in the time of Galileo was unique - a veritable melting pot of competing ideas with some flow of information between nations, and between castes, but not too much. Compare with the political situation of (pre-western contact) highland New Guinea, a land divided much the same way, but with very little information-flow among nations & 100% between castes - or specialized classes - within nations. Among humans, New Guinea is the norm, Europe the exception.

 

Well... I don’t know what caused science to happen here on earth. I’m just talking out of my hat. (The philosophic method? <_< ) But it does seem to be a one-off and the cauldron it came out of was unique in many ways worthy of discussion. An anomalous singularity in the history of us West-African stone-throwing termite fishers.

 

Europe & New Guinea are natural experiments, in a way. Are we applying science to science? Might our observations of the subject - via the subject - change the subject? Is it time to change the subject? :blink:

 

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds. ~Richard Feynman

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...

Besides, I can think of one process that we know of (through science, of course) - other than science - by which complicated, delicate machinery with heterogeneous structures of integrated, cooperative, specialized parts - like radios - can arise in the universe. Sonar & echo-location are something like radio. Eyesight is of the same cloth. Visible light is capitalized on for both signaling & receiving, in fireflies & a few other creatures. There are spieces on earth which exploit EM from ultra-violet to infra-red. AFAIK, though, no organism exploits EM wavelengths outside of this narrow range - could be biologically unuseful/ungrowable. The platypus hunts by electrolocation and a few rare eels, I understand, navigate by tasting the electric field emulated from their body/battery.

 

Of course, evolution is - we might say - experimental in nature. Maybe our lofty science is just a natural recapitulation of the very nexus of Natural Selection. <-- me arguing with myself :lol:

...

 

on radio sensing lifeforms, i had to think a bit. perhaps such lack, if indeed it exists, has to do with the size of biological componenents/structures -microtubules, dna, mitochondria, whatever- being too large to react/resonate to/with high frequency em. ? :shrug: on the broadcasting side, even if some lifeform could receive it strikes me unlikely that they would have sufficient power to broadcast any appreciable distance.

 

besides the sensing mechanisms you mentioned, i think i've read about animals having tiny particles of magnetite (in the brain?) that may have something to do with navigation?

 

on the last, a kind of self-similarity then? good stuff. :)

 

Edit: found an Abstract citing the discovery of magnetite in human brains. :read: >>

Magnetite biomineralization in the human brain

Although the mineral magnetite (Fe3O4) is precipitated biochemically by bacteria, protists, and a variety of animals, it has not been documented previously in human tissue. Using an ultrasensitive superconducting magnetometer in a clean-lab environment, we have detected the presence of ferromagnetic material in a variety of tissues from the human brain. Magnetic particle extracts from solubilized brain tissues examined with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction, and elemental analyses identify minerals in the magnetite-maghemite family, with many of the crystal morphologies and structures resembling strongly those precipitated by magnetotactic bacteria and fish. These magnetic and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy measurements imply the presence of a minimum of 5 million single-domain crystals per gram for most tissues in the brain and greater than 100 million crystals per gram for pia and dura. Magnetic property data indicate the crystals are in clumps of between 50 and 100 particles. Biogenic magnetite in the human brain may account for high-field saturation effects observed in the T1 and T2 values of magnetic resonance imaging and, perhaps, for a variety of biological effects of low-frequency magnetic fields. "]Magnetite biomineralization in the human brain.
Edited by Turtle
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Guest MacPhee

Now, there may be extra-terrestrial life comparable to earth’s bacteria, or an extra-solar stew of replicating molecules or something like that. That would be very exciting, but it’s obviously not what I’m talking about here. The subject of “Is ET a scientist?” is extra-terrestrial intelligence: that old sci-fi fantasy that there may be something out there in the void comparable enough to humans that they might desire - and possess the technology - to communicate with us. So, not life, but a more limited category: The kind of life that’s eligible for mutual contact with ...with what that kind of life would think of as ETIs ...with us.

 

Actually, that’s not true either. The subject of this thread is the nature of science, and whether science is requisite to the kind of technology we‘d look for in the stars if we were looking for our own ETIs. So, now that my baiting title has been whittled down to this boring philosophical inquest, you can decide if you want to continue reading...

 

Is science required for the development of technology? Certainly not all technology. Many technological hallmarks, from stone tools & grass baskets to metallurgy, have pre-dated science here on earth. I, for one, am an avid admirer of many non-scientific technologies like... cheesecake. And bed-sheets. But I can’t help thinking the great bulk of the technology that underpins my civilization - like in-house electricity & refrigeration - owes it’s existence to some rather alien methods of inquiry that a few eccentrics were dabbling in back in the Renaissance. Is experiment & observation necessary for refrigeration? Do hand-tools & bed-sheets & cheesecakes necessarily prequel experimental methods? In any case, before we can learn about ET’s awls & axes, ambrosial or embroidery, we first will encounter their communications.

 

So, moving from dessert ...naturally... to radio astronomy: On earth this technology was pioneered by scientists, and it’s hard to imagine a civilization converging upon it without scientific methods. But is this just an artifact of my limited imagination? Are there other avenues to technologies like this? If so, what would they be? And what would they say about the pipeline of fascinating code suddenly streaming into SETI right now? ...or any moment now?

 

Our SETI efforts sensibly rely on the idea, that if intelligent ET's exist, they will be sending out radio signals, which we can pick up in our radiotelescopes. Any ET's worth the salt, must think of doing it.

 

Yet so far, despite all our listening, we haven't picked up any such signals. So it's fairly safe to deduce, that there aren't any intelligent technological ET's in our Galaxy. If there were, surely the Galaxy would be awash with their ET radio.

 

As for the idea of biological organisms evolving an ability to transmit radio waves across the Galaxy - without technology - doesn't this run counter to Darwinism: how would such an ability be produced by Natural Selection?

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Our SETI efforts sensibly rely on the idea, that if intelligent ET's exist, they will be sending out radio signals, which we can pick up in our radiotelescopes. Any ET's worth the salt, must think of doing it.

 

Yes. Hence the assumption that anyone we can communicate with has science in common with us. :D

 

Yet so far, despite all our listening, we haven't picked up any such signals. So it's fairly safe to deduce, that there aren't any intelligent technological ET's in our Galaxy. If there were, surely the Galaxy would be awash with their ET radio.

 

Well, I dunno about that. The galaxy's very big. And very old. Our own radio has only spread out over about 60 years/lightyears of it. An identical civilization camped somewhere (randomly) in our own galaxy might think the same thing.

 

As for the idea of biological organisms evolving an ability to transmit radio waves across the Galaxy - without technology - doesn't this run counter to Darwinism: how would such an ability be produced by Natural Selection?

 

Presumeably, the same way abilities like sonar, echolocation and electrolocation were produced. As I mentioned, terrestrial organism are exploiting the Electro-Magnetic spectrum as we speak for signalling and receiving - though only a very narrow range of it. As Turtle suggests above, this range may be pre-disposed by the size of earth's biological systems: the eyes of a blue whale aren't that much bigger than the eyes of humans, and the eyes an octopus aren't that much smaller - the size of an eye has more to do with the wavelength of light that the size of the organism.

 

In another planetary environment, who knows? I can imagine giant, floating leviathans on a planet like Jupiter, buoyant in the atmosphere, evolving radio-ranged signalling/receiving planet-wide if only as a way to mark out territory amongst themselves.

 

But maybe I'm misunderstanding your question. Let me ask you this to clarify: why does evolving radio run counter to Darwinism? Or - better - what is it about Darwinism that disagrees with this?

 

Yes, we're a bit off-topic. The subject is the nature of science and whether it is something we should expect contemporary, comparable civilizations to converge upon -vs- whether that assumption is myopic or anthropocentric. Nonetheless, I think these are fun questions to explore, all.

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Guest MacPhee

 

 

But maybe I'm misunderstanding your question. Let me ask you this to clarify: why does evolving radio run counter to Darwinism? Or - better - what is it about Darwinism that disagrees with this?

 

Well, to clarify - Darwinism says that creatures evolve abilities that help them to survive and reproduce.

 

How can survival and reproduction be helped, by an ability to transmit radio-waves halfway across the Galaxy - when no response can be expected for 30,000 years? Unless the species transmitting, is incredibly long-lived.

 

May I add, sman, that your posts are very impressive. They show a wide range of knowledge. It's posters like you and Turtle, that encourage my faith in US science.

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Well, to clarify - Darwinism says that creatures evolve abilities that help them to survive and reproduce.

 

How can survival and reproduction be helped, by an ability to transmit radio-waves halfway across the Galaxy - when no response can be expected for 30,000 years? Unless the species transmitting, is incredibly long-lived.

 

I agree that an ability to transmit light-years through inter-stellar space would itself never offer any selective advantage. But it might grow out of, or be an inadvertent by-product of, planet-wide signaling through the thickly charged & turbulent atmosphere of a gas giant like Jupiter. Compare with the way these porridgey contraptions on our shoulders, designed with the singular purpose of maximizing our progeny, are communicating planet-wide via internet forums in an activity which surely must be severely taxing upon any slim chances us nerds would otherwise have at procreation-before-death. It’s a testament that anything can happen. (as is my progeny :lol: )

 

I know, evolved radios seems like we’re grasping for anything - especially when it’s fortified with a phrase like “anything can happen.” Let’s remember, we’re only talking about Darwinism because it’s the only way we know of that complicated, integrated systems can emerge from nothing more than the chemistry & physics that we observe in the universe. But I think it’s something to keep in mind: if, amid the background of all the rhythmic/chaotic naturally-occurring radio sources in our galaxy, we picked up something strikingly complex we shouldn’t assume it to be the product of scientific technology. The fantasy life-forms I described above could be as autonomic as gnats.

 

 

May I add, sman, that your posts are very impressive. They show a wide range of knowledge. It's posters like you and Turtle, that encourage my faith in US science.

 

Be careful... I do not represent US science. I’m uneducated and, therefore, can access only the knowledge that is published non-technically or as popularizations of science. It’s important not to take my word for anything. Look it up. Better yet, just call me on it. It is, after all, my responsibility to research my own claims. You’ll come to know how little I know, I assure you.

 

The Turtle, however, we should probably fear. Just a little. :scared:

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Now, there may be extra-terrestrial life comparable to earth’s bacteria, or an extra-solar stew of replicating molecules or something like that. That would be very exciting, but it’s obviously not what I’m talking about here. The subject of “Is ET a scientist?” is extra-terrestrial intelligence: that old sci-fi fantasy that there may be something out there in the void comparable enough to humans that they might desire - and possess the technology - to communicate with us. So, not life, but a more limited category: The kind of life that’s eligible for mutual contact with ...with what that kind of life would think of as ETIs ...with us.

 

I think and would be willing to take bets that there is life in our own solar system other than on earth... but as you state they most probably would bacterial or something similar. One SETI researcher was once asked how they would define intelligent life, his reply was "anyone who builds radio telescopes" I'm sure that was tongue in cheek but the fact remains that unless we develop some sort of star travel "radio telescope builders" is a pretty good definition of any intelligence we might contact.

 

Actually, that’s not true either. The subject of this thread is the nature of science, and whether science is requisite to the kind of technology we‘d look for in the stars if we were looking for our own ETIs. So, now that my baiting title has been whittled down to this boring philosophical inquest, you can decide if you want to continue reading...

 

I would like to suggest that any creatures that can write and record their experiences so they can be passed down to later generations would be my litmus test. But this test actually limits human intelligence to just the last few thousand years. The idea of technology is also a slippery concept. We would have to define what technology is before we can make that determination. Is it using a naturally occurring rock to crack open an egg or a clam? Then sea otters and crows are technological. Is technology modifying something from their natural world to use it as a tool technology? If so then chimps are technological.

 

I think technology is a synergy of making tools, art, culture, and passing down what they know to new generations so what they have learned is not lost.

 

Is science required for the development of technology? Certainly not all technology. Many technological hallmarks, from stone tools & grass baskets to metallurgy, have pre-dated science here on earth. I, for one, am an avid admirer of many non-scientific technologies like... cheesecake. And bed-sheets. But I can’t help thinking the great bulk of the technology that underpins my civilization - like in-house electricity & refrigeration - owes it’s existence to some rather alien methods of inquiry that a few eccentrics were dabbling in back in the Renaissance. Is experiment & observation necessary for refrigeration? Do hand-tools & bed-sheets & cheesecakes necessarily prequel experimental methods? In any case, before we can learn about ET’s awls & axes, ambrosial or embroidery, we first will encounter their communications.

 

I am going to go out on a limb here and say what we call science has evolved from the processes of trying to explain the natural world, there were pit stops and dead ends along the way, religion was probably the first organized effort to explain the natural world. But things like basket weaving to metallurgy are technology and were no doubt arrived at by processes we might call the beginnings of science

 

So, moving from dessert ...naturally... to radio astronomy: On earth this technology was pioneered by scientists, and it’s hard to imagine a civilization converging upon it without scientific methods. But is this just an artifact of my limited imagination? Are there other avenues to technologies like this? If so, what would they be? And what would they say about the pipeline of fascinating code suddenly streaming into SETI right now? ...or any moment now?

 

Science or some similar process is almost certainly needed to attain technology, observation and experimentation would have to part of anything that would arrive at technology.

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I think and would be willing to take bets that there is life in our own solar system other than on earth... but as you state they most probably would bacterial or something similar. One SETI researcher was once asked how they would define intelligent life, his reply was "anyone who builds radio telescopes" I'm sure that was tongue in cheek but the fact remains that unless we develop some sort of star travel "radio telescope builders" is a pretty good definition of any intelligence we might contact.

 

Definition by necessity! Sure, there may be brilliant poets or software engineers galactically right-next-door, but if they don’t do radio, they may as well as not exist for us.

 

 

I would like to suggest that any creatures that can write and record their experiences so they can be passed down to later generations would be my litmus test.

 

Sure. If fact, I’d say any creatures that accumulate information extra-genetically & transmit it trans-generationally could be considered at least eligible for technology.

 

 

I think technology is a synergy of making tools, art, culture, and passing down what they know to new generations so what they have learned is not lost.

 

So you’re saying if we find technology - out in the stars - we can assume we’ve also found art, culture & language? :ohdear: I dunno...

 

I am going to go out on a limb here and say what we call science has evolved from the processes of trying to explain the natural world, there were pit stops and dead ends along the way, religion was probably the first organized effort to explain the natural world. But things like basket weaving to metallurgy are technology and were no doubt arrived at by processes we might call the beginnings of science

 

Science or some similar process is almost certainly needed to attain technology, observation and experimentation would have to part of anything that would arrive at technology.

 

I’ve said basket weaving & metallurgy predate science, but both enterprises require bodies of knowledge that were won by trial & error. Strip the trialling of excess utility, add an understanding & vigil against personal biases & statistical errors, top with deductive reasoning, season to taste.

 

Maybe technology requires simply trial & error, science being a special case of it producing special technologies.

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