If ET exists, odds it's intelligent

[EWright]

Considering the probability of other life in the universe, if it exists, attempting to contact us.....

 

How many species exist on this one planet?

 

How many of them are capable of transmitting an interstellar signal or eventually traveling to another star system?

 

So if life exists on other planets, what are the odds it's intelligent enough to care about communicating with us or traveling to our planet?

 

If other life exists but doesn't excede the intelligent level of monkies, how will we know?

 

And considering we're the only intelligent species on this planet, what if it was a one in a billion fluke? And there's only 300 billion to 500 billion stars in our galaxy... It does't seem to far fetched to me that we could be the only intelligent ones. :circle:

[infamous]

 

And considering we're the only intelligent species on this planet, :circle:

What about dolphins and chimps? Sure, they are not on the same level as we humans but I think it would be safe to say they manifest a high degree of intelligence. Where does this leave your theory?

[C1ay]

But, if other life has had 10,000 years or more of a head start on us they may have technology we won't even imagine for thousands of years. Considering the apparent age of the local universe as we know it, thousands or millions of years older than life on Earth could be very plausible.

[Buffy]

Well, ya got one half of the Drake Equation going there. Check out:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

 

Yes, everything depends on the probabilities, but the more we find out about life on earth and how many really hostile places it seems to thrive in, its hard to think the probabilities are that low at all, even for "intelligent" life (dolphins are intelligent, man is not in my book :circle: ).

 

And as I always say to my kid, "do the math". Just using your own figures, you've computed 300 to 500 stars with intelligent life around them just in *our galaxy alone*. Innumerancy is an uncountably costly dilemma...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[EWright]

What about dolphins and chimps? Sure, they are not on the same level as we humans but I think it would be safe to say they manifest a high degree of intelligence. Where does this leave your theory?

 

This is not my theory, but rather a queery. And I was unaware that dolphins and chips are capable of sending interstellar communications. That dolphin sonar must be something else!

 

The fact remains, that out of millions of species on the planet, there's only one with our capabilities; and our combined knowledge, technology and communication capabilities are a million times more than any other's or perhaps all others combined. Perhaps we are ahead of our time?

[Buffy]

...our combined knowledge, technology and communication capabilities are a million times more than any other's or perhaps all others combined.

Not really. Socially, dolphins and chimps are as highly developed as we are, if not more so. Its arguable that dolphins and whales communication sophistication is equivalent to our language too. The only thing we've really done is to use tools, and that's ALL been done in only about 15-20,000 years, which is spit in the ocean in the 10 million odd year history of homonids. Thus its pretty obvious that its not too difficult to evolve, but it does require an opposable thumb and some environmental shocks to get it going....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Boerseun]

Not IF, but WHEN (in my humble opinion) we encounter any form of ET life, we'll find that the best (technologically speaking) species any given planet harboring life came up with, is either far ahead of us, or far behind us. We've been here for a couple o'years, lemme tell ya. But only for the last fifty years or so have we really done justice to our minds, and our potential. For us to evolve in technological lockstep with another species is very remote.

 

But I see your point: For any given planet, why should intelligence be the ultimate result of evolution? The answer, quite simply, is that it's not. Intelligence is just a useful survival mechanism, playing in the same league as camouflage, a thick pelt in high latitudes, horns to fight with, etc. Lucky for us, we've got the intelligence as well as opposing thumbs. We can build stuff. Dolphins got the short end of the stick - brains with no way of using it. I sometimes wonder why we tend to attribute so much intelligence to dolphins. But that's besides the point. I think from a sample of a million planets harbouring life, chances are that you'll find 99% of them similar to Earth in Earth's first couple o' billion year's of life: Algae in shallow ponds and seas. No more.

[CraigD]

...300 to 500 stars with intelligent life around...

A problem with the predictions of the Drake equation is that they are predicated on an assumption that biology tends to evolve intelligent life – in a sense, that the purpose of biology is to produce intelligence.

 

It’s possible that this is true, but far from certain, or even reasonably likely.

 

Arthur C Clarke – who’s fiction (the Rama series, in particular) proselytize for this assumption - recently wrote an essay questioning it, and predicting that extraterrestrial life will be found to be ubiquitous, but almost without exception very energetically efficient and very dumb.

 

At present, our ability to speculate outstrips our ability to confirm these speculations to a maddening degree.

[Harzburgite]

I am with you on this one EWright – and I do recognise that you are more posing a question than stating an opinion. We have a single planet and a single ecosystem on which to base our conclusions: a sample size of one is always a dangerous base for statistics.

Infamous says: “What about dolphins and chimps?”

As you rightly point out they haven’t shown any signs of attempting interstellar communication.

C1ay says: “Considering the apparent age of the local universe as we know it, thousands or millions of years older than life on Earth could be very plausible.”

Just for the benefit of those readers new to geologic and astronomic timescales, lets amend that to “tens of millions to hundreds of millions” of years older to make it more realistic. However, life does not equate to intelligent life.

(For those of you with more than a passing interest in this topic may I recommend Rare Earth, by Ward and Brownlee, ISBN 0387987010. The subtitle “Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe”.)

 

Buffy says: “Yes, everything depends on the probabilities, but the more we find out about life on earth and how many really hostile places it seems to thrive in, its hard to think the probabilities are that low at all, even for "intelligent" life”

But Buffy there is a world of difference (literally many worlds of difference) between the character of extremophiles and that of metazoans, let alone that of intelligent entities. The acceptable environments for the latter appear much more restricted.

Additionally, consider two factors: a) time :circle: events.

a) It took almost two billion years to advance from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. It took a further billion and a half years too get to complex life forms, then well over half a billion years too get too intelligence. We don’t know if this was faster or slower than average, but if it was typical we have already eliminated a significant number of stars from consideration – planets will not remain in the Goldilocks zone long enough to get to our ‘status’ if their home star is more massive than the sun.

:rant: It seems clear that evolution on the Earth has been facilitated by a series of unrelated events that were catastrophic at the time, yet were instrumental in promoting the next wave of evolutionary advancement. Yet these were all chance events. We simply do not know how critical they were in ensuring thee development of intelligence. (To take one case alone, it is possible, even probable that the Cambrian explosion was triggered by the cessation of snowball Earth conditions. No global ice age; no complex life forms.)

Buffy continues: “. Thus its pretty obvious that its not too difficult to evolve, but it does require an opposable thumb and some environmental shocks to get it going....”

Sorry, it is not at all obvious to me. After 300 million years of large land animals we finally get the right combination of some environmental shocks. That is not easy evolution. If you think it is there are some large bets I should like to place with you.

 

Boersun says: “I think from a sample of a million planets harbouring life, chances are that you'll find 99% of them similar to Earth in Earth's first couple o' billion year's of life: Algae in shallow ponds and seas. No more.”

I think you are being wildly optimistic and have not nearly enough nines in there.

 

The arguments against commonplace complex life are presented with much more vigour and detail than I can muster here http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_1_020715.html where Ward and Brownlee debate with Drake. )

[Buffy]

A problem with the predictions of the Drake equation is that they are predicated on an assumption that biology tends to evolve intelligent life – in a sense, that the purpose of biology is to produce intelligence.

The Drake Equation itself does not assume this at all, and while this assumption can color the opinions of those who seek to fill in the terms, in fact any approach at determining the "probablity that intelligence evolves" is never 1, and even the most ardent "intelligence is inevitable" proponents won't put 1 in for this term, because there are many, many reasons it wouldn't evolve: the fact that evolutionary processes are quite happy skipping "intelligence" entirely doesn't affect the probability of this term much. This just points out the main weakness of Drake, which is that it can't be used for anything more than guessing at the boundaries for discussion. The terms themselves cannot be determined with much accuracy, so complaining about accuracy of the result is a moot point. It does make pretty clear though that the overall probability of life in the universe is pretty high, even if its not reachable, not contemporaneous, or not friendly....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Buffy]

Sorry, it is not at all obvious to me. After 300 million years of large land animals we finally get the right combination of some environmental shocks. That is not easy evolution.

Awwww, yer just being a pessimist. This is all like counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin because, yes, we only have a sample size of one. So what? The point made by several postings recently make the point that intelligence isn't a "goal" of evolution, but you're assuming it is. Its more likely one of many strategies for DNA propagation. Size worked pretty good for the dinosaurs: "We don't need no steeeking brains!" But the fact of the matter is that there are animals *here* who have all the same "intelligence" we do, they just have not seen the need to do what we have done with it, and there's no compelling reason to do so (yet!). And most importantly, brain size is a very recent invention in evolution on Earth (going back only a few tens of millions of years at *most*), so its manifestations are not at all clear. And as I said, its really only taken us 20,000 years to go from rudimentary language and hunting tools to sending men into space: if that's ALL the time it take to do that, hundreds of millions of years provide ample time for it to occur....

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[CraigD]

No disrespect to spectroscopists, who’ve made amazing deductions about large molecules in faraway places, but wouldn’t it be great to get a couple of dozen or thousands of close-up observations from some other star systems?

 

Starwisps. Start taking advantage of our cultures’ current insecurity about future sources of energy to steer the resources of the major energy-pig nations in this direction. Robert Forward would want us to.

[Harzburgite]

Awwww, yer just being a pessimist.

One slayer's pessimism is another man's realism.

The point made by several postings recently make the point that intelligence isn't a "goal" of evolution, but you're assuming it is.

Nowhere do I assume this. Evolution has no goals. The original post asked about the possibilities of intelligent life, that is why I am addressing intelligence.

And most importantly, brain size is a very recent invention in evolution on Earth (going back only a few tens of millions of years at *most*),

Exactly. It took a very long time to develop and, arguably, the odds were well stacked against it.

[Eclogite]

No disrespect to spectroscopists, who’ve made amazing deductions about large molecules in faraway places, but wouldn’t it be great to get a couple of dozen or thousands of close-up observations from some other star systems?.

We do have a host of data on comets and interstellar dust clouds

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22interstellar+clouds%22+%22organic+chemicals%22+spectroscopy&btnG=Search

Which is a google of "interstellar clouds" "organic chemicals" spectroscopy

There are a wide range of quite complex chemicals already identified in these clouds and on comets. (Dust impacting the atmosphere has a composition very similar to carbonaceous chondrites.) Any self respecting pan spermiaist will tell you these data are highly suggestive that we originated out there.

[Buffy]

... intelligence isn't a "goal" of evolution, but you're assuming it is.

Nowhere do I assume this. Evolution has no goals.

And most importantly, brain size is a very recent invention in evolution on Earth...

Exactly. It took a very long time to develop and, arguably, the odds were well stacked against it.

No, you contradict yourself here rather severely: if intelligence is NOT a goal of evolution, then there's no *reason* to evolve it unless its useful. Given that notion, then there's no reason that in some other situation, intelligence could not possibly develop *much more rapidly* given a sequence of evolutionary events. Just because it took a "long" time here, does not mean it will *always* take at least that long. Size in the dinosaurs dominated so completely for so long, it definitely sidetracked intelligence as a possible evolutionary route.

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[damocles]

No comments.(I don't know enough.)

 

But several questions;

 

1. Why assume dolphins are qualitatively human intelligent? I thought their brains were organized around their "sonars", the way our brains are organized around eyesight hand co-ordination.

 

2. From whence comes this notion that organized life is common? The chemistry required calls for relatively stable environmental conditions confined to a narrow zone of temperatures/pressures not exceeding a band of fluidic catalytic interactions. That may be several hundred degrees either way, depending on the base solvent, but it is NARROW and unlikely to be normal for any star systems' planets as a statistical mean.

 

3. Why assume that the exact confluence of events that produced tool using hominids will ever be duplicated elsewhere or that tool use itself is possible without such strange environmental drivers such as a large moon or a cyclic radiation variation in the local star?

 

4. Without symbology, is there recordable memory? Without recordable memory is there environmentally manipulative useful intelligence? We do it, but as has been pointed out, it is recent(Less than fifty thousand years BCE since we drew pictures?)

 

5. I don't believe in the Anthropic Principle or Original Design at all, but I am still struck by the uniqueness of matter properties in the universe that allows for the volumes and shapes distributed throughout "space" that make life possible at all. Even more so am I amazed at the unique proper relationships of the binding forces. I conclude that different "constants" could still result in a universe that could sustain "life" and a self-aware group of intelligences that could observe it, but the odds of that being a normal distribution of possible outcomes in an infinite set of such possible inflations is vanishing small. So if the potential outcomes for life are so statistically small in the universe set and the potential of "intelligent" life in this universe, supposedly friendly to life's possibility again(to my working through the odds against life itself) incredibly slim, I have to ask, does anybody seriously suggest that intelligent life exists where we would be able to reach it congruent in our time?( I anticipate we will be extinct within a few hundred thousand years to maybe a couple of million years.)

 

6. Which leads to my last question, already asked by somebody a lot smarter than I will ever be. If there are other tool using intelligences out there with as little as a ten thousand year headstart on us, why don't we see them? Tool users alter their environment, and the more of them there are the more of a visible mark they make. Where is the infra-red glowing object emitting 2 cm. radio waves that screams; "Here we are!"

 

Damocles

[EWright]

Why do we compare the intellect of chimps and dolphins to our own in this discussion? Neither is capable or has interest in interstellar communication. I doubt chimps have even looked to the stars and wondered if there is other life out there. And I don't believe they've even left drawing on cave walls as far as an effort to communicate. For all species other than humans, their existance is aimed at survival, food and mating. Evelution dictates that those who are good at these things and make the right choices along the way, advance their species to the next generation. There is generally little use for the level of intelligence that we have obtained, in propegating our existance to the next generation; everything down to microorganisms can and does do that. So why intelligence to the level that we've obtained and why believe it would result elsewhere? Minus us as the sole example in 5+ million species, and there's little argument that we're the final product of evolution. We just happen to be at the top of the intellect and arguably food chains.