The Hectic World of Tim Minear

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UPDATED: Saturday, July 27, 2002 23:34
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PANDORA

Friday, July 26, 2002 4:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:

Well, if there are only a few intelligent species, I could buy that. But not if there are thousands. I find it hard to believe that so many beings could evolve intelligence, but not the itch to explore. Indeed, you can make a case that curiousity is a part of intelligence.

Also, if you start saying, "They're intelligent, they just don't think like we do," then you have to deal with the definition of intelligence. You can make a case that a lot of animal species on our planet are intelligent, just not intelligent in the same way we are. And most of the behavior of animals is complex and fascinating, but an utter mystery even to behavioral scientists, never mind ordinary people. If that's the pattern for our interactions with alien life forms, there aren't a lot of interesting stories to be told about aliens.

Ok, but what if calamity has always struck? What if there is no perfect species in the universe, and each has some fatal flaw that ultimately resulted in its demise? For humans, it will probably be Earth no longer being able to take the strain of modern industry, or maybe the bomb, right? Well, what if other species in the universe destroyed themselves or set themselves back very dramatically before they could really get out into space properly? Or meteors come down on their planet every twenty years, destroying technology and forcing them to start again? Or the living conditions on their planet are too harsh to do much but survive and terraform?

What if there aren't millions of intelligent life forms out there (which I never said is what I thought - I just think there is intelligent life out there. How much of it and its nature are, obviously, unknown to me) - what if there are just a couple, embodying completely different elements of life. What if there's a planet of intelligent plant life, stationary but with a capacity for thought? What if there's a water planet, and they just haven't figured out how to breathe air yet? Or breathe water in outer space?

Or what if they *have* made contact? What if they're 'among us' even now - or just watching us, having decided that we're not really worth their perusal until we evolve further (if we make it)?

I guess my point here is not to prove that intelligent life exists in other parts of the universe - that's not possible (yet). However, I think that there are infinite possibilities by which it *could* exist, and because of our considerable lack of knowledge, this really can't yet be disproven.

And now, back to the mothership...

Pandora

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies
and the baby looked at me." -Ralph Wiggum

PANDORA

Friday, July 26, 2002 4:27 PM

Re: Aggression as a survival skill.

Well, Ziccy pretty much articulated what I would have said far better than I would have... and with examples!

Pandora

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me." -Ralph Wiggum

ZICSOFT

Friday, July 26, 2002 4:39 PM

Quote:
Ok, but what if calamity has always struck? What if there is no perfect species in the universe, and each has some fatal flaw that ultimately resulted in its demise?

Yeah, that's a popular theory. It would certainly explain the galaxy isn't swarming with spaceships. But it still means we're never gona meet any aliens. Not unless we're lucky enough to visit their home planet during the brief (a million years say -- relatively brief) period between their appearance and disappearance. The odds are astronomical -- in a very literal sense.

One idea that's always intrigued me is that we're not the first intelligent species to evolve on this planet, and that all our predecessors died out in exactly the way you describe. It would explain the diebacks that seem to happen quite regularly in the geological record.

ZICSOFT

Friday, July 26, 2002 4:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pandora:
Well, Ziccy pretty much articulated what I would have said far better than I would have... and with examples!

Sorry. I guess I'm hogging the limelight!

PANDORA

Friday, July 26, 2002 4:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
Yeah, that's a popular theory. It would certainly explain the galaxy isn't swarming with spaceships. But it still means we're never gona meet any aliens. Not unless we're lucky enough to visit their home planet during the brief (a million years say -- relatively brief) period between their appearance and disappearance. The odds are astronomical -- in a very literal sense.

I'm comfortable with that... though it would be cool to know for sure. And who knows? We've managed to get reasonably far in the time that we've been here... and though sometimes i do think that we might be on the brink of destruction, maybe we can hang out long enough to get *somewhere*...

Quote:
One idea that's always intrigued me is that we're not the first intelligent species to evolve on this planet, and that all our predecessors died out in exactly the way you describe. It would explain the diebacks that seem to happen quite regularly in the geological record.

Well, I think that's at least as likely as aliens. This is an old ass planet, and there are a lot of little weird things on it, structures, that is, that we don't really know as much about as we think (eg., the pyramids, the sphinx, stonehenge). And then there's that rumor about Atlantis (which I really want to believe, but I'm not quite there yet). Put together with that meteorites, ice ages, earthquakes, etc., you have the makings of the rise and fall of a whole other species.

Pandora
Keep hope alive!

"Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner were in the closet making babies and I saw one of the babies
and the baby looked at me." -Ralph Wiggum

SHUGGIE

Friday, July 26, 2002 5:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Zicsoft:
One idea that's always intrigued me is that we're not the first intelligent species to evolve on this planet, and that all our predecessors died out in exactly the way you describe. It would explain the diebacks that seem to happen quite regularly in the geological record.

There's a Larry Niven short story about this. Aliens visiting earth for the first time in 2 million years are distressed to find no trace of the 'original' civilisation - which IIRC was an under-water crystal-based lifeform. All life on earth as we recognise it was descended from some green scum growing on the surface of the oceans.

Back to Fermi's Paradox again - surely the flipside, the thing that makes it a paradox rather than a conjecture or a hypothesis is the fact that there is life on Earth. What makes us special?

Shug

ZICSOFT

Friday, July 26, 2002 5:46 PM

I'm sorry Panny, but the Sphinx was definitely built by humans. It may be a lot older than was previously supposed (there's evidence that it was in place back when the Sahara Desert was the Sahara Jungle!) but it's still only a few thousand years old. If there was a non-human civilization on this planet, it disappeared millions of years ago. Otherwise it would have left a lot more traces than a giant statue of a cat!

As for Atlantis, it's just a confluence of travellers tales. Like Crete (dominanted the eastern Med before it was wiped out by a volcanic eruption) and the Isles of Scilly (semi-tropical, even though it's just a few miles off the English coast; thinking of going there on my next vacation).

ZICSOFT

Friday, July 26, 2002 5:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Shuggie:

There's a Larry Niven short story about this. Aliens visiting earth for the first time in 2 million years are distressed to find no trace of the 'original' civilisation - which IIRC was an under-water crystal-based lifeform. All life on earth as we recognise it was descended from some green scum growing on the surface of the oceans.

Yeah, I remember that story. It's based on a standard scientific theory: that at one time the dominant life form on this planet was a kind of bacteria that can't tolerate oxygen. Botulism is caused by one of these. They lost their dominance when proto-plants started "polluting" the atmosphere by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen. The one speculation on Niven's part was that the bacteria might have evolved into intelligent life forms before they were wiped out.

It's a clever and engaging concept. But it also fits in neatly with the anti-environmentalism that Niven has been into since he teamed up with Pournelle.

Quote:

Back to Fermi's Paradox again - surely the flipside, the thing that makes it a paradox rather than a conjecture or a hypothesis is the fact that there is life on Earth. What makes us special?

What makes any lottery winner special? Blind luck.

INARASNEWTOY

Friday, July 26, 2002 7:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pandora:

Are you serious? Whedon doesn't believe there's intelligent life in the universe besides that of humanity? Whoa.

Honestly (and maybe I'm just a flake), the idea that aliens *don't* exist has never crossed my mind.

Pandora
The Truth Is Out There

The idea that we are the only intellegent life in the Universe is pure arrogance. The idea that our pathetic little blue globe in a small dusty little corner of the galaxy is the ONLY place in the whole FREAKING UNIVERSE that can suport life? Absurd!

What a waste of space that would be!

INT

One evil at a time, that's the best i can do - Farscape

MOJOECA

Friday, July 26, 2002 8:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Pandora:

Well, I think that's at least as likely as aliens. This is an old ass planet, and there are a lot of little weird things on it, structures, that is, that we don't really know as much about as we think (eg., the pyramids, the sphinx, stonehenge). And then there's that rumor about Atlantis (which I really want to believe, but I'm not quite there yet). Put together with that meteorites, ice ages, earthquakes, etc., you have the makings of the rise and fall of a whole other species.

There's actually much known about the pyramids and Stonehenge. There's now very sound theories, based on a lot of evidence, on how both were built and why. Aliens, it appears, did not have a hand. STARGATE is now behind the times.

As for Atlantis, it's legend rooted in reality. The islands of Thera and Crete were both racked by volanic explosion, destroying both islands' relatively advanced societies. First written mention of Atlantis comes hundreds of years afterward, by Homer, who was relating oral history.

--- Joe

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