What if aliens aren't as technologically advanced as we think?

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: sapien82


however contrary the whole carnivore alien theory , maybe they too also through industrialisation damaged their home world and had also to switch to a plant based diet in order stop from wiping themselves out before they reached the technological age of galactic space flight.

Do you think eating plants after an evolution of being an carnivore will also change how their brain thinks?

Also many of the other forms of life on earth that are intelligent have a plant based diet
and two of the largest and most intelligent mammals the gorilla and the elephant are primarily plant eaters

How do you want to measure intelligence? Both gorillas and elephants have undersize brains for their bodies because they eat plants, so I could suggest they are not as smart they could have been if they were meat eaters.

also what sounds easier and more intelligent , having to spend all of your energy chasing food all day , or just walking up to it and eating it ?

How much intelligence does a cow need to eat grass?

anyway space travel and meat eating dont really go well together, where would you keep all the meat ?
its too bulky and heavy for space travel

Its not so much the meat as it is the energy the meat provides. The physical aspects of a brain falls into 4 areas: the number of neurons, brain density, cortex size and the amount of energy the body pumps into the brain. Though some whales can have more neurons and other mammals may have close to ours the human brain pretty much blows everyone out of the water in density, cortex size and energy devoted to the brain.

any civilisation advanced enough would genetically alter their species in order to survive space if they planned to send their species outwards, but why send a living being when you could just send probes which do all the work for you!

I agree, I think life travel in the universe is limited where machine travel is unlimited.

The fat we intake from animals maybe allows our brain to over-grow .

originally posted by: eManym
What if interstellar travel is much simpler to accomplish than it is conceived to be. Scientist frequently over think concepts. Many make it so convoluted it appears near impossible.

We should probably also factor in the possibility they might come from a low gravity world.

Getting into space would be much easier. And getting larger amounts of infrastructure into space would be less costly.

For example: escaping from Mars gravity is only barely harder than escaping from the Moon's gravity. We needed a giant Saturn Rocket for Apollo 11 to escape Earth, but the little jump pack on the bottom of the lunar lander was enough to get back.

originally posted by: Gothmog
What if alien life does not exist ?
What if even Drake's equation (which really was not an equation) was factored down now to the point no matter how many planets we think we see in the Goldilock's zone , there was an astounding amount of factors that say no.

This scenario foils Drake's equation somewhat, because if they're moving at a speed where say 20 years passes for them but 20,000 years passes for us, then instead of using ~10,000 years as your "time before self annihilation", it's now 10,000,000 of our years passing.

What if travel at even near light speed was impossible due to the amount of energy required to move mass at that speed ? And that does not take into effect the actual results of mass at those speeds (would be messy at least)

It's not impossible.

If the Hadron Collider can accelerate a subatomic particle to near the speed of light, then in space you could just use one to shoot off lots of those particles and eventually get up to the speed of light.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Well, we might have smaller things than them, but how about reliability. I would bet a smart race of beings that could travel light years from their home world would not have technology that goes poof in five years or so. Technology that static electricity will short out is not good for a spaceship traveling at super fast speeds.

Supposedly they work by pulling the air around their exterior. They might be able to maintain a vacuum space between the surface of the ship and the air, enabling them to essentially fly drag free.

With zero drag, they could potentially reach escape velocity and go into outer space, unassisted.


But.... you'd still think they would have the common sense not to fly in a lightning storm, right?

originally posted by: proteus33
a reply to: bloodymarvelous

Who is to say visitors. From other worlds are literate in their technology? How many of us can drive a car ,pilot a plane , sail a boat now how many of those same people can build a car from scratch or a plane or boat? Why everyone thinks the visitors to our world will be like star trek where nearly everyone has advanced knowledge of one sort or another why not like star wars where visitors may just be tramp freighter captains who got lost and ended up here by accident?

That's not bad.

They might not adjust for Earth weather because they're not aware of their equipment's vulnerabilities?

You are in general missing a huge point.

80% of the difficulty in building understanding or operating ALL TECHNOLOGY is built in.....as a Global community we have been screwed and we know it....Teslas ideas are real and we know it...wireless transmission of free energy is real and we know it.....I have been on a Neutral dimension Craft and contrary to what people have been indoctrinated to believe the concepts and technologies are simple simon…..our difficulties are DESIGNED INTO THE TECHNOLOGY TO KEEP US IMPRISONED.

originally posted by: one4all

The fat we intake from animals maybe allows our brain to over-grow .

Well that is very true as in our brains were actually larger before farming became so big. Farming provided stabilization to our food sources, but it also lowered the quality of what we would typically get with hunting gathering and so our brains have suffered some.

originally posted by: halfoldman
Imagine aliens arrived and they kept slaves.

A bit like the house-elf in Harry Potter.

The slaves must roll out the arrival carpet, and if one corner looks wrong they must be whipped to within an inch of their lives.

And there's the entire planet watching this arrival, and wondering, should we interfere, or is it their culture?

Slaves sound so primitive...I think machines are and will be the slaves of the future.

a reply to: Xtrozero

OK, so the UFO crashes, and the alien gets out and starts kicking it.

And the UFO just goes "sorry master" - ouch, flip that hurts.

At what point do we as planet Earth intervene?

Listen man, we don't like the way you treat your sentient robots.

Oh really?

Yeah, really!

originally posted by: halfoldman
a reply to: Xtrozero

OK, so the UFO crashes, and the alien gets out and starts kicking it.

And the UFO just goes "sorry master" - ouch, flip that hurts.

At what point do we as planet Earth intervene?

Listen man, we don't like the way you treat your sentient robots.

Oh really?

Yeah, really!

Why would you make some limited random life form a slave when you can make a perfect machine slave into anything you want? That is my point...

originally posted by: eManym
What if interstellar travel is much simpler to accomplish than it is conceived to be.

The late,and controversial to some,Boyd Bushman of Lockheed Martin hinted in his interview with Sereda that faster than light speeds are actually much easier to achieve than we think.He basically said that Einstein was a disappointment and he gives some clues on FTL,if you know how to "read" between the lines,that mirror those allegedly given by another Lockheed Martin man,Ben Rich and to some extent Tom Delonge.

Interstellar travel by humans,however,might still be brutal if not near impossible without the genetic engineering of the astronauts.According to some abductees and whistleblowers the environment encountered during FTL transit is extremely hostile:low light level conditions (which might help explain why the classic grey occupants have such big eyes),very powerful fields generated by the craft that are harmful to biological tissue,cosmic radiation and bone crushing G-forces.

a reply to: Xtrozero
Im not sure it would change their brain maybe if this happened over millenia and evolution could take its course , but they would have to drastically alter their state of mind in order to save their environment , just like many humans have to switch their lifestyles to plant based diets in order to contribute to saving the planet from ecological disaster .

well gorillas and elephants live longer than most carnivores
they seem to have a much easier life , less stressful , so it would stand to reason that their genes would be successfully passed on as there is less competition from predators etc , and over millenia those species could possibly evolve into a hominid type and they wouldn't be as aggressive as a carnivorous species.

In any case how many intelligent carnivorous species do you know ?
they arent super intelligent like humans , Id be willing to bet that the gorilla , the elephant is smarter than the top predator on earth , any animal which doesnt spend all of its time hunting will have time for other things ! like communication , group stuff !

chimps are our closest relative and almost as smart as us , but they are omnivorous frugivores , it looks like any hominid type of animal is omnivorous

the likelihood of aliens being true carnivores and being space fairing is unlikely as it seems intelligence favours the peaceful beings

I believe Jacques Valle on this phenomenon. The nuts and bolts of space craft doing intergalactic travel would be tough to do. Has to be something else. Spirits from the deceased playing games with the living? Who knows.

originally posted by: sapien82
a reply to: Nothin

we arent self replicating , we would be if we were able to produce offspring from parthenogenesis
that is a kind of self replication!

Anyway Von neumann probes are indeed self replicating probes which would be sent out by another species to perform a series of tasks! von neumann probes

The forgotten languages group have covered this subject extensively in their posts , however they recently changed their site so you can no longer look at blog posts (edit , this has since been updated and public can view old posts again)

Forgotten Languages - Von Neumann , DNA computers

check this paragraph , curiously enough , the paragraphs in English always have juicy details

"Curiously enough, any postbiological civilization will need DNA to build its DNA-based computers. This simply means they will need to find a cheap source of DNA, and maybe this is the reason why a future of AI superintelligences farming on carbon-based life forms is not so unlikely"

Didn't realize there was a recognized definition for 'self replicating', but looked it up and saw.
Was picking-up on another poster's idea, and was gonna explore it a bit, but that's not so great when the expression already means something else.
Thanks for pointing that out, before letting me go overboard with it.

That paragraph you pasted sure is juicy.
There's a good Twilight-Zone episode in there.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: Nothin


Self-replicating machines, you say?
That is a compelling thought direction. Thanks!

The reason I suggest machines is because that is one thing that presents the possibility to not be affected by time and also not be affected as life can be by speed, distance, possible interstellar travel etc too. Life will happen, very hard to stop it, but species come and go with most surviving in a very fragile state for rather short periods of time. Humans were much different even 300k years ago at the start of H. sapiens and travel in the universe looks to be extremely time intensive unless there is other types of travel outside of space/time and even that looks to be something that life in general could find as a huge barrier to still stay alive or even stay within some time range as space/time plays with life not in a good way.

Machines can self replicate the same pattern over and over for billions of years with the ability to evolve at their own will with time not being a factor. So we could have machines traveling the universe for billions of years on exploratory missions for a race that has been long.

Just imaging the idea of self-replicating probes, like you and Sapien82 mentioned, wandering the universe on a fool's errand, because the civ that sent them has long been extinct. Kinda sad in a way.

Nobody home to report back to.
Perhaps it would be programmed to self-destruct, or to seek-out a new civ to dedicate themselves to?

We can understand the problems related to interstellar travel for flesh and blood beings, and it seems a logical next step to build machines to do it for us.

There is also possibilities of vastly more advanced civs than us, exploring in ways that we can't even contemplate, anymore than a cow is able to contemplate how it's hide might end-up as a Clayton Kershaw four-seamer fastball, and all of the implications of the pitch, and the game-situation, player histories, etc...

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: Nothin

Imaging a beautiful, sensitive, and gentle alien species: and their only contact with us, is our arsehole schlitzhead politicians: sad...

I have big concerns on whether aliens are here at all when we go down the whole Government cover up path...Outside of a singularity event of a crash I don't see aliens working with some human construct like Government, if they were here we would all know it in a District 9 kind of way.

Hawlking has suggested we might not want to meet an advance alien race since intelligence tends to run as a carnivore trait more than a plant eater. Not only do plant eaters not need to chase down their food, but planets in general do not give the energy needed for the evolution of intelligence.

Agreed that we have no honest idea about how an arrival of aliens may treat us.
There have been some compelling ideas expressed, in various varieties of Science-Fiction.

And so why not also contemplate a species, that has thrived on something other than a carnivorous diet?
This is a 'What if' thread anyways, right?
Am cooking-up some ideas, inspired by member's suggestions in this thread.

originally posted by: Xtrozero
Why would you make some limited random life form a slave when you can make a perfect machine slave into anything you want? That is my point...

There are plenty of written records about how aliens treat us, right now, right here, in todays world.

originally posted by: halfoldman
Imagine aliens arrived and they kept slaves.

A bit like the house-elf in Harry Potter.

The slaves must roll out the arrival carpet, and if one corner looks wrong they must be whipped to within an inch of their lives.

And there's the entire planet watching this arrival, and wondering, should we interfere, or is it their culture?

As much as we could be potentially shocked by their customs: perhaps they could be horrified by us killing a pig, and offering it up to them during a feast, or for that matter, maybe some thoughtless thing we do, that blows their minds.

Like taking antibiotics, that kill billions of gut-bacteria, washing ourselves with detergents, bulldozing the homes of millions of insects to make a parking-lot, etc...

a reply to: bloodymarvelous

You are SMART .........

originally posted by: halfoldman
a reply to: Xtrozero

OK, so the UFO crashes, and the alien gets out and starts kicking it.

And the UFO just goes "sorry master" - ouch, flip that hurts.

At what point do we as planet Earth intervene?

Listen man, we don't like the way you treat your sentient robots.

Oh really?

Yeah, really!

#ShipsAreConsciousEntitiesToo

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: bloodymarvelous

We aren't even close to the technology needed to travel to alien planets. So this seems to suggest it's all made up, as any race able to get here would be far more advanced than us.

Incorrect. In theory we could send an interstellar probe now. And were still just basically monkeys throwing rocks.

Projects like the 100 year Starship are aiming to make interstellar travel a reality within this century.

originally posted by: Nothin

Just imaging the idea of self-replicating probes, like you and Sapien82 mentioned, wandering the universe on a fool's errand, because the civ that sent them has long been extinct. Kinda sad in a way.

On a never ending mission to push back information to no one...this is what self replicating machines could do, no faster than light needed, just time.

There is also possibilities of vastly more advanced civs than us, exploring in ways that we can't even contemplate, anymore than a cow is able to contemplate how it's hide might end-up as a Clayton Kershaw four-seamer fastball, and all of the implications of the pitch, and the game-situation, player histories, etc...

Has anyone ever thought that machines might be the final stage in the evolutionary process of intelligent life?