What would a culture possibly MILLIONS of years more advanced than ours have to say to US?

Probably think we're greedy morons and idiots for radiating and polluting our planet the way they are.

originally posted by: elysiumfire

What would a culture possibly MILLIONS of years more advanced than ours have to say to US?

This is a question that requires a reply of context. Millions of years of advancement (of us) is not something easily imagined. We can only speculate through the human lens, and I would posit that if our species were to progress through millions of years, we would most certainly be a lot different then from what we are now.

The only common factor that would make us 'interesting' enough for them to take any notice of us, let alone interact with us, is the faculty of intelligence, and of course, ours would seem somewhat rudimentary to theirs. A case of similarity, but only by degree.

In the film 'The Day the Earth Stood Still' (with Keanu Reeves), the visitor is asked..."What do you look like?", and he replies..."It would only frighten you." I think with an intelligence millions of years ahead of us, would provide a very similar context. They would only frighten us if we were to perceive their form. An organic intelligence that had made millions of years of advancement would have done away with the need for organic bodies, and would have developed a means to use organics merely as an embryonic stage. What do I mean by this?

Without pertaining to any form of religious or spiritual beliefs, let us suppose that earth life is an embryonic phase. It allows for a complex and modular organic body to come together, be born, and grow through stages towards full maturity. As the organic body goes through this development, something else emerges, something more central and to the core of the meaning of being alive. That something is best described as an 'entity', and that entity equally, symbiotically, and simultaneously goes through the same stages of development as the organic body towards a maturity. However, the entity (which is 'you') only matures in vitality to a certain age, but its capacity for learning and assimilating new experiences continues, only to be slowed down by an aging and decaying organic modular system, which eventually reaches a point where it can no longer sustain the entity within its organic environment, and it dies. Aging and getting old is nature's way of saying 'let go'.

What if, we are that millions of years advanced race, and we have colonised planets of suitability in order to allow our species to reproduce (on this planet as a human form) to grow new entities, and whereupon at death, the entity is uploaded to a new environment and structural form to continue its existence with others of it kind?

You may be right. A million years is a long time since modern humans have only been on this planet for about 60,000 years. Only in the last 60 years have humans developed computers. Now humans have developed strong AI computing power for the first time. Over the next 30-50 years that strong computing power combined with AI is likely going to be able to solve for the ultimate life span of humans, whether humans can transform into inorganic as you describe above and whether FTL travel or interstellar travel at all is feasible. These intellectual/theoretical knowledge may take hundreds of more years to implement. Once this happens, the only limit to what can be learned will be the available computing power. Therefore, I am guessing the limits to almost all knowledge may be within humans grasp within a couple thousand more years at most rather than a million years. Of course that knowledge could destroy us. It could enable humans to make unimaginable leaps forward.

If a civilization a million years more advanced showed up. I would hope they would be altruistic. What might they say to us. I would hope they would tell us what we shouldn't due with this new knowledge and we would be smart enough to listen. Unfortunately, I suspect that the great filter theories may be the most likely outcome. This AI will be able to create a virus that could spread and be 100% lethal. Hopefully no one would be stupid enough to do that. But, it could happen. The terminator situation could occur, the machines become aware and eliminate humans. A madman pushes the button and blows up the planet or makes it uninhabitable. The most likely outcome is that energy consumption creates an irreversible greenhouse effect which ultimately makes the earth uninhabitable.

If we want to be positive. The AI will allow us to get past our issues and achieve great things. But, this will require humans to believe in the science and cooperate on a scale not currently consistent with the current human behavior, religious environment or political environment. In fact, it probably requires humans to let go of some of their most cherished beliefs, i.e. religion, the right to universal procreation etc. I am 56 now and wonder how much of this I will live to see. I am reasonably optimistic humans can be great. I hope to live long enough to see much disease conquered which will in turn extend my own life expectancy, see humans explore Mars, maybe Europa and locate some life on Europa, positively identify a technological civilization on an exoplanet, even if only by atmosphere signatures etc.

We live in exciting times and AI will make it more so over the next several decades.

I have entered their words into my Universal Text Translator.....the output data stream reads as follows:

Hail!...The Fourth Reich is here....Blockhead’s

Who would have thought, that The Gray’s spoke German!

I doubt there would much in common. It would be like one of us talking to a Ramapithecus or a Chimp. Eventually there's one that learns sign language or ideography. But it's still a very simple conversation.

“Take Me to your dealer” is what I believe aliens would say to us hoomuns

It would say "Stop being arrogant and assume it would be the US who they talk to"

They would only say one thing...

"Grow the # up, you morons!"

What "Advanced" do you mean?
All of so called "advanced civilization" in many novels, movies are the "mortal dead world", not worth to say and compare to the immortal world like the current Earth !

originally posted by: Michigan72
Probably think we're greedy morons and idiots for radiating and polluting our planet the way they are.

Or maybe they think that compared to their own civilization, we're doing pretty good. We haven't made the planet uninhabitable yet. Maybe they trashed their own planet beyond repair. Never know unless they tell us.

originally posted by: CryHavoc
I doubt there would much in common. It would be like one of us talking to a Ramapithecus or a Chimp. Eventually there's one that learns sign language or ideography. But it's still a very simple conversation.

Very likely. They'll say, "Well, in order for us to explain the meaning of life to you, you'll have to understand a thing we call 'urrshhhhhmmmmk," which is not exactly a force, not exactly a thought, not exactly mathematics." And we'll go, "Huh?"

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: openminded2011

Next time leave the TEA alone.

Please explain.

a reply to: openminded2011

Talking to us, might be like talking to a chimpanzee ...

Talking to us may be far more distant than that. Talking to us might be like have a conversation with an ant; you can understand what they are doing and why, even when they are making clearly glaring errors, but they are SO far apart that you can never ever share in a camaraderie.

I have said this on other threads, but I believe that some of the "others" that may have interacted with this planet, might well have evolved a hive mind, which -- even through the evolution of great intelligence -- reveres a primary leader, and all entities are willing to give their lives to preserve it. They think so much alike that they are chemically linked.

a reply to: midicon

I don't believe there are any limits. In particular, limits to the size of particles. I think they just keep breaking down (or up!) into smaller and smaller quanta, infinitely.

a reply to: openminded2011
Survival of the fittest in the cosmos is as natural of thing as coming here to eat us would be if they've found a liking?

originally posted by: openminded2011

originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: openminded2011

Next time leave the TEA alone.

Please explain.

Humour from an English perspective, we are far from millions of years older however but England is the mother of the USA (and older).
www.history.com...
Any US citizen will likely be able to explain it to you better.

It was an arguably justified act and a precursor to the American war of independence or even part of it's beginning.

It was all to do with the fact the English Parliament were treating the American colonies unfairly and not giving them due respect or indeed any form of representation yet they were over taxing them for which the American's got nothing in return, no tax without representation became there motto leading up to the actual outbreak of the war.

My joke was that the US is younger than the UK and they threw the tea into the harbour, actually it was only the wealthy that drank it at that time so most brit's would not have cared about it at all anyway but since the rich like always ruled the show like the corporations of today and the people of the colonies were being exploited you could argue the American war of independence was a revolution against early corporate rule and even an almost socialist (not quite as the founding father's were mostly well off and some were slave owners so there bill of right's did it pertain to those poor souls?) revolution as it was a war for freedom, representation (democracy) and justice.

a reply to: openminded2011

What would a culture possibly MILLIONS of years more advanced than ours have to say to US?

We were just like you once. Then we got our heads out of our butts and figured out which bathroom to use. It was smooth sailing after that...

I thought you were going to compare Israel to Palestine.

That is because you are thinking of conventional, current human type of travel through space. There are other modes of travel. For instance, through wormholes, through time, through dimensions.

originally posted by: BlankUsername
a reply to: openminded2011

It would be like us trying to communicate to a neanderthal our technology. So even if aliens had been here and wanted to talk to us they could not effectively communicate with us probably. But I am one those that absolutely believes there is life all throughout this universe I think it is science fiction to think any of them have been to earth, the distances involved are simply too vast for anyone to traverse it.

a reply to: openminded2011

"You don't wanna do that"