Is intelligent life a prerequisite to technological advancement?

Im new here, read a lot of posts, made this one based on close-minded pal "WOO HOO's" thread. Also there was a lot of thought given by acidhead. So here goes: From my opinion, as many of you say, life evolvement in outer space could be for million years, but is that connected to technology advancement? There was a good point on this by WOO HOO: "ET's easily could sit in trees for million years and then they discover that they can kick a donkey. Avancement is made: Sitting in trees -> Kicking a donkey. So ET's could easily be without technology, not even talking about space travel. That is just an example. Couldnt find any info on the net, maybe someone will, anyway .. What do you think?



[edit on 6-9-2004 by cheshir]

The approximation of a million years means a million years beyond what we are now. Humans have obviously reached point where technological innovation will continue as long as we persist.

But, back to basics of evolution, mutations. Suitable mutations survive and unsuitable mutations, those creatures who could not adapt to their environment, get wiped out of existance.

May creatures at some point actually require space travel as a means of survival? We know that our Sun cannot sustain life on Earth infinitely, it will eventually go into supernova.

If a creature was unable to leave their planet before their Sun went into supernova, they would die out for the very same reason that all other species died out. They would have failed to adapt to their changing environment.

Space travel may not be a past-time for high intellectual beings, but a necessity of creatures.

Intelligence might actually prevent serious space travel.

Look at humans. We developed intelligence and the ability to change our enviroment rather than adapt to it. We very well could nuke ourselves to death or use up all our resources before even getting to another planetary system.

Now look at bacteria, specificly the one that can form spores. Simple life forms that can sit dormant for millions of years and be blasted off planet by asteroid impacts, float around space for year, and maybe eventually land on an inhabbitable planet.

Intelligent and complex life is NOT the most successful when it comes to quantity and spreading out.

If you look at humans, then the answer is no.

Intelligence by definition is the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. The thing with intelligence is that it is relative. Some people are excellent at acquiring and applying knowledge in certain subjects.

Some humans have the capabilities at creating amazing technologies, but might be unable to apply such technologies properly, or others who use such technology are unable to use such technologies wisely.

yeah - tho my point was saying that a race may become technologically advanced enough to make our technology look primative but that does not say that this race will develop "magical" technology

ie:-

they may get to the point where computers etc run at mindblowing speeds , have aircraft/spacecraft that go at tremendous speeds , have energy that is clean , efficiant and in abundance etc etc but still face the same problems we have when we try and fly in space.

we are moving now technologically at a superfast rate - what happens when we reach the peak and we start slowing down - when our science stops comming up with answers , when the planet runs out of resources - we may find that in the future the increase in our development may be from mining universe rare minerals or chemicals , if they are not in an abundant supply then maybe we will fail to move on

if we had run out of fossil fuels on this planet about 50 years ago - where would we be now ? would we have those fighter jets? nuclear reactors ?
chances are that it would be a NO

just a thought

[edit on 6-9-2004 by acidhead]