The Possibility of Robotic UFOs—The Drone Hypothesis

A biologically sterile drone would be the best bet. Simple bacteria from their ecosystem could act like a doomsday plague here. And even if it didn't kill humans or make them sick, it could knock out part of our ecosystem and send it into a tailspin. Any alien planet you visit has the opportunity to kill you with something or you could kill parts of it with bacteria from yourself. So most spacefaring aliens who could travel to other worlds probably have some sort of quarantine protocol if they went themselves. If they were biologically superior,
meaning their biology would destroy us, they would have to find a way to innoculate our world against their presence if they wished to interact in person.

I do think it is a fascinating hypothesis, but it lacks of a solid logic base. In fact its prerequisite is that it's firmness leads in the fact that the use of robot drones is the closest way we as human beings would explore new worlds. Then one shall ask himself why we are using us as an element of comparison to civilizations that are in fact so far and advanced compared to our?
Another logical deficit is represented by the implicit judgement which is behind the grading of civilizations (Type 3 or Type 1). In the human history it has been proved that is our main specialty to classify according to a value-based scale, which does not imply that this judgements are also done by other interplanetary civilizations. Therefore it is an interesting theory but its analysis ultimately humanize extraterrestrial beings, which is not very logic while judging the possible goal(s) about their exploration(s) of this planet.

I still want to thank you for sharing this view with us.

reply to post by gabrielescanziani

Then one shall ask himself why we are using us as an element of comparison to civilizations that are in fact so far and advanced compared to our?

So, in summary, your critique is that retrospective models of reality cannot forsee "black swans?" While that may be true, predictive systems have to be based on something. I would go so far as to say, logic depends on establishing a causal chain, and what is a causal chain if nothing more than an accurate description of interlinking past events? Logical theorizing then being extrapolations that posit the least number of additions.

That said I would expect numerous modes of transport through space including everything from spores to bacteriophages, like ΦX174's DNA sequence, as being possible, if not likely, transport mechanisms. The "biological carrier model" is in many ways similar to the drone hypothesis in the sense that the vehicle or capsule does not house and/or protect the sapient species itself as it traverses space, but instead behaves as an engineered forerunner.

Another logical deficit is represented by the implicit judgement which is behind the grading of civilizations (Type 3 or Type 1). In the human history it has been proved that is our main specialty to classify according to a value-based scale, which does not imply that this judgements are also done by other interplanetary civilizations.

I am not entirely sure what you are fingering as a problem in this paragraph. Are you saying energy consumption and expansion is a value that may not be shared between species? One of the many wonderful features of our home planet is we have a plethora of species to compare ourselves against. The idea of requiring more energy to decrease exigency is seen across all types of life. Ants herd aphids. Primitive man used oxen to furrow his fields. Stars die, planets lose heat, so a constant expansion and search for new energy sources is a biological necessity.

There is a curious paper written in 2009 that develops this idea in greater detail called "The Scarcity Hypothesis." It is a tad terse, but it describes a universal behavior across all organisms to decrease scarcity and correlates this through energy consumption using Kardashev's scale. I think you may find it useful.

Thank you for the comment. Shalom friend.

So, in summary, your critique is that retrospective models of reality cannot forsee "black swans?" While that may be true, predictive systems have to be based on something. I would go so far as to say, logic depends on establishing a causal chain, and what is a causal chain if nothing more than an accurate description of interlinking past events? Logical theorizing then being extrapolations that posit the least number of additions.

I might try to be a little bit more specific. Predictive systems are usually based on a probability concerning the occurrence of a cause and effect model (the causal chain you were referring too). In order to build a predictive system theory, one should observe a phenomenon based on a research question and formulate hypothesis concerning the causal chain to explain that phenomenon and finally answer the research question.
That being said, in order for the formulated hypothesis to be solid, one should indeed compare results concerning the observation mentioned above. What I am saying is that the Drone Hypothesis adapts our behavior to the one of another sapient which behavior and intentions are totally unknown to us. Not because we cannot discover and analyse the above mentioned behavior in the future, but simply because we haven't done this analysis yet.

That said I would expect numerous modes of transport through space including everything from spores to bacteriophages, like ΦX174's DNA sequence, as being possible, if not likely, transport mechanisms. The "biological carrier model" is in many ways similar to the drone hypothesis in the sense that the vehicle or capsule does not house and/or protect the sapient species itself as it traverses space, but instead behaves as an engineered forerunner.

This opens a new discussion where one might even sustain that our body could be a transport mechanism through space (space referred to as a physical concept) which work as mode of transport for our soul. I would not deepen with that because it would be off topic, but it is an interesting point of view.

Are you saying energy consumption and expansion is a value that may not be shared between species? One of the many wonderful features of our home planet is we have a plethora of species to compare ourselves against. The idea of requiring more energy to decrease exigency is seen across all types of life. Ants herd aphids. Primitive man used oxen to furrow his fields. Stars die, planets lose heat, so a constant expansion and search for new energy sources is a biological necessity.

What I am saying is that we as human are used to compare ourselves to other species by using a grade based system, but we cannot infer that other species would use the same system of comparison. One thing is to make a comparison in order to simply observe significant differences, a completely different thing is to implement a grading system that points out what is "the best" species as a result of our comparison.

There is a curious paper written in 2009 that develops this idea in greater detail called "The Scarcity Hypothesis." It is a tad terse, but it describes a universal behavior across all organisms to decrease scarcity and correlates this through energy consumption using Kardashev's scale. I think you may find it useful.

I will surely take a look at it, thanks for the tip and for the nice discussion.