Other Intelligent Species Prior to Man

[DBT]

That's if there is a path to a technological society. We could have stalled or faltered at any stage of our development. There were stone age cultures living in traditional ways up until recent times. Rather than a path, technology may be an aberration.

 

[Potoooooooo]

That would make them an intelligent, but not technological, species. Sorta like if dolphins would routinely gather together to argue over the nature of reality, each proposing and defending their philosophical position.

reminds me of this

 

[steve_bank]

What is meant by intelligence?

The question is the source of TV cable shows and books.

The inference is that we are intelligent, which is hopelessly self referential.

The term wisdom should be added to go along with intelligence. We are clever enough to create mass trasportion but are unable to deal with pollution.

We are clever enough to create nuclear power, yet stupid enough to build world ending nuclear weapons.

 

[bilby]

What is meant by intelligence?

The question is the source of TV cable shows and books.

The inference is that we are intelligent, which is hopelessly self referential.

The term wisdom should be added to go along with intelligence. We are clever enough to create mass trasportion but are unable to deal with pollution.

We are clever enough to create nuclear power, yet stupid enough to build world ending nuclear weapons.

Really? When did nuclear weapons end the world?

Last time I checked, nuclear weapons prevented a hot war between the USA and USSR after WWII, and did so successfully until the collapse of the USSR.

The only time nuclear weapons have been used in anger, the target was Imperial Japan, whose behaviour over the preceding decade certainly ranks pretty close to 'deserves to be nuked', and it's certainly at least a strong likelihood that their use saved millions of both Japanese and American lives that would have been lost during the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

That aside, intelligence has a number of definitions, and like any word, you can pick your favourite - though you need to ensure that everyone else knows which you picked if you plan to have productive discussions; And you need to use your definition consistently within a given discussion, to avoid equivocation fallacies.

My preference is to define intelligence as the ability to solve novel problems. This would include the problem of how to make electricity from uranium, and the problem of how to make uranium explode. It would also include the problems of how it is possible for a devastating weapon to save lives, and how to prevent such a weapon from being used in ways that don't save lives.

Note that intelligence as I define it is amoral; Intelligence is also required to solve the problem of how to massacre an outgroup against whom you wish to commit genocide.

It's also not specific to any particular species. Anything that can solve novel problems is intelligent by my definition.

To understand why genocide is a bad idea requires wisdom - the ability to predict the actual consequences of a given course of action.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What is meant by intelligence?

The question is the source of TV cable shows and books.

The inference is that we are intelligent, which is hopelessly self referential.

The term wisdom should be added to go along with intelligence. We are clever enough to create mass trasportion but are unable to deal with pollution.

We are clever enough to create nuclear power, yet stupid enough to build world ending nuclear weapons.

Really? When did nuclear weapons end the world?

Last time I checked, nuclear weapons prevented a hot war between the USA and USSR after WWII, and did so successfully until the collapse of the USSR.

The only time nuclear weapons have been used in anger, the target was Imperial Japan, whose behaviour over the preceding decade certainly ranks pretty close to 'deserves to be nuked', and it's certainly at least a strong likelihood that their use saved millions of both Japanese and American lives that would have been lost during the invasion of the Japanese home islands.

The biggest danger with nuclear weapons is mistakes. The world has already had two close calls:

1) The Russian launch-detection satellites reported 5 ICBMs rising from the US missile fields during a time of considerable tension. Had the guy in charge of the satellites not repeatedly suppressed the launch warning we probably wouldn't be here now. (Reality: The sun hitting high altitude clouds while the sun had already set on the ground below.)

2) The "missile" out of Norway. Launch point: Off the coast of Norway. Burn: Exactly like an older US sub-launched ballistic missile. Trajectory: Northern Russia. Scientific: No such launch listed and Norway has never launched anything above 100km, this one was going much farther. While northern Russia doesn't seem like a likely target for a nuke it's a very reasonable target if the nuke is going to go off at the edge of the atmosphere for an EMP decapitation strike. (Reality: The bird was real and the identification was correct. What makes a ballistic missile is the payload and the guidance, it was an repurposed ballistic missile motor with a scientific payload on top. The Russian radars were abysmal, they only gave range, not bearing and didn't realize it was really heading north of Russia. Likewise, the radars could only see it came from off the coast of Norway, not that it came from a launch facility on an island off the coast. And the launch notice had come in long before but the launch time was unknown--the bird sat waiting until the aurora was just right. It had gotten lost in the bureaucracy somewhere.)

 

[steve_bank]

Back in the 80s or 90s the US launched a science missal that looked to Russians on a trajectory a polar shot would take. The international notifications had been made but it did not filter down to the Russian military.

The Russian leader had a clock running and was close to a launch on warning when it got straightened out.

There have been several other instances not th least of which was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Point being what do we mean when we say other intelligent life. With modern technology and agriculture there is technically no need for competition, yet it continues. Humans slaughtering each other over nothing. Is that intelligence?

What we are good at is advanced tool making.

The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man applies. If an ET is as 'intelligent'; as we are the last thing we want to do is let them know we are here.

 

[Treedbear]

...
The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man applies. If an ET is as 'intelligent'; as we are the last thing we want to do is let them know we are here.

I doubt that they'd want to eat us. Maybe feed us to their pet dinosaurs though.

 

[bilby]

...
The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man applies. If an ET is as 'intelligent'; as we are the last thing we want to do is let them know we are here.

I doubt that they'd want to eat us. Maybe feed us to their pet dinosaurs though.

Both seem unlikely. The range of foods we can eat is pretty small, as a proportion of all life (even smaller if we look at what we like to eat, rather than what we merely can), and that's for life that all evolved on a single planet.

The chances of any ET being both able and willing to eat humans seems pretty remote.

Shit, if you went back in your DeLorean and collected some terrestrial dinosaurs from our own past, the herbivores would be very difficult to feed because modern plants are hugely different from those of the Mesozoic. Certainly no dinosaur ever tried to eat grass, and it seems highly implausible that they could have done so. Carnivores probably wouldn't have quite so much difficulty, though they might well find many modern animals unpalatable. They'd probably be OK with eating chicken.

 

[Treedbear]

...
The Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man applies. If an ET is as 'intelligent'; as we are the last thing we want to do is let them know we are here.

I doubt that they'd want to eat us. Maybe feed us to their pet dinosaurs though.

Both seem unlikely. The range of foods we can eat is pretty small, as a proportion of all life (even smaller if we look at what we like to eat, rather than what we merely can), and that's for life that all evolved on a single planet.

The chances of any ET being both able and willing to eat humans seems pretty remote.

Shit, if you went back in your DeLorean and collected some terrestrial dinosaurs from our own past, the herbivores would be very difficult to feed because modern plants are hugely different from those of the Mesozoic. Certainly no dinosaur ever tried to eat grass, and it seems highly implausible that they could have done so. Carnivores probably wouldn't have quite so much difficulty, though they might well find many modern animals unpalatable. They'd probably be OK with eating chicken.

Classify us under acquired taste. It's amazing what a little hot sauce can do.

 

[DBT]

We'd probably have either no food value for each other, or be downright harmful to eat.

 

[lpetrich]

Shit, if you went back in your DeLorean and collected some terrestrial dinosaurs from our own past, the herbivores would be very difficult to feed because modern plants are hugely different from those of the Mesozoic. Certainly no dinosaur ever tried to eat grass, and it seems highly implausible that they could have done so. Carnivores probably wouldn't have quite so much difficulty, though they might well find many modern animals unpalatable. They'd probably be OK with eating chicken.

I doubt that it would be that horrible.

Many Mesozoic plants would be at least half-familiar, plants like ferns, conifers, and cycads. Angiosperms started proliferating in the Cretaceous, and those would be even more familiar.

Carnivores are often not very picky. Omnivores are even less picky. We are omnivores, and we eat stuff from all over the family tree of life.

 

[lpetrich]

Here's a phylogeny. It's hard to do in one big list so I'll split it up. I've skipped over a lot of taxa.
Mammalia:

• Marsupialia - Macropodidae - kangaroo
• Placentalia - Boreoeutheria
  • Euarchontoglires - guinea pig, rabbit, human
  • Laurasiatheria
    • Carnivora - dog, cat
    • Artiodactyla
      • Tylopoda - camel, llama, alpaca
      • Suina - pig
      • Ruminantia
        • Bovidae - (Bovinae) bovine, bison, water buffalo, (Caprinae) sheep, goat
        • Cervidae - deer
    • Perissodactyla - Equus - horse, donkey

Tetrapoda:

• Amphibia - Anura - frog
• Amniota
  • Synapsida - Mammalia
  • Sauropsida
    • Testudines - Turtle
    • Lepidosauria - lizard, snake
    • Archosauria
      • Crocodilia - alligator
      • Dinosauria - Aves
        • Palaeognathae - ostrich
        • Neognathae - Galloanserae - (Galliformes) chicken, turkey, (Anseriformes) duck, goose

Vertebrata:

• Chondrichthyes - sharks
• Osteichthyes
  • Actinopterygii - ray-finned bony fish
    • Chondrostei - sturgeon
    • Teleostei - (most fish)
  • Sarcopterygii - Tetrapoda

 

[lpetrich]

Metazoa (animals) - Bilateria:

• Protostomia
  • Ecdysozoa - Arthropoda - Pancrustacea
    • Malacostraca - shrimp, lobster, crab
    • Hexapoda - grasshopper
  • Lophotrochozoa - Mollusca
    • Bivalvia - clam, oyster, scallop
    • Gastropoda - snail, abalone
    • Cephalopoda - squid, octopus
• Deuterostomia
  • Chordata - Vertebrata
  • Echinodermata - sea urchin

Opisthokonta:

• Metazoa
• Fungi
  • Ascomycota - yeast
  • Basidiomycota - mushrooms

 

[lpetrich]

Magnoliophyta - angiosperms

• magnoliids - nutmeg, bay laurel, cinnamon, avocado, black pepper
• monocots
  • Asparagales - asparagus, garlic, onion, vanilla, saffron
  • Zingiberales - banana, ginger
  • Arecales - date palm
  • Dioscoreales - yam
  • Alismatales - taro
  • Poales - water chestnut, lemongrass, wheat, rye, oats, rice, American corn
• eudicots
  • Proteales - macadamia
  • rosids
    • Saxifragales - currant
    • Vitales - grape
    • fabids
      • Fabales - Fabaceae - beans, lentil, pea, chickpea, peanut, soybean
      • Rosales - roses, apple, pear, plum, peach, apricot, quince, strawberry, almond, fig, breadfruit, cannabis
      • Cucurbitales - squash, pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, melon, watermelon
      • Fagales - chestnut, hazelnut, pecan, walnut
      • Malpighiales - cassava
    • malvids
      • Sapindales - cashew, pistachio, mango, orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit
      • Brassicales - Brassicaceae - arugula, watercress, wasabi, radish, horseradish, turnip, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts
      • Malvales - durian
      • Myrtales - allspice
  • asterids
    • Caryophyllales - buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, beet, spinach
    • Ericales - tea, cranberry, blueberry, kiwifruit, Brazil nut, wintergreen
    • campanulids
      • Asterales - sunflower, lettuce, dandelion
      • Apiales - dill, celery, carrot, parsley, cumin, coriander, parsnip
    • lamiids
      • Gentianales - coffee
      • Solanales - sweet potato, chili pepper, potato, tomato, eggplant, tobacco
      • Lamiales - olive, sesame, mint, basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano

Tracheophytes - vascular plants

• Polypodiophyta - fern (we eat its young leaves as fiddleheads)
• Spermatophyta - seed plants
  • Pinophyta - pine (we eat its seeds as pine nuts)
  • Magnoliophyta

 

[lpetrich]

Eukarya

• Opisthokonta
  • Metazoa - animals
  • Fungi - yeast, mushrooms
• Archaeplastida
  • Viridiplantae
    • Chlorophyta - sea lettuce
    • Streptophyta - Embryophyta (land plants) - Tracheophyta (vascular plants)
  • Rhodophyta - nori
• SAR - Stramenopiles - Phaeophyceae (brown algae) - Laminariales (kelp) - Arame

The only prokaryote that we eat in bulk is spirulina, prepared from cyanobacteria.

 

[Bomb#20]

...Carnivores probably wouldn't have quite so much difficulty, though they might well find many modern animals unpalatable. They'd probably be OK with eating chicken.

... Carnivores are often not very picky. Omnivores are even less picky. We are omnivores, and we eat stuff from all over the family tree of life.

Mammals have been around since the Triassic, but we stayed small for most of our time on Earth. Then a convenient asteroid deleted the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and then pretty much immediately mammals got big. This tells me that dinosaurs had about a hundred million years to practice eating us. They'd probably be okay with eating human.

 

[Jayjay]

... if they could survive in the modern atmosphere.

 

[lpetrich]

... if they could survive in the modern atmosphere.

 Geological history of oxygen - they easily could. Oxygen levels in the Mesozoic were the same or a little greater.

Climate and CO2 in the Atmosphere - that would also not be a problem - atmospheric CO2 levels were about 2 to 10 times present levels in the Mesozoic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Back in the 80s or 90s the US launched a science missal that looked to Russians on a trajectory a polar shot would take. The international notifications had been made but it did not filter down to the Russian military.

The Russian leader had a clock running and was close to a launch on warning when it got straightened out.

There have been several other instances not th least of which was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The missing launch notification is almost certainly the incident I was describing.

As for the Cuban Missile Crisis--scary but nobody thought they were under attack, it wasn't even close to the bad incidents.

 

[steve_bank]

Back in the 80s or 90s the US launched a science missal that looked to Russians on a trajectory a polar shot would take. The international notifications had been made but it did not filter down to the Russian military.

The Russian leader had a clock running and was close to a launch on warning when it got straightened out.

There have been several other instances not th least of which was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The missing launch notification is almost certainly the incident I was describing.

As for the Cuban Missile Crisis--scary but nobody thought they were under attack, it wasn't even close to the bad incidents.

The Secratery Of Defense in the 90s in a docmenmtary he went to sleep not knowing if he woud wake up.

Hawks on both sides were pushing the leaders to go for it. Kruschev was fgacing a potential coup.

In the 80s I knew someone who had been a field tactical nuke officer in Europe. Something he witnessed. Warsaw Pack troops were massing and moving around without warning on maneuvers near a border alarming NATO. As tension escalated field tactical missiles were prepared. The other side also started to escalate.

Curtis LeMay the founder of SAC on audio tape thought we should go for it and settle the Cold War during the Cuban crisis..

The JFK tapes show him to have been an anchor of stability as things got tense.

A little known fact. Truman considered a preemptive strike against China in The Korean War. The main problem was the stockpile. Using weapons on China would reduce the weapons and deterrence in Europe.

We used nuclear weapons. It is when not if there will be a nuclear exchange. When things get really bad globally as population grows unchecked it is inevitable. It is in our DNA.

We were preparing to attack Cuba. Troops were marshaling. It was discovered later Russians in Cuba would have launched.

It as not scary, it was insanity. Human 'intelligence' for you.

If evolution with completion among species including plants is a constant, then we know what may b out there. Predator and prey. The Star Trek saga covered some of the possibilities.