[entaifsfets]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Why do peaceful aliens look like advanced humans and tyrant aliens look like insects in the media? (With the exception of Signs). Isn't the answer obvious?

[Yessaniloas]

Humans have an instinctual fear of non-Human looking creatures. SciFi writers merely tap into that base fear. There are always exceptions: Star Trek has done it, Farscape is a great example, Star Wars is crap also allows non-Human looking creatures to be benevolent.

[gyjsdtuwr]

Originally posted by GePap
Human-looking aliens keeps the special effects and make-up bugets under control.

Non-human looking bad guys make them easier to hate for the audience. It's fun answering the easy questions first isn't it?

In actual fact, it was so easy, I wasn't expecting anyone to actualy answer it.

[AlbrtJhnsqw]

Originally posted by GePap


Can an elephant sized speices be as advanced as we are today?

Why couldn't they? They are big enough to be able to have the brains for it. What limit does that size place on them? can you imagine an elephant trying to light a fire?

[Infiseeenvelp]

Insects "breathe" through tiny pores in their exoskeleton. The largest insect ever was a type of dragonfly that was less than a foot long. The insect repiratory system simply can't deliver enough oxygen to sustain a brain big enough to be intelligent. Likewise I don't think that an ant-sized critter could be inteligent. Their brains wouldn't have enough neurons.

[Wluwsdtn]

If life requires a very narrow passage to succeed on a planet, then shouldn't the path of evolution be somewhat similar to what happened and is happening on Earth? Yup, I'd venture to say life everywhere will turn out much like what we see here.

Opposable thumbs

It would be interesting to see how relatively small differences in gravity effect life

[pobrierce]

Originally posted by General Ludd
You first have to define "advanced" Worms are able to self-manage their population, hatching only when there is room in the environment for more worms, and shrinking in size in order to adapt to food scarcity or other stress. Humans on the other hand compulsively devour their environment untill all resources are depleted or it is no longer inhabitable Given the worms ability to work in perfect synchronization with the environment they inhabit, I would argue that worms are for more "advanced" than humans, if any life form can be called more advanced than another. I believe the use of the term "advanced" as used in this thread automatically pre-supposes acceptance of the classical concept of "progress". You know, the trend where capabilities increase over time through cultural changes. "Advanced" lifeforms will have or have in the past demonstrated such "progress" or clearly demonstrated it's potential.

I don't think "advanced" in this context simply means "good".

[antipenq]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Insects "breathe" through tiny pores in their exoskeleton. The largest insect ever was a type of dragonfly that was less than a foot long. The insect repiratory system simply can't deliver enough oxygen to sustain a brain big enough to be intelligent. Likewise I don't think that an ant-sized critter could be inteligent. Their brains wouldn't have enough neurons.
This just means that organisms that breathe through tiny pores in their exoskeletons will not get very big if they use oxygen at a rate comparible to the animals we have experience with.

I'll concede that chemically based life will probably need to exchange at least one substance with it's environment at a relatively high rate so there is little point in my suggesting that oxygen might not be essential.

Why would their brains have to have neurons sized like our own? How about bacterial sized neurons? Or possibly even life that superficially appears to be acellular or even truly organized in an entirely acellular way?

The problem with speculating about alien life is that we have no way of knowing how universal the various elements of life on earth are.

[bactrimtab]

The human brain consumes about 20% of our daily calorie intake all by itself. The sort of precludes all the really energy intensive activities like flight.

[aaaaaaahabbbby]

Originally posted by Sn00py

Can we advance only under water?
What if gravity were 10x stronger, or 10x weaker?
What if humans were able to fly? (with wings)

Would we have advanced? What exactly did you mean when you asked "Can we advance only under water?"?

[caseferter]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I think he means that if you are stuck being underwater (e.g you are fish or aquatic mammal or somesuch) can you advance technologically. The question makes some sense now.

I suppose the only difference it would make would be that the lifestyle would have to give ready access to the seafloor for tool use if we assume materials other than those derived from other organisms will be needed.

[Lorionasodi]

Originally posted by Perfection
I don't feel bad for dead bugs. Do you feel bad for the ones that still live but are injured in some possibly horrific way? Or maybe for the ones that are physically unharmed but have been emotionally dragged through the wringer?

[rootoronpunty]

Originally posted by DaShi


I'm just responding to Dr. Strangelove's post about the difficulty of insects' forming intelligence. Ok, he just said "ant-sized" rather than literal ants.

I think a collective of ant-sized organisms could exhibit rapid processing (intelligence) if they had a means of sufficiently rapid signal propagation between the individuals. There is no reason it would have to be slower than human cognition.

[9mm_fan]

Originally posted by DaShi


That's where physics comes in. So? how would it force the collective intelligence of ant-sized critters to be slower than human cognition?

[monologue]

Originally posted by DaShi


So he wasn't talking about insects?
It's not clear from his post. He starts out talking about insect respiration and then goes on to say "Likewise I don't think that an ant-sized critter could be inteligent. Their brains wouldn't have enough neurons." That's part of the reason I asked what you were referring to in your post about collective intelligence.


Originally posted by DaShi

And what would lead you to think this? How about the fact that the human brain doesnt process at anywhere even remotely approaching the Bremermann's limit of computational speed for it's size. There's plenty of room at the bottom.

Furthermore network the little critters together with something faster than our nerve impulse propagation speed and I find it difficult to see why you assert that the response time of that collective intelligence would necessarily be significantly slower than any single intelligence.

[spamkillerf]

Originally posted by DaShi


Wow. Ok.




There is a difference between computational speed and the speed of signals travelling through and between cells.



And what could we network them with that is faster than a nerve impulse and also can compensate for the creatures moving around? EM signals of some kind? Color changes can occur with about the same speed as jumping a synapse and resetting it in preparation for the next stimulus.

Keep in mind that the speed of nerve impulse propagation tops out at about 100 m/s whereas even the speed of sound at sea level is about 340 m/s. It's not that hard to come up with signaling mechanisms between individuals that will greatly exceed signal propagation speeds within the human brain.

[Paybeskf]

Spore will reveal all!

[Peter Hill]

Originally posted by DaShi
I don't think you realize just how small bacterial cells are compared to animal cells. I missed this part of your post because you accidentally left it inside the part of my post you were quoting.


I suggested the possibility of bacteria sized "neurons" precisely because they are so much smaller than neurons or eukaryotic cells in general. The idea being that a more compact brain might be possible simply by substituting prokaryotic sized cells in place of eukaryotic cells as the basic functional units that fill the role of neurons.

[peakyesno]

Originally posted by Geronimo


I missed this part of your post because you accidentally left it inside the part of my post you were quoting.


I suggested the possibility of bacteria sized "neurons" precisely because they are so much smaller than neurons or eukaryotic cells in general. The idea being that a more compact brain might be possible simply by substituting prokaryotic sized cells in place of eukaryotic cells as the basic functional units that fill the role of neurons.

And my point is that a bacterial cell simply can't contain the DNA and machinery necessary to make the complex proteins involved in neuron function.

[Ubgvuncd]

Originally posted by DaShi


And my point is that a bacterial cell simply can't contain the DNA and machinery necessary to make the complex proteins involved in neuron function.

Do you remember where you learned this?