Here's to Humans

A question was brought up previously as to what an ET would think of us. I was upset by the majority of answers that said and ET would be so superior to us that we would be to them as say ants are to us or less.

Why all the hating on us people?!?! We've hit a pretty sweet deal if you ask me.

Maybe I'm being fairly obtuse in my thinking, but...

an ET would deffinitly be far more advanced as far as raw brain computing power, as well as actual technological power, but these would be nothing without the ability to understand to world around you... something that we have been graced with...

I'm also not so sure that this ability is one to be improved upon. Sure there are things that we don't understand yet, but do we not have to ability to understand even the most broad picture of existence. And i'm not talking about understanding as in being able to compute things easily but just being aware of any theoretically sound principle.

Well what I'm saying is that you should all be glad that you're not an ant. Maybe an ET would be superior to us and just wipe us all out just to power its spaceship for a trip somewhere else, but we're all very lucky to be us rather than some bug, especially considering the odds...

So what do you think about this?? Are you not proud of our landmark evolutionary step?? After all, it's probably the only reason not to go the suicide route!!

You're making the mistake of assuming that if you were an ant you would think like a human pretending to be an ant, whereas actually you'd think like an ant and you wouldn't be unhappy to be an ant.

You are stuck in the same trap by being human, you can only assume it is a good thing because you can't move out of the ability to think like a human.

The people assuming there could be more are simply recognising this shortcoming, while they could be wrong that higher intelligence is possible, the important thing is to recognize that we can't know one way or another and that it is a possibility.

(None of this swinging towards a particular polarised belief just because the evidence is flimsy. The correct answer is "we don't know")

[diebitter]

I don't see why an ET would need to be massively superior in raw brain power than us.

I doubt we have more brain power than a Roman 2000 years ago, but we've advanced massively, via cultural/technological advances that effectively are 'standing on the shoulders of giants' ie building on themselves.

No reason to suppose we can't make starships etc some time in the future ourselves by technological progress, not brainpower increase.

There is no reason to think they would be philosophically superior, just technologically superior. I think my answer reflected as much. But that is exactly why we should be worried about them if they decide to drop in.


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an ET would deffinitly be far more advanced as far as raw brain computing power, as well as actual technological power, but these would be nothing without the ability to understand to world around you... something that we have been graced with...

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The ability to understand the world around them is just a component of being "a being in the world." Because they indeed are such, they would have the same ability as us - to what extent they use it, however, is another matter. It's my belief that if they are able to communicate to each other (and no doubt they would be), then they would have the capacity for philosophy. Just as, if an ant had consciousness (something needed for communication), he would start to question his existence.

[Borodog]

EF,

Best. Avatar. Ever.

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You're making the mistake of assuming that if you were an ant you would think like a human pretending to be an ant, whereas actually you'd think like an ant and you wouldn't be unhappy to be an ant.

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You are stuck in the same trap by being human, you can only assume it is a good thing because you can't move out of the ability to think like a human.

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I don't think this is the same, because although ants are aware of us, they don't understand us or our superiority (except that they run away when we try to step on them, but if we were aware of an ET, we would also have the ability to understand them and understand that they are superior to us.
what i was saying was that we do not necessarily assume being us is a good thing, because we can be aware of superior beings, but we should still be happy about our capabilities because an ET would be more technologically advanced and possibly have more internal computing power, but not more capable of understanding

I hope it doesn't keep you from taking my mind seriously [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Who says we can understand everything? I get really annoyed when people make that assumption. Do you have anything to back that up, or do you just "feel that way?"

Even if sentience is a discrete "step up," there is no reason to assume that it is the "final step."

I don't nessessarily think that we can understand everything or that it is the final step, but I don't think people realize how much is acually below us and what a big step this understanding is..if it is actually what i think it may be

[hmkpoker]

Are you kidding? It's so distracting we can't even read your posts [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]