Is Stephen Hawking's Take on Aliens as Funny as We Hoped?

[ranrod]

Somehow, the notion that because they are so advanced, they must be so emotionally advanced and empathetic. It may be that the opposite, perhaps, emotion being a weakness in a sense has been left behind with the new ages of technological biological hybridization.

Maybe they don't have what we call emotions at all. My point was that because they are so advanced, they must not have any need for us or our resources. Anything being possible, it shows who's an optimist and who's a pessimist. I'd be ok sending signals out and seeing what comes our way (if it's possible).

What's the right course of action for us as a planet? Hawking's hope is that we stay hidden, or that we would see them before they see us, but is that even possible (under the assumption they are so much more advanced than us)?

How about the fact that if they are so advanced, and their intentions were to harm us, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.

 

[Chronos]

If aliens visited earth, and were anything like us, I would be very afraid. They would probably view Earth not unlike british petroleum does a newly discovered oil field. A biologically active planet might offer valuable molecules. I doubt they would perceive us as much more interesting than a fungus infection.

 

[dgtech]

I think everyone here is giving too much scientific credibility to Hawking. Number of his practical inventions = 0 and to me that's not much credible.

Plus he took part in so many movies, self-proclaimed himself father of the universe, plus all the books and so on, that guy is a celebrity, and a strange one...

He had not lost his mind, he is simply doing some crazy talk to advertise the new shows he gets $$$ for being a consultant. A slang term would be "pimping" those new crazy idea shows.

I'd suggest aliens, capable of reaching other star systems would be not only advanced technologically, but also conceptually, and would know better than Cortes and his cousin, who slaughtered the majority of native americans and burned all their books, that contained information about planet orbits around the sun by the time "white" people still believed the universe revolves around Earth in some illogical way.

 

[sshort75]

Most of you are over looking the moral of the story. If aliens could travel here we would be at their mercy. Also even if they were equal to us in every technology but found out a way to travel through space at tremendous speeds if you could fight a war from orbit you would win, because you don't have to live there when its over, or just release short acting biological or chemical weapons into the atmosphere undetected and you have a ready made colony with infrastructure.
Also some more food for thought traveling at great speeds might be a lot simpler than we think. Think about this if you look at a wheel and axle you would think any idiot could design this, and that's true; however, it didn't occur to any of our ancestors for thousands of years even when the means lay right in front of them.
Also I wouldn't bet the survival of the human species on your naive, idealistic, fantasies of any interstellar group as being some sort of Utopia of science and reasoning. Yes reasonable people and the exchange of ideas is the way we know our civilizations have developed technology, but in the end it was the strongest that was the civilization that survived. Also you don't know if the aliens stole the technology from a benovelent insterstellar society. Again the moral of the story is we would be at the whims of a species not our own.

 

[baywax]

Although Hawking has suggested its perfectly rational for us to think there is intelligent life in the universe... he also mentioned that intelligence is probably a bad mutation with regard to survival of a species.

"It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:S...intelligence_has_any_long-term_survival_value.

This is a reference to our continuous degradation of the resources that serve to continue our survival, water, air and earth. All of them are being polluted at a rate that out strips the rate of natural replenishment and filtering. Hawking's quote also refers to our propensity to spread viral disease amongst our selves and our threats to, if not acting on, nuclear annihilation. All these anti-survival traits are a result of intelligence.

As far as I remember, Hawking also mentioned that because intelligence appears to be such a poor selection in terms of survival of the species, if it has been naturally selected on another planet in another system... it is fairly obvious that that "intelligent" species won't survive long... either. So, why would we expect to meet them?

 

[Galteeth]

Although Hawking has suggested its perfectly rational for us to think there is intelligent life in the universe... he also mentioned that intelligence is probably a bad mutation with regard to survival of a species.

"It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:S...intelligence_has_any_long-term_survival_value.

This is a reference to our continuous degradation of the resources that serve to continue our survival, water, air and earth. All of them are being polluted at a rate that out strips the rate of natural replenishment and filtering. Hawking's quote also refers to our propensity to spread viral disease amongst our selves and our threats to, if not acting on, nuclear annihilation. All these anti-survival traits are a result of intelligence.

As far as I remember, Hawking also mentioned that because intelligence appears to be such a poor selection in terms of survival of the species, if it has been naturally selected on another planet in another system... it is fairly obvious that that "intelligent" species won't survive long... either. So, why would we expect to meet them?

Doesn't that kind of contradict the anthropic principle?

 

[Galteeth]

Somehow, the notion that because they are so advanced, they must be so emotionally advanced and empathetic. It may be that the opposite, perhaps, emotion being a weakness in a sense has been left behind with the new ages of technological biological hybridization.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8&feature=related"



You're right, we would have absolutely no idea what their motives would be.

 

[ThomasEdison]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8&feature=related"



You're right, we would have absolutely no idea what their motives would be.

You could twist it around though. Perhaps organic life is limited because we can't understand machine emotion? We are only one tiny part funktionslust in our experiences. Most of us rarely experience it at all (master craftsmen and athletes a bit more so.) There might be an entire spectrum of emotional being we miss out on simply because we are not stamped fully made out of an assembly line with a predetermined purpose.
Machine intelligence might be the norm out there ; and we might be the flukes.
We might be the species that lacks an emotional existence compared to machines. Perhaps only a machine can experience true funktionslust: the joy of being attached to what one does.

Comparing emotion is always a matter of perspective. When leveraged against a Universal background, who says that humanity has the grasp on what emotion even means?
To me funktionslust is all that is valid. I don't expect others to agree. I also don't expect that humanity as a whole has any monopoly on the emotional spectrum. There could even be greying states of quantum-like superpositions of opposite emotions as well as higher states of funktionslust we are incapable of feeling. There could also be more sophisticated symbiosis among aliens. They might find it horrifying that we don't communicate with our own mitochondria. Our very individuality might mean, to them, that we are incapable of feelings. And the opposite, perhaps the aliens are such rugged individuals that they consider us like a coral?

This is the problem with assuming we have some firm grasp on emotion and them on logic. Emotions can have their own logic. Even logic can change with perspective.

 

[Newai]

I think this movie went straight to video but it scared the bejeezus out of me anyway when i first saw it (caveat specto):

Well, the book that Walton wrote describing his experience is nothing like the movie, and this scene in particular. The movie makes them seem like sadistic monsters.

The book makes them seem like dull boyscouts. It's all nonsense anyway.

 

[Dav333]

how much input does hawking has with these docos? he must have a lot of trouble communicating now & it would take too long. they probably just put his name on it & write his words? i vote aliens wouldn't even waste time looking at us, probably laugh the planet has gone past its use by date.

 

[shredder666]

hmm... let's think this in another perspective, if we were aliens and finds some planet with life on it... would we exploit the resources?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This thread has more than run its course.