What Is Needed To Make An Intelligent Species?

[guevaramartyr]

i'm saying that if every star past that range started broadcasting radio signals a hundred years ago, we still would not have received them. a hundred lys is not an important figure. if alpha centuari had a budding civilization that started broadcasting 3 years ago, we wouldn't know. also, it is important to remember that it is unlikely that any two civilizations with radio (IMO, fairly likely) within a couple hundred lys of each other (less likely) exist in the same span of those couple hundred lys.

 

[Gold Barz]

Yeah, the chances of two different civilizations communicating are slim, very slim.

 

[Mean-Hippy]

Do any of the radio signal we emit towards space travel over 100 ly ? Whats the "maximum distance" we can hope to send a signal to and when did we emit the first signals powerfull enough to reach any significant astronomical distances ?

 

[guevaramartyr]

our radio signals will continue past the 100 ly mark, its not a barrier. its just that since we have begun broadcasting, the signals cannot have traveled more than 80 lys or sumthin.

 

[Chronos]

The odds of anyone hearing us are very low... and the odds of them PMing back by now are only half that, at best. The odds of us hearing from them first are much better - but there is a good chance the technological window of opportunity is less than 1000 years. So what are the odds we are within that 1000 year EM window of any other technological civilization that has arisen in the history of this galaxy?

 

[Chessguy]

why 1000 year window?

... but there is a good chance the technological window of opportunity is less than 1000 years...

I was following you until here.

Are you saying that radio becomes obsolete after 1000 years? If so wouldn't some alien races still try to say hi using radio? Especially if they new we were here? Aren't we within 100 years or so of being able to see other Earths in detail?

Or are you saying that races 1000 years ahead of us will be so far advanced that they have no interest in communicating with us dumb humans? Again why wouldn't the odd alien want to study us as pet-like beings at the very least?

Or are you saying that after another 1000 years of technilogical advancement we will learn to achieve some kind of higher state of being? We will have no more use for these silly bodies or this cold universe and will therefore just take off?

 

[nipwoni]

I think intelligence was inevitable in a lineage like the animals, but not in most lineages. Once you start having creatures with nervous systems and eventually brains, at least one of them is almost definitely going to take that trait to the extreme and evolve a HUGE brain like ours. Also, for any social life form, intelligence is an advantage, for communication, choosing mating partners, developing relationships with each other, "politics", etc. A social lifestyle in turn pushes species to become more intelligent, since the smartest ones will be best at these things and will reproduce more. The two reinforce each other, leading to ever greater intelligence, as has happened among the primates. And social lifestyles have evolved many times in the animal kingdom.

On the other hand, I don't think it's inevitable at all that organisms would have nervous systems in the first place. Animals are unique in that respect, and it would have been quite possible for animals to never evolve on Earth. There are so many other lineages of protists and bacteria besides the one that led to animals. And then there are fungi and plants. Can you imagine any of these groups evolving intelligence? It's not inevitable at all. Even multicellularity wasn't inevitable. Even eukaryotes weren't inevitable.

 

[nipwoni]

I want to respond to a post by Morlock a page ago. He said that dinosaurs failed because they eventually died out after living for millions of years. People usually forget about this, but dinosaurs actually did leave descendents. They're called birds.

Besides this, I don't think a group is a failure if they don't leave direct descendents. The VAST majority of all the lineages that have ever existed have no descendants today. In my opinion there will eventually come a time when humans won't either. But, a group can still preserve some of its genes if a SIMILAR group still survives- a group that's more like its cousin than its child. For the dinosaurs, crocodiles are still around. They are very similar to the direct ancestors of the dinosaurs. Even we are descended from an earlier form of reptile.

 

[Gold Barz]

I think in a similar environment/planet, some single-cell organisms would eventually evolve into multi-cell organisms and if you have multi-cell organisms I think you would only need time to see complex life like animals emerge

 

[Chronos]

I was following you until here.

Are you saying that radio becomes obsolete after 1000 years? If so wouldn't some alien races still try to say hi using radio? Especially if they new we were here? Aren't we within 100 years or so of being able to see other Earths in detail?

Or are you saying that races 1000 years ahead of us will be so far advanced that they have no interest in communicating with us dumb humans? Again why wouldn't the odd alien want to study us as pet-like beings at the very least?

Or are you saying that after another 1000 years of technilogical advancement we will learn to achieve some kind of higher state of being? We will have no more use for these silly bodies or this cold universe and will therefore just take off?

Yes. After trying to contact 'us' for more than 1000 years without success, they would probably lose their grants. The war they are having with their neighbors gets funded instead.

 

[Gold Barz]

Does complexity increase over time?

 

[guevaramartyr]

I don't believe it necessarily does. Biological complexity, like intelligence, is a response to an environmental pressure. If an organism has no need to grow in complexity, it simply does not. After all, we still have bacteria and viruses today, the simplest forms of life known.

 

[Gold Barz]

But we also have organisms that are more complex than bacteria, you could view it from both sides. Yeah the simplest forms of life still exist but complex life does too, so I guess another question is will complex life emerge from simple life?, not all simple life evolve to complex life.