Are We Too Stupid To Understand And Communicate With Aliens If They Exist?

By Friday June 4, 2010

This is Neil deGrasse Tyson, sort of a current day Carl Sagan.



59 Comments
  1. Misanthropic Scott says:
    6/4/2010 at 10:02 am

    #19 – KD Martin,

    Intelligence is a sliding scale not a binary switch. What you say is certainly true.

    However, you do ignore the quite significant accomplishments of other animals. For example, dolphins understand when we speak or gesture, even if that gesture is on a TV screen, meaning that they can make the leap from a 2D image of a 3D human and understand.

    Unfortunately, when they speak, we understand nothing. We have not even identified the most basic calls of a dolphin as we have for chimps, vervet monkeys, and even prairie dogs.

    You also ignore that chimps have developed tools, including spears. Crows also make tools and cache the good ones for later reuse. Orangutans happen to be excellent locksmiths and are often “employed” to test chimp and gorilla cages, meaning that if the orang can’t get out, neither will the chimp or gorilla.

    You also, by your definition of intelligence assert that beavers are smarter than chimps or dolphins. Be careful how you define intelligence. It is a thing we can’t even define, let alone test, even in our own species.

    The best definitions we have for intelligence essentially invoke MAMBIT, meaning that intelligence is the set of mental abilities measured by intelligence. Since W scores high (about 125) on such tests, we can see that they do not test for rational, veridical, and critical thinking, at a minimum.

    So, before we talk about whether aliens are too smart to bother with us, we better define what smart is. And, for it to be a good definition, let’s try to come up with one that doesn’t put our famous wetlands engineers at the second spot on the planet. I really doubt they can outsmart a chimp … or a wolf, bear, or coyote.

    Reply
  2. Misanthropic Scott says:
    6/4/2010 at 10:04 am

    Sorry, in my prior post, the MAMBIT bit should read:

    MAMBIT, meaning that intelligence is the set of mental abilities measured by intelligence tests.

    Obviously, this is a recursive definition.

    Reply
  3. Misanthropic Scott says:
    6/4/2010 at 10:08 am

    #20 – sargasso,

    Would you land here?

    Yes. But, given the assumption that I am an alien capable of traveling light years to get here, I will make sure to arrive about 250,000 years ago or earlier to avoid having to deal with homo sapiens. Alternately, I can arrive later, possibly not even very much later, after stupid humans kill themselves off. Though, waiting for most of the human works to decay would be better. To avoid the plastic and radioactive trash though, a couple of hundred thousand years earlier may be the only way to go.

    Reply
  4. The0ne says:
    6/4/2010 at 10:13 am

    #19
    I can’t help but laugh, in an amused way. I don’t mean to be insulting.

    As I’ve said, we humans can do what you’ve said. It is our trait, to learn, to grow (not necessarily evolve), to change, etc. That is NOT something we should expect of species. There are many things animals can do that we cannot do and have yet to understand. In this sense we are in fact INFERIOR to them but that does not mean we are less intelligent.

    Again, if you want to define intelligence by what we humans can do and create then I can assure you we’re not the only intelligent life forms on this planet.

    Look at our human history of evolution, isn’t that in itself incredible (again, if you believe in the theory of evolution)? Who is to say that in 1000 years from now, there will be a species that looks at the current set of species and the past set of species and say that very EXACT same thing you are….that we humans rule baby! Actually, this has already been happening throughout history so I think the point is clear.

    And lastly, we as humans are actually just learning and finding what nature, including the universe and that which is all, has already laid out (for the most part) for everyone. What is the famous quote….

    “nothing unreal exists…” something like that hahaha

    Or to put it simply, when you begin to think you are more intelligent there will always be someone that makes you look like a child…guarantee.

    Reply
  5. Steve S says:
    6/4/2010 at 10:54 am

    Cephus said,
    “Chimpanzees are not intelligent life, they do not have the capacity to build interstellar spaceships or complex technology, they do not have the ability to reason or learn multiple languages, etc.”

    Obviously you have never seen the movie “Planet of the Apes” or its many sequels ;-)

    And by the way, people in general are complete and total idiots. You see clear evidence of this everyday in the news.

    Reply
  6. Misanthropic Scott says:
    6/4/2010 at 11:00 am

    #25 – Steve S,

    And by the way, people in general are complete and total idiots. You see clear evidence of this everyday in the news.

    Excellent point. And, it’s getting worse, not better.

    Perhaps only those very few humans who have actually contributed new information to the species count as intelligent. Even that small percentage of us who are at least smart enough to have some limited comprehension of what the really smart people are doing would not qualify.

    However, the chimps who invented the spear, the termite fishing stick, and the nutcracker might make the cut along with the crow who invented the bug fishing hook and the green heron who invented fly-fishing.

    Reply
  7. Hahnarama says:
    6/4/2010 at 11:44 am

    Dave,

    Why in the HELL would you insult Carl Sagan by comparing that SOB, Tyson, to him? The guys a hack!

    Reply
  8. paddler says:
    6/4/2010 at 11:46 am

    I think the story that appears below this one answers that question.

    Reply
  9. deowll says:
    6/4/2010 at 12:14 pm

    What you need is a very advanced tech using civilization that has enough in common with us not to regard us the way we regard ants or termites.

    They might be using sound to “see” with like bats and odors to communicate with and be social like social insects. In that case they aren’t all that likely to be interested in wasting much time on us other than to determine if we might be useful to them in some manner and if the answer is no…

    When a high tech culture runs into a low tech culture the low tech culture and its citizens normally vanishes and that is when the members of both cultures are the same species.

    Reply
  10. Mr Ed says:
    6/4/2010 at 12:21 pm

    If I ever get a chance to communicate with aliens I’ll convince them that republicans are in-season and tasty!

    Reply
  11. Guyver says:
    6/4/2010 at 12:56 pm

    27, Hahnarama,

    Why in the HELL would you insult Carl Sagan by comparing that SOB, Tyson, to him? The guys a hack!

    Probably because Sagan saw more in Neil than you do?

    Reply
  12. Misanthropic Scott says:
    6/4/2010 at 1:24 pm

    #27 – Hahnarama,

    Uncle Dave is far from the first person to make this comparison.

    http://tinyurl.com/2dvp8gp

    Personally, I find Neil (yes, I like to amuse myself by thinking that just because I’ve heard him speak live and in person numerous times that I’m on a first name basis with Dr. Tyson, which of course, I’m not.) much more interesting, charismatic, and better at explaining things than Sagan. Making things sound interesting is key to getting people to remember them rather than having them fall asleep while attempting to listen. I rarely listened to Sagan but love to hear Neil speak.

    Even when he was “only” the Director of the Planetarium and not yet a TV personality, his intros to science lectures (the former Frontiers in Astronomy and Astrophysics and Distinguished Authors series) were often the best part of the lecture, even when the lecturer was excellent.

    Reply
  13. WmDE says:
    6/4/2010 at 3:04 pm

    Intelligence is proportional to dimensional awareness.

    Chimp 3.5D

    Man 4D (Ability to calculate doesn’t count.)

    Super ET 5D or above

    God 11D

    When I first heard of string theory and the 11 dimensions that the theory says were extant at the time of the Big Bang I was also reading a book about 1816. 1816 is known as “The Year Without Summer.” The book mentioned a festival of the eleven directions in 1816. I wondered how they knew about 11D.

    Turns out the first 8 directions were compass points.Throw in up, down and something I don’t remember and you had eleven.

    Almost as disappointing as finding out that the Dogon people probably didn’t know about Sirius b before it was discovered.

    Reply
  14. John E. Quantum says:
    6/4/2010 at 6:48 pm

    To me, the definition of an intelligent species is one which has the ability and will to obtain, store and access increasing amounts of knowledge as well as the ability to continually increase the breadth, scope and quality of the knowledge itself.

    Crows, I’ve read, learn when sitting on train tracks when to take off to avoid an oncoming train. In a case where the speed of the trains in an area was significantly increased, for the first day or two a couple of crows were hit by the train. But in less time than it would have taken for every available crow to visually determine for themselves the new higher speed of the trains, the deaths of crows suddenly stopped. It has been speculated that the crows communicated this nformation throughout their community.

    But the crows still can’t communicate well enough, or store enough information to say build a computer (analog or otherwise). The crow may make tools, only humans build tools to assist their thinking.

    Reply
  15. momander says:
    6/4/2010 at 7:06 pm

    Events beyond the singularity are as hard to imagine for us as opera is to a flatworm:
    http://reason.com/archives/2007/05/04/superhuman-imagination

    Reply
  16. Somebody says:
    6/4/2010 at 7:45 pm

    Can you say “nanoo nanoo”?

    Good, I thought you could.

    Reply
  17. KD Martin says:
    6/4/2010 at 8:16 pm

    Scott, let me know when any of the animals you name can vastly change their environment, invent weapons, perform science, explore the Universe, develop (Uggh) religion, benefit from agriculture, are able to read and write thus storing information for future beings, or learn to communicate meaningfully with humans. Can a beaver comprehend Shakespeare?

    Intelligence may be tough to accurately measure, but there’s not an animal alive today that can begin to compete with a human being. As Dr. Tyson points out, even a two year old human is vastly more intelligent than a 15 year old chimp or dolphin.

    Like you, I enjoy Dr. Tyson’s lectures and contributions to science. Even if he isn’t as prestigious as Dr. Sagan, he still is a superb theoretician and scientist. I’d like very much to meet him.

    Reply
  18. Uncle Patso says:
    6/4/2010 at 10:35 pm

    # 33 WmDE:
    “Turns out the first 8 directions were compass points.Throw in up, down and something I don’t remember and you had eleven.”

    From
    http://www.sacredpassage.com/resources/11directions.php

    “Having made our offering to the eight horizontal directions, turn past the northeast to face the easterly direction once again. It is from this position that you will experience the power of the three final directions: below, above, and below, above, and the infinite within.” (Emphasis added.)

    I wonder how many directions are used by the hypothetical super-intelligent aliens?

    A related question: are there super-intelligent aliens? Meaning, is intelligence a positive or negative survival factor? Perhaps beings that get smart tend to do themselves in before they achieve interplanetary colonization and/or interstellar travel. (Warfare, pollution, radioactive fallout, oil spills, carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, not even tapping one millionth of the free energy from their sun, etc.) Heck, are we even all that intelligent? I look at the idea of the Dyson Sphere, then I look at the Gulf of Mexico and wonder if it’s even possible to get there from here.

    Reply
  19. GetSmart says:
    6/4/2010 at 11:51 pm

    A much older and technologically advanced species might be so very different in biology and worldview that our only common method of information exchange might be mathematics. We might not be capable of appreciating a complex olfactory opera about sub adolescent reproductive politics prior to 3rd stage winter carapace shedding. Or one of Beethoven’s finest symphonies might just be an annoying vibration.
    Or to a being that “sees” via sonar, a Jackson Pollack painting might be far more interesting than the painting on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling because the texture is more vibrant.
    Dolphins “see” with sonar that apparently gives quite a bit of detail, suppose that dolphins are communicating with one another using acoustic “shorthand” for actual sonar images, like acoustic cartoons that pass complex imagery one to another. If that were the case, we’d will never be able to decipher what they say to one another without powerful computer hardware and software to translate.
    It might not be that we are too stupid to understand, it might be that what aliens are saying and how they are saying it, is complicated and obscure in the extreme.

    Reply
  20. bobbo, we think with words says:
    6/5/2010 at 3:52 am

    Get Smart–I disagree. What you say is true enough in a vacuum and out of context. In the main: there is a HUGE FILTER for when aliens meet: one or the other or both has done what it takes to develope the ability to travel in space. That is huge in CAPS. Math, science, society, curiosity and so forth.

    I say all entities that “care” to go traveling will be like other travelers I have met right here on earth: good people. Not pedophiles. Course there are always individual exceptions and for that I would focus on the word “individual.” Hard for entire world populations to act aberrant as do single individual people.

    I trust space travelers to be benign, curious, helpful. Unless they watch too much tv.

    Reply

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