Saturday's 'Comment of the Day': Michio Kaku on Intelligent Extraterrestrial Life

 

          

"As one commenter smartly points out: 'I see most commenters above are confusing predator with carnivore. Humans are omnivores, but we are still predators. Dr. Kaku is making a reasonable, but presently untestable assumption that intelligence arises from predatory behavior.'

"That humans aren't carnivores doesn't mean they are not predators. It's a characteristic that we have still intrinsically embedded in our society. And I certainly do not believe that huge technological advancement degrades predatory behavior. I don't know about other alien races, but certainly this is true for homo sapiens. Did going to the moon make us less predators? When we go to the stars, we will certainly carry our biological instincts with us as well, just as we did in every other exploration and exploitation of land through history. 

"Our history is full of examples of the 'advanced' one wiping out the most 'primitive' one. Ask the Native Americans to tell you about it or the African slaves. The US nation is entirely built on the wipe-out of the whole north american native culture! All of human history is full of examples of more advanced civilisations exploiting or killing less advanced ones. 

"Even in today's world, how many wars are fought because the more advanced countries that have the power, want to take hold of something the less advanced countries have, i.e. natural resources? That doesn't mean that an advanced alien civilisation will certainly have to behave that way. My point is that I don't believe for a second that highly sophisticated technological advancement (like interstellar travel) will make us less predators towards others. It never did."

Leonidas 

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Comments

[Cato]

Rubbish. Typical human-centric lame thinking. Just because it so happened here, as a rule, does not confer it universal validity. My impression however,is that their is no hope for these, their 'intelligence' has a certain herbivore, sap-sucking quality about it :-)

[smartypants]

Deny it to yourself how ever you need to but deep down inside you know humans are extremely violent and will kill each other as well as others for food, warmth, mating and especially POWER!

[mr]

Made in the Image of GOD. There have already been many men who have not possessed beast like nature. We are more then apes, we are humanity.

[divineadvancedhumanbeings.com]

Aaaahhh…(wanted to share the following….)

Do Aliens Exist?

Snippet of article on this subject matter for any that hold interest in this subject matter:
Advanced beings, also known as aliens, do exist!

The truth about aliens or advanced beings (defined by these names, simply… because they have developed advanced technology) which may be better defined as “other dimensional technology”.

These advanced being-aliens are not from the future. Time travel for them and all beings, for that matter, is impossible regardless of the technology that they possess.

To read article in its entirety….

http://www.divineadvancedhumanbeings.com/do-aliens-exist/

[Harbinger]

It is true that as we have advanced in technology we still hold onto our primitive instincts to stay alive. However, as a civilization becomes older, wiser, and more advanced in not only their technology, but also their ways of thinking, then they're primal instincts to kill for stupid reasons may dwindle away. We are not that far along in that sense.

[Leonidas]

I wasn't saying that because we displayed this behaviour as a civilisation, other interstellar races will do the same! The universe is much more grandiose and diverse than what we can imagine, and the same is true for alien life-intelligent or not! We only have one example -us. The same approach astrobiologists take while trying to find life elsewhere. They start from 'life as we know it' and go from there.

Man can be the most barbaric creature or the most wise, intelligent and spiritual. Homo sapiens can be a brutal animal and can be 'human'. It's only a matter of choice. But the history of our civilisation, sadly shows that many times, man was the former and there's no reason to beleive that it will not be like that among the stars. When humans take the leap to the stars, they will likely take their human nature with them-good AND bad.

[mb]

Well if the 'comment of the day' is to be entirely believed we should have been wiped out by now... maybe we still live because of the many scientists who actually developed 'advanced technology', thought it would be the best if they did not publish their work so that other 'primitives' can survive unlike the 'gun-sword wielding predators' who claim to themselves intelligent...
Maybe 'the primitives' of past were much intelligent then today's 'predators' and were wiped out just because of their broad-mindedness....
Also a lion or a shark which is a predator should have become intelligent enough after thousands of years of its predatory behavior it should be more intelligent then a 'primitive' lion or shark....(seems highly unlikely).
And if the comment is true then we should welcome some more small wars,cold wars,world wars...after all it would make somebody "intelligent"....

[Jim Franklin]

I think that all he has done is state the bleeding obvious. Humans are a predatory omnivore, and it is this lack of specialised behaviour in nature that allowed us as a species to conquer new territories and ultimately the globe. These same instincts drove us to develop weapons to not only allow us to hunt better, but to defeat the competition. It is no real coincidence that the most prolific technological advancements have come in times of conflict, in the modern era it tends to be political conflict but conflict never the less.

Will a technically advanced species act the same, I think for the most part the answer will be YES, because I believe that should a species, humans included, lose this desire to conquer new territories, then the driving force to explore the stars will be lost and they will stagnate in their own planetary system. It is highly likely that in the very unlikely event a species does travel between the stars the species would have those predatory elements to their nature, whether they employ them when they encounter another advanced species is another question because that would be largely determined by culture and politics, and I do not think we can really prejudge what form they would take.

[Rajnish Roy]

“I don't believe for a second that highly sophisticated technological advancement (like interstellar travel) will make us less predators towards others. It never did."

Yes, technological progress per se does not change our primitive instincts of aggressiveness, anger and domination. But evolution is also at the level of intelligence, which is crucial for survival. Intelligence, as it evolves, discovers futility of certain primitive behavior and that is how slavery, racism and territorial expansionism do not have the same respectability as in the past. Civilizational progress means enhancement of the ability to subdue or outgrow from the primitive urges.

Also when humans travel beyond this tiny planet, the vastness and enormity of the universe would make them humble and realize how insignificant and mean they are with their primitiveness.

In sum, the technological progress over thousands of years (if we survive) will also entail growth of intelligence and positive aspects of our humanness.

[Rocker]

Our instincts as predators come down to a couple of basic points:

1. We need a high volume of protein to fuel the bigger brain and our high level of activity (everyone knows we spend an inordinate amount of energy just moving the muscles in our face and manipulating our hands/fingers).

2. If we didn't evolve into predators, we'd be prey. That rule might not apply to life in extraterrestrial ecosystems, but at some point, you'd have to figure advanced and motile life forms couldn't all be vegetarians. The "fuel" would have to come from somewhere, and what more effective way than other life forms in an ecosystem.

To be totally non-anthropomorphic about it, when you look in the mirror, you see a human being. When evolution looks in that same mirror, it sees an apex predator. Sharks, lions, eagles, wolves, velociraptors, crocodiles, humans . . . we're apex predators. We didn't ask for the niche . . . evolution handed it to us.

It doesn't mean we're evil, mean or inflexible. It just means we happened to evolve to the top of the food chain. What are we gonna do . . . blame sharks and wolves for eating everything they need? Why should we second guess our order in the food chain? It's who we are, and that is immutable.

[Q]

Thanks rocker. Finally, a voice of reason.

[resonanz]

To tone down the fierceness of this debate, “thinking/self-reflective omnivorous predator" should replace the simple “omnivorous predator” as a descriptor of humans. As human brain complexity has evolved we have developed control over our predator "instinct” (something animals have no control over) so that this instinct has become softened to a "behavior trait”, actions which we can choose to display or not, with all the in-between hues. Thus we have evolved the introspective ten commandments which include “thou shalt not kill”, and “..not steal”, etc., which a non-evolved animal (maybe here is a definition of ‘animal') can’t conceptualize. We wage wars but have evolved the “Geneva Convention” rules of war. We have stylized wars in our Olympic Games and current media sports. Most importantly, as the result of our self-reflective thinking, we recognize the terminal danger of atomic war. Our current state of evolution, accompanied by the technological products of our cognitive abilities, enables humans to draw voluntary boundaries on our core animal instincts. AND WE ARE STILL EVOLVING. Maybe ET is waiting until we evolve some more. And, this scenario makes it unlikely that ET will want to eat us - aside from our being food-wise incompatible with ET’s metabolism. (Has any scientist yet sampled a buffet lunch of sea life from the deep ocean thermal vents - the H2S odor alone might be deadly?)

[CRM]

MR: Who is made in the image of God? Humans or Aliens?

[..]

maybe just matter or wave energy, could be possible god is made from that same stuff.

could be possible we are god, part of the god organism.

could be god destroyed itself to form us.

could be a lot of things.

if i was a god i sure as hell wouldnt want to be human or inflict that on anything thinking its a good thing.