We are a very successful species. We have destroyed almost all large animals, except for those that we found useful as a source of food or as work animals. The only intelligent creature we met did not survive. After that we set out to eliminate the members of our species while looking for qualities in which they differ from us. We also want to meet aliens, really want to. The question is what will be the results of this meeting
It would be very nice if an intelligent race contacted us. We could cooperate in space exploration, in a deeper understanding of the forces that shape our common world. They would perhaps help in harnessing nuclear power in a way that would not harm us. We might have contributed to advanced metallurgy. who knows?
If an intelligent being ever wanted to contact us, it might be smart enough to find out how humans behave around them. In this aspect we not only have a problematic past, but also a present. In the book "A Brief History of Mankind" Yuval Noah Harari explains how man wiped out all the large animals that could not be used directly by him wherever he went. After that was eliminated he turned to his own kind.
The racism inherent in man was used to justify the cultural extermination and physical extermination of human groups. The attackers and the attacked were not genetically distant from each other. It was easy for the Spanish conquistadors to massacre the natives of Central and South America. It was easy for the Europeans to enslave the Africans. They did not feel close to each other. The Hutu and the Tutsi in Africa also did not feel close to each other, something that may have been significant when the Torah murderous violence broke out there. But the murderous hostility of Christians towards Jews cannot be a function of genetic distance, but only of cultural difference. Even less understandable is the joy of violence between Catholics and Protestants and the world today is rejoicing at the sight of Sunni Muslims beating everyone including Shia Muslims, and in at least one case of Sunnis beating other Sunnis in the name of Sunni Islam.
For those who want to delve deeper into the history of racism under scientific cover, Steven J. Gold's book The Mismeasure of Man, also published in Hebrew under the name "There is no measure for a man", is highly recommended.
The thing we love most is to rate. Who is the richest person in the world? Who is the fastest athlete? Who jumps the highest? The record holders are respected by us, although I'm not sure we know how to explain the reasons for this. We also collaborate. We have sports teams. They perform a kind of ritual combat where no one is supposed to die, although occasionally the fans of these teams kill each other, but this is really unusual. In any case - there is nothing more important to us than competitiveness, even when there is no useful achievement in it.
There was a single case known to us of two intelligent species living at the same time on Earth. One of them did not survive this encounter, although we currently have no clear knowledge of why.
We do not know what wiped out Neanderthal man, and there is no consensus whether it happened 40,000 years ago or just 24,000 years ago. One thing we know: the Neanderthals, who are not our ancestors but a side branch of the human family, are completely extinct. We also know that they arrived in Europe before our ancient ancestors, the Cro-Magnons. This is the only case known to us of two intelligent species living at the same time. The weaker one did not survive.
And on this optimistic note we set out to look for aliens. In 1960, the Ozma Project was initiated by the physicist and astronomer Frank Drake, the same Frank Drake who invented the Drake equation for estimating the amount of extraterrestrials in the galaxy that I mentioned in my previous article. As part of the project, with the help of a radio telescope, they searched for intelligent radio transmissions from nearby Saturn planets for 4 months.
In 1972 and 1973, two small spacecraft were launched with a message to the aliens. These were the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, and the message they carried was designed by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan (the late Carl Sagan was an American astronomer who contributed greatly to making astronomy accessible to the public, partly through his popular television series, "Cosmos"). At the same time, the "Ozma 2" project was started, where radio transmissions from extraterrestrials were again searched for 4 years. Today, several projects are underway to search for transmitters in radio waves from space under the name SETI. Millions of radio channels are endlessly scanned and analyzed by universities and private individuals in a combined effort, so far without results.
Pioneer spacecraft carried with them metal plates on which Sagan and Drake initiated messages. Let us examine some of these messages. We will ignore the fact that the cartoon characters are of the American ideal of beauty and not of average people in our world. We will also ignore the question of whether aliens will understand that a two-dimensional engraving on a metal plate represents three-dimensional bodies and creatures. Let's focus on the message itself.
The man raises his hand in what seems to us to be a universal greeting. With us it is a blessing of peace since we see that he has no weapon in his hand. Such a message can only be understood by another violent being. At the bottom of the board we see a schematic drawing of the sun and the planets as they were seen by the people of the seventies of the last century. Pluto was then still included in the list of planets and only Saturn then had rings. But we will ignore these inaccuracies in favor of the following detail: from the third planet, Earth, there is an arrow pointing to the Pioneer spacecraft that left it. Sorry. arrow? What is an arrow? An arrow is our intuitive way of indicating direction. We use for this a drawing of aerodynamic weapons. We grew up. We no longer shoot arrows but missiles that have the same structure.
So let's conclude: we are a very successful species. We destroyed almost all large animals, except for those that we found useful as a source of food or as work animals. The only intelligent creature we met did not survive. After that we set out to eliminate the members of our species while looking for qualities in which they differ from us. We also want to meet aliens, really want to. We are still masters of using aerodynamic weapons but we have turned to peace. Why don't you come?
More on the subject on the science website
- The first part of this series - Why haven't humans met aliens?
- What to do when aliens come?
- The enduring fascination of the Roswell incident is indicative of how we will behave when real aliens land here
- Stephen Hawking - the existence of primitive aliens is highly probable
43 תגובות
Dr. Yuval Rabinowitz:
Sorry for the delay, I wasn't on the site much and when I was - I didn't see your response.
You wrote: "We used violence. I don't know if this is the only way, but we have proven that it is possible. That's why it's at least a possible scenario in another intelligent creature."
The relationship between intelligence and violence is reversed.
The more a person becomes more mentally aware - he becomes more socially aware, meaning less violent in the broadest sense (humanity becomes wiser and "calms down").
We have proven that violence is possible with us, but there is no justification to conclude that it will also be possible with aliens.
We know only two things about aliens: that they are something alive and that they are unfamiliar to us.
It could be that we see aliens every day on a regular basis and they are simply so unfamiliar to our brain that it simply ignores their presence completely!
There is no factor with us that can be used to predict anything about aliens.
The chances are better to assume that the aliens are different from us in every possible factor due to the difference in the environment in which they were created and in which they live and the complete mismatch between the development of our culture and theirs (if they have one).
You also asked me to expand on "the matter of dividing people today into two types according to their level of intelligence".
You are probably familiar with the representation of the distribution of human intelligence using a Gaussian curve (semicircle).
As you move away from the center (95IQ-110IQ), the percentage of recurrence in the population decreases.
The controlling human society is the one in the center of the curve ("the majority rules").
Since geniuses are relatively few, less "predictable" and less functional than emotions and more "intellect", society sees them as a threat and therefore rejects them.
Differentiate from the other side of the curve (the mentally retarded) whom society does not feel threatened by and therefore does not reject them.
The geniuses can find a common language and do not shy away from each other.
All this creates a gradual division into two types according to intelligence, which will receive a jump when we reach the possibility of genetic improvement of intelligence.
But already in these days, a great many people with high intelligence and geniuses have difficulty and sometimes do not succeed at all in reaching relationships with people with average and low intelligence (not even in the sexual field, which does not require the display of a high cognitive ability from anyone, and not even in sex).
Such a situation can be called the appearance of another type of person who differs in his intelligence! (It doesn't really matter what prevents reproduction between similar animals, as long as it exists and that it is sweeping and not one-time).
Dear Mr. World Visitor,
I don't think all scenarios are equally likely. Every intelligent creature has overcome any obstacles on the way to its current status. We used violence. I don't know if this is the only way, but we have proven that it is possible. Therefore it is at least a possible scenario in another intelligent being.
Regarding the division of people today into two types according to their level of intelligence, I have no idea what this is about and I would appreciate it if you could elaborate.
"There was a single case known to us of two intelligent species living at the same time on Earth."
What's done is done.
Today, man is in the process of separating into two intelligent types of man.
An inevitable move caused by the inability of the average person to live together with those of high intelligence (there is no common language).
I don't think that this time man will do as before and wage war between the two types of man.
And as time passes, the difference between the two types only grows!
Mr. Dr. (Yuval Rabinowitz), by virtue of being a foreign life to us - any scenario that seems reasonable to us, is actually as reasonable as any other scenario!
None of us have any way of estimating what the aliens will do when they meet the human.
….and if we had anything to value, it would not be based on lessons from human history.
Whose is this stupid idea that a person has ownership of "intelligence" (that intelligent behavior is necessarily the behavior of the person)?
"Such a message can only be understood by another violent being" - but not so violent that he would not know the concept of peace.
I also don't see any logic that extraterrestrials would understand the "blueprints" on the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft.
Where is the assumption that they see or are able to feel the drawings, and even if they do, they may not see them at all.
We cannot know anything about the abilities of aliens, already due to the name we chose to call them - alien life (that we do not know).
...and even if they were just like us in terms of shape and color and I don't know what else - since they created some kind of "society" in a world that was not influenced in any way by our world, the chances are that their social fabric will be foreign to us just like its owners.
Even if they are violent - they didn't know what an arrow is, even if they are peace seekers - they didn't know what our "peace" means.
The chances are that even their way of definitions will be different from ours (that they will collect elements and situations of such and other types in a different order of size) and it is also likely that their verbal language, if it exists at all, will consist of a vocabulary of a different size than ours (the more intelligent they are - the vocabulary should be larger and the words themselves should express more).
Therefore, I see no chance that they will understand us.
If they are really, really smart and they watch us - they will probably understand that even we usually don't understand ourselves and others!
Mr. Cohen.
No. I believe that aliens have never met humans because intelligent life is extremely rare. In the present article I try to warn against contact with extraterrestrials because we do not know how they will behave, but a violent reaction is a likely scenario.
To Dr. Rabinowitz,
The title of the first article was: "Why haven't humans met extraterrestrials", and the title of the second, current article is: "Is it to meet extraterrestrials?" Is it for them to meet us?", and at the end of the article you wrote: "We are still the masters of using aerodynamic weapons but we have turned to peace. Why don't you come?" Is this actually the answer to the first article in your opinion? Do you think aliens don't meet with humans because they fear our violent nature?
Another point for thought, the doctor mentions the violence of humans, but are humans the only creatures that show violence between members of their own species or towards other species? Of course, all predators show violence towards other species they prey on, and there are also species that show violence towards members of their own sex: lions prey on lioness cubs in order to get them in a state where they want to mate again, chimpanzees join groups and attack rival groups, and of course males of different species fight over females of them Violence is one of the mechanisms of nature, because it is a survival advantage. If extraterrestrials are similar to us, it is very likely that they can also be violent, the question is how much relative to us...
To Lorem Ipsum and Albenzo,
Lorem Epsom actually came up with a nice idea, but the example he gave is a bit lame. The comparison between extraterrestrials and ants from the Earth doesn't go well, but there is no theoretical obstacle to having extraterrestrials that physically resemble insects, more than we do. From there, Albanzo is actually right. Even if insect-like aliens communicate through pheromones, that doesn't mean they can't express abstract ideas, and that would certainly be true if they were able to develop technology to reach Earth, or listen to its transmissions. This is no reason not to communicate with humans.
Skeptic, the dolphins and the monkeys were mentioned in the previous article, in the context of the development of a technological civilization. I suggest you read there and comment.
"There was a single case known to us of two intelligent species living at the same time on Earth."
Of course there was only a single case. After all, only humans are intelligent….. at least according to our opinion….
We know for sure that all dolphins and whales and all types of monkeys are not intelligent...
The writer suffers from a disease of growth that is rampant among our kind...
In short - you can understand the foreigners, who do not want to fly for several decades
To meet some arrogant monkeys.
What are the government's lies: "There is no money for health", "Iran is an existential threat", "We will solve the housing crisis" and more and more... and the fact that the Minister of Transportation continues to belittle the public, because he does not owe us an account. These are only for the "Supreme Leader" . If we adopt the alien mindset, and begin to understand that we are not living, and how we want to live. Because from a distance things look different.
Life, not binding. People think that Israel is a democracy. But they are afraid of the government. Because it is a fact that the state cheats and lies to the people and that's fine!
Human aliens…
They are not extroverts, they are autistic. they are total lost,
Sometimes a powerful person disconnects...
Recently there has been a lot of talk about public transportation on Shabbat, indeed it is an essential service like electricity or shops. But the Minister of Health and especially the Prime Minister have cut themselves off from the citizens of Israel (as if they were extraterrestrials). They are going to privatize the health services, so the poor will die more! The rich will pay more and get less! What is the health tax paid for?! If indeed there is divine providence? Why wasn't there a public outcry?
Albert
No nonsense - enough with the grandmother's stories.
questionnaire
Where did I attack you personally? I said what you say is not true.
Albert
It is true that there are many unknowns, but on what basis do you present the arguments to you. What are the sources you are basing yourself on and please without mysticism and without channels. Please present studies that you rely on and if so what kind of evidence, then everything you say is nothing more than gibberish.
Our knowledge of physics and the universe is like a drop in the ocean. There are infinite frequencies and different types of energy (including the "dark" matter that makes up 70% of the universe). We do not understand other dimensions that exist at the same time as ours, do not understand what gravity and space are, even research and try to understand what light is. In my opinion, the earth as we experience it is "protected" like a nature reserve and we actually live inside a "protected zoo" that prevents contact between us and other intelligent beings. What protects us, the religions called them "the world of angels" and their job is to protect the world. It is possible that there are beings made of pure plasma on the surface of the sun, but the "angels" prevent them and us from direct contact. Also, since ancient times, there have been direct connections with other beings, but today, the only records are stories and dreams. There is no evidence. This consistency, which has no proof, indicates that there are forces that protect us as a nature reserve separate from the entire universe, which is full of life of all kinds and dimensions.
Miracles and Haim I am here to take part in an interesting discussion, not to argue about personal background.
If the topic interests you then leave, but if it's an exchange of cynical comments
So maybe do it between you.
Miracles
Questionnaire lives in a bubble. It's a miracle she hasn't exploded yet. I hope he has enough oxygen in the bubble.
questionnaire
Is the world today like a few thousand years ago? The world today is completely different from the world in which I was born.
Where exactly do you live? 🙂
questionnaire
Every word he added is unnecessary. I mean exactly what I mean. The rest will start thinking. I asked you how we will live without reason? From the air, spirituality? I will go back and say what I have said many times. If I stand next to a ventilator I will be spiritual too.
Haim, are you ready to address the issue in a matter-of-fact way and not about skin color?
questionnaire
Why do I have the impression that your words emanate the writings of those who belong to the new age? Mysticism and mysticism again. If it's so bad for you, go to a desert island, live there and you'll be fine. Don't forget to take Sheshet with you, preferably Sanshu Panshu as well.
Apparently meeting aliens or their satellites is not the main concern, but loneliness
It is inhabited by creatures who call themselves humans on a remote planet in a somewhat distant galaxy.
They call themselves an intelligent species because of their limited ability to think, which has proven
itself mainly in the last 200 years.
Although they discovered a lot about the universe, natural sciences and various technologies, in social fields,
spiritual, physical and mental health, economy and government remained several thousand years without significant change.
Since what they call the technological revolution, their banner is their intelligence and as much as possible to create
A world that is based mainly on their intellect, thus also creates a disconnection in the experience of reality that they live.
The world of science becomes more and more theoretical, religions become organizations, everyday life is supported
By computers, governments distance themselves from the needs of the people, what we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner
He is information and the intellect is the flag.
No wonder we are so disconnected. Maybe the longing to meet aliens is the desire to be
More connected to the universe, to the real needs for which we live here, to the nature around us
And for ourselves - and not only in the mind.
Asaf
A doomsday vision indeed. The apocalypse in its pure embodiment. Are you not their historian by any chance?
Sde Karab Eretz, written by L. Ron Hubbard, later the founder of the Scientology theory: the story is about an alien spaceship that accidentally encounters a strange object (the Voyager spaceship). In the spaceship they find a tablet made of pure gold and a map to the planet where the gold deposits exist. They immediately turn to the same place where the local animals are being purified from dispersing toxic chemical gas in the atmosphere and begin to mine minerals.
Herzl
Explain to the people who live in Zion where your knowledge comes from while giving a list of sources.
It's easy to philosophize about aliens. But there are some basic problems:
A. As long as the theory of relativity limits the speed of propagation of information to the speed of light, how will communication be carried out with aliens 100 light years away? It is possible that we are still primitive in knowledge and technology and in the future a faster communication method will be discovered, so the search for aliens will become more realistic.
B. Chemically, most of the aliens will probably be poisonous and contact with them means instant death for the person making the contact. They may be DNA-based because there was probably a proliferation of DNA in the galaxy long before the sun was formed, but DNA can also be very harmful.
third. If there are aliens much more developed than us with the ability to move faster than the speed of light, why aren't they here yet?
d. It's pretty clear that there are bacteria-level aliens in the solar system wherever bacteria can survive. You have to wait patiently for the evidence. At a higher developmental level in other star systems - there probably are, but the speed of light, the speed of light...
Again, form is form and there is no content. It is not clear to me what amuses you, because I referred to your response. You are of course just saying things that sound like there is content behind them, but if you had an iota of content it would probably already appear here as a post.
So again you did exactly the same thing, you built a specific and delusional scenario in your head and you treat it as reality. True, if the universe is dotted with millions of intelligent civilizations that are all very, very, very similar to us, both in terms of biological structure and in terms of scientific and technological achievements, but the alien culture in question is for some reason very far from us but very close to the other cultures identical to us, so I do not argue that they may not will make an effort to contact us. But what you describe sounds like a bad movie, not like an attempt to explore the universe around us. There is no reason to believe any of the far-fetched ingredients you have cooked up here to arrive at this scenario. The bottom line, which you do everything possible to ignore (and the reason for this is what I wrote at the beginning of the comment), is that the idea of meeting another intelligent culture and being able to exchange ideas and insights with it, to study it as a culture and as a species, even if it is much less advanced than you, is an idea Fascinating and exciting that anyone who is not completely detached from scientific thought aspires to it passionately. Just as we have been trying for hundreds of years to learn as much as possible about the species around us, and to communicate with them if possible (perhaps you should do a little Google search just to get an idea of how much scientific research has been done on communication in great apes - in general between themselves and specifically in the context of the possibility of to create a form of communication, even if primitive, between a human and an ape).
In order to justify the fact that an intelligent race of aliens exists somewhere, is aware of our existence, is able to contact us but for some reason does not, one has to invent all kinds of delusional scenarios. And this is the basis for everything you have written so far - "How do I create a scenario where a foreign culture meets new intelligent life but does not want to make contact with it?".
Good luck later…
It's amusing to see who is talking here about "total disregard of what I wrote". Well, and then they want to create a dialogue with extraterrestrials. So come and tell me, why would your extraterrestrials, who both managed to develop a symbolic language and sufficient motivation to get here, be interested in you and your kind, when they have plenty of equally interesting specimens (according to them) not far from home?
Lorem,
Okay, so you completely ignored what I said, made some jokes, and established a fact on the ground that is based on nothing, that even if we knew how to talk to ants we wouldn't do it. Good. Successfully.
elbentzo
You wrote beautifully about the difficulties of encoding and decoding a language such as the language of ants, but you refer to a fundamental difficulty regarding this type of general language. The fact still stands that no one bothered to introduce themselves to the specific tribe "Yikklallepfets" (and now I noticed that the name of the tribe was omitted from my first notice, probably because it was surrounded by triangular brackets like these: ) which is located right next to the tree, 5 meters from the body of the hedgehog. In the first stage they would be happy to receive some message and decode it (probably as a declaration of war). I can only assume that the language will also be deciphered and you will find a way to convey messages to the pheromone language and everyone will be happy, there will still not be someone who will come to this tribe in a special way to say hello.
Lorem Ipsum,
Your comparison is bad. The *only* reason we don't communicate with fire ports in the Amazon is because we don't know how. We simply have no idea how to develop a dictionary between our language and their forms of communication (based on movement, pheromones, etc.). If we had any idea how to communicate with any other species, we would jump on it without hesitation. Nobel prizes would fly like hot cakes for such a development.
The (super reasonable) assumption is that a symbolic language based on letters is infinitely easier to translate than a form of communication based on smells. If any alien life form has achieved the ability for interplanetary movement, they must be capable of abstract thought and in particular symbolic thought. Just as humanity, which knows how to describe information symbolically, was able to translate every symbolic language it encountered (I remind you that throughout history different groups of the human race spoke several hundred different languages and all were successfully translated in the end), so it is reasonable to assume that another symbolically thinking culture could, in the end of a word, to translate our symbolic information.
Why do you even think outsiders would want to meet any of you? What did you, for example, do to meet a tribe of fire ants (to translate their pheromones into Hebrew letters) far away on the edge of the less explored tributaries of the Amazon? They would very much like to communicate with you. They even sent pheromone signals to communicate that they were present, and these reached an astronomical distance of 100 meters. They would be very happy if you contact them. They will work hard to decipher the pheromone signals you will leave for them, they will be determined to make a "culture exchange". They are interested in discussing the best methods for handling the eggs and larvae, and to investigate what is 200 meters away from the nest, another option is of course war. whatever their queen's pheromones dictate.
It says: "We are a very successful species"... and not her,
How do you measure the success of a species?
Is it capable of destroying its natural environment?
Is it able to eliminate the resources from which it exists?
Can he destroy his seat?
No, no and no...
In zoology (or biology) the success of a species is measured
During his lifetime, during the period in which he manages to exist (as a species),
We are surrounded by species that exist for tens and hundreds of millions of years,
The species we belong to has existed for about three million years
And our species... a few tens of thousands of years...
According to his behavior, the chances of his long-term survival... poor,
For now, this is a bad species!
But it says: "You chose us"...
God bless you!
Awesome, thanks.
The establishment's fear of revelations on this subject,
Creates unnecessary distortions.
This fear is designed to back up various religious factors,
which may collapse if the truth is revealed...
On the other hand,
There is no possibility of stopping the discovery of the truth, perhaps only delaying it...
Hanan Sabat
It's a bit embarrassing to attack SETI, claiming that they are attacking the UFO researchers.... You are allowed what the others are not allowed?
I ignore the fact that SETI is the serious body in this story…
Luckily for us, there are already some who have answered some of the questions:
http://www.stantonfriedman.com/index.php?ptp=articles&fdt=2006.11.10
And regarding the joke known as SETI, whose contribution to humanity amounts to a screen saver and a great deal of public noise aimed at providing a living for the group of researchers employed in the project, here is another article:
http://www.stantonfriedman.com/index.php?ptp=articles&fdt=2002.05.13
For those interested in receiving scientific and organized information on the subject, please contact the Israeli UFO Research Association and its Facebook group...
Hanan Sabat
Moses
What you write is called gibberish for advanced people.
Moses
What are you trying to say, and based on what?
jubilee
It's worth meeting extraterrestrials if only for one reason, curiosity.
Building science while striving for pure objectivity is a key to the extinction of the human race.