Alien Evolution Paths

[-Demosthenes-]

Yeah, maybe they just haven't discovered the other intelligences yet. Maybe the only kind of intelligent life that they can identify is the humanoid one. Like if an ooze was intelligent then how would anyone know? If it doesn't talk like us, and it doesn't look like us no one would ever suspect it...

[Radical Edward]

neanderthal man is not really an example of parallel evolution, since it started from a very similar stock. The question I suppose is over whether evolution from two completely independent start points would end up the same. Personally I doubt it - There are a number of attributes of our physiologies that are there for largely historical reasons, for example the bone structure in the ear is a derivation of the reptillian jaw bones via the therapsid line, and our tooth arrangement is also related to this. Having a joint food/wind pipe may well not happen again (though looking at early organisms I can see it happening in a similar way. Furthermore, many of our traits are neotenic characteristics, and it is questionable whether those would arise again.

 

I would imagine that other advanced life forms would be chordates, and perhaps even vertebrates, but this is for practical reasons in the early organisms, where being a chordate is very useful, and allows certain flexibilities not really seen in other symmetries. How many legs/appendages they have though I would suspect would vary quite significantly.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

Yeah, maybe they just haven't discovered the other intelligences yet. Maybe the only kind of intelligent life that they can identify is the humanoid one. Like if an ooze was intelligent then how would anyone know? If it doesn't talk like us, and it doesn't look like us no one would ever suspect it...

It would just silently sit there, plotting to take over the world. I remember a movie where this blob took over an airliner.

Radical ++++++ said:

The question I suppose is over whether evolution from two completely independent start points would end up the same.

Yeah, neanderthal and homo erectus were near, and were living on a planet with conditions like each other, so they were likely to adapt similarly.

[Sayonara]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

Yeah, neanderthal and homo erectus were near, and were living on a planet with conditions like each other, so they were likely to adapt similarly.

The fact that they had a common ancestor and the short time scales (in evolutionary terms) would have had a lot more to do with it than their environment.

[-Demosthenes-]

Yeah, Well duh! There were alot of animals on the earth, and they didn't all evolve into the same thing, it was pretty much assumed. Thx for correcting it though, I guess...

Anyway, If you think about it if plants are completely as intelligent as us, how would we ever know?

[Pinch Paxton]

That's a good question. It has an answer, I am trying to figure it out. It puts an aspect on intelligence that we don't often consider. Intelligence is thought, but not just any thought, it is a constructive thought. It could be part of a constructive argument. This is as far as plants could get. So we are talking of communication, and nothing more. So how far can communication go as far as intelligence is concerned? For a plant, you would have to decide what is important for that plant? Dropping seeds at the right time, attracting insects to carry pollen. These two things are both physical. Most physical things are dependant on your growth patterns. Plants can't drop seeds all of the time, and there is no indication that they can change colour, but they may be able to send out a scent that attracts insects. If the scent is the only creative response that they can produce then they cannot be intelligent. They can communicate, but the most that they could pass on to another plant would be, "I've invented a new scent!" If you see what I mean..

 

Pincho.

[Radical Edward]

memes.

[Sayonara]

Communication is not the same as "a response to a stimulus".

[Pinch Paxton]

I didn't mean response to the insect, I meant response to the other plant life, as a response is another name for a message. Plants can send each other signals somehow, I'm not sure how they do it.

[-Demosthenes-]

That doesn't mean that they aren't intelligent.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

or that they are!

Plants could be silently plotting how to take over the world and we wouldn't know!

[Sayonara]

READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE YOU START BASHING KEYS.

 

"If the scent is the only creative response that they can produce then they cannot be intelligent."

 

FFS.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

There actually was a New Scientist article about how they sense other roots and stuff and work away from them, they grow towards the place with most light, and whatnot. It said they must have more intelligence then stimulus responce!

FFS?

[-Demosthenes-]

"That doesn't mean that they aren't intelligent."

Read mine.

 

Why would that make them unintelligent huh? Why? Yeah that's what I though, you got nothin'. There's a bunch of ways that plants react. I read an article where a plant reacted badly when a scientist boiled a lobster alive right next to it, I think.

[Pinch Paxton]

You need to decide on a boundry line for intelligence. I'm not counting reaction as intelligence. I'm not even counting communication as intelligence. It's what is being communicated that is important. Plants can't move much, and they can't create much, so their speech would not involve much in the way of gaining anything from each other. A weather report is probably the highest intelligence that a none moving plant could achieve. A venus fly trap might be able to use its movement to a useful advantage, and from that movement gain the ability to play a musical instrument, that is the not the highest level that it could achieve. Intelligence requires a response that is quite obvious. Lets say that plants were humans trapped in a plant body. You have no way to move, and your senses are greatly reduced. All of your life as a plant you have plant-like urges, not human urges. Your greatest desire is to be in sunlight, so you can lean a bit. Now you need to think what you are going to say to another plant. The important information would be, lean 3 o clock, fill leaves with poison because animal approaches. That is all of your goals achieved. Humans are hunters, and require games of Darts, pool, archery. Maybe art is a perception test. Music? Maybe a message system using drums. Elements of intelligence seem to be necessary for the type of survival tactics that the creature practices. That's why I don't think that plants are intelligent.

[-Demosthenes-]

Ah, becasue they don't need it. But maybe they did once, and it hasn't evolved out becasue it didn't hurt them. We don't know.

[Sayonara]

-Demosthenes- said in post # :

Ah, becasue they don't need it. But maybe they did once, and it hasn't evolved out becasue it didn't hurt them. We don't know.

No.

[Sayonara]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # :

There actually was a New Scientist article about how they sense other roots and stuff and work away from them, they grow towards the place with most light, and whatnot. It said they must have more intelligence then stimulus responce!

FFS?

These are static mechanisms.

 

You know how auxin stimulates the growth of plant cells, and is broken down by light, so if the plant is covered auxin isn't broken down and there's a growth spurt (etiolation) to get leaves back in the light?

 

Same thing. No Assembly Required.

[-Demosthenes-]

Sayonara³ said in post #42 :

No.

Sadly I must agree that this is immposible, I was trying to show that if they were we could never know. Sorry for bringing the thread a little too far from the subject.

 

(someone deleted my post you jerk )

[Sayonara]

Yes, funny that. Funny how pointless posts keep getting deleted after you've been warned about making pointless posts, and it was promised they'd be deleted.

Don't make me add Disrespecting a Forum Leader.

 

Incidentally, it's not entirely impossible; it's just that not only is there no evidence to support it, but most of the evidence is actually against it.