Alien Evolution Paths

[NavajoEverclear]

setting aside the usually omitted fact that i don't believe in evolution (in the degree accepted by science) here begins an endless question:


What ideas do you have of evolution paths of other worlds? What would be the factors to it (different combinations of minerals abundant beside water)? Would they develop Bacteria, protista, how could they be different? Maybe even something as simple as DNA would exist (be developed) in a completely different system, possibly changing the form of life in a way we cannot comprehend. Contemplating the possibilities could be impossibly abstract in comparison to common thought born out of interaction with our own enviroment. Probably an impossible question as it leaves so many possibilities, but i'm interested in some really creative ideas.

Ready, set, be brilliant! . . . . or something . . . .

[YT2095]

it is indeed! an open door to wild speculation :)

Ambient temperature would be factor
natural Gravity would also dictate partly the shapes and sizes of such beings
Light is also another factor as would be the atmosphere (you`ve already stated water).
we are in fact beginning to notice the dramatic effects of global warming here on our own planet and that`s only by a few digits rise behind the decimal point of deg C average per annum.
and look at the variety we have here in the way of lifeforms, some will die or be forced to move, the fact that I can now grow plants that 20 years ago would have only lived several degrees of latitude South of here is an indication of the factors involved, and these are only TINY in comparrison as to what COULD be out there on a different world.
it would be impossible to determine what life(aliens) would be like, and any attempt would be pure fiction without knowing the details of the "home planet" and then it would be educated guesses at best :)

[Sayonara³]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3472179.stm

I want to hit those two with a stick. A big stick, with splinters on it.

[Gampin]

What do you think of the possibility of being silicon based instead of carbon based? Both can form four bonds.

Where are the Martians anyways? I heard they're underground.

[JaKiri]

Gampin said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=37770#post37770):
What do you think of the possibility of being silicon based instead of carbon based? Both can form four bonds.

http://scienceforums.net/forums/search.php?s= has the answer

[aman]

If we look at different time frames also, we could have life at different paces, maybe even intelligent in a different phase.
At high speed, coral can be seen over history scuttling around to the best warm feeding spots and look like a many celled organism oozing over the surface of the Earth.
If the Earth was alive I think it would call Dr. asteroid belt to send a pill to stop it's terrible skin condition.
Just aman

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

A classic example of the problem of being too humanoid is Star Trek. I mean, not everyone will speak English, and they certainly won't just be a human with a pointy ear. That's just silly.
Unless a planet could sustain life a long time, it's unlikely they would be intelligent.

[greg1917]

Unless a planet could sustain life a long time, it's unlikely they would be intelligent.

The problem there is what qualifies as a 'long time'?

In terms of the point where it is commonly theorised that life began, and the present, may be a very small fraction of the actual planets total existence from formation to present.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Well, as you can tell, humans took a darn long time to become this intelligent. It's more like they would take plenty of time. Millions of years.

[greg1917]

Seeing as present cosmological theories estimate the age of the earth to 4 billion years old, thats peanuts. And seeing as many planets could have been around longer, that could be smaller peanuts. or even fractions of peanuts. Hell, maybe even not nuts at all.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

A quark of a nut.
And, also, they could have existed long ago and have gone extinct, or something like that.

[Sayonara³]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=37852#post37852):
A classic example of the problem of being too humanoid is Star Trek. I mean, not everyone will speak English, and they certainly won't just be a human with a pointy ear. That's just silly.
Unless a planet could sustain life a long time, it's unlikely they would be intelligent.
In Star Trek a heuristic universal translator is used to translate languages. It's not without its problems (see all of Ent season 1, TNG "Darmok").

In TNG "The Chase" it was discovered that most humanoid races were seeded across the galaxy from the DNA of a long-extinct parent race, hence the similarities in overall form.

[-Demosthenes-]

Maybe a humanoid is the only type of creature that can ever become intelligent.
?????

[NavajoEverclear]

Are you are religious man demosthenes? cause that's a pretty crackpot idea, sorry to be so direct, but in evolutionary terms thats a pretty ridiculous idea. We're talking about alien evolution paths. On our planet it started with bacteria, maybe thats not the only possible form of life, in which case the divergence of similiarity to earth organisms would be immense. Intelligence could be reached in an entirely different form. You'd really have to free your mind to imagine what might arise.

[NavajoEverclear]

or woman

[alt_f13]

Sayonara³ said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=37897#post37897):

In Star Trek a heuristic universal translator is used to translate languages. It's not without its problems (see all of Ent season 1, TNG "Darmok").

In TNG "The Chase" it was discovered that most humanoid races were seeded across the galaxy from the DNA of a long-extinct parent race, hence the similarities in overall form.

So there.

 

Those were also two of the coolest episodes, totally sidestepping two of the greatest flaws generated by the initial series.

 

I mean, it was supposed to be like that.

[Sayonara³]

"The Inner Light" owned both of those episodes :D

[creature]

What is the probability of paralell evolution? Just is science fiction?

[atinymonkey]

Quite good, looking at the latest findings of Neanderthal man. The Neanderthal looks to have not been in our genetic ancestry at all now; the Homo erectus was positioned in Africa and came up to the north where the Neanderthal man was based. Evidence showed both living at the same time, and therefore Neanderthal was a parallel evolution (that failed).

[creature]

Hmmmmm, I wonder if it could occur on a larger scale like two similar planets. The human form is a rather good, but there are numerous possible improvements.

[aman]

Science is based on the ability to replicate experiments and arrive at the same results each time.
Given the same components and the same external forces, the same result should be arrived at.
We have an idea of a pathway from goo to man in our enviroment and the pathway should be just as valid anywhere else in the universe. We also have possible examples of parallel evolution in the fossil records.
I'm inclined towards believing we will find lots of separate humanoid developments in the history of our universe.
Just aman

[-Demosthenes-]

Maybe I've said this before, but maybe the form of humanoid is the only form that can evolve intelligence? This is somewhat related to my two hands theory.

[Crash]

Im inclined to disagree with you there, but then again how far does your "definition" of humanoid goes, just bipedal carbon based life forms? or beyond
I would say intelligent life could exist in quite a few forms though, but manipulating their enviroment is key

[Sayonara³]

-Demosthenes- said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=43257#post43257):
Maybe I've said this before, but maybe the form of humanoid is the only form that can evolve intelligence? This is somewhat related to my two hands theory.
You can't unilaterally rule out intelligent, non-humanoid life based on the wild assumptions you call a theory.

Unless of course you demonstrate it on an interstellar scale, and others can repeat your results.

[Pinch Paxton]

There are a number of possibilities in scale I guess. Star Trek has a limited budget, and it has to make a story each week, but it is not the humanoid appearance that is so far out, but the height of the people. I can see anything from microscopic intelligence, up to huge giants. Also, water based intelligence like Dolphins, maybe dolphins are more intelligent than we believe.

Pincho.

[-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 # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=43326#post43326):
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.

[Sayonara³]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=43455#post43455):
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.

[Sayonara³]

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! :eek:

[Sayonara³]

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.

[Sayonara³]

-Demosthenes- said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=43829#post43829):
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.

[Sayonara³]

Cap'n Refsmmat said in post # (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=43808#post43808):
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 (http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=43832#post43832):

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 :D )

[Sayonara³]

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.