From: v054p8yx@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel J Kowalski)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp
Subject: Re: Alien Generation
Keywords: Needed: alien aliens.
Date: 7 Apr 92 20:53:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: acsu.1992Apr7.195428.8458
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Mar30.013603.12616@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, 
	jdnicoll@watyew.uwaterloo.ca (James Davis Nicoll) writes...
>In article <204090@unix.cis.pitt.edu> seawasp+@pitt.edu (Ryk E Spoor) writes:
>>
>>	As a long term reader of SF and a long term gamer, this is the
>>attitude I most DISAGREE with in the SF  genre.
>>
>>	The example above is an excellent illustration of WHY I don't
>>believe it. Sure, the aliens may have SOME bizarre ideas, based on the
>>world they grew up on, but I don't believe they would have anything
>>more alien than some human cultures.
>>	Intelligence becomes dominant because its presence in an organism
>>gives it a survival advantage. An intelligence that accepted the death
>>of itself and its relatives without a fight would be countersurvival.
> 
>	Ah, but the excellent jest might be that the reproduction of that
>particular species only occurs after conditions become hostile; otherwise
>they look sterile.There are plants which require forest fires to germinate;
>a race of ets with a similar reproductive system might appear self 
>destructive if the humans weren't aware of the reproductive pattern.

the plants germinate upon exposure to great amounts of heat (some sort of shell
which is cracked or something) the heat is most often associated with forest
fires, these same fires destroy large amounts the forest thus allowing sunlight
to reach the earth where these seeds are germinating. without this destruction
the germinating plant would have no sunlight and thus no chance of survival

this "behavior" would only occur in a very crowded environment ie. there is
little chance of the offspring suviving without massive wholesale death of 
the current population. and intelligent race would imho(and authorities
on such subjects will (hopefully (ie. i recall they do but i can not prove 
it)tend to back me up) eliminate such competion (or _most_ living things would
for that matter (survival of the fittest)) 

a race which must be mostly eliminated to reproduce would not likely become
intelligent, as the knowledge could not readilly be passed on (yeah write it 
down, but if you're dead who will teach the kiddies to read?)

if this was a viable way of life the the great pines would be the most 
intelligent creatures on this planet as it is we who live well into the lives
of our offspring use said pines to sit upon, heat our environment, store 
information(paper)etc.

the plants in question evolved that way because the environment was so 
competitive that intelligence was to long term a propositon to be viable
one would assume that this could be considered an evolutionary law:
 "if competion is to fierce, intelligence will not develop"
and would apply everywhere
defining "to fierce" is then the question, if large portions of the 
population must be destroyed to ensure suvival (were talking same race here)
then imho it is "to fierce"!

> 
>	I can imagine a nice race of ETs who hold incredibly destructive
>'wars' on regular basis. Perfectly pleasant people but the kids don't 
>show up unless you heat the parent to 1500 degree celcius...
> 
>	[What, use kilns? That's artificial incindiarisation, which the
>church of Zog knows is immoral. If Zog didn't want firestorms, he would have
>denied us use of h-bombs].
> 
>	I suspect that *if* you have complete information on the circumstances
>the ETs evolved in, their foibles make sense. If you don't, they may not.
> 
>	Aliens get to use reproductive strategies far, far outside those
>of humans. Since a fair chunk of our society is to produce and raise viable
>kids, whatever portions of our social behavior that are dependent on how 
>we reproduce would be different for ETs.

but is not that fair chunk what in fact caused us to become an intelligent
race? there are rules to evolution, you may not know them, i couldnt tell
you them, and in fact no human can at this point profess to know and 
understand them all, but some we can figure out
if one can find a book which explains how we think intelligence develops
this would be a good reference for the development of alien cultures
you simply take the rules and push them (do not fold spindle or mutilate 
them just push them a little) as far as common sense allows then come up 
with a reasonable race
it is my belief that you can not get to far from human culture and still 
have the proper conditions for developing intelligence

> 
>>	Intelligence will share a lot of hallmarks no matter WHERE it goes.
>>If it is REALLY so alien that you can't understand it, well, is it 
>>intelligent? I don't think so. Maybe ants are "intelligent" in that
>>alien way you're talking about, but then there is no real meaning to
>>the word INTELLIGENT. I prefer to make the simpler assumtion: that
>>intelligence will develop and progress in basically our own manner: it
>>promotes and enhances the survival of the race by giving it greater
>>control over the environment,  and the mind will then be essentially a
>>survival-tool-cum-weapon-cum-language processor. A tendency to violence
>>or at least the aggression of the more belligerent vegetarians will be
>>likely, and so on and so forth.
>>
>>	They may LOOK strange, but I doubt that they will  THINK so
>>strangely.
> 
>	I expect ETs will think rather strangely, if the context they
>evolved in isn't taken into consideration. It would be odd if two species
>evolved on different worlds shared the exact same behavioral repertoire.
> 
>							James Nicoll 

but as i have already repeated repeated myself can intelligence evolve
in very different ways?

		dan