Re: Intelligent life in the universe, and would they really want to talk to us?


Damien Sullivan wrote:
"Jordan" <JSBassior2001@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'll add to my list of
possible sapients all the species of whales, some of which have
similarly vast long-range audio communications capabilities.

I'd like to see raccoons and bears tested too. Basically anything decently
social and/or dexterous.

Those are good points. Raccoons in particular seem to be smarter than
their cousins, dogs and bears. They also have rather good hands for a
non-primate.

fully-sapient species (humans); furthermore all other marginally- or
pre-sapient species but the parrots are mammals. And the parrots

Corvids are generally considered pretty smart, especially the biggest ones,
ravens.

Corvids also seem to have better _innate_ counting ability (*) than
either parrots or primates. (We humans can only innately count to about
five; we use language to create mathematical systems that let us handle
bigger numbers).

Now, this sort of a negotiation would actually be fairly practical with
gorillas; they are not all that aggressive an ape to begin with. But

I was gonna say... chimps, now, might be another matter.

Yes, actually chimps are a lot more dangerous than gorillas. This is a
perfect example of why aggression is often more dangerous than raw
strength: get a gorilla mad, he's likely to hit you until you fall
down (**), then crow his victory and leave you alone. Get a chimp mad,
he's likely to keep hitting and biting you until you're _dead_. Also,
chimps are far more likely to get mad at you than are gorillas.

Bonobos may be easier to work with: their society is naturally more
peaceful than that of their bigger cousins. On the other hand, it will
be interesting to see how bonobos adapt to human constraints on the
public display of sexuality, since their society achieves its
peacefulness by resembling a travelling porno movie ...

I don't know if "lets them be powerful enough to force such a contract"
is a good rule, because a species may be less powerful than ourselves,
to the point that we can easily kill its members, and yet worth
preserving and acknowledging its sapience and hence rough moral
equivalence. Some aspects of "powerlessnes," when combined with modern

Well, social contract theory doesn't force you to be mean, it just says you
don't have an obligation to be nice, which seems like recognizing unpleasant
reality. If you want to be nice go ahead, and protect them from others.

I do think that it will, in the long run, be to our advantage to be
nice to the marginally- and pre-sapient animals. This is because the
ethics we develop today we will teach our children tomorrow, and some
of those "children" may be superhuman aintellects. How will they treat
_us_?

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

(*) The ability to hold quantities of discrete objects in our heads
_without_ requiring conceptual thought.

(**) Given gorilla strength, the requisite number of hits is probably
"one" for most human opponents ...

.

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