Ok, here is a hypothetical question


I've heard a lot of ideas about hypothetical contacts with aliens including exchange of scientific knowledge, philosophy, coexistence, learning from each other etc which I think are silly in case they were more intelligent , but
what is your opinion, if we met with a vastly higher intelligence, (say as much more intelligent than humans as human is more intelligent than a dog), how should they treat us.

Would tracking study and abduction be immoral for them to do? And if yes (just a control question) do you at the same time think that abductions, tracking etc of wild animals are immoral too?

Should they not even let us know they are there not to disturb us?

Should they come down and play games with us (like we do with dogs),

or should they train us (teach us) like we do with dogs

or anything that comes to your mind

I don't think they would tell us what they were up to or about to do anymore than we would try to explain to a butterfly our goals.

I've always had problems with "more intelligent" beings treating less intelligent beings as animals. If the universe is so big, shouldn't it be a major discovery to meet other intelligent civilizations, and interact with them? Who is to say that we are not ready? Or that we are too dumb to understand? We teach our own young a lot of things, and without that knowledge, what would they be?

There is also a difference in animal and intelligence. Cows, for example, will not understand why they are being experimented on, because they can not learn to interact with humans. They can, however, be frightened and feel pain. Besides, when we do experiment with them we don't abduct them in the middle of the night and make their memories go away, do we?



I think they should. To regard us as less intelligent because they think so doesn't make it right for them. After all, this is our planet, our lives and our privacy they disregard in order to make some tests.



But then again, butterflies haven't built civilization like we have. In a million years, they changed appearance, while we've gone from cave to city.

No, what I was getting at was that would we understand anything they were trying to tell us - similar to a butterfly trying to understand anything we would be saying to it.

Of course, this only applies, taking it for granted that there is more superior intelligent life out there

JC are you saying that human intelligence is the highest possible intelligence in the universe?
Are you saying intelligence won't evolve further so much that our current intelligence is like a dogs intelligence to some future intelligence or alien intelligence?

It only comes naturally that to a higher intelligence, we WOULD be to dumb to understand some of the things it does

Why should a alien race care if they decided to treat us badly.





So.

It does not matter if we have built civilization it does not mean an Alien race would still take interest and want to share knowledge or technology with us that could in the end lead to possible trouble for them. Also a Alien race does not have to like us or be nice to us if it came into contact with us.

Wouldn't a higher civilization be aware of this? Back to the butterfly example - true, it wouldn't understand a thing if we talked to it in english - but if we are so advanced, why not create a computer that understands "butterflyish", so to speak? I mean, we don't tell a newborn the most advanced mathematical formula. The only problem I can see is difference in language.



Not at all. Last I heard, we're still developing.

What I'm trying to say is that a higher intelligence would probably be aware of our intelligence, and thus try to communicate on a level we would understand. Of course, this is assuming they want to communicate with us. But I find it difficult to believe that a civilized, intelligent and peaceful civilization would be so arrogant to think that we wouldn't even begin to understand. For that matter, give us one single sentence and let us figure it out! As far as I know, they haven't even tried.



That is just an assumption. How do you know intelligence don't have a limit? We've been around for millions of years, yet only humans have advanced intelligence, followed by apes and dolphins. But we don't know if there even is anything out there, let alone such an advanced form of life that somehow have lost it's ability to talk to less advanced species. Maybe they haven't figured out our language? Maybe they don't have the organs for our sound and language?

I'm saying that we give aliens the credits of being so intelligent, but how intelligent are they if they can't even communicate with primates like us?

They probably could communicate with us, without any form of machines or anything else. However, from what can be witnessed on this, sometimes, Godforsaken planet, I dare say, they choose not to.

I agree, but that is different. That is a reason as to why they don't want to communicate with us, not why we wouldn't understand them.



I agree that in the scenario of first contact can be tricky and difficult for both parties. We may sound like idiots to them, and they like Hitler to us. But why wouldn't an intelligent civilization understand this? They could just tell us that they are rude and dull in conversations, and that is their way of life, just as we could tell them that we are peaceful and kind (or whatever).

I killed a fly the other day simply because I didn't want it in my house. I don't care about killing them because they are unintelligent and small in size. Lets hope that any aliens we meet don't treat lower life forms in the same way we do, otherwise we might be in trouble. If they view us as unintelligent and we start to annoy them, they might get out the fly swatter.

For those of you who think this is ridiculous, how arrogant are you to think that human beings are the pinnacle of intelligence in the universe? A race that is capable of inter stellar travel has no doubt been evolving for millions of years. Millions of years of evolution. Millions of years of becoming more and more intelligent.

The human race may become just as intelligent in time, but our race is still young in the grand scheme of things. Studies prove that our base IQ is slowly going up at a rate of around 3 points every 20 years. In another millions years we might start to catch up to races who have been around much longer than we.

It's difficult to even grasp such a concept because as humans, we have yet to encounter anything smarter than we are.

Just my opinion ;-)

I don't think we would be the ones calling shots in this situation. Besides, if there is an intelligence higher and more evolved than humans, I trust it more than our own.

Agreed.

We share the same environment with creatures that do not have the same level of self awareness. We live in 'our houses' and 'our houses' become infested with pests seeking shelter. A lower lifeform does not understand the fact that the house is 'ours'.

Secondly, someone mentioned a butterfly as an example of a lifeform that doesn't deserve a great deal of scurtiny compared to us because we have mastered the concept of Civilization. However, civilization is just a noun that denotes the intelligent thinking that has gone into founding our communities...

however lower lifeforms have also invested a great deal into making sure their communities survive. Ants, bees and termites live in communties, Monkey's and apes live in structured communities, and even the most basic 'family unit' in animals are a way of maintaining a structured way of ensuring the next generation does not die out.

Our 'civilization' is just a more involved method of that basic animal community.

Therefore it would be very plausible to believe that if an intelligence with a more involved civilization than ours did indeed visit our part of the universe, then surely our communities would hold as much interest to them as bees or ants do to us.

Two points, I read that as soon as humans treated animals as expendable, humanity lost the agreed protection from being treated the same...I don't believe this, but it is wort thinking about, squash a fly, and you become a potential target...Absolute crap huh?

The other point. I know this as fact, there are far less intelligent sentients than humans floting around out 4th dimension, though they are with the advantage of being semi visible, humanity are not at the bottom of the so called food chain.

But if we all agree with zoos and prisons, why not gain the same treatment from higher evolved zoo animals like these smelly greys. Well, I am not sure if they actually are higher than humans,


And just one more point..lol. The human brain is still on average only 4% active. Except for those who take time away from distractions and train their minds, humans are going to be a lower spieces, when they are supposed to be on the same level as these freaky deakies. True or true?

But get this, many cases of domestic dogs playing mind control on humans have been reported, just like the big cats like the mountain lion that use telepathy to hypnotize or intuit the move of their prey. Fact.

I would think that any 'higher intelligence' would recognise that humans are thinking, rational (mostly) beings. Any ill-treatment of us by an alien 'higher intelligence' would likely have nothing to do with intelligence but everything to do with either the fact we would be alien to them (in effect, racism [speciesism???]), or that they have a very different morality to us.

Morality is not dependent (as far as I know) on intelligence.

I suspect not many here took the trouble to read Alien Mind - a Primer. The link was posted at this forum on another thread. http://www.alienmindbook.org/

It is a 200 page book with many references to other material of this nature. I do not agree with all the conclusions but I do agree that for the most part we humans do not want to know what is going on around us. We talk about the believers concepts vs non-believers desire for logical proof while events are happening all the time.

As I see it, the ET community is not unlike our own human grown version of diverse thinking and degrees of awareness. The most evolved awareness out there will let us choose to step into there relm of awareness or pass away if we so choose to do that. It is the power mad leaders we have selected to follow that has kept the proof of ET's presence hidden from us.

However time is running out and the voting for our survival as a human race has already begun. If we do not care what is going on around us, why should we expect any one else would.

John

Yes, but humans, if shown, are capable of learning the processes, methods, and reasons for which a higher intelligence decides to do what it does, and how it builds what it does. Insects are not capable of this with us.

And to expand on that - were not these aliens once as "barbaric" as we were/are? Didn't they have wars and conflicts, didn't they experiment on their animals for their own sakes?



Fact?

What I find interesting is that based on eyewitnesses, pictures and videos (abductions and "some physical evidence"), we give these aliens almost god-like status. They are too intelligent to bother with our little stupid and evil planet, yet they come to this place and despite their unending knowledge and intelligence manages to crash here. What I find more (un-) incredible is the safety methods they use. What, are they standing in the middle of their craft, expecting to survive a head-on crash at 1000 mph?

I humbly agree with this.

Nothing you just said is a fact. We use 100% of our brains. Thats a fact. That whole notion got started because of quote taken out context fifty years ago. Every part of brain fires, every part is used.

It depends how many other species of intelligent life there are in the universe that the alien civilisation is aware of.

If there are relatively many of us, then we're just another entry in the galactic catalogue.

If there are relatively few, then they might choose to genetically enhance some of us, in order to bring about a fast track evolution, without disrupting us as a species. Of course, to do it right, you'd want to reduce the number of humans, so that your genetically enhanced humans would stand a better chance of survival statistically, and reduce the maximum human lifespan, so that you'd evolve through generations quicker.

All of which, has surprising similarities with the story of Noah and the flood...