What do we do if SETI is successful?

Humans and dogs have evolved together to be cooperative…

would you feel common ground with a predatory fish? Or a plant? An insect colony?

> would you feel common ground with a predatory fish?

The fish needs to eat, I need to eat. The fish has the drive to procreate, so do I, or at least I have a sex drive.

> Or a plant?

We both need sunlight to live, we both require a breathable atmosphere. We both need water.

> An insect colony?

Much of the above applies here as well, in addition to that I can see similarities between a large insect colony and our large cities, how things move, how roads and buildings are adjusted for efficiencies, how bad actors can harm the system.

Yes, I can see common ground between myself and all three of those things you listed.

Not the parent comment but what's your point? You can't use that common ground for anything, let alone communication, can you?. The fish wants to fuck? You want to too, what now? How do you stablish a common ground to understanding based on such things?

And yet, look at how pretty much every human society deals with immigrants/refugees. We most often find the least common ground between races, ethnicities, nationalities, or any other way to create outgroups, and you think humanity will handle an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization well?

We all share many similar biological imperatives And these contrived examples because we all evolved on the same planet. Even the worst case scenario of the Dark Forest has many anthropomorphic priors within.

Imagine an intelligent shade of blue. Thank you, Douglas Adams. I suspect we have no idea WTF is out there and I'm not a carbon chauvinist like Carl Sagan was. But I wish I would have lived long enough to find out and I suspect that won't be the case.

> Imagine an intelligent shade of blue

A finite intelligence, willing to talk across the galaxy, talking in finite sequences, using engineering and maths?

I'm sure there's a lot of universal aprioris

> We most often find the least common ground between races, ethnicities, nationalities, or any other way to create outgroups, and you think humanity will handle an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization well?

But we find PLENTY of common grownds when we talk to the smartesr of those groups and races, across milenia and continents via groups, scientific forums, discussion books.

We find very little common grounds when we have forced encounters with the uneducated trouble makers up to no good, in systems designed for high trust abused by said individuals.

> We find very little common grounds when we have forced encounters with the uneducated trouble makers up to no good, in systems designed for high trust abused by said individuals.

I'd bet good money lots of non-Western European civilizations had that same thought after the English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. rolled up on their shores.

There's also a lot of "universals" that people take for granted as universal when it really isn't universal.

Things off the top of my head that humans usually take for granted as "universals":

- Separation of memory and DNA. What if memories were stored in DNA and can be passed between individuals?

- Inability to share memories. What if memories can be passed around like semen and sweat?

- Inability to easily read others' minds. What if kissing/touching someone would share all of each others' thoughts? How would that alien society develop differently?

- Existence of the ego. What if they live in a constant state of ego death, like some humans on certain drugs?

- Separation of the id and the superego. This is... one way to solve an alignment problem, I suppose. Imagine a species which replaced their sense of hunger/sexual craving, with a craving for morality. And they execute creatures like humans when they see a human do anything immoral, such as eating an ice cream when it can reduce your lifespan and thus deprive your children of a parent, or deprive your society of tax dollars.

- And many other possible examples that i can come up with that exists within human "thoughtspace", let alone concepts that do not exist within human thoughtspace

How would you feel if you met an alien species that communicates by raping their children? If that sounds weird to you, what if they can communicate via the DNA in sperm, so it'd be somewhat similar to how human sex transmits information from the human male to the human female?

> Thank you, Douglas Adams

actually, hp lovecraft

> - Existence of the ego. What if they live in a constant state of ego death, like some humans on certain drugs?

> .. And they execute creatures like humans when they see a human do anything immoral

You will enjoy reading: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/entries/the-wager

> - And many other possible examples that i can come up with that exists within human "thoughtspace", let alone concepts that do not exist within human thoughtspace

And this: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/antimemetics-division-hub / https://www.amazon.com/There-No-Antimemetics-Division-Novel/...

Pertinent here is that said fish has done something notable enough to have been discovered from, literally, across the galaxy. Those fish built some sort of civilization such that they're sending our lasers, radio waves, or building Dyson spheres.

Actually, I was explicitly thinking of SCP-3125 there.

  > would you feel common ground with a predatory fish? Or a plant? An insect colony?

Yes.

Humans famously show compassion for all of these. I don't think alligators co-evolved with Steve Irwin.

Humans even show compassion for rocks and non-living things. We show compassion for the literal ground. We anthropomorphize it. Is this anthropomorphization not an attempt to understand and have compassion.

Regardless, you just asked how OP feels. I don't know how they do, but I can say how I do. "Yes"

I like the inverse question:

Would you, as a species advanced enough to have historically observed and begun to understand human behaviour, attempt to cooperatively interact with humans?

> There's also a lot of "universals" that people take for granted as universal when it really isn't universal.

It doesn't matter if they kiss to talk or pass on their memories as DNA or they exist in a permanent stat of ego death.

Because we received a modulated signal across the Galaxy, it tells me they:

1) are willing to talk using sequences 2) are technologically inclined, hence they know maths and physics

> I'd bet good money lots of non-Western European civilizations had that same thought after the English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. rolled up on their shores.

And you'd be correct.

> Imagine an intelligent shade of blue

A hooloovoo!

How can something be universal and not universal at the same time?

Unfortunately, I was unable to follow this comment because eating ice cream may be healthy :) Here's a gifted link from the Atlantic which I sure hope is true because now I let myself eat a little ice cream every night. But otherwise, I agree, I cannot imagine what it would be like interacting with another intelligent life. It is also interesting to consider how different any travelers may be from their original colony, if faster than light travel is not possible.

https://www.theatlantic dot com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cream-bad-for-you-health-study/673487/?gift=6EKMJibpmKCfcPyLaO_bP7FbQ_X-xjAyMuvHMMdnIes

In my cutlery drawer we have a couple of mismatched forks, and one of them in particular is weird-looking. Somehow I don't like saying that it's weird-looking if it can "hear" me (i.e. if it's on the table rather than in the drawer)

> There's also a lot of "universals" that people take for granted as universal when it really isn't universal.

We have no idea if it's universal or not. You being able to imagine something does not mean it's actually possible

That's a terrible counterargument for aliens having moral systems incompatible with humans... because it applies to the existence of aliens as well!

You might as well as argue "we have no idea if aliens exist, being able to imagine aliens does not mean it's actually possible there are aliens", and you'd be technically right... right until the day we meet aliens.

Your line of thought is tantamount to "one should just close your eyes and cover your ears" towards the possibilities in this universe.

Note, I am not a conspiracy theorist and do not believe aliens have visited earth and abducted people or something stupid. But I find it extremely stupid to assume aliens would have familiar moral and ethical systems compared to humans, considering how extremely different human beings already are, and at least humans are all mostly similar! This is similar to european explorers being confused at matriarchal family systems when they meet some random tribe. If some humans cannot even wrap their head around matriarchy, how naive would it be to assume that the average human could be comfortable with alien ethics?

Ok, fair enough, I can accept this counterargument at least.

So? That seems extremely naive of you.

To use an example that a regular human would be familiar with: what if the aliens knew math and physics... and were basically ultra-nazis, and very happy to just subjugate you because "our nazi philosophy says that we are superior to everyone else and you are inferior to them" and put you in concentration camps as factory labor for their war machine? You have your own reasons for studying science and math, but what if their entire reason for studying science and math was to build rockets to kill others?

This seems extremely likely, actually! The vast majority of human history has been filled with autocratic governments that centralized power, not free democracies. From the sample size that we have in history, most of the time when the natives meet a stronger scientific power... has not gone well for the natives. What makes you think it will be any different if you meet an alien?

What makes you think just knowing math and physics means that the intelligent alien would be "good" by modern human standards?

And this is just standard boring political talk! We understand that from human politics! What if it's STEM-y and the aliens decide to say "we are killing all of you and slicing all of you into thin slices to scan, in order to scan you into training a LLM"? That sentence would not even be in human thoughtspace 10 years ago! There's almost certainly an even weirder concept that humans today do not have words for, which may be a strong motivation for aliens or even their primary motivation!

I am not an english major, by the way. I am a typical engineer with a strong STEM background, who has happened to have absorbed enough sci-fi concepts through osmosis. I do not consider it likely that we will meet aliens in our lifetime, but I do not expect aliens to follow modern human standards of behavior.

>> would you feel common ground with a predatory fish? Or a plant? An insect colony?

> Yes.

> Humans famously show compassion for all of these.

But alligators rarely show compassion for humans, barracudas are not known for saving drowning babies and plants frequently show no compassion to anything.

IOW, Alien life might resemble alligator mindsets more than human ones. We don't know.

> But alligators rarely show compassion for humans, barracudas are not known for saving drowning babies and plants frequently show no compassion to anything.

On the other hand, even predatory mammals are documented on occasion to render aid to humans (i.e. dolphins rescuing humans from drowning, or intervening in shark attacks), and in domestic settings can be convinced to raise young from other species (domestic cats/dogs will raise most baby animals if introduced correctly). It's not as cut and dried as a hard species boundary on compassion.

Not to mention that traveling interstellar distances requires the work of multiple lifeforms working in conjunction. Which requires some form of compassion, slavery, or a really really intelligent and long living creature that is able to survey the land, smelt the materials, machine every screw, and build an interstellar spaceship. Even if it knew how to do such a thing, the time alone would be astronomical, so it really reduces the odds.

Compassion seems just a natural evolutionary direction as it is far more energy efficient for creatures to form coalitions.

If you spend some time in nature, you’ll also feel how cruel and alien it can be.

No.

Pleasantly surprised to see Ishtar Collective posted here, and SCP to boot!

You final sentence is

> It's not as cut and dried as a hard species boundary on compassion.

My final sentence is

> We don't know.

So I think we're in agreement on this :-)

> Compassion seems just a natural evolutionary direction as it is far more energy efficient for creatures to form coalitions.

Coalitions within the species (family unit, clan, pack, etc), sure. Coalitions with external parties? That's rare outside of concurrent intertwined evolution (symbiotic relationships, parasitic relationships, etc).

We have a sample size of one, when it comes to self-aware sentient species, so I'm not sure we can draw any reasonable conclusions about likelihood of empathy between two such species

> We have a sample size of one, when it comes to self-aware sentient species, so I'm not sure we can draw any reasonable conclusions about likelihood of empathy between two such species

I'm not; I'm only pointing out that the conclusions I see ITT expressing the notion that a more intelligent species would necessarily be more compassionate is more unlikely than the converse, because from our one and only sample of life, we don't see it often.

IOW, I am replying "We don't know that" to the assertion "They will be compassionate.".

  > That's rare outside of concurrent intertwined evolution (symbiotic relationships, parasitic relationships, etc).

You seemed to have carved out a way that everything falls under there

Everything evolves together. We're all on the same planet and working in the same ecosystem. Cross species collaborations isn't too uncommon and we even see it happen in some regions but not others.

The point is if you collaborate with your own you're very likely to collaborate with others. The smarter the animal the more common this is

Well the point was about a species able to build an interstellar ship. There's no point to compare to a snake who can't even build a piano.

We have a sample size of zero.

But again, you cannot build a ship with an individual. Physics gets in your way.

> Inability to share memories.

That is literally what language is for (well, and also sharing ideas).