Monday, July 27, 2009

An Awful Waste of Space? (Part 2)

It seems somewhat obvious to be amazed by all the history that has brought mankind where it is today. Ambitious (or bored) scholars and enthusiasts have attempted to compile lists of all the momentous inventions and discoveries over the millennia. However, while we struggle to fathom the gravity of everything that has brought us where we are today (and for the topic at hand, everything an alien civilization would have to achieve to contact us one day) we tend to overlook just how utterly amazing and immensely complex each individual accomplishment really was.

Iron technology is a prime case study, both for its importance in the history of man and for the complexity of the smelting process. Awhile back I had a debate at a forum with a guy about this practice (as an aside, the guy sparked my interest in the intricate process of smelting, however I was somewhat less impressed by his argument that the only way man could have ever figured it out was if aliens told us). Now I don't claim to have any kind of in-depth knowledge of iron working (and I don't want to intrude in the territory of our resident technologist); however I do know that it requires a lot of chemistry to occur and that there is a procedure to making quality iron that must be followed during the process. Obviously when man discovered how to make iron he did not understand the chemistry behind it, and the procedure could only have been worked out after tedious practice. As a result, smelting must have taken an unbelievably long time to perfect. Constant trial-and-error and tinkering with the process (I'll never understand how we figured out tempering) over a very long period of time finally led to an in-depth knowledge of iron. However, given the mindset, immediate needs, and lack of other technologies at the time, it always amazes me that man ever figured it out.

If we consider this process of trial and error in regards to the “big picture” (for example, everything on that list I linked in the beginning), the amount of thinking and time involved becomes more than impressive. The example is cliché, but for a single invention such as the light bulb, Edison claimed "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." (or something along those lines). Even abstract ideas such as democracy, which arguably is not a vital discovery for the Drake equation but bear with me, have essentially been slowly perfected over the course of 2000 years and running.

Now I do not follow whatsoever the paradoxical claims that aliens or some super-ancient human civilization taught us everything we know. However the trial-and-error history of man's discoveries leads me to my main argument. I believe that one thing history has consistently proven is that thanks to certain aspects of human nature, even the sky is no longer the limit for mankind. Furthermore, by extension at least one of these qualities, if not all of them, would be necessary for alien civilizations to expand as far as we have. The most important to my Hobbesian, state of nature outlook on life is competition. This quality generally tends to play out in violence, but I mean competition in general. It comes as no surprise that we generally see a spike in new technologies during and shortly after war and conflict. The "Gunpowder Empires" of the 16th century clawed their way to the top by adopting and furthering the latest technology, then they fell to later empires after failing to keep up. The American Civil War developed or progressed a number of inventions, such as repeating rifles, land mines, telegraph systems, and locomotive transportation. And as everyone knows, the Cold War had one of the greatest influences in history on advancing technology and scientific discoveries. Mankind's affinity for finding better ways to blow up or out-compete each other has been essential to our advancement. Hell, in relation to the Drake Equation we even compete to be the first scientist/nation/organization to contact an alien civilization, just like we competed to be the first one on the moon.

Curiosity is another seemingly innate characteristic that has been a driving force in human history. It's impossible to say for sure, but going back to the iron analogy I imagine that some of the steps were discovered entirely by someone saying "I wonder what would happen if I do ____ during this process." In this case, the results aren't really predictable and thus one could hope for little competitive edge to result from it. To me, what pushes discoveries such as these is simply curiosity. Drawing on what we discussed at Mike's a few weeks ago, things such as our mission to the moon or terraforming Mars are often driven little by immediate results (they can actually be more detrimental sometimes) and are generally more concerned with relatively elementary questions. Historians are another great example.

Related to curiosity but somewhat deserving of its own analysis is creativity. I don’t want to dwell on this topic too long (this might fall under Andy’s sphere of knowledge anyway), but it seems that in general man tends to have a very active imagination. We tend to believe in the quote “If you can think it, you can do it”, and often we are driven to great feats because we wish to “rival the Gods”, or because of aesthetics, or simply because we can. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon was a great example but in terms of SETI breakthroughs such as string theory and cloning also seem to fall under this category. Perhaps our creativity ends up having practical results, such as cloning and GMOs, but the drive often seems to be there regardless and the first objective is always if we can do this. Maybe this is splitting hairs too much, but whether it’s a computer programmer fiddling with code, the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, or today’s string theorists, historically man seems to be driven by the idea of what we can create and understand.

Maybe these are just abstract ideas on human nature, however without these qualities I think it is safe to say that man would have only advanced as far as it took to make life comfortable and safe. And rarely do people who simply coast through life without struggle or without any kind of intellectual curiosity accomplish great things. Ideas such as the Drake Equation take into account intelligent life and technology, but there’s an assumption made between fi and fc in the equation about the personality (for lack of a better word) of an alien civilization. If they develop intelligence and technology, but not competition/curiosity/creativity or traits similar to them, then the civilization is effectively irrelevant in terms of the Drake Equation or SETI. Anyway, I guess this post is a long way of essentially stating the obvious, but I feel history can contribute to the search too, and these traits that have historically lead us to great things may be basic but they are also essential.

2 comments:

  1. Regarding competition: I wonder if you can't assume that it is a constant in the Universe, in all life. If one can assume that evolution is constant throughout the Universe -- lofty assumption, I'm sure -- than one should be able to assume that competition, in some way that we recognize, is also constant. Almost an "I live, therefore I compete" statement. I hardly claim to be an expert on evolution, but from what I have learned it seems that it is competition, both inter- and intra-species, that drives much of the evolutionary processes. As such, life would be unable to evolve to the level that higher primates have achieved without competing with the rest of the natural world, and amongst themselves.

    This brings me to another, more tangential, point regarding intelligence. The idea of intelligence is very curious, evolutionary and otherwise. Complex life has been inhabiting this planet for only about half a billion years, since the beginning of the Cambrian (~554 ma) and intelligence as we know it has only evolved once, in the last couple hundred-thousand years or so. It is also arguable that this would never have occurred if it wasn’t for a chance impact about 65 ma that lead the way for the rise of the mammals. As competition seems to be a standard in the natural world, the ideas of curiosity and creativity are only a product, or maybe a factor, of intelligence.

    I suppose what I’m saying, in a very round-about manner, is that competition may not be as large a factor in the development of an extraterrestrial “personality” as would creativity and curiosity. It also doesn’t seem to be too far-fetched to assume that intelligence itself is characterized by something capable of being creative and curious. Thus, maybe those factors don’t exist between fi and fc, but rather are necessary for a species to exist in the fi “tier” -- for lack of better term.

    I don’t know, perhaps I am drawing huge assumptions here and lumping the entire Universe into a very anthropomorphic ideal, that we did it this way so everyone should. That is the largest hurdle we will have to overcome in searching for life outside this solar system, but as of right now it’s the best way. We think this way because it is the only way that we know works in 100% of observed cases (the sample pool is one.)

    As for tempering steel, obviously, the aliens told us.

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  2. Hey Trunk, thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if this reply will go unnoticed since the original post was knocked off the main page, but I thought I'd at least reply for the sake of the archives. I agree with everything you said there, but I just wanted to clarify my ideas a little more. I suppose what I meant in regards to competition is when (or if) an alien race has essentially "ascended" past the need for it. Maybe they have unified as a species and no longer fight amongst themselves (or they never did), or perhaps they've evolved to be completely passive and content with where they are. A lot of advances we make are because we see other human beings as somehow "other" and we have to best them, whether along class, racial, or social lines. Similarly, we also advance scientifically because (stemming from competition) we're never quite happy the way things are. Conditions need to be better (and indeed they do), we need to be healthier, etc. If my imaginary E.T.s really do exist, then I guess the closest thing we have to them right now are the Buddhist monks who strive to abandon worldly possessions and live in complete simplicity and peace.

    As for intelligence being creativity and curiosity, what I meant is that what could set humans apart (and indeed as you point out, it's impossible to say because we only have ourselves to draw inferences) is the intensity of those traits. I guess I'm drawing on an idea from the movie Contact where the alien/dad tells Jodie Foster that humans are interesting for being capable of both beautiful dreams and horrible nightmares. We're not only content making life more livable and discovering science; we create incredible science fiction stories that feed our interest in the universe; or we devise new and more gruesome ways of killing each other to rise on top of the competition; or we build things like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon just because we can and they're pretty. I couldn't agree more with what you said about only being able to compare it to life on Earth, but I think scientists also need to keep in mind that some of the things we take for granted might be incredibly unique to the human race.

    And of course you hit the nail on the head in regards to tempered steel.

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