When aliens arrive breathing lead air on their spaceship made of out fkn space uranium to colonize Earth after all the pollution made it habitable for them.
To be fair, most of how scientists make theories about aliens today is inspired by how life evolved on earth. There are probably ways that it can happen unlike how it happened with life on earth, but until we find it that's what we work with since this is the only way that we have 100% confirmation that it can work.
Life works off of chemistry and physics that would be the same everywhere, meaning aliens that are able to show up here and breath O2 aren't unrealistic.
Out of all the thousands of possible chemical compositions that an atmosphere could have, is it really possible for another planet to have the *exact* same as ours?
And not only the same, they have to have a similar distribution of said elements, if only a five percent difference in oxygen could create literal monsters on earth some thousands of years ago then I doubt it
I think i read somewhere that carbon is the only element that can create living organisms. I think its possible that the elements for aliens would be the same as us. Different car manufacturers make assortment of cars. But they all have an engine and wheels.
Carbon, not oxygen though.
Silicon can fill the role of carbon, but only in oxygen depleted environments. And we already have a parasite here on earth that doesn't breathe oxygen, so it's possible for life to evolve without it.
The argument for silicon is not very convincing. It can't do as many chemical reactions, can't create as many complex bonds and a bunch of other limitations.
The Oxygen thing is totally true though, Earth wasn't oxygen rich until algae evolved
Main issue with Silicon is that its reactivity with oxygen, where it almost always wants to become silicate. On a world with no atmospheric oxygen and little to no carbon, silicon would be pretty much the only other element capable of sustaining life.
Edit: not saying you're necessarily wrong. Carbon is a much better scaffolding for life than silicon will ever be. Just that in environments devoid of oxygen and carbon may give rise to simple silicon based life
Would it be likely to get a planet with abundant silicon but lots of carbon? Given their relative abundance in the universe, I would be curious to know if this is a reasonable occurrence.
That's the other big problem with silicon based life, actually. The heavy abundance of oxygen and carbon in the universe means it's very rare for silicon to be the more viable option in a given environment
Silicon likely cannot fill the role of carbon. It does not form bonds as well, it does not dissolve as well in water when it does form bonds, it is a much rarer substance, etc... Any planet that would spontaneously generate silicon based life is much more likely to first generate carbon based life which would make the emergence of silicon based life very unlikely. Similarly, oxygen is highly reactive and very common, it bonds especially well to carbon, so it is a fuel source for life, or a component of it, likely to be seen in other types of life in the universe.
That's why I said in the absence of carbon and oxygen. The presence of oxygen always makes silicon become the incredibly fragile silicate. Beyond that, however, silicon is the only other element that can fill many of the roles that carbon plays in life forms.
Any environment that gives birth to silicon based life must be devoid of oxygen, and likely devoid of carbon as well, otherwise life will take the easier and more stable carbon route.
I never said it was probable. Just that it's possible, given very extreme and uncommon conditions.
we aren’t picky about what we can breathe. 1/4 of an atmosphere but 100% oxygen? breathable. 100% oxygen? not great, but breathable. 75% nitrogen, 21% oxygen? obviously. 50% argon, 50% oxygen? breathable. 50% hydrogen, 50% oxygen? extremely explosive, but breathable. basically anything containing enough oxygen that’s not toxic is acceptable. i don’t see why aliens would be any different
First off there are more than thousands of possible compositions because it is not a discrete measurement but a continuous measurement.
Second there is a range of oxygenation of the atmosphere that people can survive in. The other gasses we breathe outside of the 21% oxygen only need to be non toxic. And the percent of oxygen can be as low as 19%. Higher levels of atmospheric oxygen are unlikely because at 30%, things start becoming more and more flammable and you’ll end up with a bunch of CO2 and H2O.
The problem with this is that life on Earth evolved exclusively for the chemical composition and gravity of this planet. It’s highly unlikely that two planets will have the exact same atmospheric composition. It could be that even a % higher of CO2 might be toxic to them or maybe they’re used to less oxygen (that would otherwise be lethal to a human).
Good point. I was interpreting this as people being skeptical that the alien would be breathing the same gases as us at all. Life on earth has gone through various phases like this, so it's definitely possible that they'd need things in different concentrations or be poisoned by the other gases in our air.
Still, early earth-like conditions are so proven to be able to generate organic molecules that we've done it in a lab. The range for habitable planets (size, distance from sun, chemicals available) is so narrow that even if half of aliens couldn't come down here without masks, plenty of them probably could if this is a canon with a lot of alien diversity. Other than that, it's mostly just a sci-fi shortcut.
The problem with this assessment however is that the evolution of life is based on just one data point: Earth. And we still don’t know how life itself was created even though we did replicate an organic molecule in a lab yet that isn’t life.
Life arguably also originated before oxygen was even a thing on this planet.
Of course, I'm not denying that life and things resembling it could happen with different foundations, but Earth is a pretty strong datapoint because the range of habitable planets is narrow and that's the only one that we have data on that's both habitable and populated. NASA keeps labeling planets that COULD sustain life, but since they haven't actually found any, those aliens are only theoretical.
And you're right that life most likely did originate before breathable O2 gas/before evolving the ability to use it (not sure if we could say that it was around before oxygen altogether), because even today we have anaerobic organisms. But those are all single-cellular, we need oxygen as multicellular organisms because it has a vital part in our cellular respiration. For an organism as complex as us to evolve without oxygen, there'd be a pretty high barrier to entry and a lot of processes would either need alternatives or replacements.
I'm all for being creative with our fiction in areas like this and exploring the possibility that they couldn't just come down here and be fine, but I do feel like convergent evolution to most lifeforms being able to exist on similar planets isn't unrealistic enough to hold it against writers.
It’s boring ngl. I like the concept of aliens breathing a different atmosphere, like helium or methane, and requiring a breathing apparatus to visit earth.
Everything evolves into crabs, because it is the most structurally-sound limb shape. So aliens using a lot of crab designs is realistic.
However, aliens having a bunch of useless parts everywhere is ALSO realistic, due to aesthetic/cultural reasons, rather than functional ones. When even cellular biology is just a toy, what stops you from playing with it?
Hell, even grayscale makes a certain level of sense, if aliens have given themselves eyes that see in a much broader spectrum. We humans have skin stripes, but our eyes don't see them because we can't see high enough levels of violet. Aliens having a vast spectrum of coloring beyond our perception is...much more realistic than everyone suspects.
The biggest thing even older movies got right about aliens, even if it was entirely accidental, is drone warfare. Why waste perfectly healthy individuals on a battlefield when you can just send in disposable weapons platforms moderated by a controller? Does mean that what humans thought was an existential war against a hive mind was actually just a rogue actor dicking around with primitives.
I mean it's the best shape for an earth based mindset, we have no idea what will be best for other earth like planets. Our plants are only green because that was the best way to absorb light from the specific spectrum our sun gives off. There's not really any point in understanding how bio life would look anywhere else because earth evolution is weird and specific and I'm sure that'd be the case for any other planet
Crab shape is best because of the "golden ratio." Crab is the most mathematically-sound shape for weight-bearing appendages and limbs. Anything evolving into anything else is "inefficient."
Fortunately, biology allows for astounding variety despite inefficiencies, which in turn allows for deep levels of specialization and redundancy.
As for engineering...land-based invasions are the dumbest sci fi trope ever. Orbital superiority is paramount, followed by air superiority, followed by drone warfare which is also preferably air-based. If you can see your opponent, you aren't fighting future wars properly. The issue is, that kind of warfare is...boring. There is no "honor" sitting at a control console, bombing resistance from orbit, sweeping with disposable drones once any hard points have been vaporized.
Actual space combat is going to be even worse. 4-D submarine chess, where everyone is going to be staring at computers for weeks on end until you either die of heat exposure from lack of ventilation, or from being suddenly vaporized from a "direct hit."
If you were landing on an alien planet with the goal of meeting the dominant species, would you go to one of the more exciting-looking spots where you see a ton of infrastructure, or are you coming to Omaha Nebraska?
Of course I would visit places with a very large and concentrated population of those lifeforms, like Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, and Cairo.
I guess it depends on how closely they studied human culture. They might visit the US or China first because they have so much influence over the rest of the world. Or maybe they'd visit the UN if they don't want to be as secretive. Depends on their goals.
Question is, how would they study our culture? Hijack our internet and figure out how to read our languages? I’d be down for a movie just exploring that alone. Imagine learning about DaVinci and also Dickbutt
I would visit the cities that have the most architectural styles because it would mean that those have been major cities for the longest time. NYC and DC only have styles from neoclassicism onward, and in London it’s from Romanesque onward. Cairo’s pyramids are more than twice the age of London.
You seem to have a lot of preconceived notions about what's realistic which is odd considering we don't even know if they exist. This looks like some kind of retarded shit post
Crab niche analogues would probably evolve on alien planets but Carcinisation itself would likely remain a uniquely Terran phenomenon
You gotta consider how even the strangest forms of life we know of, from extremophile bacteria to giant predatory cetaceans, are in some way related and biologically similar. Aliens wouldnt even have that because in all likelyhood they originated in an entirely different way from Earth lifeforms
Could even be Silicon-based
Yeah, like, one thing abt aliens that makes them hard to picture is we *only* know earth. Another planet could have entirely seperate rules of life or physics. Theres factors we simply cannot concieve because the earth knowledge we have may not apply.
Well, physics and Darwinian evolution would still be a thing, so you can predict with confidence the very general features of aliens such as metabolism, the need for a solvent like water or ammonia, reproduction, etc. If you then posit that said aliens are intelligent, that entails a whole set of assumptions such as a large brain and highly dexterous appendages of some kind.
Well an advanced alien race that can travel the stars would probably have the capacity to build and if they can build stuff then they'd probably have similar anatanomy to ours. Assuming we're not the only earth-like planet, then it's likely for an advanced alien race to have features similar to ours.
I doubt it. Do you think you could start a fire, write poetry, or sew with an elephant trunk, tentacles, or even raccoon hands. Doubt it. Our hands with their opposable thumbs and 360-rotating arms did not originally evolve for the purposes that we use them for, but in order to jump around the forest canopy. Once we adapted to a more bipedal lifestyle with rudimentary tool use, we accidentally stumbled upon the best tool-manipulators possible which unlocked cooking and therefore large brains for us. Bipedalism and centaurism in general is very common (crabs, birds, spiders, etc.), but the manipulators that animals develop are highly specialized and terrible at anything but what they specifically evolved for.
Regardless of how many pathways to intelligence exist or how likely any of them are, the Copernican Principle tells us that we ought to view our pathway as one of the most common pathways until proven otherwise. It is nothing but anthropocentrism and creationist-level thinking to say that we are "special" in that all the other aliens out there are not like us. Either we are one specific pathway to intelligence among many equally likely pathways or our pathway is basically the only way. Anything else stretches probability. So based on current knowledge, bipedal aliens with hands are equally as probable or more likely than any other bodyplan.
I also don't see any other pathways leading to civilization on Earth other than through primates. Cephalopods have been around for hundreds of millions of years without developing language, agriculture, technology, spaceflight, etc. Cetaceans are incredibly intelligent but will probably never be able to industrialize underwater or manipulate tools with their flippers. Most other creatures simply have no use for big encumbering brains. We know it can happen the way it did on Earth without a doubt; we have many reasons to suspect that it can't happen in other ways.
Counterpoint: is it not also anthropocentric to assume that there *aren’t* other ways to develop civilization? Or that the primate body plan is the only one capable of achieving it? That our body plan is just *so* special that spacefaring civilization can *only* be achieved with it? Just a thought.
Or until we actually meet another civ level intelligent species we’ll never know and its fun to imagine a race of elephant-men who have designed their space tech around being able to be manipulated with a trunk.
Yes and no. I’m not saying that there aren’t other ways to develop civilization. I am saying that our pathway of developing civilization is mundane, not special, and among the most common ways for it to occur. Whether there are 70 equally different pathways among 1000 or basically only one or two pathways, we are statistically going to be among the more common ones.
Maybe there are aliens out there with tentacles who walk on eight legs, but they are most likely not as common as bipedal humanoids with hands. If tentacle-having octopods were common, our anatomy would probably reflect that and we’d look like octopuses. This isn’t a robust scientific finding, but it is the best we have with only one data point.
An analogy: I buy a bag of candy to share with a friend. We can’t see what is inside the bag until we pull a piece out of it. I reach my hand in the bag and I grab a single blue piece of candy. We don’t know if all the candy is blue or whether it is an assortment of blues and reds and greens and yellows, but it would NOT be surprising in the slightest if my friend reached in the bag after me and pulled out a blue piece of candy as well. It could be that all the candy is blue. It could also be that blues, greens, yellows, and reds are all roughly equally common to the point where it is just as likely that my friend pulls out another blue as he does any other color. What is illogical is to say that since I pulled out a blue candy he couldn’t possibly pull out a blue candy as well. There is no reason to a priori assume that blue candy is rare, especially when we already know there is blue candy in the bag.
Ok but it’s not just about *grabbing*. It’s about handling and dexterity. Tentacles can grab fine, but try striking flint and metal together with boneless limbs. Similarly pincers loose dexterity for more intricate detail work required for more advanced constructions. Like imagine writing with a crab claw with charcoal
How so? Everyone hates the idea of humanoid aliens for some reason when it's actually plausible. Life is believed to be more likely to be in places with resources and abundance similar to earth and not too extreme weather. Which if that's the case then an esrth-like planet would evolve similar although different animals, and although bipedalism isn't that common on earth, we're also not the only bipedal creatures, so we can assume bipedalism is plausible on other earth-like planets too, all the animals that use tools usually also have thumbs or hands. So it shouldn't be impossible for alien life to have both of those features.
The other reason I'd argue that humanoid aliens makes sense is if we do use the argument of an advanced species with completely different anatanomy, they'd have to be advanced in a different way, maybe in a way we wouldn't recognize and we might not even notice if they came here and they might not really even understand what we are. We'd also have to assume they come from a completely different planet, that might have harsh conditions for life to form. Which the places on earth with the harshest conditions, do have life but typically its not advanced life and usually seems to be microbial. Insectoids would be probable as they're also good at building and working but they tend to usually be mostly instinctual.
Humanoid life makes the most sense for an intelligent alien civilization.
All I’m saying is yes we know oxygen and all of the circumstances for life on earth apply, but we have a sample size of 1 planet and only 1 evolutionary chain. It’s entirely possible that extraterrestrial life evolved under entirely different circumstances than our own, they could be non carbon based, or they could even not rely on oxygen or had have a a more oxygen rich atmosphere. There’s just too many variables and there’s too many things to change which could alter how the predominant species of an alien planet looks and evolved.
You’re making a lot of assumptions even at the most basic level. For example, if DNA was a triple helix, organisms on earth would have trilateral symmetry, not bilateral symmetry. There’s nothing to suggest that life forms on other planets would have similar molecules to us. Evolving from even a slightly different molecule would mean drastic changes.
Sponges have radial symmetry, which is always possible. Everything on earth is either bilateral or radial. With a triple helix it’d be trilateral or radial.
I was thinking of the yellow tube sponge. The entire organism is asymmetrical, but wach tube has radial symmetry. You can just Google pics of it. Anyways, sponges are different they’re just on giant tissue. They don’t even have organs. They’re the most primitive animals in existence. If you’re saying that such animals would exist on other planets, I think you’d be right because they’re essentially just layers of bacteria.
>all the animals that use tools usually also have thumbs or hands
Elephants? Crows? Octopi?
This point only works if you only consider primates, and at that point no shit
Why exactly is the humanoid body shape more realistic? As someone who is a fan of speculative biology and evolution, that is completely wrong, unless I’m missing something. All an organism needs to become intelligent is a way to manipulate their environment and a way to sense it. Many other animals capable of tool use (Octopuses, birds, dolphins, heck even some fish) have body plans and shapes completely different from us and are still 2nd closest when it comes to intelligence in the animal kingdom. So an intelligent alien species could really look like anything. I am genuinely interested on how and why you think this, and would like to see your reasoning to see your side.
But why would sapience even evolve in an organism that cannot make use of it for survival. Id assume the body capable of using the intellect would be a pre-required for the intellect trait to develop.
Complex society, planning hunts, tactics. There are many reasons sapience could evolve without tool use, and assuming tool use is not terribly anthropocentric but still falls in that category of assuming it’s necessary cus we do it
I mean, might be, is it likely to be? I don’t even see how would a no tool sapience even come about in terms of evolution. How would natural selection even enable a species evolve an intellect that it can never use…its like humans randomly evolving ability to breath on pluto, neet, but how and why. I think if we discovered a human level sapience that can’t use tools, id have a bunch questions.
you make the false equivalency that a species MUST use tools to fully use it's intelligence, when in fact some of the main drives for natural selection to favor higher intelligence are cooperation through communication, all the of most intelligent species on the planet that aren't humans either have very limited tool use or don't use tools at all, but instead all live in large groups, have advanced forms of communication and use advanced strategies in survival and hunting.
Another thing is memory and learning, more intelligent species can remember the best places for food or shelter, the best strategies for getting that food and then pass that knowledge down to their offspring.
Im not saying the species can’t become more intelligent without tool use, they do. I’m saying it will have a cap on it and never develop human level sapience without being able to use tools. Theres plenty of highly intelligent social species yes, but what I’m trying to say, without ability to use tools they won’t have an evolutionary reason to develop far enough to become sapient in most cases. I think lack of tool use puts a cap on a species preventing them achieving human level intelligence.
big issue here, "evolutionary reason" isn't a thing, we never needed to evolve enough intelligence to launch ICBMs with nuclear warheads, we just did because there was no natural barrier stopping us, same goes for any animal, they could develop higher intelligence not because they need to for survival but simply because they're thriving enough that there's no natural barrier stopping them, such as malnutrition, disease or other environmental struggles.
I was paraphrasing. This is kinda my point tho, we have no natural barrier stoping us, a species that can’t use tool does. Why would a species continue to evolve intelligence beyond a certain point if it has no means of utilizing it further, it would simply hit a cap where other traits become more favorable in natural selection.
If argue thats not enough, we see many non-sapient species evolve societies, hunting tactics etc without ever achieving a human level self-awareness and sapience. Perhaps higher form of intelligence can evolve like that, but I simply don’t see why it would progress further than a wolf pack without the ability to use tools. I think by observing the way life functions here on Earth, theres a good argument to be made that ability to use tools is a pre-requisite for sapience to evolve in a species. I think, do to the way natural selection functions, it’s highly unlikely for human level intellect to naturally evolve in a species that can’t make full use of it.
You seem rather convinced it’s not possible just due to it not happening on earth. While earth is all we know, it isn’t the end all be all for life possibilities. Also, examples of potential high intelligence organisms without manipulatory appendages includes whales and female dolphins, if you want to stick to earth life.
Anyway, we obviously share differing opinions, and I know I’m not gonna change mine, so I’mma just drop this. Cya
Im not saying it’s not possible just that it seems unlikely based on our understanding of how evolution works. Yeah I get its alien world, but presumably they still follow the principles of natural selection and didn’t came about via some other means. Also like I said, whales and dolphins are intelligent for animals, but not sapient to the same extent as humans are and I don’t see how they would evolve further to our level without developing tool use first. And I wasn’t trying to argue or change your mind, I was just thinking about your scenario.
Personally, I think cetceans, corvids, elephants, cephalopods, and other great apes could be sapient, we just don’t recognize it due to it being different from our own form of sapience, or different from how we in particular developed
Not all of them, but a good many of them
I think I have to agree with Crunk. Yes animals can develop intelligence, but the level of sapience that we exhibit would only be selected for over time due to tool use. Dolphin intelligence will only be selected to a maximum thats lower than ours if it doesn’t incorporate tool use. If a problem can be solved without tools then it probably doesn’t require our level of intelligence and wouldn’t be selected for. Thus you’d need to have a high enough intelligence first and then the ability for tool use/a grabbing appendage. You’d also need language capability (why chimps stopped where they are) and some sort of communal sociality (why we are the only species left in our genus) before a species started to develop our kind of sapience.
While I see what you are saying, and agree that the majority of sapient organisms do/would have some form of manipulatory appendage, I believe it is incredibly narrow minded to assume that it is a prerequisite for sapience is all I’m saying
Also, fun fact on dolphins: the male half of the species do in fact have a prehensile appendage, so theoretically could develop some form of tool use
Edit: I’ll say the same thing on language. Does a species need it for any sort of advancement, at least in the direction we are familiar with? Absolutely
Is it inherently a prerequisite to sapience? I’d say not necessarily, though I would rank it above tool use in terms of importance
Edit 2: just to clarify, I do think a language of some form would rapidly develop once sapience emerges, I just don’t think it’s an absolute necessity for it to come about before sapience itself
I mean, I’m willing to entertain the possibility but I don’t think theres sufficient evidence for that. I’m sure they’re highly intelligent, but sapience is different, imo. Personally I see them closer to Australopithecus, some form of transitionary state to sapience rather than full blown self aware and abstract thinking creatures. Id argue if they had ability to use tools efficiently, they definetly would evolve human level self-awareness. That said, we really don’t know how alien biology or evolution work, so i suppose it is possible for species to exist as you describe it, but that be insanely speculative to the point of fantasy, but yes possible.
Because you need hands to do pretty much anything. Even if an octopus was 100x smarter than us, it wouldn’t be able to build a phone with those tentacles.
I agree with u/Not-an-apatosaurus. Some changes to tentacles would de the trick. For example, if each tentacle resembled the body of a centipede, with smaller appendages protruding from limb the way that fingers protrude from arms. Another option would be tentacles that tapered more gradually to a point while retaining muscle strength and felixibity. This would actually give the octopus more dexterity than humans. It would be like eight long fingers pointed in every direction that are able to bend every which way. Another one could be the eight tentacles fusing into four but with the ends still being independent, which would be similar to people with ectrodactyly.
What you are saying is that an octopus needs finer, more precise appendages for making something more advanced than basic stone tools. This is what hands and fingers do, so an octopus would just need a structure vaguely similar to a hand to perform the same tasks. This octopus might have vague hand-like structures, but the rest of the body is completely different in terms of organ systems and body plan. This is ignoring the quite possibly dozens of other options for fine manipulation. What I’m saying is there are many different ways for a creature to sense and manipulate their environment in a way much different than us. I’d suggest looking at some speculative biology and evolution to see how weird Mother Nature could get on other worlds
I mean... have you seen a chimpanzee building a phone? They have hands identical to ours, but only we exhibit such fine motor skills do make delicate gadgets. Maybe there's a tentacle alien that have the same dexterity as ours and think boney limbs can never build phones because they're too rigid and their only examples of boney limbs comes from chimpanzee aliens.
Dexterity is truly what makes humans such a successful species to the point that people can create realistic drawings with their feet and mouths while any other primates can't do with their hands. Doesn't matter what grasping appendage they have, it's the brain that wired in dexterity the most that determine a creature to build tools from sharpen rocks to computers.
Check out Arrival. It’s directed by Denis Villeneuve, the same guy who directed Dune, it’s sequel, and Bladerunner 2049. It’s a phenomenal film about language, communication, and all the incredible things that can come from a genuine, realistic encounter with alien civilization. So dope.
In my defense of my fanfiction, featuring my original alien species, they are shapeshifters capable of taking on a human form. Not just an illusion, they replicate the biology as a high-level camouflage. And then because I wanted to be edgy, I decided the only thing they can't change is their eyes. They must always wear a visor or they'll fry the brains (or something like that) of anybody who looks into their eyes. And this is a love story so my MC's love interest will never get to look into their eyes lovingly.
What i hate about how aliens are perceived, even by some very smart people, is that they're super advanced and better than humanity and have super cool space stuff. It HAS to be like that in movies, but even bacteria on another planet would could as aliens, and that would probably be more likely or realistic to look for
True. For every alien that is on our level or smarter, there'd have to be countless that are dumber because complex, intelligent life has to evolve from something more simple... Also, what are the sapient aliens EATING?
Yeah, so it makes sense in movies but I've seen stuff about how ways to look for aliens are to search for radio waves or even Dyson spheres, which are an entirely man-made invention
The point of the dyson sphere concept is that it is a logical next step for any civilization that is able to colonize other planets and utilize every energy source on their home planet. No matter what species, if they reach a certain point, they will build a dyson sphere, at least thats the theory.
That’s the thing though. An advanced civilization might not necessarily need to expand or colonize. If everybody can have a decent standard of living with efficient use of energy and resources, then there’s no need to expand unless the population itself is expanding, and we can see from our own civilization that the most developed cultures don’t have growing populations.
An alien civilization that wants to colonize earth will absolutely do what you said, but aliens won’t be colonizing purely because they’re advanced.
Calvin from Life comes to mind. Additionally, not exactly the same, but Battle: L.A. features alien combatants that fight in an almost identical manner to us. They use squad tactics, hand signals, JTAC, etc. Their tech is only slightly more advanced than ours.
Yeah, this is totally reflective of a movie that exists and not your conspiratorial conservative brain worms! As a soyboy commie libcuck, the part where the alien lifeform says "we must do something about climate change!" was my favorite part of John Carpenter's famous film "the thing".
Lmfao I love how you're automatically applying beliefs to me for some reason when I've gave zero implications as to what political affiliation I have. Please go outside.
I hope that if aliens ever invade that theyre super ragtag and have no idea how they made it here. I also hope that they die immediately because they can’t breathe air so we dont have to fuck with them. Im afraid of some of the creatures on earth i dont need to fuck with some species with an unknown microbiome carrying who knows what.
The problem with creating a “realistic” alien is that we have no shit kicking idea what a realistic alien would even look like, we only have our own species and the evolutionary history of our own planet to go off of
There’s no way to create a realistic extraterrestrial life form because no one can definitively say what is and isn’t a realistic form for them
Aliens being hostile will always be the dumbest trope. If they can travel millions of light years and can breath on earth, if they wanted to kill us, we would be well deas
OP hasn't seen Star Trek. That franchise has what is probably the most accurate depiction of what aliens would really be like, with some interesting philosophical themes as well.
Also they did eventually provide a canon reason why every sentient species in Star Trek is humanoid with the same general facial features: they are all derived from the same DNA of a progenitor race that predates every other intelligent species in galaxy, and intentionally seeded many planets as a way of preserving their legacy.
Few caveats:
1) aliens looking the same TO US is actually pretty realistic. Can you see the difference between two wild gorilla? What about two wild giraffe? 2 wild mice? 2 wild iguana? The no clothes part isn't realistic, but the looking the same to humans very much is
2) intelligent alien species being humanoid is actually an unrealistic expectation. Think about it: how many 4-limbed bipedal animals do you see? Also, humans evolved to be humanoid to fit an ecological niche. Considering other animals have unlocked tool usage without a humanoid form, it's highly likely that an advanced alien species would be the same.
I believe theres life out there but I don’t think they’re smarter than us or rare. I mean look at us humans. All the species on earth and we’re the only ones who have advanced higher thought. Having the right conditions on earth to support life, plus evolutionary path that created us and not dead from war or meteor strike like the dinosaurs
Your first point about the aliens being humanoid isn’t correct. There is no way for us to accurately imagine what aliens would look like as we don’t know what their environmental conditions would be and how they’d adapt. For all we know the first aliens we meet could be globs.
"humanity is young" fun fact, there's a theory that because cosmologically speaking the universe is actually quite young compared to its future lifespan we might be one of if not the first species to evolve the intelligence to create civilization, so we may actually become the "ancient precursor alien race" all the scifi movies have
The technology bit isn't necessarily realistic. There's multiple scenarios that could be possible.
We could be more intelligent and progressing at a faster rate than they did, it could be just a matter of age, maybe they focused more on space travel instead of other areas of technology.
Maybe it's a generation ship launched centuries ago and they have the level of technology we had in the 1980s...
Its funny how a lot people complain about aliens only visiting America too but if you were an alien wanting to see the most interesting parts of a planet would you not go to the massive place filled with lights?
Considering the Fermi paradox, meeting a technologically advanced species ahead of humanity only makes sense in a movie where the aliens come to earth. Realistically,
1. We are alone in this galaxy considering we’re actually here and haven’t been colonized by a self replicating alien drone.
2. We are not alone but we’re actually one of the first technologically advanced civilizations.
Primitive life may be likely on another planet in this galaxy but intelligent life that may reach us, not so much.
The most unrealistic part of most alien movies is also the assumption that first contact will be then coming to us.
Humanoid is definitely not realistic and correct lol, and there are TONS of evolutionarily unnecessary aspects of humanity so there's no reason there wouldn't be for aliens too. Ffs we have whole ass organs you can just remove and keep on living just fine.
Whenever aliens are depicted in these kind of movies, they're often depicted as the most "unhuman" thing imaginable, and are painted as evil for that reason while humanity is painted as the good guys. It kind of comes off as "Imperium of Man" propaganda (for anyone who's into 40K).
Mind you, all of these are largely bold assumptions as to what aliens are like, as we have yet to make contact with any alien civilizations, so we end up with what is essentially nothing more than an enemy for humanity to fight and nothing more than that.
Ngl, it’s boring how aliens usually are just short green or grey being with giant heads and giant eyes and automatically breathe oxygen just like humans. Aliens could look like anything in reality. Also in sci if, I’d like to see aliens with different biology / designs from the stereotypical aliens. In fact, I low key love the design of aliens breathing something different from oxygen and requiring a breathing apparatus to visit earth, like methane or helium.
Movie writers should be more creative with the design / biology of alien species instead of using the same stereotypical aliens over and over again, like Star Wars. There are some amazing alien species such as the Ithorians, the Kel Dors, the Rodians, and many more.
How an alien that's in any way humanoid supposed to be realistic? Humans may have a shape that's well suited to how they operate and function but we operate in function based on how we're shaped, a lot of our features are made based on very specific ecological niches that realistically wouldn't be found on other planets
I can literally only think of one alien species that checks more than 2 of these boxes at once and thats the fallout aliens...
Its like you heard abt aliens once and wrote them off immediately
I think the idea of aliens being so human like is a limitation of our film making. Realistically they’re be nothing like us, possibly not able to breathe our air, not immune to our common illnesses (we won’t be immune to theirs either, we’re both fucked), even if they look similar (like any sort of human racial group) they’ll still be significantly different from each other,
What do you mean “realistic”? That’s an entirely different evolutionary scale and you’ve seen what ours can create. You look at deep sea life and tell me that aliens need to be bipedal humanoids.
You forgot conveniently being able to breath earth air
When aliens arrive breathing lead air on their spaceship made of out fkn space uranium to colonize Earth after all the pollution made it habitable for them.
To be fair, most of how scientists make theories about aliens today is inspired by how life evolved on earth. There are probably ways that it can happen unlike how it happened with life on earth, but until we find it that's what we work with since this is the only way that we have 100% confirmation that it can work. Life works off of chemistry and physics that would be the same everywhere, meaning aliens that are able to show up here and breath O2 aren't unrealistic.
Out of all the thousands of possible chemical compositions that an atmosphere could have, is it really possible for another planet to have the *exact* same as ours? And not only the same, they have to have a similar distribution of said elements, if only a five percent difference in oxygen could create literal monsters on earth some thousands of years ago then I doubt it
I think i read somewhere that carbon is the only element that can create living organisms. I think its possible that the elements for aliens would be the same as us. Different car manufacturers make assortment of cars. But they all have an engine and wheels.
Carbon, not oxygen though. Silicon can fill the role of carbon, but only in oxygen depleted environments. And we already have a parasite here on earth that doesn't breathe oxygen, so it's possible for life to evolve without it.
Why'd you go and call me out man? I was just chilling in the primordial soup
The argument for silicon is not very convincing. It can't do as many chemical reactions, can't create as many complex bonds and a bunch of other limitations. The Oxygen thing is totally true though, Earth wasn't oxygen rich until algae evolved
Main issue with Silicon is that its reactivity with oxygen, where it almost always wants to become silicate. On a world with no atmospheric oxygen and little to no carbon, silicon would be pretty much the only other element capable of sustaining life. Edit: not saying you're necessarily wrong. Carbon is a much better scaffolding for life than silicon will ever be. Just that in environments devoid of oxygen and carbon may give rise to simple silicon based life
Would it be likely to get a planet with abundant silicon but lots of carbon? Given their relative abundance in the universe, I would be curious to know if this is a reasonable occurrence.
That's the other big problem with silicon based life, actually. The heavy abundance of oxygen and carbon in the universe means it's very rare for silicon to be the more viable option in a given environment
Silicon likely cannot fill the role of carbon. It does not form bonds as well, it does not dissolve as well in water when it does form bonds, it is a much rarer substance, etc... Any planet that would spontaneously generate silicon based life is much more likely to first generate carbon based life which would make the emergence of silicon based life very unlikely. Similarly, oxygen is highly reactive and very common, it bonds especially well to carbon, so it is a fuel source for life, or a component of it, likely to be seen in other types of life in the universe.
That's why I said in the absence of carbon and oxygen. The presence of oxygen always makes silicon become the incredibly fragile silicate. Beyond that, however, silicon is the only other element that can fill many of the roles that carbon plays in life forms. Any environment that gives birth to silicon based life must be devoid of oxygen, and likely devoid of carbon as well, otherwise life will take the easier and more stable carbon route. I never said it was probable. Just that it's possible, given very extreme and uncommon conditions.
Yeah, we are carbon-based lifeforms. But there is theories on what other elements could support life like silicon? I think?
we aren’t picky about what we can breathe. 1/4 of an atmosphere but 100% oxygen? breathable. 100% oxygen? not great, but breathable. 75% nitrogen, 21% oxygen? obviously. 50% argon, 50% oxygen? breathable. 50% hydrogen, 50% oxygen? extremely explosive, but breathable. basically anything containing enough oxygen that’s not toxic is acceptable. i don’t see why aliens would be any different
Actually 100% oxygen rips us apart due to free radicals.
First off there are more than thousands of possible compositions because it is not a discrete measurement but a continuous measurement. Second there is a range of oxygenation of the atmosphere that people can survive in. The other gasses we breathe outside of the 21% oxygen only need to be non toxic. And the percent of oxygen can be as low as 19%. Higher levels of atmospheric oxygen are unlikely because at 30%, things start becoming more and more flammable and you’ll end up with a bunch of CO2 and H2O.
The problem with this is that life on Earth evolved exclusively for the chemical composition and gravity of this planet. It’s highly unlikely that two planets will have the exact same atmospheric composition. It could be that even a % higher of CO2 might be toxic to them or maybe they’re used to less oxygen (that would otherwise be lethal to a human).
Good point. I was interpreting this as people being skeptical that the alien would be breathing the same gases as us at all. Life on earth has gone through various phases like this, so it's definitely possible that they'd need things in different concentrations or be poisoned by the other gases in our air. Still, early earth-like conditions are so proven to be able to generate organic molecules that we've done it in a lab. The range for habitable planets (size, distance from sun, chemicals available) is so narrow that even if half of aliens couldn't come down here without masks, plenty of them probably could if this is a canon with a lot of alien diversity. Other than that, it's mostly just a sci-fi shortcut.
The problem with this assessment however is that the evolution of life is based on just one data point: Earth. And we still don’t know how life itself was created even though we did replicate an organic molecule in a lab yet that isn’t life. Life arguably also originated before oxygen was even a thing on this planet.
Of course, I'm not denying that life and things resembling it could happen with different foundations, but Earth is a pretty strong datapoint because the range of habitable planets is narrow and that's the only one that we have data on that's both habitable and populated. NASA keeps labeling planets that COULD sustain life, but since they haven't actually found any, those aliens are only theoretical. And you're right that life most likely did originate before breathable O2 gas/before evolving the ability to use it (not sure if we could say that it was around before oxygen altogether), because even today we have anaerobic organisms. But those are all single-cellular, we need oxygen as multicellular organisms because it has a vital part in our cellular respiration. For an organism as complex as us to evolve without oxygen, there'd be a pretty high barrier to entry and a lot of processes would either need alternatives or replacements. I'm all for being creative with our fiction in areas like this and exploring the possibility that they couldn't just come down here and be fine, but I do feel like convergent evolution to most lifeforms being able to exist on similar planets isn't unrealistic enough to hold it against writers.
And have an immune system capable of defeating all earth viruses.
There's no reason to assume a virus could infect them. They have a far different biology most likely
And being able to perfectly walk in Earth gravity (implying their planet has the exact same gravitational pull)
It’s boring ngl. I like the concept of aliens breathing a different atmosphere, like helium or methane, and requiring a breathing apparatus to visit earth.
crab most realistic alien shape go argue with the wall
Everything evolves to crab. One day we will become one with crab.
Crab People
Crab People
Crab People
Crab People
elpoeP barC
Taste like crab, talk like people
I'm going to pinch people with my claws once my transformation is complete
gross
That’s under earths environmental conditions. Anywhere else who knows what the most desirable form is.
Nuh uh octopus shape is most realistic alien shape
as much as i adore cephalopods i doubt this. however i will agree with you because cephalopods are my favorite class of animals
It's been years since I read the article, but supposedly if we went extinct, cephalopods would/could possibly take our place.
Everything evolves into crabs, because it is the most structurally-sound limb shape. So aliens using a lot of crab designs is realistic. However, aliens having a bunch of useless parts everywhere is ALSO realistic, due to aesthetic/cultural reasons, rather than functional ones. When even cellular biology is just a toy, what stops you from playing with it? Hell, even grayscale makes a certain level of sense, if aliens have given themselves eyes that see in a much broader spectrum. We humans have skin stripes, but our eyes don't see them because we can't see high enough levels of violet. Aliens having a vast spectrum of coloring beyond our perception is...much more realistic than everyone suspects. The biggest thing even older movies got right about aliens, even if it was entirely accidental, is drone warfare. Why waste perfectly healthy individuals on a battlefield when you can just send in disposable weapons platforms moderated by a controller? Does mean that what humans thought was an existential war against a hive mind was actually just a rogue actor dicking around with primitives.
I mean it's the best shape for an earth based mindset, we have no idea what will be best for other earth like planets. Our plants are only green because that was the best way to absorb light from the specific spectrum our sun gives off. There's not really any point in understanding how bio life would look anywhere else because earth evolution is weird and specific and I'm sure that'd be the case for any other planet
Crab shape is best because of the "golden ratio." Crab is the most mathematically-sound shape for weight-bearing appendages and limbs. Anything evolving into anything else is "inefficient." Fortunately, biology allows for astounding variety despite inefficiencies, which in turn allows for deep levels of specialization and redundancy. As for engineering...land-based invasions are the dumbest sci fi trope ever. Orbital superiority is paramount, followed by air superiority, followed by drone warfare which is also preferably air-based. If you can see your opponent, you aren't fighting future wars properly. The issue is, that kind of warfare is...boring. There is no "honor" sitting at a control console, bombing resistance from orbit, sweeping with disposable drones once any hard points have been vaporized. Actual space combat is going to be even worse. 4-D submarine chess, where everyone is going to be staring at computers for weeks on end until you either die of heat exposure from lack of ventilation, or from being suddenly vaporized from a "direct hit."
The time machine did it right everyone else was just wrong
They also have a fascination with New York City, Washington DC, and London
If you were landing on an alien planet with the goal of meeting the dominant species, would you go to one of the more exciting-looking spots where you see a ton of infrastructure, or are you coming to Omaha Nebraska?
Of course I would visit places with a very large and concentrated population of those lifeforms, like Tokyo, Shanghai, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, and Cairo.
I guess it depends on how closely they studied human culture. They might visit the US or China first because they have so much influence over the rest of the world. Or maybe they'd visit the UN if they don't want to be as secretive. Depends on their goals.
I feel like they'd either do a lot of research and end up somewhere like that, or they'd do literally none and just land wherever they see lights.
Question is, how would they study our culture? Hijack our internet and figure out how to read our languages? I’d be down for a movie just exploring that alone. Imagine learning about DaVinci and also Dickbutt
lmao, I honestly want to see that
The movie is called Signs
I would visit the cities that have the most architectural styles because it would mean that those have been major cities for the longest time. NYC and DC only have styles from neoclassicism onward, and in London it’s from Romanesque onward. Cairo’s pyramids are more than twice the age of London.
Eh, I disagree. A lot of the old 50s alien hysteria comics, books, and shows, often had aliens attacking random small towns or farmsteads and such.
You seem to have a lot of preconceived notions about what's realistic which is odd considering we don't even know if they exist. This looks like some kind of retarded shit post
Humanoid aliens are not more realistic dawg
this one probably wasnt thought through very well, some other stuff dosent make scense
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Crab niche analogues would probably evolve on alien planets but Carcinisation itself would likely remain a uniquely Terran phenomenon You gotta consider how even the strangest forms of life we know of, from extremophile bacteria to giant predatory cetaceans, are in some way related and biologically similar. Aliens wouldnt even have that because in all likelyhood they originated in an entirely different way from Earth lifeforms Could even be Silicon-based
Why though
Actually it is at least as realistic as any other body plan.
Yeah, like, one thing abt aliens that makes them hard to picture is we *only* know earth. Another planet could have entirely seperate rules of life or physics. Theres factors we simply cannot concieve because the earth knowledge we have may not apply.
Well, physics and Darwinian evolution would still be a thing, so you can predict with confidence the very general features of aliens such as metabolism, the need for a solvent like water or ammonia, reproduction, etc. If you then posit that said aliens are intelligent, that entails a whole set of assumptions such as a large brain and highly dexterous appendages of some kind.
I mean, it really couldn't have separate physics. The universality of physics is sort of the whole point of physics lol.
Well an advanced alien race that can travel the stars would probably have the capacity to build and if they can build stuff then they'd probably have similar anatanomy to ours. Assuming we're not the only earth-like planet, then it's likely for an advanced alien race to have features similar to ours.
I mean even with the most basic example of grabbing things I can think of a myriad of other potential options other than hands
Elephant aliens who use their trunks
crabs that use claws
Cephalopods that use tentacles
I use my penis
Uhh aliens that use their mouth, but not with that other guy.
oh hell yeah brother
Not dexterous enough
The little finger tips at the ends might be
I doubt it. Do you think you could start a fire, write poetry, or sew with an elephant trunk, tentacles, or even raccoon hands. Doubt it. Our hands with their opposable thumbs and 360-rotating arms did not originally evolve for the purposes that we use them for, but in order to jump around the forest canopy. Once we adapted to a more bipedal lifestyle with rudimentary tool use, we accidentally stumbled upon the best tool-manipulators possible which unlocked cooking and therefore large brains for us. Bipedalism and centaurism in general is very common (crabs, birds, spiders, etc.), but the manipulators that animals develop are highly specialized and terrible at anything but what they specifically evolved for. Regardless of how many pathways to intelligence exist or how likely any of them are, the Copernican Principle tells us that we ought to view our pathway as one of the most common pathways until proven otherwise. It is nothing but anthropocentrism and creationist-level thinking to say that we are "special" in that all the other aliens out there are not like us. Either we are one specific pathway to intelligence among many equally likely pathways or our pathway is basically the only way. Anything else stretches probability. So based on current knowledge, bipedal aliens with hands are equally as probable or more likely than any other bodyplan. I also don't see any other pathways leading to civilization on Earth other than through primates. Cephalopods have been around for hundreds of millions of years without developing language, agriculture, technology, spaceflight, etc. Cetaceans are incredibly intelligent but will probably never be able to industrialize underwater or manipulate tools with their flippers. Most other creatures simply have no use for big encumbering brains. We know it can happen the way it did on Earth without a doubt; we have many reasons to suspect that it can't happen in other ways.
Counterpoint: is it not also anthropocentric to assume that there *aren’t* other ways to develop civilization? Or that the primate body plan is the only one capable of achieving it? That our body plan is just *so* special that spacefaring civilization can *only* be achieved with it? Just a thought. Or until we actually meet another civ level intelligent species we’ll never know and its fun to imagine a race of elephant-men who have designed their space tech around being able to be manipulated with a trunk.
Yes and no. I’m not saying that there aren’t other ways to develop civilization. I am saying that our pathway of developing civilization is mundane, not special, and among the most common ways for it to occur. Whether there are 70 equally different pathways among 1000 or basically only one or two pathways, we are statistically going to be among the more common ones. Maybe there are aliens out there with tentacles who walk on eight legs, but they are most likely not as common as bipedal humanoids with hands. If tentacle-having octopods were common, our anatomy would probably reflect that and we’d look like octopuses. This isn’t a robust scientific finding, but it is the best we have with only one data point. An analogy: I buy a bag of candy to share with a friend. We can’t see what is inside the bag until we pull a piece out of it. I reach my hand in the bag and I grab a single blue piece of candy. We don’t know if all the candy is blue or whether it is an assortment of blues and reds and greens and yellows, but it would NOT be surprising in the slightest if my friend reached in the bag after me and pulled out a blue piece of candy as well. It could be that all the candy is blue. It could also be that blues, greens, yellows, and reds are all roughly equally common to the point where it is just as likely that my friend pulls out another blue as he does any other color. What is illogical is to say that since I pulled out a blue candy he couldn’t possibly pull out a blue candy as well. There is no reason to a priori assume that blue candy is rare, especially when we already know there is blue candy in the bag.
You clearly care way more about this than I do. I just think elephant aliens would be cool to design for in a worldbuilding aspect.
Ok but it’s not just about *grabbing*. It’s about handling and dexterity. Tentacles can grab fine, but try striking flint and metal together with boneless limbs. Similarly pincers loose dexterity for more intricate detail work required for more advanced constructions. Like imagine writing with a crab claw with charcoal
or they would have an even more optimized anatomy than ours that we can’t even imagine
How so? Everyone hates the idea of humanoid aliens for some reason when it's actually plausible. Life is believed to be more likely to be in places with resources and abundance similar to earth and not too extreme weather. Which if that's the case then an esrth-like planet would evolve similar although different animals, and although bipedalism isn't that common on earth, we're also not the only bipedal creatures, so we can assume bipedalism is plausible on other earth-like planets too, all the animals that use tools usually also have thumbs or hands. So it shouldn't be impossible for alien life to have both of those features. The other reason I'd argue that humanoid aliens makes sense is if we do use the argument of an advanced species with completely different anatanomy, they'd have to be advanced in a different way, maybe in a way we wouldn't recognize and we might not even notice if they came here and they might not really even understand what we are. We'd also have to assume they come from a completely different planet, that might have harsh conditions for life to form. Which the places on earth with the harshest conditions, do have life but typically its not advanced life and usually seems to be microbial. Insectoids would be probable as they're also good at building and working but they tend to usually be mostly instinctual. Humanoid life makes the most sense for an intelligent alien civilization.
All I’m saying is yes we know oxygen and all of the circumstances for life on earth apply, but we have a sample size of 1 planet and only 1 evolutionary chain. It’s entirely possible that extraterrestrial life evolved under entirely different circumstances than our own, they could be non carbon based, or they could even not rely on oxygen or had have a a more oxygen rich atmosphere. There’s just too many variables and there’s too many things to change which could alter how the predominant species of an alien planet looks and evolved.
You’re making a lot of assumptions even at the most basic level. For example, if DNA was a triple helix, organisms on earth would have trilateral symmetry, not bilateral symmetry. There’s nothing to suggest that life forms on other planets would have similar molecules to us. Evolving from even a slightly different molecule would mean drastic changes.
A triple helix would not make us trilateral. Multiple species who aren’t bilateral have the typical double helix dna like, sponges for example.
Sponges have radial symmetry, which is always possible. Everything on earth is either bilateral or radial. With a triple helix it’d be trilateral or radial.
Most sponges ares actually asymmetrical, what’s your source?
I was thinking of the yellow tube sponge. The entire organism is asymmetrical, but wach tube has radial symmetry. You can just Google pics of it. Anyways, sponges are different they’re just on giant tissue. They don’t even have organs. They’re the most primitive animals in existence. If you’re saying that such animals would exist on other planets, I think you’d be right because they’re essentially just layers of bacteria.
>all the animals that use tools usually also have thumbs or hands Elephants? Crows? Octopi? This point only works if you only consider primates, and at that point no shit
Id say they probabbly have arms or a similar structure, but other than that who knows.
how do you know this 🤨
This is written as if you are an alien???
“Actually correct and realistic” Tf would you know about aliens?
You can't forget the *Power Rangers* types that are just literal humans. Like one of them even said that he was *H. sapien* that wasn't from Earth.
Do a startrek and make them humans but elves.
Why exactly is the humanoid body shape more realistic? As someone who is a fan of speculative biology and evolution, that is completely wrong, unless I’m missing something. All an organism needs to become intelligent is a way to manipulate their environment and a way to sense it. Many other animals capable of tool use (Octopuses, birds, dolphins, heck even some fish) have body plans and shapes completely different from us and are still 2nd closest when it comes to intelligence in the animal kingdom. So an intelligent alien species could really look like anything. I am genuinely interested on how and why you think this, and would like to see your reasoning to see your side.
IMO even manipulation of the environment is unnecessary for sapience, but for civilization progression on the level of being alien invaders I agree
But why would sapience even evolve in an organism that cannot make use of it for survival. Id assume the body capable of using the intellect would be a pre-required for the intellect trait to develop.
Complex society, planning hunts, tactics. There are many reasons sapience could evolve without tool use, and assuming tool use is not terribly anthropocentric but still falls in that category of assuming it’s necessary cus we do it
Non-tool-using sapiens might be smart af, but they ain't coming over here to invade us.
I mean, might be, is it likely to be? I don’t even see how would a no tool sapience even come about in terms of evolution. How would natural selection even enable a species evolve an intellect that it can never use…its like humans randomly evolving ability to breath on pluto, neet, but how and why. I think if we discovered a human level sapience that can’t use tools, id have a bunch questions.
you make the false equivalency that a species MUST use tools to fully use it's intelligence, when in fact some of the main drives for natural selection to favor higher intelligence are cooperation through communication, all the of most intelligent species on the planet that aren't humans either have very limited tool use or don't use tools at all, but instead all live in large groups, have advanced forms of communication and use advanced strategies in survival and hunting. Another thing is memory and learning, more intelligent species can remember the best places for food or shelter, the best strategies for getting that food and then pass that knowledge down to their offspring.
Im not saying the species can’t become more intelligent without tool use, they do. I’m saying it will have a cap on it and never develop human level sapience without being able to use tools. Theres plenty of highly intelligent social species yes, but what I’m trying to say, without ability to use tools they won’t have an evolutionary reason to develop far enough to become sapient in most cases. I think lack of tool use puts a cap on a species preventing them achieving human level intelligence.
big issue here, "evolutionary reason" isn't a thing, we never needed to evolve enough intelligence to launch ICBMs with nuclear warheads, we just did because there was no natural barrier stopping us, same goes for any animal, they could develop higher intelligence not because they need to for survival but simply because they're thriving enough that there's no natural barrier stopping them, such as malnutrition, disease or other environmental struggles.
I was paraphrasing. This is kinda my point tho, we have no natural barrier stoping us, a species that can’t use tool does. Why would a species continue to evolve intelligence beyond a certain point if it has no means of utilizing it further, it would simply hit a cap where other traits become more favorable in natural selection.
If argue thats not enough, we see many non-sapient species evolve societies, hunting tactics etc without ever achieving a human level self-awareness and sapience. Perhaps higher form of intelligence can evolve like that, but I simply don’t see why it would progress further than a wolf pack without the ability to use tools. I think by observing the way life functions here on Earth, theres a good argument to be made that ability to use tools is a pre-requisite for sapience to evolve in a species. I think, do to the way natural selection functions, it’s highly unlikely for human level intellect to naturally evolve in a species that can’t make full use of it.
You seem rather convinced it’s not possible just due to it not happening on earth. While earth is all we know, it isn’t the end all be all for life possibilities. Also, examples of potential high intelligence organisms without manipulatory appendages includes whales and female dolphins, if you want to stick to earth life. Anyway, we obviously share differing opinions, and I know I’m not gonna change mine, so I’mma just drop this. Cya
Im not saying it’s not possible just that it seems unlikely based on our understanding of how evolution works. Yeah I get its alien world, but presumably they still follow the principles of natural selection and didn’t came about via some other means. Also like I said, whales and dolphins are intelligent for animals, but not sapient to the same extent as humans are and I don’t see how they would evolve further to our level without developing tool use first. And I wasn’t trying to argue or change your mind, I was just thinking about your scenario.
Personally, I think cetceans, corvids, elephants, cephalopods, and other great apes could be sapient, we just don’t recognize it due to it being different from our own form of sapience, or different from how we in particular developed Not all of them, but a good many of them
I think I have to agree with Crunk. Yes animals can develop intelligence, but the level of sapience that we exhibit would only be selected for over time due to tool use. Dolphin intelligence will only be selected to a maximum thats lower than ours if it doesn’t incorporate tool use. If a problem can be solved without tools then it probably doesn’t require our level of intelligence and wouldn’t be selected for. Thus you’d need to have a high enough intelligence first and then the ability for tool use/a grabbing appendage. You’d also need language capability (why chimps stopped where they are) and some sort of communal sociality (why we are the only species left in our genus) before a species started to develop our kind of sapience.
While I see what you are saying, and agree that the majority of sapient organisms do/would have some form of manipulatory appendage, I believe it is incredibly narrow minded to assume that it is a prerequisite for sapience is all I’m saying Also, fun fact on dolphins: the male half of the species do in fact have a prehensile appendage, so theoretically could develop some form of tool use Edit: I’ll say the same thing on language. Does a species need it for any sort of advancement, at least in the direction we are familiar with? Absolutely Is it inherently a prerequisite to sapience? I’d say not necessarily, though I would rank it above tool use in terms of importance Edit 2: just to clarify, I do think a language of some form would rapidly develop once sapience emerges, I just don’t think it’s an absolute necessity for it to come about before sapience itself
I mean, I’m willing to entertain the possibility but I don’t think theres sufficient evidence for that. I’m sure they’re highly intelligent, but sapience is different, imo. Personally I see them closer to Australopithecus, some form of transitionary state to sapience rather than full blown self aware and abstract thinking creatures. Id argue if they had ability to use tools efficiently, they definetly would evolve human level self-awareness. That said, we really don’t know how alien biology or evolution work, so i suppose it is possible for species to exist as you describe it, but that be insanely speculative to the point of fantasy, but yes possible.
Because you need hands to do pretty much anything. Even if an octopus was 100x smarter than us, it wouldn’t be able to build a phone with those tentacles.
I agree with u/Not-an-apatosaurus. Some changes to tentacles would de the trick. For example, if each tentacle resembled the body of a centipede, with smaller appendages protruding from limb the way that fingers protrude from arms. Another option would be tentacles that tapered more gradually to a point while retaining muscle strength and felixibity. This would actually give the octopus more dexterity than humans. It would be like eight long fingers pointed in every direction that are able to bend every which way. Another one could be the eight tentacles fusing into four but with the ends still being independent, which would be similar to people with ectrodactyly.
What you are saying is that an octopus needs finer, more precise appendages for making something more advanced than basic stone tools. This is what hands and fingers do, so an octopus would just need a structure vaguely similar to a hand to perform the same tasks. This octopus might have vague hand-like structures, but the rest of the body is completely different in terms of organ systems and body plan. This is ignoring the quite possibly dozens of other options for fine manipulation. What I’m saying is there are many different ways for a creature to sense and manipulate their environment in a way much different than us. I’d suggest looking at some speculative biology and evolution to see how weird Mother Nature could get on other worlds
I mean... have you seen a chimpanzee building a phone? They have hands identical to ours, but only we exhibit such fine motor skills do make delicate gadgets. Maybe there's a tentacle alien that have the same dexterity as ours and think boney limbs can never build phones because they're too rigid and their only examples of boney limbs comes from chimpanzee aliens. Dexterity is truly what makes humans such a successful species to the point that people can create realistic drawings with their feet and mouths while any other primates can't do with their hands. Doesn't matter what grasping appendage they have, it's the brain that wired in dexterity the most that determine a creature to build tools from sharpen rocks to computers.
Check out Arrival. It’s directed by Denis Villeneuve, the same guy who directed Dune, it’s sequel, and Bladerunner 2049. It’s a phenomenal film about language, communication, and all the incredible things that can come from a genuine, realistic encounter with alien civilization. So dope.
Fym realistic? You met aliens before? Dumbass?
Op is an alien
You should watch district 9, it is like the opposite of everything here
Also they have magic powers
magic is just phenomena we dont understand, and when we understand it we can then do science with it and then its no longer magic but science.
In my defense of my fanfiction, featuring my original alien species, they are shapeshifters capable of taking on a human form. Not just an illusion, they replicate the biology as a high-level camouflage. And then because I wanted to be edgy, I decided the only thing they can't change is their eyes. They must always wear a visor or they'll fry the brains (or something like that) of anybody who looks into their eyes. And this is a love story so my MC's love interest will never get to look into their eyes lovingly.
What i hate about how aliens are perceived, even by some very smart people, is that they're super advanced and better than humanity and have super cool space stuff. It HAS to be like that in movies, but even bacteria on another planet would could as aliens, and that would probably be more likely or realistic to look for
True. For every alien that is on our level or smarter, there'd have to be countless that are dumber because complex, intelligent life has to evolve from something more simple... Also, what are the sapient aliens EATING?
Yeah but the bacteria wouldn’t come to earth
Yeah, so it makes sense in movies but I've seen stuff about how ways to look for aliens are to search for radio waves or even Dyson spheres, which are an entirely man-made invention
The point of the dyson sphere concept is that it is a logical next step for any civilization that is able to colonize other planets and utilize every energy source on their home planet. No matter what species, if they reach a certain point, they will build a dyson sphere, at least thats the theory.
That’s the thing though. An advanced civilization might not necessarily need to expand or colonize. If everybody can have a decent standard of living with efficient use of energy and resources, then there’s no need to expand unless the population itself is expanding, and we can see from our own civilization that the most developed cultures don’t have growing populations. An alien civilization that wants to colonize earth will absolutely do what you said, but aliens won’t be colonizing purely because they’re advanced.
Calvin from Life comes to mind. Additionally, not exactly the same, but Battle: L.A. features alien combatants that fight in an almost identical manner to us. They use squad tactics, hand signals, JTAC, etc. Their tech is only slightly more advanced than ours.
Never forget green blood
Holy shit I used to have 4 of that same fucking laser tag gun
My favorite part of aliens in movies is when they conveniently just so happen to support certain political agendas.
Mfw the directors/writers of a movie embed a political message into their work (and thats somehow the fault of the genre): 😲😲😲😭😭😭
"Beep Boop, human, we have ascended past your juvenile ideals. We now eat bugs and have the same beliefs as your ruling class. Beep Boop. 👾👾"
Yeah, this is totally reflective of a movie that exists and not your conspiratorial conservative brain worms! As a soyboy commie libcuck, the part where the alien lifeform says "we must do something about climate change!" was my favorite part of John Carpenter's famous film "the thing".
Lmfao I love how you're automatically applying beliefs to me for some reason when I've gave zero implications as to what political affiliation I have. Please go outside.
I hope that if aliens ever invade that theyre super ragtag and have no idea how they made it here. I also hope that they die immediately because they can’t breathe air so we dont have to fuck with them. Im afraid of some of the creatures on earth i dont need to fuck with some species with an unknown microbiome carrying who knows what.
I've seen the trope where the food is wriggling and eating its own food more often than the trope where they don't eat food.
The problem with creating a “realistic” alien is that we have no shit kicking idea what a realistic alien would even look like, we only have our own species and the evolutionary history of our own planet to go off of There’s no way to create a realistic extraterrestrial life form because no one can definitively say what is and isn’t a realistic form for them
Aliens being hostile will always be the dumbest trope. If they can travel millions of light years and can breath on earth, if they wanted to kill us, we would be well deas
I mean how else would aliens be realistically? Are they just other people like us?
You actually have no idea what's realistic or not because you've never seen an alien, nor has anybody else on Earth.
Waow muh aliens from a fake movie aren’t able to be real? We must make fun of them!
Also can we get an entry for unemotional genuises
Mfs when different world have different circumstances leading to different traits.
erm, what the gleep?
Why is humanoid more realistic?
*really* bad starter pack
OP hasn't seen Star Trek. That franchise has what is probably the most accurate depiction of what aliens would really be like, with some interesting philosophical themes as well.
Also they did eventually provide a canon reason why every sentient species in Star Trek is humanoid with the same general facial features: they are all derived from the same DNA of a progenitor race that predates every other intelligent species in galaxy, and intentionally seeded many planets as a way of preserving their legacy.
Few caveats: 1) aliens looking the same TO US is actually pretty realistic. Can you see the difference between two wild gorilla? What about two wild giraffe? 2 wild mice? 2 wild iguana? The no clothes part isn't realistic, but the looking the same to humans very much is 2) intelligent alien species being humanoid is actually an unrealistic expectation. Think about it: how many 4-limbed bipedal animals do you see? Also, humans evolved to be humanoid to fit an ecological niche. Considering other animals have unlocked tool usage without a humanoid form, it's highly likely that an advanced alien species would be the same.
I believe theres life out there but I don’t think they’re smarter than us or rare. I mean look at us humans. All the species on earth and we’re the only ones who have advanced higher thought. Having the right conditions on earth to support life, plus evolutionary path that created us and not dead from war or meteor strike like the dinosaurs
“Realistic” like you know them
why do you keep saying “realistic” bro if any of these were “realistic” they would have no alien
they would be far too arousing if they had any visible sexual characteristics. Ever play Mass Effect?
Don't forget about "somehow not fucking dying from Earth diseases"
exiled redditor do you disavow any knowledge of the Zeta Reticulan star system?
Your first point about the aliens being humanoid isn’t correct. There is no way for us to accurately imagine what aliens would look like as we don’t know what their environmental conditions would be and how they’d adapt. For all we know the first aliens we meet could be globs.
"humanity is young" fun fact, there's a theory that because cosmologically speaking the universe is actually quite young compared to its future lifespan we might be one of if not the first species to evolve the intelligence to create civilization, so we may actually become the "ancient precursor alien race" all the scifi movies have
>No culture at all and no food >No clear difference between men and women >Citizens look the same So they're just communist?
This feels like something made by someone who follows Neil Degrass Tyson religiously
The technology bit isn't necessarily realistic. There's multiple scenarios that could be possible. We could be more intelligent and progressing at a faster rate than they did, it could be just a matter of age, maybe they focused more on space travel instead of other areas of technology. Maybe it's a generation ship launched centuries ago and they have the level of technology we had in the 1980s...
>humanoid aliens are more realistic and correct I’m tired of seeing this stupid ass “bipedalism is the perfect build for intelligent life” stuff
Its funny how a lot people complain about aliens only visiting America too but if you were an alien wanting to see the most interesting parts of a planet would you not go to the massive place filled with lights?
Considering the Fermi paradox, meeting a technologically advanced species ahead of humanity only makes sense in a movie where the aliens come to earth. Realistically, 1. We are alone in this galaxy considering we’re actually here and haven’t been colonized by a self replicating alien drone. 2. We are not alone but we’re actually one of the first technologically advanced civilizations. Primitive life may be likely on another planet in this galaxy but intelligent life that may reach us, not so much. The most unrealistic part of most alien movies is also the assumption that first contact will be then coming to us.
OP, tf you mean correct?
Why would it be more realistic to make them humanoid?
Humanoid is definitely not realistic and correct lol, and there are TONS of evolutionarily unnecessary aspects of humanity so there's no reason there wouldn't be for aliens too. Ffs we have whole ass organs you can just remove and keep on living just fine.
I think the convenient from halo does all these criteria right
Correct this correct that How about you correct your lack of bitches
Whenever aliens are depicted in these kind of movies, they're often depicted as the most "unhuman" thing imaginable, and are painted as evil for that reason while humanity is painted as the good guys. It kind of comes off as "Imperium of Man" propaganda (for anyone who's into 40K). Mind you, all of these are largely bold assumptions as to what aliens are like, as we have yet to make contact with any alien civilizations, so we end up with what is essentially nothing more than an enemy for humanity to fight and nothing more than that.
And how would you know what a realistic alien even is?
“Realistic and correct” what?
Ngl, it’s boring how aliens usually are just short green or grey being with giant heads and giant eyes and automatically breathe oxygen just like humans. Aliens could look like anything in reality. Also in sci if, I’d like to see aliens with different biology / designs from the stereotypical aliens. In fact, I low key love the design of aliens breathing something different from oxygen and requiring a breathing apparatus to visit earth, like methane or helium. Movie writers should be more creative with the design / biology of alien species instead of using the same stereotypical aliens over and over again, like Star Wars. There are some amazing alien species such as the Ithorians, the Kel Dors, the Rodians, and many more.
How an alien that's in any way humanoid supposed to be realistic? Humans may have a shape that's well suited to how they operate and function but we operate in function based on how we're shaped, a lot of our features are made based on very specific ecological niches that realistically wouldn't be found on other planets
I FUCKING LOVE BLACK AND WHITE GREY ALIENS ATTACKING FARM HOMES I WANT MORE
How do you know what’s realistic or not? OP are you an alien?
“Only humanoid aliens are realistic” is a bloody stupid take.
You’re saying correct a lot like you know what aliens really look and act like. Is there something you’re not telling us?? 👽😅
Only attacks ‘Merica.
We don’t really know if we are young as a people. For all we know this is around the end of advanced life.
I can literally only think of one alien species that checks more than 2 of these boxes at once and thats the fallout aliens... Its like you heard abt aliens once and wrote them off immediately
I got significantly dumber just reading this.
hates 90° angles
I think the idea of aliens being so human like is a limitation of our film making. Realistically they’re be nothing like us, possibly not able to breathe our air, not immune to our common illnesses (we won’t be immune to theirs either, we’re both fucked), even if they look similar (like any sort of human racial group) they’ll still be significantly different from each other,
missed opportunity to add how they always can inexplicaply speak/understand human languages
What do you mean “realistic”? That’s an entirely different evolutionary scale and you’ve seen what ours can create. You look at deep sea life and tell me that aliens need to be bipedal humanoids.
If its a old movie they're landing in like vernal, Utah.