4 ms·

Closed ecosystems seem to reach a stable equilibrium of peace and natural harmony, eg Mauritius's dodo, so we don't need to fear aliens (er, unless they come he

by 10ren 17y ago

Closed ecosystems seem to reach a stable equilibrium of peace and natural harmony, eg Mauritius's dodo, so we don't need to fear aliens (er, unless they come here.) But earth itself is a closed ecosystem and it's not in harmony - for peace, it must also be open within. I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it. - sadly, past tense BTW: I didn't fully get the cute headline at first: a literal meaning of alien is stranger http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alien http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alien

volida 17y ago
This is very wrong to assume. What if they have accessed the technology to travel without producing it, therefore not having reached any kind of peace equilibrium you are suggesting required for their species to survive and progress? Any if you are going to play with the words just use the extraterrestrial one.
- 10ren 17y ago
  I don't quite follow your second sentence, but I agree that their staying at home doesn't necessarily mean they're peaceful (we're not); I was just noting one way that they might be peaceful. But if they are traveling around, our own history suggests they're (probably) not peaceful. Then again, we have travelers who are traders, who are migrating, who are explorers, who are tourists etc. To travel doesn't necessarily mean you're expansionist; it's just that whenever you think of conquers, they were travelers - of course. You can't stay at home and conquer. There's an interesting idea that to be conquered doesn't necessarily mean that your civic organization and culture is conquered. If your government etc works well, conquerers have often adopted it (ie they are conquered), and the rulers rotate, coup d'état. Military superiority doesn't necessarily imply civic superiority. BTW: Headlines with puns or allusions are usually deliberate.
mixmax 17y ago
Evolution rewards the most vicious and aggressive species that is best at adapting to and use its environment. Since evolution is presumably also the process behind intelligent alien life I have a hard time buying the stable equilibrium of peace and natural harmony theory. Just look at ourselves - wars in iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestina, etc. And these are peaceful times. As a species we are extremely vicious and aggressive and there's no reason to believe that evolutionary successful aliens would be any different.
- 10ren 17y ago
  Note that I was talking about closed ecosystems. How do you explain the specific example I gave of the dodo? There are many other examples from similarly closed systems, such as New Zealand birds, before man (since we opened them). I would argue that the world formerly comprised many isolated ecosystems, which have began to open over our recent history. Although the world has shrunk towards a global-village - becoming more open within - I would say most is still too isolated. It also probably takes a long time for even a fully open ecosystem to settle down, possibly on an evolutionary timescale of millions of years. But once a closed system happens to come to a stable state, it stays there (til disturbed.) OTOH, maybe constant warfare is another point of stable equilibria?
  - mixmax 17y ago
    Evolution is never at an equilibrium - it's constantly changing and experimenting through sexual recombination and mutation. So the premise doesn't hold IMHO. The dodo is an example of a species that was caught off guard in this evolutionary arms race, and was viciously exterminated by another species, namely us. Certainly there are species without natural enemies (swans, blue whales, man etc.) but they are the exception not the rule.
    - 10ren 17y ago
      If evolution is constantly changing, how can a creature be caught off guard? The answer is that in a closed system, it is possible to reach a stable point that it is difficult to jump out of: in the search space of genotypes, there is a local maxima in the utility of the phenotype. One thing I was wrong about was that the stable equilibria doesn't exist indefinitely; eventually a mutation might arise that does jump out. I was also assuming that a closed ecosystem was also closed to change in general. The latter seems more common; that equilibria is upset by an outside event that alters the utility of the phenotype - such as an open system closing, or some non-biological change in the environment (eg climate), and not by a change in the genotypes within the closed system. It is possible that aliens are in one of these stable configurations at the time that we encounter them, which seems more likely in closed ecosystems. Closed ecosystems can be created by internal barriers being removed (which intelligent life, or at least we, seem to be doing). Of course, it's harder to eliminate change altogether (!), so that source of alteration in the utility function would remain. Yet, we certainly have motivation to eliminate environmental change that affects us adversely, so perhaps intelligent life is likely to be at equilibrium, in the long term. If you disagree, I request that you indicate with which part. ;-)

by 10ren 17y ago

volida 17y ago

This is very wrong to assume. What if they have accessed the technology to travel without producing it, therefore not having reached any kind of peace equilibrium you are suggesting required for their species to survive and progress? Any if you are going to play with the words just use the extraterrestrial one.

10ren 17y ago
I don't quite follow your second sentence, but I agree that their staying at home doesn't necessarily mean they're peaceful (we're not); I was just noting one way that they might be peaceful. But if they are traveling around, our own history suggests they're (probably) not peaceful. Then again, we have travelers who are traders, who are migrating, who are explorers, who are tourists etc. To travel doesn't necessarily mean you're expansionist; it's just that whenever you think of conquers, they were travelers - of course. You can't stay at home and conquer. There's an interesting idea that to be conquered doesn't necessarily mean that your civic organization and culture is conquered. If your government etc works well, conquerers have often adopted it (ie they are conquered), and the rulers rotate, coup d'état. Military superiority doesn't necessarily imply civic superiority. BTW: Headlines with puns or allusions are usually deliberate.

mixmax 17y ago

Evolution rewards the most vicious and aggressive species that is best at adapting to and use its environment. Since evolution is presumably also the process behind intelligent alien life I have a hard time buying the stable equilibrium of peace and natural harmony theory. Just look at ourselves - wars in iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Palestina, etc. And these are peaceful times. As a species we are extremely vicious and aggressive and there's no reason to believe that evolutionary successful aliens would be any different.

10ren 17y ago
Note that I was talking about closed ecosystems. How do you explain the specific example I gave of the dodo? There are many other examples from similarly closed systems, such as New Zealand birds, before man (since we opened them). I would argue that the world formerly comprised many isolated ecosystems, which have began to open over our recent history. Although the world has shrunk towards a global-village - becoming more open within - I would say most is still too isolated. It also probably takes a long time for even a fully open ecosystem to settle down, possibly on an evolutionary timescale of millions of years. But once a closed system happens to come to a stable state, it stays there (til disturbed.) OTOH, maybe constant warfare is another point of stable equilibria?
- mixmax 17y ago
  Evolution is never at an equilibrium - it's constantly changing and experimenting through sexual recombination and mutation. So the premise doesn't hold IMHO. The dodo is an example of a species that was caught off guard in this evolutionary arms race, and was viciously exterminated by another species, namely us. Certainly there are species without natural enemies (swans, blue whales, man etc.) but they are the exception not the rule.
  - 10ren 17y ago
    If evolution is constantly changing, how can a creature be caught off guard? The answer is that in a closed system, it is possible to reach a stable point that it is difficult to jump out of: in the search space of genotypes, there is a local maxima in the utility of the phenotype. One thing I was wrong about was that the stable equilibria doesn't exist indefinitely; eventually a mutation might arise that does jump out. I was also assuming that a closed ecosystem was also closed to change in general. The latter seems more common; that equilibria is upset by an outside event that alters the utility of the phenotype - such as an open system closing, or some non-biological change in the environment (eg climate), and not by a change in the genotypes within the closed system. It is possible that aliens are in one of these stable configurations at the time that we encounter them, which seems more likely in closed ecosystems. Closed ecosystems can be created by internal barriers being removed (which intelligent life, or at least we, seem to be doing). Of course, it's harder to eliminate change altogether (!), so that source of alteration in the utility function would remain. Yet, we certainly have motivation to eliminate environmental change that affects us adversely, so perhaps intelligent life is likely to be at equilibrium, in the long term. If you disagree, I request that you indicate with which part. ;-)