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The answer to this is very obvious: For the same reason that humans have not "made contact" with ants. Why do you assume a higher intelligence would even be c

The answer to this is very obvious: For the same reason that humans have not "made contact" with ants. Why do you assume a higher intelligence would even be capable of making contact with us on a level we understand? The discussion would be meaningless, in the same way that an ant would not comprehend our desire to build a freeway right next to their ant hill.

pdonis 8y ago
That just rephrases the question to: Why hasn't a higher intelligence built their equivalent of a freeway right through our ant hill?
- adrianmacneil 8y ago
  An ant cannot "see" not comprehend the purpose of a freeway, no matter how hard we might try to explain it. It would walk right over it and not think it were any different than your average rock.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the ant's ant hill gets destroyed if the freeway is built over it. Or that the ant itself gets crushed if it gets run over while walking across the freeway. The ant will notice those things even if it doesn't understand what caused them.
    - adrianmacneil 8y ago
      Exactly. Thus far, all we can say for sure is that we have not yet been carelessly crushed to make room for some intergalactic freeway we do not understand. That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though.
      - pdonis 8y ago
        > That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though. If there were, I would expect us to be carelessly crushed in a short period of time.
- musage 8y ago
  How do you know an alien species isn't, say, replacing our minds with parking lots? If humans weren't so good at doing that to themselves (and then blaming external factors or "others" for it), I would totally look into that as an explanation for all this pathetic mess we live and worsen every day. At any rate, the idea that you can necessarily rank civilizations of totally different backgrounds by level of advancement seems very suspect to me, like asking Dwight Schrute if a bear would win against a shark or something, only with a whole other dimension of near infinite theoretical possibilities.
adrianN 8y ago
We have "made contact" with pretty much every species that display even a little intelligence though, including ants. Ants just don't notice when they run inside some scientist's experiment. Do you propose that we're so drastically inferior that we don't even know someone is having us find the cheese in a maze?
- millstone 8y ago
  Yes, I think this is literally true. Messages may be encoded in the arrangement of stars, via PCM-neutrinos, etc., and humanity would be ignorant. The history of biology is discovering species in places previously thought unlivable: impossibly salty environments, volcanic vents, etc. A natural extension is finding species in places "above" humanity.

pdonis 8y ago

That just rephrases the question to: Why hasn't a higher intelligence built their equivalent of a freeway right through our ant hill?

adrianmacneil 8y ago
An ant cannot "see" not comprehend the purpose of a freeway, no matter how hard we might try to explain it. It would walk right over it and not think it were any different than your average rock.
- pdonis 8y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the ant's ant hill gets destroyed if the freeway is built over it. Or that the ant itself gets crushed if it gets run over while walking across the freeway. The ant will notice those things even if it doesn't understand what caused them.
  - adrianmacneil 8y ago
    Exactly. Thus far, all we can say for sure is that we have not yet been carelessly crushed to make room for some intergalactic freeway we do not understand. That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though.
    - pdonis 8y ago
      > That doesn't mean there isn't one right in front of our eyes though. If there were, I would expect us to be carelessly crushed in a short period of time.
musage 8y ago
How do you know an alien species isn't, say, replacing our minds with parking lots? If humans weren't so good at doing that to themselves (and then blaming external factors or "others" for it), I would totally look into that as an explanation for all this pathetic mess we live and worsen every day. At any rate, the idea that you can necessarily rank civilizations of totally different backgrounds by level of advancement seems very suspect to me, like asking Dwight Schrute if a bear would win against a shark or something, only with a whole other dimension of near infinite theoretical possibilities.

adrianN 8y ago

We have "made contact" with pretty much every species that display even a little intelligence though, including ants. Ants just don't notice when they run inside some scientist's experiment. Do you propose that we're so drastically inferior that we don't even know someone is having us find the cheese in a maze?

millstone 8y ago
Yes, I think this is literally true. Messages may be encoded in the arrangement of stars, via PCM-neutrinos, etc., and humanity would be ignorant. The history of biology is discovering species in places previously thought unlivable: impossibly salty environments, volcanic vents, etc. A natural extension is finding species in places "above" humanity.