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> (The difference between the intelligence of Albert Einstein and an ant is far less than Albert Einstein and some living thing which is able to make it to eart

> (The difference between the intelligence of Albert Einstein and an ant is far less than Albert Einstein and some living thing which is able to make it to earth and live here undetected for 60/? years ) Eh? That’s a really weird way of looking at intelligence. By all accounts of you pluck baby from 10,000 BCE and raise it today it wouldn’t be any different than an average person today. Now one can argue that aliens might be much more physiologically intelligent than humans on a biological level but that’s not necessarily a given or a requirement. “Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” is true but it doesn’t mean that you can’t understand if it’s explained to you. An alien civilization that simply has a time lead on humanity might be much more advanced but it doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to understand the physics of how they got here once we learn about it. An ant is severely limited by biology, for the most part it can not really learn or understand things on an abstract level. Humans on the other hand very much can, if aliens can travel faster than light by exploiting some new physics we just need access to their Wikipedia.

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aspaceman 6y ago
Yeah ancient folks were still smart. Engineers and scientists of all sorts still. I think people often give way too much weight to intelligence, and not enough to just tools. Give a dude in 1000 a voltmeter and things get crazy.
admissionsguy 6y ago
The aliens might also be less intelligent than humans, but more advanced technologically due to the lead time or just higher cooperativity. "Dumb aliens" could be a refreshing premise for a sci-fi story.. although it lies on the same continuum as any ant-like intelligent collective, so it's nothing new after all.
- suby 6y ago
  It's a cool idea. I'd bet that it's unlikely for a sufficiently intelligent species (say one capable of creating machines to cross interstellar distances) to stay dumb, though. Humanity is fast approaching the point where we can edit our genes or otherwise select for intelligence. Even the idea of creating non-human super intelligent agents of some sort is arguably within reach over the course of the next few hundred years. I like to think that though the starting average intelligence for a given species might be lower than others, eventually we all wind up at the same place, either turning ourselves into or building some hypothetically (given the laws of the universe) maximally intelligent system.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- devoutsalsa 6y ago
  Isaac Arthur made a video titled “Stupid Aliens”: https://youtu.be/yXWe8g0zziw https://youtu.be/yXWe8g0zziw
- T-A 6y ago
  Here's a classic one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3302567-pandora-s-planet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3302567-pandora-s-planet
pacman2 6y ago
> By all accounts of you pluck baby from 10,000 BCE and raise it today it wouldn’t be any different than an average person today. There are people who would disagree with this.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  Why ? I've heard that things might have changed 80k years ago when thanks to cultural progress autism went from negative to positive (for the community), but otherwise AFAIK there haven't been any significant changes since the apparition of homo sapiens 350k-400k years ago ?
  - antibuddy 6y ago
    Autism is by (original) definition a disorder. If everyone has that disorder, then it is no longer a disorder. I think many people confuse specializaiton, focus and/or intellect with autism.
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      I feel that is just one of the definitions of autism ? Anyway, I didn't want to suggest that everyone had to have it : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160
  - pacman2 6y ago
    There is an argument that the mind of people changed a few thousand years ago, part as a cultural phenomenon, part as a genetic selection process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in... (the genetic selection process is mentioned in the book, the wiki abstract puts more focus on a cultural development)
    - Hikikomori 6y ago
      One of my favourite cyberpunk novels was inspired by this, Snow Crash.

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aspaceman 6y ago

Yeah ancient folks were still smart. Engineers and scientists of all sorts still. I think people often give way too much weight to intelligence, and not enough to just tools. Give a dude in 1000 a voltmeter and things get crazy.

admissionsguy 6y ago

The aliens might also be less intelligent than humans, but more advanced technologically due to the lead time or just higher cooperativity. "Dumb aliens" could be a refreshing premise for a sci-fi story.. although it lies on the same continuum as any ant-like intelligent collective, so it's nothing new after all.

suby 6y ago
It's a cool idea. I'd bet that it's unlikely for a sufficiently intelligent species (say one capable of creating machines to cross interstellar distances) to stay dumb, though. Humanity is fast approaching the point where we can edit our genes or otherwise select for intelligence. Even the idea of creating non-human super intelligent agents of some sort is arguably within reach over the course of the next few hundred years. I like to think that though the starting average intelligence for a given species might be lower than others, eventually we all wind up at the same place, either turning ourselves into or building some hypothetically (given the laws of the universe) maximally intelligent system.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
devoutsalsa 6y ago
Isaac Arthur made a video titled “Stupid Aliens”: https://youtu.be/yXWe8g0zziw https://youtu.be/yXWe8g0zziw
T-A 6y ago
Here's a classic one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3302567-pandora-s-planet https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3302567-pandora-s-planet

pacman2 6y ago

> By all accounts of you pluck baby from 10,000 BCE and raise it today it wouldn’t be any different than an average person today. There are people who would disagree with this.

BlueTemplar 6y ago
Why ? I've heard that things might have changed 80k years ago when thanks to cultural progress autism went from negative to positive (for the community), but otherwise AFAIK there haven't been any significant changes since the apparition of homo sapiens 350k-400k years ago ?
- antibuddy 6y ago
  Autism is by (original) definition a disorder. If everyone has that disorder, then it is no longer a disorder. I think many people confuse specializaiton, focus and/or intellect with autism.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    I feel that is just one of the definitions of autism ? Anyway, I didn't want to suggest that everyone had to have it : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160
- pacman2 6y ago
  There is an argument that the mind of people changed a few thousand years ago, part as a cultural phenomenon, part as a genetic selection process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in... (the genetic selection process is mentioned in the book, the wiki abstract puts more focus on a cultural development)
  - Hikikomori 6y ago
    One of my favourite cyberpunk novels was inspired by this, Snow Crash.