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The first alien we will ever encounter is likely a neural network we built with our hands.

mbg721 4y ago
I think the first alien we ever encounter will be something like a bacterium or virus, it will spur a debate as to whether it's really life, and it might already have happened.
chii 4y ago
But that wouldn't technically be an alien, since it's not extra-terrestrial.
- ben_w 4y ago
  "Alien" doesn't only mean "extra-terrestrial", for example: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-if-you-are-selected/diversity-visa-submit-your-iv-and-alien-registration-application.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat... And: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/12/gender-segregation-not-alien-culture-universities-chief https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/12/gender-segre...
  - messe 4y ago
    Ok, but right here, in this context, everybody else in the thread is quite obviously referring to extra-terrestrials.
api 4y ago
If something visits us from another star system it's also likely to be an AI. Hibernation for thousands of years to travel between stars would be almost trivial for machine intelligence. Just turn yourself off. It'd be easy to tie this directly to solar power. Have an array of solar panels that powers you near a star and in interstellar space you just naturally go to sleep. When you approach the next star system the light generates power and wakes you up. Star travel is easy if you don't have a fixed life span or are able to just deactivate. No need for crazy physicists' nightmare propulsion systems to travel close to the speed of light or wormholes or any of that far-out stuff. Chemical propulsion will do just fine. For humans or any other biological entities to travel between stars they'd need to be able to basically die and be resurrected like tardigrades. We can imagine an alien biology that would make this easier, but for humans we have no idea how to do this and survive.
- seanw444 4y ago
  What's hard to comprehend is how there could be a possible way to preserve our consciousness through a hibernation state. Like, our cells might not die, and we might be technically revived, but we'd still be brain-dead. And if we figure it out, does the original "experiencer of consciousness" in that body return to life? Or is it a new consciousness, with the same memories, but the original person who went to sleep would never experience waking up again? And how would we be able to test that? If we asked the "new experiencer of consciousness" if they are the original, they would say yes, as they'd have all the same memories as the experiencer who initially went under. Kind of like the color blind problem, but much harder to objectively test, if not impossible. Consciousness, behind a unified theory of everything, is one thing I hope is answered in my life time. Probably won't be. But it's such a mystery.
  - api 4y ago
    It’s the same problem as surviving cryonic suspension. If we can do that we could go to the stars.
  - drowsspa 4y ago
    That sounds like a non-issue. Our conscience already "pauses" when we go to sleep or get hit in the head, we already have people being resuscitated...
    - seanw444 4y ago
      What if consciousness is something that can only be revived, with the revival of the body, a short period of time after the body "shuts down"? Like its own non-physical life form, for lack of better description. We focus on the preservation of the body when talking about this stuff. But maybe the pattern of "waking up from normal sleep" doesn't hold true over such a time span? Of course there's no scientific rebuttal for this fairly unscientific question, yet, but it's interesting to think about.
      - drowsspa 4y ago
tshaddox 4y ago
We might not know enough about what intelligence is to recognize it in any other form than the human form we’re familiar with. It could be that we start recognizing several other forms of intelligence around the same time, not necessarily because of new observations becoming available to us, but because we learn more about what intelligence looks like.

I think the first alien we ever encounter will be something like a bacterium or virus, it will spur a debate as to whether it's really life, and it might already have happened.

chii 4y ago

But that wouldn't technically be an alien, since it's not extra-terrestrial.

ben_w 4y ago
"Alien" doesn't only mean "extra-terrestrial", for example: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/diversity-visa-program-entry/diversity-visa-if-you-are-selected/diversity-visa-submit-your-iv-and-alien-registration-application.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrat... And: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/12/gender-segregation-not-alien-culture-universities-chief https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/12/gender-segre...
- messe 4y ago
  Ok, but right here, in this context, everybody else in the thread is quite obviously referring to extra-terrestrials.

api 4y ago

If something visits us from another star system it's also likely to be an AI. Hibernation for thousands of years to travel between stars would be almost trivial for machine intelligence. Just turn yourself off. It'd be easy to tie this directly to solar power. Have an array of solar panels that powers you near a star and in interstellar space you just naturally go to sleep. When you approach the next star system the light generates power and wakes you up. Star travel is easy if you don't have a fixed life span or are able to just deactivate. No need for crazy physicists' nightmare propulsion systems to travel close to the speed of light or wormholes or any of that far-out stuff. Chemical propulsion will do just fine. For humans or any other biological entities to travel between stars they'd need to be able to basically die and be resurrected like tardigrades. We can imagine an alien biology that would make this easier, but for humans we have no idea how to do this and survive.

seanw444 4y ago
What's hard to comprehend is how there could be a possible way to preserve our consciousness through a hibernation state. Like, our cells might not die, and we might be technically revived, but we'd still be brain-dead. And if we figure it out, does the original "experiencer of consciousness" in that body return to life? Or is it a new consciousness, with the same memories, but the original person who went to sleep would never experience waking up again? And how would we be able to test that? If we asked the "new experiencer of consciousness" if they are the original, they would say yes, as they'd have all the same memories as the experiencer who initially went under. Kind of like the color blind problem, but much harder to objectively test, if not impossible. Consciousness, behind a unified theory of everything, is one thing I hope is answered in my life time. Probably won't be. But it's such a mystery.
- api 4y ago
  It’s the same problem as surviving cryonic suspension. If we can do that we could go to the stars.
- drowsspa 4y ago
  That sounds like a non-issue. Our conscience already "pauses" when we go to sleep or get hit in the head, we already have people being resuscitated...
  - seanw444 4y ago
    What if consciousness is something that can only be revived, with the revival of the body, a short period of time after the body "shuts down"? Like its own non-physical life form, for lack of better description. We focus on the preservation of the body when talking about this stuff. But maybe the pattern of "waking up from normal sleep" doesn't hold true over such a time span? Of course there's no scientific rebuttal for this fairly unscientific question, yet, but it's interesting to think about.
    - drowsspa 4y ago

tshaddox 4y ago

We might not know enough about what intelligence is to recognize it in any other form than the human form we’re familiar with. It could be that we start recognizing several other forms of intelligence around the same time, not necessarily because of new observations becoming available to us, but because we learn more about what intelligence looks like.