3 ms·

If they are anything like humans but more developed I dont see our world changing for the better. Conquistadors anyone?

• ctdonath 12y ago
  If they are anything beyond basic microbes, we may very well find our notion of the nature of "life" challenged, especially if they're something construed as "intelligent". Imagine, say, discovering jellyfish for the first time...now consider finding intelligent jellyfish. Cognitive dissonance follows.
  • colanderman 12y ago
    Agreed. We barely know how to communicate with the intelligent species on our own planet except those most closely related to us (the great apes); let alone those more distantly related (dolphins, crows). Imagine the extraterrestrial intelligence were a colony of slime-mold like creatures with a far slower metabolism than ours. I don't think humanity could even begin to interface with them, despite sharing traits with beings that are known to us.
    • ars 12y ago
      > let alone those more distantly related (dolphins, crows) Our inability to communicate with them is not because we don't know how to do it, but because they don't communicate much. The stuff they do communicate we understood. So I see no problems in communicating with an Alien that does actually communicate.
      • colanderman 12y ago
        As recently as 2011 we discovered that Dolphins communicate by sonogram: http://www.speakdolphin.com/ResearchItems.cfm?ID=20 http://www.speakdolphin.com/ResearchItems.cfm?ID=20 Our new model of dolphin language is one in which dolphins can not only send and receive pictures of objects around them but can create entirely new sono-pictures simply by imagining what they want to communicate.