(September 27, 2016 at 5:08 am)Mathilda Wrote: What does it mean to be a higher form of life? It doesn't mean that you are from a civilisation that is more technologically advanced. We are still the same species that existed 1,000 years ago. We're not a higher form of life compared to our medieval ancestors. We still have the same base instincts, drives and emotions. We're both apes walking around on two legs. Think of an alien, they'll be an animal too evolved in a similar way for a specific environmental niche.

A higher form of life is something more biologically complex with a larger hierarchy, in the same way that a multi-cellular organism is a higher form of life than a single celled organism, and a mammal is an even higher form of life. We already contain lower forms of life within us, like gut bacteria, or mitochondria DNA. Higher forms of life already exist on this planet. They're called corporations.

(September 27, 2016 at 6:07 am)chimp3 Wrote: The really big robot that stands in the background is really a sommelier. His job is to select a wine to serve when they eat us for dinner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6iF5sINVns

(September 27, 2016 at 2:35 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: See, I really think this whole notion of the "Those super smart aliens won't wanna contact us until we're more advanced" thing is a fallacy... because if it were the case that intelligent beings didn't want to study beings far below themselves then us humans wouldn't study single celled organisms.

I think the "They won't wanna contact us yet" thing is just a thing that people say. I think it doesn't really have any merit.

I think the real case is they are unable to contact us either permanently or temporarily.... or they are so significantly advanced that they can monitor us from a distance without us knowing and see it as a waste of energy to actually show up.

(September 25, 2016 at 10:05 pm)Kernel Sohcahtoa Wrote: Suppose there is a broader community of sentient life-forms who are remarkably advanced (socially and technologically). Do you think they would be interested in learning about humanity?  If you were in their shoes, then what would be your criteria for making first contact? What are your observations of humanity and does humanity meet your criteria?  From your perspective, is humanity ready for first contact?

(September 27, 2016 at 7:42 am)Anomalocaris Wrote:

(September 27, 2016 at 5:08 am)Mathilda Wrote: What does it mean to be a higher form of life? It doesn't mean that you are from a civilisation that is more technologically advanced. We are still the same species that existed 1,000 years ago. We're not a higher form of life compared to our medieval ancestors. We still have the same base instincts, drives and emotions. We're both apes walking around on two legs. Think of an alien, they'll be an animal too evolved in a similar way for a specific environmental niche.

A higher form of life is something more biologically complex with a larger hierarchy, in the same way that a multi-cellular organism is a higher form of life than a single celled organism, and a mammal is an even higher form of life. We already contain lower forms of life within us, like gut bacteria, or mitochondria DNA. Higher forms of life already exist on this planet. They're called corporations.

In my opinion any technological civilization much more advanced than ours would certainly have carried out extensive genetic and cybernetic modifications to its individuals to allow something like a borg like thought and data interchange, as well as to tailor or enhance health and other desirable attributes.  Such life would be much more complex than the pure biological organisms from which they were made.

They would therefore be a higher life form.

I suspect very advanced civilizations would consist of just a few super individuals, each consisting of a vast interconnected network semi-biological amd cybernetic nodes.  Each biological nodes might be a highly edited and modified versions of an individual from the original biological species that gave rise to this advanced civilization.  These now form something similar to cells in the super organism.