Imagining the Familiar

To clear that bit up, not to say that he was comparing ants to the sea-life that was discussed! That may have been a bit confusing to read.

I enjoyed reading your feedback, Ilona. Asimov's argument is a bit self-serving (and a bit hard to get the feel of out of the context of the book) towards our own understanding of what constitutes a civilization-the way he defined it relied heavily on "using technology" and not relying on "instinct", like ants. I don't necessarily agree with the idea myself, but it does open up a whole new interesting discussion on sentience.

Sedeer, thanks for the comment! That sounds just like the book that people interested in this topic would love. I'll definitely check it out sometime.

Some of the more enjoyable science fiction deals with encountering an intelligence that's truly alien to us. Stanislaw Lem's "Solaris" is an example that's entirely about trying to communicate with such an intelligence.

I think part of the reason we tend to "only imagine the familiar" is because it can be very hard to get people emotionally involved with something truly alien (and an emotional journey is at the heart of story-telling). Even in the case of Solaris, the film adaptations usually shift the main emphasis from the utterly alien intelligence of the planet to some kind of drama between the humans -- that way we have a story to enjoy while getting a glimpse of the alien intelligence in the background.

Oh look! Another Scitable blog takes up the theme of sea-alien forms-among plankton. http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/saltwater-science/aliens_in_a_drop_of

Thanks for the thoughts Bruce. Don't understand Asimov's argument. Dolphin language complexity is humbling. Truth is, we can't understand dolphins (or whales), despite our trying. But why should we expect to?
If we cant do it, does that mean the level of intelligence is not comparable to our own?

Undersea life has extremely complex civilizations, oral traditions or not. Stories are passed down in scents and landscape as well as acoustic signals. Sometimes they are at scales we can observe (coral reefs) and sometimes they are at ones that are much more challenging to observe (whales).

Anyway, I look forward to contact with extra-Earth intelligent life. It would certainly realign Earth's humans and eliminate the war we continue to wage on each other, for better or worse.

(part II)..

Civilizations like we are used heavily rely on the ability to use tools, starting with the ability of controlled combustion-the proverbial cavepeople learning how to use fire. So much of our technological advances, or even simply providing safety against other animals so we have time to invent things, is dependent on that. It could well be that an aquatic extraterrestrial intelligence might be perfectly capable of thinking about what you'd need to do to light fire, and conceptualizing its potential uses, their environment would hold them back, or they never stumble upon the idea.

Though I bring up that there's this one neat quote I've always liked from Michael Crichton's "Sphere" about how octopuses would be extremely intelligent if only they didn't have such a short life-span. With the gift of fine motor control, put into the hands of a strong intelligence, with plenty of time, maybe they'd be able to bypass the whole fire fad somehow. Who knows?

Isaac Asimov wrote this little nonfiction book called "Extraterrestrial Civilizations" which touches a bit on this (seriously, what topic didn't that guy write about?). He thinks that aquatic "intelligence" on a level comparable to our own is unlikely. By "comparable", he means in a way that would allow for a mutual exchange of ideas. The example he uses are dolphins; they communicate with modulated sounds more complex than human languages, yet though humans are considered "more intelligent", we still have very far to go in learning how to "speak dolphin". Perhaps a species could potentially be more sophisticated than our own in thoughts, but they are more emotionally cultured than intellectually, passing on complex stories and ideas through oral communication. It's a bit counter-intuitive and difficult for us to think about intelligence without the markers of "civilization" we are used to, like complicated tool-making and other forms of intricate environmental manipulation.

For something more complex or bigger than microorganisms, i've always thought deep sea organisms would be a good start for this kind of imagination of. They evolve in different atmospheric pressure from terrestrial lifeforms, and so often their physical shape is very different--a body plan that does well in a totally different medium than what we are used to. Think of all the jellies, squid, and worms. Sometimes a "head" is not necessary. Motility is a premium over vision, what happens?