this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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Life can have infinite forms and can exist and evolve in the most inhospit environments. But an advanced tecnologig species only can exist in certain environments and with reduced posibility in their appearence. Aquatic beeings can be intelligent, but never can create advanced tecnologies. The basic condicion of advanced tecnology is the domination of fire and electricity, not possible in the water, it need Oxign in the atmosphere.
They must have limbs skilled enough to handle and construct this technology, a complex communication system, and a binocular vision system (for this reason the most used in all species) to perceive their environment. The humanoid shape is one that best fits these maxims and therefore it is quite possible that an advanced species would also have a more or less similar shape.
It is known as convergent evolution, when unrelated species have a very similar physique to each other by living with the same challenges in similar environments. Evolution always use similar solutions for similar tasks. A good example is the genet, which looks and behaves very similar to cats, even with retractil claws), but they are a completely different species (Viverridae)
Land octopi would be pretty cool though.
Tech needs electricity and fire is not universal. That is what we use.
Our brain is lot more complicated and efficient than the computers we make and it uses ions, in liquid media. So something that lives in water could definitely be able to make something that would be able to use similar things to do processing. Water is also really good with doing things, it's flexible but doesn't compress/expand like air does. Think about hydraulic systems. You can make them smaller and smaller as your tech progresses. Mechanical things using metals and such would work in water as well. Think about gold and such that can be used for electricity as well, we don't use it because it's valuable, but an alien world could have abundance of gold for them to use.
Fire as base is needed. To make hydraulic or other tech, you need metal, and to work with metal, you need fire to melt and form it. An aquatic species can evolve to an advanced intelligence, but it can't evolved to an advanced tecnology. Dolphinse have a great intelligence, not far from the humans, but they never can be a tecnologic advanced species, they don't have even hands to manipulate tools. They use tools in a basic way, they even use old fishernets they found on the ground to hunt fishes (observed in the Mediterraneo). But manufactoring it is other thing.
Again, that's because you are human, and you think your way is the only way.
How does your arm work? How does octopus move? You think you can't make an structure like human arm, or octopus tentacles without metal, and then have a tube going through it in a way the water in it can move them. Look up soft robots. There isn't just one way to tap into mechanical energy and move things. We did what we found first, improved on it. But thinking that's the only way just shows narrow mindedness.
You don't. You know aluminum used to be so expensive because you couldn't really extract it from the ores like iron. Wasn't found in pure form like gold. Then someone found you can use electrolysis to get aluminum from its ore. Then it became so cheap.
You don't just heat metal and put it in mold for every type of metal work. In micro scale there are 3d printing methods similar to electroplating, it's very precise.
And even if there is a need of heat, how can you say ocean doesn't have it. A species could find out a way to tap into volcanic vents. Similarly how we use groundwater and rivers. They could use volcanos and geothermal energy. We do many many manufacturing processes under water in a tank containing water. They could make air tank and do things there too.
Yes, you can all do this, having the machines to do so, and these are made mostly of metal, advanced tech also need electricity with high voltages, not so healthy in the water. Electric eals, maybe conected to a computer? Yes, in vulcanes you have fire, but not controllable, metallurgy requires exact temperatures depending on the metal and the use. No, not so easy possible a high tech society in a waterworld.
if you looked up temperatures needed for aluminum electrolysis,
and then you have to deliver electricity to it, keep it isolated electrically, thermally, chemically (kept sealed), and how do you even make plastics without steel reactors
electrowinning is a process but it won't work for aluminium. also you all completely ignore glass as a material and ceramics generally
Don't care how smart you are, you ain't shit without metallurgy followed by electricity. No metallurgy, no electricity, no tech.
Ever read a science fiction novel where the aliens evolved underwater? The author has to twist the story in knots to try and explain how they gained anything advanced without fire.
I'm not an author, I'm a scientist. So I don't know what the through process of authors are. But I it probably would take long time to actually find alternative ways to do the things same as us but underwater. The civilization won't be like us, they would not have same technology, they wouldn't have same values. Authors are probably trying to capture general population's interests by making things they understand.
And do you think "hey I haven't heard anyone say something to me about earth rotating sun" would have been a good counter argument in the past.
Water is incredible, we don't know all the ways we can use it. Sometimes it takes hours to simulate what water does in seconds. Unlike other materials like metals, which are lot easier to predict. And if we're talking about aliens, don't even have to think water, it could be something else as flexible as water, while having properties that makes it easier to use.
It can be cristals and photons. Carbon is the basis of life because it's good for looooong molecules. But it's not like it's the only option. It may not even be the best option on planets with different temperatures or pressures.
Anyway life may not even need food or care about the passage of time.
How do you build actuators that react to light without electricity?
Does your glasses need electricity to function? Before electronics came and we started making everything need electricity do you think we were not advanced civilization because we only used mechanical power? If you had come that far and suppose had limitations like "can't use electricity coz I said so", the development would have stopped? They would have found other ways.
Genets are bad example, because Viverridae are the closest relatives to Felidae. Convergent evolution would be better illustrated by fish and dolphins.
Well, viverridae are called feliforme for obvious reasons, bit their genealogic tree is way far from felidae. Yes, there are certainly a lot of other examples of convergent evolution.
Elephants meet all of these criteria as well. A complex limb (their trunk), a complex communication, and binocular vision (although I don't see why this is necessary).
You can’t compare an elephant trunk to the human hand
Elephant trunks are bigger than human hands.
See it's not that hard
Not with that attitude
Nothing in nature comes close to the dexterity of human hands.
Raccoon paws and octopus tentacles both rival the dexterity of human - and other primates' - hands in my opinion. They even have certain advantages.
Complex limb? Let me see an elephant tie a granny knot. Maybe with training? OK. Do a square knot.
Complex communication? Elephants have communication skills on par with a 3-4 year old human. An intensely trained dog might top 200 words. My vocabulary is an easy 50,000 words. Yours is too.
Binocular vision is a must, that's a given. Damn near every animal on the planet has it, even some worms.
Now apply both of these challenges to a chimpanzee. I doubt one could tie a knot very well. Washoe the chimp we taught sign language had a vocabulary of only 450. Yet, I have I on good authority that a very close relative of chimpanzees have developed complex thought, complex language and advanced tool use and creation.
I can't help but notice that you didn't list a whole lot of traits that would be considered vital to having a fairly human sillhouette. There's nothing here about obligate bipedalism, for example, or having just two legs in the lower part of the body at all. There's nothing here about how the forelimbs are articulated, and whether it would look meaningfully like hands or an array of dexterous tendrils or something. And all this gritty realist speculative biology seems out of place when most sci-fi is basically a particular sub-genre of fantasy anyway. Even being generous to the sci-fi writers, supposing the universe works in a fundamentally different way from how ours does (breaking laws of relativity and entropy, commonly), why can't some ecosystems work out to stretch your imagination of what could be an advanced species? It all seems very narrowly prescriptivist, even beyond the fact that this is fiction to the point of taking negative liberties with the bounds of what is truly realistic.
Edit: idk, it just seems obtuse. Like, "Advanced life can only be carbon-based because being that way affords these benefits" without considering that other models could provide other benefits (I'm sure you know better than I about the use of silicon-based life in speculative biology). And that's if the subject is addressed at all.
Yes, you can have 4 or more legs, but it isn't an advantage because energy efficience, same as more than two eyes ith an mobile head don't make much sense. Nature evolution don't waste energy. Humans a very efficient runners, which can beat several animals in a hunt. In the past they made a test between an horse and an trial champion, the horse lose it. Yes it was faster as the human, but not on long distance. There are championships like Ironman and others, where are races of 500 km, a horse can't even 42 km without a break. Efficience of two legs.
Dr Angela Collier has done a video essay on why aliens won't be silicon-based. She's not a biologist but an astrophysicist but the focus of her video is mostly about how carbon chemistry and cosmic abundance is better suited to producing life.
Maybe there's a rock out there made, by complete chance, in such huge proportion of silicon that it becomes more viable, I don't give a shit. It was just an aside anyway, pick another based on the same principle if you like. Why an obligate biped? Why this size? Why not a flying creature? Why not a rotationally-symetrical monstrosity? Why not an intelligent species that physically couldn't really be engineers but happen to live on the same planet as creatures who can? Or who just get contacted by outside life that can? I'm a dipshit who mostly prefers pulp and cosmic horror (read: fantasy) science fiction, so I'm sure someone who knows more could come up with more and better prompts.