Alien, I mean really Alien.

[Randallw]

I just finished Pandoras Star by Peter F Hamilton, and the Primes made me think of something.What sort of real Aliens are there in Fiction. It seems to me they go from Anthromorphic aliens, such as in Star Trek where they are all human with funny noses or pointy ears, to Aliens with human motivations like giant cat people or beings that look like whales or elephants that the humans look up to as founts of wisdom. What I want to read of is real Aliens. Theres the Bahgs, ok they are Alien, but they're basically Aliens with a single human emotion, predominantly in races like that its Aliens with one emotion, kill or eat everything else. Are there any real Aliens in Fiction whose behaviour, as well as their physiology, is "Alien" to humans?. I do supppose "real Aliens" would be hard to write. They might be enemies to fight, but an ALien might stop fighting half way through because their thought processes see a reason to stop that we emotional, 3 dimensional humans don't see.

[ March 25, 2004, 06:44: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[Deth B0y]

i think that it is impossible for the human mind to really construct something that is totally alien to it. We'll always boil it down to something we can relate to - something that speaks to us, that resonates.

A case in point - how often have we looked at something totally inhuman and ascribed it emotions, thought processes, intent. We essentially create this whole world for something that's not even alive in many cases; the sea or a computer or an object. "this stupid wrench broke!" or "The sea washes over the land calmly" - these things arne't alive, they have no brain, no intent, no abilities. The wrench can't be stupid because the wrench isn't alive. The ocean can't be calm, because it has no emotions.

So, in conclusion ..no, i don't think we can ever create from within ourselves something totally alien; it's just against the hardware of our brains.

[Randallw]

Exactly. To write of something Alien you need to understand something that is Alien. But the very definition precludes understanding, thus it is impossible to think of what something "Alien" can or would do. I guess the closest we can come to "Aliens" is to remove everything we consider rational and, such as the Bahgs or Primes, focus on one emotional reaction to an "Alien" degree.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Well, I think human emotions are logical filler for every need - that there isn't a need that you could come up with that isn't covered by a human emotion and/or a human thought process, with the exception that a human brain at our current level of thought might not reach the complexity needed, but still cover the bases. Or in other words, you can't simulate 16,000,000 atoms, even as only geometric spheres on todays computers, but that's a failure of speed and possibly memory, not basic capabilities.

[dogscoff]

We already live with aliens: As well as being physically very different to us- animal have utterly alien thoughts comaprted to ours. Obviously you're talking about intelligent aliens and I'm talking about sub-sentient animals, but I think many animals are much smarter than we give them credit for and I do believe that some animals on this earth *are* clever enough actually to look at their lives and think abstractly. Whales & dolphins, almost certainly- chimps, too. Some dogs and cats as well, i think.

The point is that they have a completely different way of looking at life than we do.
We often try to fit animal behaviour into human patterns, and sometimes they are experiencing things that humans also experience(hunger, fear) but I think we could expect aliens to understand these basic emotions as well, simply because they make such good sense from an evolutionary point of view.

Anyway, on the whole- shared DNA heritage aside- I think animals are almost as different from us as we could expect any alien to be.

And there have been some excellent "utterly alien" writings on this forum! Some of the races in the "xenology" thread were really far from humanity in thought as well as form, (although my KanesS turned out very 'human', despite my best efforts.) and someone- Unknown enemy, i think- wrote a fantastic story just before that about the Cryslonite that opened up whole new understandings of consciousness for me.

[Unknown_Enemy]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
And there have been some excellent "utterly alien" writings on this forum! Some of the races in the "xenology" thread were really far from humanity in thought as well as form, (although my KanesS turned out very 'human', despite my best efforts.) and someone- Unknown enemy, i think- wrote a fantastic story just before that about the Cryslonite that opened up whole new understandings of consciousness for me.

Thanks, but the Cryslonite writings were not mine, but they gave the idea to start the Xenology game. Too bad it failed.
It was the now MIA civ2buf that created the crystalline religion.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=008747#000000
Good read.

[PvK]

Hmm, Dogscoff, I agree that animals think, and think abstractly, but I wouldn't call their thoughts "totally alien". They're very easy to relate to - not very far from human thoughts and emotions in many ways, even if there are differences, and even if humans seem to reason in many ways that animals don't seem to (most of which is of course facilitated for humans due to language, writing, teaching, etc.).

Aliens from another evolutionary history might think in extremely different ways.

PvK

[Unknown_Enemy]

Snif.

I miss Xenology.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
We already live with aliens: As well as being physically very different to us- animal have utterly alien thoughts comaprted to ours. Obviously you're talking about intelligent aliens and I'm talking about sub-sentient animals, but I think many animals are much smarter than we give them credit for and I do believe that some animals on this earth *are* clever enough actually to look at their lives and think abstractly. Whales & dolphins, almost certainly- chimps, too. Some dogs and cats as well, i think.

- Cat lovers may not want to read this, but everything I know says it's true and you should read it anyway. -

Cats are essientally qualifiable as nonsentient 'working sociable' sociopaths(sp?). That is to say, they have a loose pack mentality and care for the young of the pack; however, they do so in a manner that is sociopathic. One of my uncles female cats, obseving a bunch of kids in a birthday party, had her maternal instincts kick in - a pack behavior - and went and got a gopher and cut it's spinal cord, leaving it alive and brought it back for the kids to play with - sociopathic behavior, that is, behavior focused on simply pleasure, no matter what it costs.

No, that cat was not evil, it was simply acting on her insticts. But humans are capable of both pack behavior and sociopathic behaivor.

- And on to dogs, which I like more. Contains some things you might not want to hear about fido, but should. -
A dog is a clannish pack animal with a clan chieftan focus. To a dog, unless you've been really remiss in training, you are the pack leader. Depending on it's courage, it may be willing to die for you and it's pack. In any case, the dogs loyalty is to you, as the leader of the pack and the pack. And your dog, like your cat, is a predator. This means that the only thing keeping your dog, as well as your cat, from bringing you dead birds as presents, is the degree of seperation from natural instincts provided by domestication.
However, wild dogs are even more dangerous, in my opinion, than wolves. For one thing, they tend to have no fear of man and, unlike wolves, don't have survival instincts dedicated to surviving in the wild, which encourages cautious behavor around dangerous things, like guns and the men who use them.

No, fido is not good or evil either. He's just following his instincts to. And having domesticated them, I think we have the responcibility to care for them. Wild dogs are definitly our failure.

But, back to how human emotions, instincts, and thought processes cover those things. Forgot humans have instincts. One, humans have E,I and T for loose social interactions. Forums are an example. People in some forums will help some and pick on those they percieve as weak - like cats. People also may be sociopaths, it's a known psychraitric problem.
People also display pack behavor's. Biker gangs. People also have a predatory nature. This includes such things as eating meat and getting irratable in a crowded elevater. I want space! ROWR!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by PvK:

Aliens from another evolutionary history might think in extremely different ways.

PvK

I disagree with that. Both the evolutionary part and the different ways. Well, not that they may think differently, but the type of different. A gas being from the gas giant Gafefaf would percieve it's environment differently, it's environment would shape it's reactions and thought processes, but it would still need social behavior, or it would die out.

And it would need emotions, to give it reasons to do things. It would need thought processes, to process information. And it would need instincts, to tell it what to do when the others failed or wouldn't be fast enough.

And all the things you can think of that it might have can be done with a human brain.

But, what about trees? They have no brain. True, but they have counterparts for those things, which can be simulated by a human brain. Maybe not fully, but I addressed that in a previous post.

[ March 25, 2004, 09:22: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]