Science Forums 2

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Aki
we only observe them, and we ignore their presence because there is nothing we need to learn from them.

I disagree. If ants could have any higher level of communications we would be interacting with it. In fact we strive to understand what our greatest level of communications is with ants. We use it to our advantage in "pest control".

Take any species we know of and there has been an effort to establish the highest level of communications possible with it. The same is true with every other species and every other species. Whenever two species are in geographical proximity enough to interact, they try to "understand" the other. Even an ant as a colony, follows a "reasoned" process to succesfully interact with it's surroundings, including other species. That communications my be a defensive one, such as a bad taste or coloring. But those are forms of communications.

It seems to be emperically connected with existence. Evolutionary hard wiring. Why would we expect extraterrestrials to do otherwise? If an intellegent species was not interested in exploring and interacting with what they find, why would they put any resources into it? Interplanetary vehicles don't grow on trees, or whatever version of life would be equivalent on other planets. Merely by spending resoources on the effort, they have identified themselves as interested in interacting.