The silly loaded dice metaphors in this article are too much. No matter how you spin it our one data point of humans on earth is just one data point and it doesn't tell us any more than that unless you also know that life elsewhere is similar to life here. But we don't know that.
If I read this correctly, the argument is that a) intelligent life could be anywhere from 50kg (a chimp) to 500kg (a small elephant). Since humans are at the low end of that range, and assuming an even distribution across the range, then most other intelligent life is physically larger than us. (There is a tangent relating to population density in there, too).
It's a clever argument. But to be honest I don't think we understand enough about how intelligence arises (consciousness) to really put a bounds on the physical size of species. For example, there is no evidence that any dinosaur was intelligent - why not? Additionally, it seems likely to me that over time humans will virtualize and inhabit different kinds of bodies, probably smaller ones, and that this could be a typical progression for intelligent biological species that don't annihilate themselves.
But most importantly, there doesn't seem to be any real utility to the argument, even if it were sound. I mean, let's say the author is right - so what? Okay, the average intelligent alien is bigger than us. What does that have to do with anything? How does it help us contact them, visit them, understand them? The only application I can think of is as material for certain kinds of science fiction authors' in-story expositions.
7 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 26.4 ms ] threadIt's a clever argument. But to be honest I don't think we understand enough about how intelligence arises (consciousness) to really put a bounds on the physical size of species. For example, there is no evidence that any dinosaur was intelligent - why not? Additionally, it seems likely to me that over time humans will virtualize and inhabit different kinds of bodies, probably smaller ones, and that this could be a typical progression for intelligent biological species that don't annihilate themselves.
But most importantly, there doesn't seem to be any real utility to the argument, even if it were sound. I mean, let's say the author is right - so what? Okay, the average intelligent alien is bigger than us. What does that have to do with anything? How does it help us contact them, visit them, understand them? The only application I can think of is as material for certain kinds of science fiction authors' in-story expositions.
1) We have no evidence for or against it.
2) Even if we knew - it wouldn't matter at all to us.
It's like arguing about the style of gods beard or how to get rid of undetectable demons.
A random individual on earth is more likely to live in a country with large population.
Likewise, a random individual in space is more likely to live on a planet with large population.
Using this type of reasoning, the author shows that the human (earth) is probably part of a bigger group of species (planets) of similar size.
Therefore, we can expect most alien individuals to be of similar size to humans and alien planets to be of similar size to earth.
The reasoning, while consistent in itself, is based assumptions pulled from thin air.