[mikhael]

 

Originally posted by Zeronet:
Ants do have a culture, they all work together for the greater good.

So do wolf packs. That's not culture. Culture allows for individuals that can ignore the common good for ideals and goals that may run contrary to the needs of the herd.

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--Mik
http://www.404error.com

[Nico]

 

Originally posted by mikhael:
I will preface by saying I do not mean to offend.

By including omniscient, omnipotent powers in your stance, you render the discussion moot. There's no logical divide between ant and man except the whim of some superbeing. Pass.

I guess what makes the distinction between sentient races (human, vasudan, shivan, Ancients) and the nonsentient (ants, bees) is the ability to change their basic responses based on things that are not hard coded or forced by environment. Ants don't build things. They don't create or innovate new ideas, tools or methods. They don't build rafts to take them across oceans or ships to cross the stars. They don't have aesthetics response. They don't have 'culture' or 'society'. Sentient races do all of those things (or work toward them). They have the ability to create things that are not directly related to survival and to appreciate those things in a way that is seperate from their immediate concerns.

Venom, you point out that humanity specializes just like ants. I point out that they do, but they don't have too. A soldier can leave the army and become a farmer. A computer programmer can become an artist. A politician can become an sailor. A soldier ant will live and die a soldier, and will never go out to cut leaves. The queen will always be the queen. She can't just give it all up and become a regular ant. We specialize by choice, not by necessity.

Ants are awesome, but they aren't sentient and do not have culture.

no offense taken, but you're wrong:
Ants create and uses tools: it has been witnessed ants trying to push leaves in water in order to cross a waterpoint. They grow other insects for their own use, like cattle. And they build their hives   and unlike spider webs, all the hives are differents, they will use usefull stuff if they find it (a dead tree for exemple). And warriors d not live only for war: ants aren't always at war after all   warriors can do drone stuff too, and they carry stuff just like regular ants when they have nothing else to do (they will cut leaves   ).

[mikhael]

You attack my every point, sir, and well.

I will still maintain, however, that this discussion of ants does not give them culture, just structure. They are still not sentient, and thus do not qualify for the discussion.  



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--Mik
http://www.404error.com

[an0n]

 

They don't build rafts to take them across oceans or ships to cross the stars

Fire ants. On their travels, if they encounter a river or water barrier the entire colony forms an immense (and deadly might I add) raft that floats across the water. They kinda sting and mame anything they come in contact with and at present are probably the single greatest natural threat to human habitation in parts of the world.

Also, ants come in many species that are adapted to their regions eg Meat ants in Australia strip dead animal carcasses, the fire ants form rafts because water is a frequent problem. This could be compared to traits in humans such as black skin to survive more sun and the inability of many arid countrys inhabitants to swim.

 To summarise: HA! They don't need to build no stinkin' boats coz any that need to cross water can naturally swim/float.

[an0n]

 

or ships to cross the stars

Neither do humans.

[mikhael]

 

Originally posted by an0n:
Fire ants. On their travels, if they encounter a river or water barrier the entire colony forms an immense (and deadly might I add) raft that floats across the water. They kinda sting and mame anything they come in contact with and at present are probably the single greatest natural threat to human habitation in parts of the world.

Also, ants come in many species that are adapted to their regions eg Meat ants in Australia strip dead animal carcasses, the fire ants form rafts because water is a frequent problem. This could be compared to traits in humans such as black skin to survive more sun and the inability of many arid countrys inhabitants to swim.

 To summarise: HA! They don't need to build no stinkin' boats coz any that need to cross water can naturally swim/float.

In what way does that qualify them as having culture? Beetles come in all shapes and sizes and perform all sorts of tasks and activities too. They just do it more or less in a solitary manner. They aren't sentient and neither are ants. There's no culture involved, just instinct.


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--Mik
http://www.404error.com

[Carl]

ahem, Vasudan holidays?

[mikhael]

 

Originally posted by an0n:
Neither do humans.

We're discussing Vasudan holidays in a notional future in which man has done precisely that. And in which ants and bees still have not. Humans have holidays, so must Vasudans--and Shivans.

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--Mik
http://www.404error.com

[Nico]

 

Originally posted by mikhael:
In what way does that qualify them as having culture? Beetles come in all shapes and sizes and perform all sorts of tasks and activities too. They just do it more or less in a solitary manner. They aren't sentient and neither are ants. There's no culture involved, just instinct.

Well, my best answer here is their communication system, even more devolpped than us: it's faster and more acurrate. And if normal ants lacks that, sexued individuals have very developed abstract feelings. They even have what scientits calls total communication, they put their antennas together and, basically, the memories and thoughts of the other ant will be available to the first one just like it was her owns. And ants can do TC in groups: imagine a kind of telepathic chat in a room, between a dozen of people, you could remember what your neighbour did 5 years ago for exemple.

And instinct is not the only way of behaving fot ants. From the little I know, apart from humans, there's only two species in the world that could find the way to open a plastic bottle: octopus and ants. Apes have to be educated to find how to do that. An ant put with some food in a bottle (small enough for her of course) was able to find how to open it in 32 days... Instincts won't teach you that.
Anyway, you're right, I should stop talking about ants, but they fscinate me...

[Shrike]

Ok, this is off to HL.... there's not much FS content here.

[Zeronet]

We have spaceships, they cant cross the stars !"YET"!. But we in theory have the means to send people to other solar systems.

[Nico]

 

Originally posted by mikhael:
We're discussing Vasudan holidays in a notional future in which man has done precisely that. And in which ants and bees still have not. Humans have holidays, so must Vasudans--and Shivans.

lol, I don't think shivans have holidays  
we tend to give other species the same characteristics we have, and that ruins their "alienness"...

[Rampage]

Going back to ants...  They DO have a culture.  They communicate and do have aestheic affinities.  They do "decorate" their hive.  The queen's lair is often fore elegant that the granaries.  God made them this way.  They are social creatures with a complex society.  And their army is very organized.  They do have "lieutenants" in the field and they do organize their warfare.  If they're losing, they will retreat and will dispatch reinforcements when needed.  It has been witnessed to do this.  I rest my case.

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Christ
Redeems
All
People

God is Life

[diamondgeezer]

*sees danger of thread becoming a religious/creationist discussion/argument*

*runs*

[Carl]

if it does it's getting ownt.

[an0n]

As a final point I would like to add that we're only considered better than the ants for two reason:
1) We have far more arrogance and self righteousness/importance
2) The dinosaurs died. If those massive *****es were still walking around then I doubt we'd be much more advanced than ants (squish).
Don't believe what yer ex said, size matters.

[mikhael]

 

Originally posted by an0n:
As a final point I would like to add that we're only considered better than the ants for two reason:
1) We have far more arrogance and self righteousness/importance
2) The dinosaurs died. If those massive *****es were still walking around then I doubt we'd be much more advanced than ants (squish).
Don't believe what yer ex said, size matters.

Brains evidently trump size, speed, herd instinct etc. I seem to see billions of people on the planet, and an endangered population of elephants (large), endangered cheetahs (fast), and wolves (pack creatures).

Humans and ants share a lot, but there is no way you'll get me to believe that they are a sentient species capable of having holidays, observing astrological phenomena, creating sculpture for aesthetic purposes, sending mail, developing a monetary system, etc. They're insects. Make them big enough so that they can have a complex enough brain to have sentience, then perhaps I'll buy it. IE: no holidays.

Vasudans, Shivans, Humans, Ancients: They have holidays. Yes, even Shivans. Not because they're less alien, but because they are organized and intelligent. Even if its just an observence of the changing of seasons, the beginning of the next emission cycle of a quasar or the arrival of a comet on its long elliptical course around a solar system, they observer those events and they mark them.Holidays are almost a direct outgrowth of a sense of time, an awareness of a temporal location in the universe.

I reiterate: every sentient species has holidays.

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--Mik
http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM

[an0n]

Vasudans would probably have some kinda special day but I doubt it'd be anything religious. More ceremonial stuff like khonsu inaugeration day and memorial stuff like 'the day vasuda prime got levelled' day.

[an0n]

This should shut up everyone who is clever enough to understand it:

The universe has certain laws, laws of physics which dictate properties of particles and energy forms, such as the law that an object in motion stays in motion until an outside force is applied. Now taking these laws we can see that under a set of circumstances involving a number of particles in motion that only a single sequence of events can occur and that this sequence and every part of it was predetermined by the state of the particles at the beginning of the sequence. Now we take this out to a larger, universal scale and we can see that all actions, reaction and events were predetermined at the point of the big-bang or the creation of the universe. Therefore we see that no species has free will and is only doing what it was destined to do, what it was programmed to do. Ants have a much simpler program than higher animals but have the exact same amount of free will and creativity that humans have, namely the amount the universe gave them.

If we were to work on a macroscopic scale we can see that every action taken by a person is the result of some external stimuli, this stimulation of say the optic nerve sends impulses to the brain (the only thing that was allowed by the laws of physics). They electric sparks ripple through the nervous system and various parts of the brain to form a complex sequence of impulses. These impulses are formed by the events in a persons life and the way in which their brain is structure as a result, since these past events cannot change, the sequence of impulses is predetermined the second the light hits the retina of the subject. The events are carried out and interact with various other sequences and stimuli to form what we call life, but is simply quantum and cellular level reactions that result from simple sub-atomic stimuli. Ants have these exact same processes going through their heads only the sequences are simpler. Thus we can conclude that both ants and people are simply sacks of chemicals that react to stimuli in a predetermined way and as such they are the same in every respect with the exception that their reactions to various stimuli differ somewhat. Now it could be said that this means nothing and that humans are still sentient whereas ants are not, but if you really understood the point I was trying to get across you understand that sentience means ****  and that everything we say, think, feel and do was predetermined at the beginning of the universe. To summarise: You're destined to follow a single path, as are the ants, and there is ****  all you can do about it.

I should really right a book.

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Homer: So I thought to myself 'What would God do?'
Bart: Mwuhaha. Locusts

I is internet proficient

[mikhael]

 

Originally posted by an0n:
This should shut up everyone who is clever enough to understand it:

I should really right a book.

You could write a book, but its been written numerous times already. You're talking about the strong anthropic principle. Its tripe.

Its also unrelated. Ants and bees don't have holidays. Vasudans, Terrans, Shivans and the Ancients do (or did). Back to the question at hand, what sort of Vasudan holidays are there?

I disagree that they wouldn't have religious holidays, for the same reason I think that they must have holidays: all cultures on earth (that is to say, all the cultures we have to use as a body of evidence) have religious and secular holidays. I suspect that at the very least, Vasudans have solstices and equinoxes (as any planet with an elliptical orbit and an axial tilt will). I suspect also that they have several different religions, each with its collection of holy days. Weren't the Hammer of Light followers of an older religion? I can't recall.

There are also the secular observences, like the new year (again, a common observence on earth). Did Vasuda have moons? They probably observe (or once did) full moons (for their tidal signifigance) or for their marking of parts of the year that are good for planting. The tides, especially, might have signifigance for a species that is semiaquatic in nature (I don't know why, I've always thought that Vasudans were amphibious).

Going further, we know they have a military and thus very likely observer military victories of the past, disturbing defeats that are mourned (like ANZAC Day.  The Fall of Vasuda Prime comes to mind). They probably celebrate (as likely do Terrans) the day they signed the treaty that birthed the GTVA.

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--Mik http://www.404error.com
ruhkferret on ICQ/AIM

[This message has been edited by mikhael (edited 12-21-2001).]