[Setekh]

Universal Classification Of The Races

Okay, guys. I was watching some B5 reruns on my 'puter a while ago, and I saw a Shadow in the intro sequence to one of the episodes (well, I saw its eyes). I then did a little more digging and found that Shadows, though they can make themselves invisible to our eyes, appear roughly insectoid in appearance.

Now, it got me thinking... they reminded me a lot of Shivans. Multiple, glowing eyes; several limbs, representing a very dark force; they just bore many resemblences. And Shivans, in turn, reminded me of the Zerg; insectoid still, very dark and evil - and also flooding the enemy with numbers (Zergling rush... and Scorpion fighters pouring from the belly of the Lucifer. Very similar imagery, in a way), as well as quite possibly being hive-driven.

These three races are very, very similar. They are quite stereotypical of a very alien force - completely different in form, function and society (are they really social? ummm, I'll just use that word as a placeholder for now). Then there are races like the Protoss and Minbari which are another stereotype - high-cultured, wise, old, timeless.

This got me into thinking: we always use these stereotypes of alien races. What would be able to come up with if we went to the roots of life and see what wildly different variations we could come up with? Considering only a corporeal (ie. physical) existence, and factoring in only the life-forms that could exist in this universe (ie. under the physics laws of our universe), how many different life-forms could there possibly be?

I sat down and thought about what the major differences, the most basic changes that exist in physical life in this universe. I came up with this list of polar opposites – open to further thought and change, since I thought them up in only a few minutes. In no particular order…

A. Multi-cellular, or single-cellular
B. Plant, or animal
C. Sentient, or non-sentient
D. Sapient, or non-sapient

A couple of quick notes on these distinctions: to be sentient is to possess sensation and awareness of your surroundings. Sapience is the ability to judge and reason.

Now, on random topics, I thought up these questions…

1. Can life exist in a non-cellular form?
2. Can life exist outside of a medium (eg. atmosphere, water)?
3. Is it a valid distinction to separate plant and animal?
4. Is sentience always accompanied by sapience?
5. Can life exist as energy (as opposed to matter)?
6. What is the definition of a life-form? (I kind of know the answer to this question; it goes along the lines of “responds to stimuli”, “reproduces”, and some other things that I forget.)
7. Is DNA a necessary component for life?
8. Evolution is typically viewed as an increase in the complexity of an organism. Is the opposite possible?
9. Do all life-forms experience time in the same fashion, assuming they live under the same physical system? Can it be experienced faster, slow, backwards?
10. Is sapience always facilitated in a manner similar to the human brain’s neurons?
11. Is a nervous system necessary for animal life?
12. In life-forms with a nervous system, is there a reason that electric pulses are used as the means of transmission, rather than some other way?
13. What factors affect the development of senses in life-forms? What factors affect the focal length for vision (ie. The section of the electromagnetic spectrum that they can see)?

A lot of questions, I know. It all just hit me today.

[Kamikaze]

For the plant and animal thing (B) - I suggest adding protista and fungi etc. as plants and animals are all multi-cellular...

I'll also attempt to answer some of the questions as to get this discussion going a bit

1. this is the virus = living or no living thing. So, actually a virus wouln't be living in our current definitions of life (if I remember right) but then we always redefine for certain things...
2. Do bacteria exist in the space "vacuum" - I don't remember
4. depends on what "sapient" is since the dictionary definition I found makes no sense (too vague)
5. I don't see how but maybe...
6. Big Question - do the current requirements for life fit? (of which there are 6)
7. no, you can have RNA
8. Umm... I think so, say you take an einstein and put him on a little island for 20 years - do you think he would get smarter or dumber? I think that's a good example (or maybe not?)
9. Backward I don't know but if your "think" fast you should be able to perform more "think" actions per second/minute whatever. Therefore you would be "thinking/percieving/analyzing" faster. And experiencing more time in the same time...
10. I dunno
11. animal life or just life forms in general?
12. electricity is easy to conduct and is probably simpler than making optical fibers in your body... and radio waves could be intercepted by other life forms. It's like this: "Oh look he moved his arm it says on the radio!" (I don't know if radio is at all plausible)
13. I'm not gonna answer this, too lazy

Did that make any sense?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Setekh

A. Multi-cellular, or single-cellular
B. Plant, or animal
C. Sentient, or non-sentient
D. Sapient, or non-sapient

A couple of quick notes on these distinctions: to be sentient is to possess sensation and awareness of your surroundings. Sapience is the ability to judge and reason.

Now, on random topics, I thought up these questions?

1. Can life exist in a non-cellular form?
2. Can life exist outside of a medium (eg. atmosphere, water)?
3. Is it a valid distinction to separate plant and animal?
4. Is sentience always accompanied by sapience?
5. Can life exist as energy (as opposed to matter)?
6. What is the definition of a life-form? (I kind of know the answer to this question; it goes along the lines of ?responds to stimuli?, ?reproduces?, and some other things that I forget.)
7. Is DNA a necessary component for life?
8. Evolution is typically viewed as an increase in the complexity of an organism. Is the opposite possible?
9. Do all life-forms experience time in the same fashion, assuming they live under the same physical system? Can it be experienced faster, slow, backwards?
10. Is sapience always facilitated in a manner similar to the human brain?s neurons?
11. Is a nervous system necessary for animal life?
12. In life-forms with a nervous system, is there a reason that electric pulses are used as the means of transmission, rather than some other way?
13. What factors affect the development of senses in life-forms? What factors affect the focal length for vision (ie. The section of the electromagnetic spectrum that they can see)?

A lot of questions, I know. It all just hit me today.

1/Probably - gaseous, random interacting atoms.... possibly sub-celluar based life?
2/In vacumn?  Yep - convert solar radiation, etc, to energy
3/yes
4/Dunno what sapience mens
5/Yep
6/Reproduces, converts matter to energy IIRC
7/Maybe not... it would probably have to be non protein based life
8/Yep...no reason for an organism not decreasing in size.  it would have advantages in life requirements (food, etc), in hiding itself, and in finding a habitat
9/Definately not - look at a fly, which lives for a day.... i think it percieves that day as entirely longer than we do  
10/see 4.
11/Some form of defensive mechanism would be, unless that animal was the only alive in its habitat
12/Ask God / your releavnt Deity
13/Survival - hunting / hiding / navigation

I remember a bit in Sphere (Micheal Crichton - better than the film) with a similar debate... the end conclusion being that  - excpeting parallel evolution - it's nigh impossible to guess what an alien lifeform would look like - if it were even visible in our plane of existence.... it's entirely possible there is another intelligent race living on earth right now, in a seperate dimension we cannot percieve.

Also, what about carbon Vs silicon based life?

[HotSnoJ]

1. ???? Non-cellular? Isn't that what make life?
2. So far no. And probly never will find any. The reason, read Genesis of the Christian Bible.
3. DUH. Plant take water, minerals, and light to make food. Animals eat other animals for food that have eaten plants for food.
4. ???
5. I really don't know but matter is energy and energy is matter. Only different forms. E=MC2
6. -----------
7. I think so. I mean, it's in every life form now!
8. The opposite is happening right now! Evolution was never a FACT! There is no evidence that it is true!
9. Well don't quite know what you mean. Do you mean time? If you do then here's and example. I and soooo borad and a minute seems like a half hour. But you're having the time of you life and that seems to go by really fast! But in reality it was the same 10 minutes.
10. See 4
11. Let's think about this. I think it would need it to tell itself that it's too cold, too hot or if something is bitting it.
12. Look at you own body! Messages go back and forth all day!
13. Nothing thats what! The reason, read the BIBLE! There was no Evil-ution(Evolution)!

On Evolution. There is no (macro)Evolution(what Darwin thought anyway), but there is however (micro)evolution. Micro-evolution is where you spray a wall of fly's with DDT. 99% die, but that 1% has a gene that some how make them resitant to DDT. So most of the next generation of fly's from that 1% have a resitants to DDT. Well that's my million dollars on this subject.

[Styxx]

Quite some work there, eh Steak?

I won't answer it question by question 'cause it'd be pointless, but I'll say this: there are things out there that completely escape our imagination. There are things that wouldn't even fit our line of reasoning, that would not be fathomable. Our knowledge and experience derives from our surroundings, from what we can observe, and that is an extremely limited portion of the cosmos - so limited it's not even practical to compare it to the whole. And even here, we stumble into things that defy our previous experience. Who knows what might be out there?

[CP5670]

I don't know anything about biology, but these questions look interesting.

1: yes, I can definitely imagine such a thing
2: it can probably exist like that but could probably not evolve there from medium-based life; would still need some sort of energy source though
3: I guess so, based on the type of cells they have (photosythensizing or not)
4: not necessarily; look at animals and insects for example (cannot work easily with abstract quantities)
5: no clear distinction exists between the two, but probably yes
6: don't know exactly aside from the reproduction part
7: doubt it; mechanical life probably can exist if certain factors in the early formation of the universe had been differently randomized
8: probably, if the environmental conditions favor that instead
9: probably not; depends on capabilities and speeds of the brain
10: of course, they are essentially the same thing
11: yes, or some sort of substitute (nervous system is essentially the input unit for life, so it would be needed for the "responds to stimuli" part)
12: as Kamikaze said, electricity conducts easily through many types of compounds and therefore has a higher probability of working, although other systems could be possible
13: a need to adapt to changing environmental conditions, I suppose

[Stryke 9]

Depends on your definition of life. After all, it's only our current, highly limited perspecive that requires life to be a carbon-based, cellular lifeform with several excessively specific features- the reasons I don't see the logic of that bacteria are alive and viruses aren't. If you go outside of the narrowminded current realm of thought on the subject (which also, BTW, states that anything sapient would have to more or less look just like us:rolleyes: ), then the variables are endless. After all, many theologies and philosophies hold that the very rocks are alive. I avoid having a conviction on the matter either way, since whichever way you look at it, a definition of "alive" or "reasoning" is gonna be stupid. Hell, half the people I know don't reason.

[CP5670]

I personally think life is basically just a collective definition for all systems that can attain at least a certain amount of logical complexity, but as you said, such an explicit barrier between life and non-life has not really been determined yet.

[Galemp]

Originally posted by aldo_14

Also, what about carbon Vs silicon based life?

Silicon-based life is theoretically possible, but it metabolizes at a much slower rate than carbon. A silicon-based life form would look a bit like a large crystal- life, but unrecognisable as such.

[mikhael]

I started to read this topic, and had already started formulating a response in another window, but decided against it. No good, I think, can come from some of your questions Steak. Holy wars are founded on less controversial questions.

[Zeronet]

Originally posted by mikhael
I started to read this topic, and had already started formulating a response in another window, but decided against it. No good, I think, can come from some of your questions Steak. Holy wars are founded on less controversial questions.

Uh, these questions arent  controversial IMO.

[Stryke 9]

...and someone here secretly has deep cpnvictions on the topic? If so, let them vent. At best, they'll be interesting and provide a novel viewpoint, at worst, they'll blabber away, resort to mindless flames, start stalking those who disagree on the PM service and get promptly banned. Don't pretend this is the debate of the century here...

[wEvil]

thats why i dont personaly agree with religion

Electrical pulses are just the easiest signalling method to use - i mean, computers use it and its relatively easy to chemically generate electricity.

If we used, say, an optical nervous system the chemistry would be more complex plus can you imagine having natural optical fibres running throughout your body?

In terms of shivans, zerg, etc.  it does annoy me that insectoid races are always "the bad guys", but i suppose they are the most accessible (visually) "alien" thing from us.  Also of people are scared of them and for some reason they dont look as rediculous as reptiles

[mikhael]

Originally posted by wEvil
In terms of shivans, zerg, etc.  it does annoy me that insectoid races are always "the bad guys", but i suppose they are the most accessible (visually) "alien" thing from us.  Also of people are scared of them and for some reason they dont look as rediculous as reptiles

The insect aliens in Farscape are actually rather nice sorts.

[an0n]

Uh, the Vorlon's weren't exactly the good-guys and they were big balls of light.

1. Can life exist in a non-cellular form? Theoretically yes but it's really unstable without the physical support of cells. Interruption to any part of it is usually not isolated and thus kills it quick
2. Can life exist outside of a medium (eg. atmosphere, water)? If life can live on the mouth a volcano 5000m below the sea then I think space isn't such a far fetched idea
3. Is it a valid distinction to separate plant and animal? No
4. Is sentience always accompanied by sapience? Maybe. Depends what sepience means
5. Can life exist as energy (as opposed to matter)? Probably. Don't see why not, although it would be very unstable
6. What is the definition of a life-form? (I kind of know the answer to this question; it goes along the lines of ?responds to stimuli?, ?reproduces?, and some other things that I forget.) Something which can reproduce and consume
7. Is DNA a necessary component for life? Not specifically DNA but some kind of preprogrammed pattern otherwise no autonomic functions would work in infancy and the life-form would die
8. Evolution is typically viewed as an increase in the complexity of an organism. Is the opposite possible? Yes. Not so much through mutation but through gene interaction and proliferation
9. Do all life-forms experience time in the same fashion, assuming they live under the same physical system? Can it be experienced faster, slow, backwards? Time is simply a perception based upon how fast you think, if something thinks 100 times faster than everythin else in the universe then time would effectively go slower for it
10. Is sapience always facilitated in a manner similar to the human brain?s neurons?
11. Is a nervous system necessary for animal life? Yup. That's what makes 'em animals
12. In life-forms with a nervous system, is there a reason that electric pulses are used as the means of transmission, rather than some other way? Electricity induces chemical reaction and thus movement. If something used fluid pressure to function then it wouldn't be life-form and would most likely be to slow to survive for long
13. What factors affect the development of senses in life-forms? What factors affect the focal length for vision (ie. The section of the electromagnetic spectrum that they can see)? Simple evolution. Bats for instance wouldn't stand up to hawks and day-birds so all the light-seeing, day camouflauged bats got slaughtered while their night-time buddies prospered and all the night-time light bats died of starvation. That's natural selection for you.

[Grey Wolf]

an0n, in response to your number 13, there is a species of diurnal bats.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by an0n
Uh, the Vorlon's weren't exactly the good-guys and they were big balls of light.

 

Uh, the Vorlon's weren't exactly Farscape. They were Babylon5. Thank you for playing.

[an0n]

Originally posted by mikhael

Uh, the Vorlon's weren't exactly Farscape. They were Babylon5. Thank you for playing.

Not making a reference to your post. I was commenting on the general Insects+Lizards=Badguys thing.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by an0n
I was commenting on the general Insects+Lizards=Badguys thing.

They were covertly insidious. They did their best to appear to all the younger races as angelic beings in all forms. They were just as bad as the Shadows. The Shadows were just honest.

I think the insect/reptile thing is a part of the pulp tradition, though. It creates a villainous, detestable thing that doesn't take much effort for the average person to understand. "It is icky, thus its bad." Poor writers tend to fall back on such pulp schtick. Its acceptable in a game where the emotional buy-in is part of the gameplay, not the background. It is unacceptable in a book or tv show, however.

[Zeronet]

But Shadows were insectiod. They just usually chose to make themselves mostly invisible.