Is there a galactic 'Goldilocks zone'?

[ChrisD (Chris)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

You could think that a very intelligent species would not show any trace of their presence.
Alex

Maybe the first message we get from aliens is "Keep quite or THEY will hear you"

[LonelySpoon (Neville)]

[QUOTE=mura_gadi;1565582]

Originally Posted by LonelySpoon

On the subject of 'I read somewhere...'

"I read somewhere that there is no evidence that greater intelligence is a survival advantage. The jury is still out."

I find that a little surprising"

Surprising that I can read? I've even got books without pictures!

Your comment reinforces the point- our increased 'intelligence' is not necessarily a guarantee of survival, and may in fact be counter-survival.

Neville
LSO

[mura_gadi (Steve)]

[QUOTE=LonelySpoon;1565673]

Originally Posted by mura_gadi

Surprising that I can read? I've even got books without pictures!

Your comment reinforces the point- our increased 'intelligence' is not necessarily a guarantee of survival, and may in fact be counter-survival.

Neville
LSO

My apologies if I offended, just it seemed a silly supposition to entertain when the most basic of creatures have the highest chance of adapting to environmental changes. To acquire intelligence would mean to be a complicated species and have lower survival chances.

Acquiring intelligence would come well after the complexity required for a species for it survival rate not to already be compromised. But since regressive evolution is not a preferred option, maybe intelligence could only be considered essential for survival. It would depend on where you were on the evolutionary ladder.

[LonelySpoon (Neville)]

Not offended, Steve. Just amused at the way the text read.

[sharkbite]

The notion that humans are more intelligent than other species is a little bit laughable in my view.....

We measure 'intelligence against our own yardstick, and any creature that does not meet our standards we deem dumber than us...

The arrogant hubris of it all!

We are so smart that we have designed myriad ways of removing ourselves from earths future, without any process or way of stopping it.
All this within the last 200 years....

Name one other creature which can do that.....

Yep - real clever.

Even the dinosaurs lasted 250M years and they (allegedly) did not have a brain between them...

<end of rant>

(Prepares for incoming)

[AdamJL]

Originally Posted by mura_gadi

Surprising that I can read? I've even got books without pictures!

Your comment reinforces the point- our increased 'intelligence' is not necessarily a guarantee of survival, and may in fact be counter-survival.

Neville
LSO

There's a great book called Blindsight that delves into this topic. And it's street cred is that it's the only Sci-Fi book that quotes academic sources at the back.. and there is a LOT of peer reviewed science quoted.. pages and pages of it. This is hard sci-fi at it's best.

And the basic premise of it, backed up by neuroscience (turn away now if you don't want it spoiled), is that intelligence is held back by consciousness. The potential for super intelligence would require removing this abstract layer that sits on top (our personality). And almost all of the time, your subconscious has already solved a problem, or is in the middle of solving it, or has already sent a message to your body to "perform function X"... but the conscious layer on top interprets this as "I made this choice" when really, it's more like a CEO receiving a report of what's already happened and then assuming they did the work.

[xelasnave]

[QUOTE=AdamJL;1565720]

Originally Posted by LonelySpoon

There's a great book called Blindsight that delves into this topic. And it's street cred is that it's the only Sci-Fi book that quotes academic sources at the back.. and there is a LOT of peer reviewed science quoted.. pages and pages of it. This is hard sci-fi at it's best.

And the basic premise of it, backed up by neuroscience (turn away now if you don't want it spoiled), is that intelligence is held back by consciousness. The potential for super intelligence would require removing this abstract layer that sits on top (our personality). And almost all of the time, your subconscious has already solved a problem, or is in the middle of solving it, or has already sent a message to your body to "perform function X"... but the conscious layer on top interprets this as "I made this choice" when really, it's more like a CEO receiving a report of what's already happened and then assuming they did the work.

Before this matter can be discussed one must first define..."intelligence" and indeed "consciousness".......and "abstract layer" needs clarification as does "personality" and care must be taken to exaxtly set out the limitations of "perform function X" and more importantly who was Goldie Locks?

Alex

[Atmos (Colin)]

Getting back to the original question, yes, there is theoretically a Goldilocks Zone in the Milky Way. A good part of it has to do with supernova which are considered life destroyers for quite a considerable distance. Being in an outer spiral arm has made it a much quieter neighbourhood for the past few billion years. Along with an increased metallicity making a cooler longer burning star.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Atmos

Getting back to the original question, ............an outer spiral arm has made it a much quieter neighbourhood .........

Rather like living in The Shire.....