Reaction to alien encounter?

I agree wholeheartedly.

That was about a full-blown alien invasion, not just some microbes. And the reactions were heavily exaggerated anyway.

Is this an odd way to brag about your age? Because two can play that game...

More seriously, I have spent a lot of time getting increasingly frustrated by the lack of internal logic behind what people will or won't decide to give a shit about, so I guess you might have a point. We'll have to wait and see.

There are degrees to everything though; I would be very surprised if anyone starts a religious war over some germs on Mars in this day and age, for example. Not saying you would expect that either, but it's the kind of thing that eventually gets mentioned in these discussions, isn't it?

And if you want some quick examples of people having ridiculously casual reactions to what you might personally view as massively mind-blowing experiences, just take a stroll through some of the stranger troper covens...

No, thanks, I wish to keep my sanity. BTW, I wouldnt expect a war, but depending on what the stakes turn out to be, I dont think its impossible, either (though I do acknowledge that its far more likely to happen "out there" than down here).

Well with religious wars, it's worth noting that those tend to have some sort of economic stakes, just like other wars. So you wouldn't expect a war happening just because of the revelation that microbial life exists in space.

Now with the religious implications...honestly they wouldn't be all that great. A lot of my fellow Christians are highly skeptical of the existence of alien life, but I don't think it's something that they would be that divided over.

At least, if we're talking non-sentient life. If we encounter sentient extra-terrestrials, that actually would open up a pretty big can of worms theologically.

Minor nitpick, but "sentient" just means you can perceive or feel things. If you're going for "human-like intelligence", "sapient" might work better.

As for how much of a can of worms it would be... I guess it would depend on the specific religion. I imagine some Christians might wonder if they had their own equivalent of Jesus and stuff along those lines. And it would be interesting to hear what the aliens themselves might have to say in response, of course.

"Hello, do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior Garrr'Phlunk the Coagulated One?"

Edited by Corvidae on Oct 6th 2018 at 2:14:01 PM

Yeah, the term I usually use is "Sophontic", though I tend to just use "sentient" on this site because it's a term I expect to be common.

Its not so much the direct theological implications as as competition between religions to define what new life means. Im positive that would lead to extensive public debate and the rise of new memes.

, Regarding the word "sentient", I think that its use for such things comes from referencing self-sentience—that is, self-awareness. Think of descriptions of A.I.s becoming "self aware", or "waking up" (i.e. becoming conscious).

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Oct 7th 2018 at 1:51:02 PM

Once again, let's clarify language. "Sentient" means "capable of feeling and reacting to stimuli". Every animal is sentient — touch an ant and it scurries away. Saying a species is sentient conveys nothing about its intelligence. Even some plants are sentient.

The term most frequently used (correctly) to describe how we might determine if another species is something to be used or talked to is "sapient". Now, this has its own problems, as sapient literally means "human-like" and, as far as I know, there is no agreed-upon definition of the term that is not self-referential and therefore tautological to some degree.

That said, we can consider what traits might define sapience as we would consider it. These don't take into account the possibility of alien species with mentalities or physical properties so strange that we can't even really imagine them, but we only have our own knowledge and experience to use as a reference point (for now).

• Language use: communication in symbols that have abstract meaning. A cat can meow for food but only a human and possibly some other primates (as far as we know) can assign abstract meaning to the word "hungry" that goes beyond its immediate functional value.
• Tool use and development. As far as we know, we're the only species that not only uses tools, but that adapts both its tools and its environment in a synergistic way. In other words, we use tools to adapt our world to allow ourselves to make better tools, ad infinitum.
• Self-ideation and abstract thought. Related to language, the ability to conceive of oneself as a "self" and abstractly reason appears critical to our concept of sapience. Most animals that we habitually anthropomorphize (cats and dogs) lack this feature or at least appear to be unable to go beyond a very minimal conception of an abstract self. My cat does not think about its own state in life, as far as I can tell. Rather, it has learned social behaviors that are adapted to human companionship.

"Sapience" vs "Self-Sapient" is a potentially interesting distinction. How much does our experience of ourself depend on abstract thought and how much on the direct perception of a highly complex kind of "qualia of the self" so to speak?

I will said a reaction it also depend on how the first encounter is show.

If is like V were they just show all over the world in a very human form them sure, I think it wont cause much conternation.

NOW if we talk about Man of Steel were they hijack all transmition and did what is pretty much a terorrist scene(which I was the point) then yeah.....

Checking dictionaries and Wikipedia, I think that my definition of "sentience" is more or less valid—give or take some speculation—but is largely confined to the jargon sci-fi. However, dictionary.com (citing Collins, at the least, I believe) in addition to the definition that you gave, also notes the definition of "conscious", which ties in with what I gave. Another (noun) definition on the same page indicates an archaic definition of "the conscious mind".

"Sapient", on the other hand, seems to be generally defined as something along the lines of "wise". From what I see from a quick search, it seems to stem from a Latin term for "wisdom"—unless there is an older derivation that I'm missing.

While humans do have the taxonomic name "homo sapiens", it's the word "homo" there that means "human", the whole meaning something like "wise man", I believe.

That said, the online Oxford dictionary does note that, "chiefly in science fiction", it can mean "intelligent".

In short, it seems that we're both sort of right, and sort of wrong.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Oct 8th 2018 at 6:38:32 PM

This being the internet, such a state of affairs cannot be allowed to stand!

I suggest a noble duel: rock-paper-scissors at dawn. Dawn in what time-zone is yet to be determined.

(If I'm in the later time-zone, then I'm game for us each to simply announce our moves at our respective dawns... ;P)

Sci-fi has been abusing the word "sentience" for so long that it has effectively gained a meaning it didn't have originally.

Yeah, I know it's very common in sci-fi (heck, I used to use it myself) but it's become a pet-peeve of mine. Stellaris changed it suspiciously soon after I mentioned it to the developers, so I guess that's a victory of sorts though.

As I read the references that I found, "sapient" seems to have only a slightly stronger basis for being applied this way than "sentient": "wisdom"/"abstract thought" and "self-awareness" seem to me to be similarly elements that might be used to identify "personhood". And note that "the conscious mind" is given as an archaic meaning for "sentient" as a noun, indicating that a similar usage is presumably not all that new.

Either word seems fine to me, and neither seems all-encompassingly correct.

"Sci-fi has been abusing the word "sentience" for so long that it has effectively gained a meaning it didn't have originally. "

Are you sugesting the word gain....setience of is own?