ianao,
I think you are underestimating the intelligence of the average monkey. Haven't you ever read Curious George?
Jan,
You always crack me up.
I can't argue with your logic. On thing to think about is if a human baby can grasp the use of our many languages, what makes you think a superior race with superior intelligence couldn't do the same thing? As far as men communicating with women I have to agree with you. As Sigmund Freud once said. "I have spent my life time studying the human psyche, but I still cannot answer the question 'what do women want"."
This is the main reason I haven't dated in almost two years. I enjoy my sanity.
Abaddon,
Your reference to the faster than light theory is exactly what I am talking about. That brick wall is limited to our own understanding of theory we have studied in our own primitive grasp of what we consider to be the only absolutes. You can get into pages of arguments about perception and relativity in relation to our knowledge of physics, but life is to short and I really hate typing that much.
Your use of the term "federation of planets" is used more than in science fiction stories. I recently picked up a book titled The Contact Has Begun by Phillip H. Krapf. I met Mr. Krapf briefly on a business trip to the LA times many years ago. I got the book because I could not believe he wrote it. As with anything on this subject matter I have an open mind, but it is not so open as to be completely convinced of anything that I consider not to be completely provable. The book speaks of The Federation of Planets and does it in a somewhat convincing manner. To completely disregard the story of someone who was not only a major skeptic but also a mocker of such things it tends to make an intelligent person stop and think a little.
Your comments about dolphins and monkeys is a good one. The fact of the matter is we can communicate with dolphins and monkeys now, but the odd thing is they seem to understand what we are trying to say on a limited basis but it is man that fails in the ability to understand what they are trying to say. Who then is the more intelligent being? In the case of Koko here is a gorilla http://www.koko.org/world/ that has a vocabulary of over 2000 words and has in human standards the IQ level of 95. She communicates in sign language and has a full understanding of what she is communicating. The only thing she lacks is what we consider to be language is the proper vocal cords to orally communicate. Long and fluent conversations have been had with Cocoa completely with the use of sign language. She also understands the meaning of audible language but lacks the ability to respond in like manner. Again I say, who really is the superior being? Now if they can teach a snake a little sign language I might reconsider the theory of Adam and Eve. Until then I'll just keep an open mind.
What makes you think that a race who has the ability and knowledge of space travel would possibly be aggressive? I think they would find the human race on the aggressive side, but just because it is more of our nature to instantaneously go on the defensive doesn't mean they would be the same way. In fact, a visit from such a race might be more to save us from ourselves. There is a theory of "Ultimate Knowledge". At this level of existence aggressiveness and a combative behavior are considered an absurdity. If it is possible to harness technology beyond our grasp and understanding that would allow a humanoid being to travel in a mode outside our accepted theory of light-years what other things would they also hold as superior? We tend to measure intelligence with the rod of technology. Couldn't superiority also be measured in a more understanding and civilized manner? Having ultimate intelligence would give a race the ability to grasp the concept of peace in a way far beyond what we understand the existence of peace to be. We look at peace as the absence of war. It first takes the negative for us to understand the positive. Ultimate intelligence can posses the positive without using the negative as a measuring tool. We are all prisoners of what we understand coming from our limited perspective and knowledge. We tend to choose an invisible force many call god as a warm and fuzzy feeling of total peace. If you look at the tool used to try and explain god, it is loaded with the explanation of many negatives to try and give us the understanding of a positive existence. Just look at what religion and the belivers in those earthy religions have distroyed on this planet.
The term "god fearing" in itself explains the primes of this whole concept. It is a "be good or else" concept that in my opinion is very child like. The human race seems to need the simplest and most barbaric of concepts to use as a guide in understanding the thought of "be nice."
What if there is a superior race that does not need to resort to such simplistic and base concepts to "be nice"? What if the thought of "be nice" is simply a way of existence? Is that too abstract of a concept to possibly be conceivable? Just because human history has proven that the negative cannot exist without the positive doesn't mean that a positve can indeed exist on it's own. A superior race can be much more superior than in just a technological manner. If, there is such a race, and they decided to let themselves be known, it might be the best thing to ever happen to this planet. But then if they are anything like the human race, you are right, our ass is grass!
Who knows, they may have a more accurate definition of who god is if there is indeed a god. Just as humans are victims of their environment in that they are aggressive creatures, maybe our concept of god is built out of our own concept of existence in that you can only understand positive things from the perspective of the negative. This could be just a misconception of a god based on our own level of lower intelligence. There may well be a god and he/she/it is so far beyond what we can conceive of in manner, it might be centuries before we have our minds developed enough to grasp that possibility of a reality. If there is, and he/she/it is more perfect then our own understanding of perfection. With this in mind, all this "praise god" stuff might be completely laughable to such a being. After all, if god is truly a god in our understanding, why would he/she/it need us little pee-ons to tell him/her/it how great they are? The god of the bible shows me that he has a major insecurity problem. That combined with a big ego and an itchy trigger finger paints a picture of something definitely man made. I personally wouldn't even think of treat my own kids they way the god of the bible treats his so called children. Are we fucked up or what?
Dave