Complexity and alien intelligence

From a complexity approach there are some different kind of “intelligence” and they have two components: individual building blocks (ants, neurons, humans etc.) and their societies (ant hill, brain, human society etc.). These components can be either simple or complex.
In short: in search for alien intelligence, we have to take into consideration not only the complexity of an individual agent, but its societal environment, as well. Incidentally, it raises the question whether a traditional, “lonely” computer could produce a kind of intelligence similar to ours, since all intelligent form known by us is embedded into a societal networks, bit it isn't.
Regarding the possible combinations, it is a self-contradiction a complex system with simple building blocks and similarly simple society, so we have to ignore it.
The second possibility is represented by ants. They aren’t intelligent individually, but their societies can show complex and adaptive behaviors.
The third category is the human-like complexity: we are complex individuals who live in a complex society.
Theoretically it seems to be possible a fourth solution: it would be a huge, complex and adaptive being. A similar entity appears in Stanislaw Lem’s novel Solaris (where the whole planet sems to be intelligent) without any societal environment.
This taxonomy raises some questions.
First of all, it is a cliché that how intelligent an ant colony, although a sole ant isn’t. They can build anthills with regulated temperature, defend their descendants etc. It is a central problem of complexity science that there is no an exact measurement for complexity (Melanie Michell: a Guided Tour to complexity, p 95), but is seems to be unquestionable that there is no ant-like intelligence with consciousness on our planet. They can monitor their environment but from this point of view they are on the level of cockroaches. They never reached the second level: the self-reflexivity or reflective self-awareness: to know that you know. (Clayton: Emergence and Mind 110)
Since there are more insect races and individual insects than mammals, they would have more opportunity to evolve into an intelligent system than mammals. Ergo it is a plausible hypothesis that a mammal-level intelligence (=intelligent agents, complex society) unreachable by ant colonies (=simple individuals, complex society). And not only their intelligence, but their ability for environment modification is limited, as well. They can build ant hills, but cannot able to build spaceships. In other words: ant like system cannot reach the level of consciousness and consciousness is the only way to develop really effective technologies. Opposite to some SF writers’ ant like, intelligent technological societies, an alien intelligence presumably would similar to us in the sense that they would be individually complex entities. After all, technology reachable only if you are both a complex entity and are supported by a complex society–it is not a surprise that computing is not a Paleolithic invention.
Following this train of thought, it seems to be probable that there are no Solaris like mega brains, since they wouldn’t have complex societies. But who knows–perhaps their mega complexity can substitute a complex society’s influence.
Or not.

Living in an extremely big Universe

Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin distinguish (in their book entitled Five Age of the Universe) four “windows” from an astronomical point of view which are opened to observe the physically existing Universe.

• The first level is the planets;
• the second is the solar systems;
• the third one is the level of the galaxies and
• the last one is the Universe itself.

One can question why the level of galaxy clusters ignored and it is unquestionable that this scale is influenced by our special circumstances. An intelligent being living in the interstellar space probably would not regard either the planets’ or the solar systems’ level as important (although she could recognize their existence.)

Another example for the observer-dependent nature of scales/taxonomies is the megatrajectory theory. It is based on the evolutionary mile stones and

• the emergence of life is the first so-called megatrajectory;
• the second is the prokaryote diversification;
• then eukaryotic cells appear;
• it is followed by the rise of the multicellular life forms;
• the “invasion of the land” is the 5th and
• the rise of intelligence is the 6th megatrajectory that gave an opportunity for the invasion of every possible environment

–perhaps including the outer space (A.H. Knoll, R.K. Bambach: Directionality in the history of life: diffusion from the left wall or repeated scaling of the right. Paleobiology, 2000).
The post biological intelligence can be interpreted as the 7th megatrajectory (Cirkovic, Dragicevic and Beric-Bjedov 2005).
This taxonomy is focuses at least partly on parochial details of earthly evolution, since its aim is to give a description of the history of life on earth: I.e. the fifth megatrajectory would never occur on a water covered planet.
We can reinterpret this megatrajectory concept focusing on those factors that are presumably universal. Freeman Dyson distinguishes three classes of phenomena which can occur in our universe: “normal physical processes”; “biological processes” and radio (or another forms of) “communication between life forms existing in different parts of the universe.”(Disturbing the Universe, 1979) These factors can be interpreted as “gigatrajectiores,” because they–opposite to megatrajectories–can be typical in any universe which is populated with intelligent observers.

• The first gigatrajectory is characterized by the domination of lifeless matter;
• the appearance of life was the second gigatrajectory and
• finally intelligence rose.

Robert Batterman mentions in his article about “The Tiranny of scales” (in the Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Physics) that it is a reductionist approach to believe that “whatever the fundamental theory is at the smallest, basic scale, it will be sufficient in principle to tell us about the behavior of the systems at all scales.” Regarding the second gigatrajectory, after its appearance life was able to conquer our whole planet and, what is more, thanks to the relative small size of the earth, we can visit any point of it–even on foot. It is imaginable a bigger planet where its habitants too small and/or too short lived to do it individually, but it is questionable whether it is imaginable a so big planet that there isn’t enough time for life to occupy every part of it, since their sun goes out before the end of it. In short: the size of our earth is consistent with life’s abilities.
What is more, if you accept one or other form of panspermia hypothesis, then it seems to be possible that life which appeared on the surface of a planet can spread in our Galaxy. But it seems to be impossible even to the microbial life to sail to the closest galaxy, since it would take billions of years. So the spread of life is localized for ridiculously small parts of the Universe. In other word: to believe that other galaxies inhabited with intelligent beings, we should believe that both life and intelligence arose independently from us somewhere in in the Universe.
Similarly, technology seems to be provide an opportunity (theoretically, at least) to conquer not only our planet, but both our solar system and our galaxy–after all, even the Fermi Paradox is based on the presumption of its possibility (if we are able to, then they should be able to visit any stars, including the sun, as well). But notice that even the SETI is mainly about the search for alien intelligence within the Milky Way. Although we have a theoretical chance to observe a super civilization’s energy emission from another galaxy, it is impossible to visit even the M31, since it would take million years even with 0.9 c. And although the time dilatation would make slower the aging on the board of the spaceship, its construction should survive an unimaginably long period of time (notice that the Homo sapiens itself didn’t existed a million year ago). This long travel seems to be not theoretically, but technically impossible. So unless we invent a revolutionary new form of travel (i.e. a warp driver, but it is only an unfounded dream today without a chance to build it), we will never leave the Milky Way and it means that the Universe is extremely huge compared to our possibilities.
In short: the spatial structure of the Universe limits the possibilities the spread of life and intelligence. It raises a question whether it would be possible a universe which can be conquerable by its habitants.

What is it like to be an alien?

Thomas Nagel’s philosophical essay entitled “What is it like to be a bat?” examines the problem of imagining how another being can perceive with more or less different sensory organs than ours’. Its conclusion is that even if we would be able to become gradually a bat, we wouldn’t be able to experience a bat’s world since our brain is not hard-wired for its life and for example, to navigate with echolocation. It is reasonable to extend this thought experiment to the hypothetical, intelligent aliens – after all, if we cannot imagine a mammal’s perception although it is closely related to us form evolutionary perspective, then we have no chance to imagine how and what an alien creature perceive.
But this bat-metaphor is seriously flawed. The “other minds” problem refers to that question in philosophy that how we could justify that other humans have similar minds than our own. From epistemological approach, the problem is that there is a fundamental difference between accessing our own and others’ experience. I have a firsthand experience about my visual, hearing, etc. impressions, but I cannot access another humans’ firsthand experiences. I don’t have a direct knowledge about it.
It is unquestionable that there are differences between the nature of an experience I experienced directly and another which was told me by you. But the fundamental question is not whether we: you and I are the same person (obviously not), but the similarities/differences between your and my perception, and although we cannot ascertain whether another human has the same experience, there are at least two solutions.
1. Historian David Hackett mentions “the fallacy of metaphysical question” which is “an attempt to resolve a nonempirical problem by empirical means” [Historians Fallacies 1970, p. 12]. In other words: the problem of other minds (or bat perception or alien thoughts, if you prefer) is simply unanswerable from a philosophical point of view. It is impossible to know “what is it like to be a bat” or another person or alien.
2. On the other hand, if one focuses not on the fact that different beings perform the observations, but on the causes which give reason to believe in similarities between their perceptions, then the overall picture would change. The operation of our senses adapted to our environment, so it is a sound argument that humans sensory organs operates similarly. Thus the effects they result are more or less similar too, and we do not have reason to presume that your and mine experiences are radically different. Because our common evolutionary origin I can imagine what you perceive.
A bat is our more distant relative than another humans. We can imagine with less certainty “what is it like to be a bat?” than “what is it like to be a human?”, but it doesn’t mean that we cannot imagine at all.
Hypothetical aliens are formed by the same evolutionary processes than us. Perhaps the gravitation, atmosphere and other parameters of their habitats are different, but the logic of evolutionary adaptation excludes certain solutions and supports others, so the space-phase of possibilities is restricted. Perhaps there are many forms of both life and intelligence in the Universe, but it isn’t mean that there aren’t rules. Similarly, the distance between us and an alien is surely bigger than between us and a chimpanzee. But difference not necessarily means that something is totally unimaginable.