In short, I find this trope to be a fallacy. I’d expect an advanced civilisation to have a greater, not lesser, understanding of how intelligence works, its limitations, and failure modes in general.
Have you never looked at something someone does and asked yourself, “How can they be so stupid?”
It’s not as though you literally cannot conceive of such limitations; just that you cannot empathize with them.
It’s anthropomorphism to assume that it would occur to advanced aliens to try to understand us empathetically rather than causally/technically in the first place, though.
Anthropomorphism? I think not. All known organisms that think have emotions. Advanced animals demonstrate empathy.
Now, certainly it might be possible that an advanced civilization might arise that is non-sentient, and thus incapable of modeling other’s psyche empathetically. I will admit to the possibility of anthropocentrism in my statements here; that is, in my inability to conceive of a mechanism whereby technological intelligence could arise without passing through a route that produces intelligences sufficiently like our own as to possess the characteristic of ‘empathy’.
It’s one thing to postulate counter-factuals; it’s another altogether to actually attempt to legitimize them with sound reasoning.
Do you have any good evidence that this assertion applies to Cephalopods? I.e., either that they don’t think or that they have emotions. (Not a rhetorical question; I know about them only enough to realize that I don’t know.)
Do you have any good evidence that this assertion applies to Cephalopods?
Cephalopods in general have actually been shown to be rather intelligent. Some species of squid even engage in courtship rituals. There’s no good reason to assume that given the fact that they engage in courtship, predator/prey response, and have been shown to respond to simple irritants with aggressive responses that they do not experience at the very least the emotions of lust, fear, and anger.
(Note: I model “animal intelligence” in terms of emotional responses; while these can often be very sophisticated, it lacks abstract reasoning. Many animals are more intelligent beyond ‘simple’ animal intelligence; but those are the exception rather than the norm.)
I agree, but I’m not sure the examples you gave are good reasons to assume the opposite. They’re certainly evidence of intelligence, and there are even signs of something close to self-awareness (some species apparently can recognize themselves in mirrors).
But emotions are a rather different thing, and I’m rather more reluctant to assume them. (Particularly because I’m even less sure about the word than I am about “intelligence”. But it also just occurred to me that between people emotions seem much easier to fake than intelligence, which stated the other way around means we’re much worse at detecting them.)
Also, the reason I specifically asked about Cephalopods is that they’re pretty close to as far away from humans as they can be and still be animals; they’re so far away we can’t even find fossil evidence of the closest common ancestor. It still had a nervous system, but it was very simple as far as I can tell (flatworm-level), so I think it’s pretty safe to assume that any high level neuronal structures have evolved completely separately between us and cephalopods.
Which is why I’m reluctant to just assume things like emotions, which in my opinion are harder to prove.
On the other hand, this means any similarity we do find between the two kinds of nervous systems (including, if demonstrated, having emotions) would be pretty good evidence that the common feature is likely universal for any brain based on neurons. (Which can be interesting for things like uploading, artificial neuronal networks, and uplifting.)
Have you never looked at something someone does and asked yourself, “How can they be so stupid?”
It’s not as though you literally cannot conceive of such limitations; just that you cannot empathize with them.
It’s anthropomorphism to assume that it would occur to advanced aliens to try to understand us empathetically rather than causally/technically in the first place, though.
Anthropomorphism? I think not. All known organisms that think have emotions. Advanced animals demonstrate empathy.
Now, certainly it might be possible that an advanced civilization might arise that is non-sentient, and thus incapable of modeling other’s psyche empathetically. I will admit to the possibility of anthropocentrism in my statements here; that is, in my inability to conceive of a mechanism whereby technological intelligence could arise without passing through a route that produces intelligences sufficiently like our own as to possess the characteristic of ‘empathy’.
It’s one thing to postulate counter-factuals; it’s another altogether to actually attempt to legitimize them with sound reasoning.
Do you have any good evidence that this assertion applies to Cephalopods? I.e., either that they don’t think or that they have emotions. (Not a rhetorical question; I know about them only enough to realize that I don’t know.)
Cephalopods in general have actually been shown to be rather intelligent. Some species of squid even engage in courtship rituals. There’s no good reason to assume that given the fact that they engage in courtship, predator/prey response, and have been shown to respond to simple irritants with aggressive responses that they do not experience at the very least the emotions of lust, fear, and anger.
(Note: I model “animal intelligence” in terms of emotional responses; while these can often be very sophisticated, it lacks abstract reasoning. Many animals are more intelligent beyond ‘simple’ animal intelligence; but those are the exception rather than the norm.)
I agree, but I’m not sure the examples you gave are good reasons to assume the opposite. They’re certainly evidence of intelligence, and there are even signs of something close to self-awareness (some species apparently can recognize themselves in mirrors).
But emotions are a rather different thing, and I’m rather more reluctant to assume them. (Particularly because I’m even less sure about the word than I am about “intelligence”. But it also just occurred to me that between people emotions seem much easier to fake than intelligence, which stated the other way around means we’re much worse at detecting them.)
Also, the reason I specifically asked about Cephalopods is that they’re pretty close to as far away from humans as they can be and still be animals; they’re so far away we can’t even find fossil evidence of the closest common ancestor. It still had a nervous system, but it was very simple as far as I can tell (flatworm-level), so I think it’s pretty safe to assume that any high level neuronal structures have evolved completely separately between us and cephalopods.
Which is why I’m reluctant to just assume things like emotions, which in my opinion are harder to prove.
On the other hand, this means any similarity we do find between the two kinds of nervous systems (including, if demonstrated, having emotions) would be pretty good evidence that the common feature is likely universal for any brain based on neurons. (Which can be interesting for things like uploading, artificial neuronal networks, and uplifting.)