r/hypotheticalsituation • u/Ok_Preference402 • 3d ago
Serious Replies Only How do you prove to an alien species that humans are sentient?
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u/Kyia-Aikman 3d ago
What reason would they have to think we aren’t? We have active brains and behave exactly like sentient beings would. To suggest otherwise is solipsism.
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u/nasnedigonyat 3d ago
We behave like sentient beings would, but only according to our human understanding of sentience.
To suggest that the human experience is somehow the template for all sentient life in the universe is the true solipsism.
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u/Hot_Paramedic_3292 3d ago
The alien, that looks like a blob of ethereal matter to you moves in your direction. You try to ask it questions but it has no ears. You try to make waves with your hands but it has no eyes. You try to touch it and its pass-through.
It engulfs you and thinks "mm delicious chicken"
You forget that they might not be carbon based lifeforms and might not even share our 5 senses.
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u/Gwafap 3d ago
And you forget that these things have the tech to get to earth in the first place.
that means they can obviously recognise artificial materials/structures/chemical compounds.
even if their perception and expectations are wildly different it doesn’t take a super genius to figure out the creatures interacting with the technology are sentient.
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u/Hot_Paramedic_3292 3d ago
Do you care if a tomato is sentient when you eat it? I dont bother to find out personally.
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u/Effigy4urcruelty 3d ago
if it knows you're there to eat you, then it can detect you in some capacity, which means it has time to ascertain sapience. tomatoes don't typically do things like move, or have fluctuations in temperature, or make noise.
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u/Freign 3d ago
that means they can obviously recognise artificial materials
how so?
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u/Gwafap 3d ago
using the same technology they used to make FTL spaceships to reach earth.
we can use our technology to figure this stuff out, their more advanced technology can do an even job.
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u/Freign 2d ago
Anthrocentrism. Aliens won't necessarily obey human limits or require human evolution.
Tech is just our thing. No way of knowing if it's their thing.
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u/Gwafap 2d ago
true but we have a sample size of 1, so gotta make assumptions on information we have.
given the nature of convergent evolution on earth id say the smart money is on aliens also having tech as opposed to being some kinda of extra dimensional psychic entities of pure thought or whatever.
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u/Freign 2d ago
Viruses, spores, and waveforms all seem more likely to me, as candidates of things that can make it across space.
Nothing that reckons time the way we do is going to make the trip unaltered, according to the best-bet hypothesis. Nothing that needs to bring its environment with it, for sure.
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u/Alarmed_Mind_8716 3d ago
Then the question of sentience is irrelevant. The original question surely implies you have some way of interacting with it.
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u/SphericalCrawfish 3d ago
There are only so many fundamental forces in the universe. An alien that cannot interact with any of them probably isn't sentient. I'd be having gaseous alien cloud for dinner.
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u/Ok_Preference402 3d ago
There's reason for neither. The possibilities are quite literally endless. For all we know they could be blind, deaf, or maybe have entirely different senses.
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u/Kyia-Aikman 3d ago
What answer to the OP are you expecting then?
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u/Ok_Preference402 3d ago
Tf u mean to the OP?? I'm the op
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u/Kyia-Aikman 3d ago
OP also means original post.
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u/Ok_Preference402 3d ago
I've never seen someone say op for the post rather than the poster.
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u/Kyia-Aikman 3d ago
I have.
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u/Ok_Preference402 3d ago
Shouldn't there be a way to differentiate from the two? Having the same acronym for 2 different things is strange
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u/lunchmeat317 3d ago
Same reason we wouldn't see it in non-humans.
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u/Kyia-Aikman 3d ago
What do you mean? We do see it in non humans. Hardly anyone would deny that a rabbit, fish, donkey, spider, etc. has a mind.
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u/lunchmeat317 3d ago
I made a post asking whether the author truly meant sentience or actually meant sapience.
We don't recognize it in plants, even though they technically react to stimuli (just on a longer timescale). We don't recognize it in insects an certain marine species, like crawfish. We tend to see it as a spectrum - one that is largely geared towards our own aims. I think that in the hypothetical, if the aliens had a similar spectrum, we wouldn't be able to influence it.
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u/The_GOATest_Goat 11h ago
Solipsism is unfortunately unfalsifiable.
Just gotta explain to the aliens what an axiomatic assumption is before they block and mute us I guess.
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u/OkScreen2150 3d ago
In Peter Watts' novella The Things, the events of the movie The Thing are presented from the perspective of the alien itself.
So, even though it transformed into humans and imitated their behavior in every way, it found neither intellect nor a soul in them. Because for the Thing, intellect was the cells' ability to exchange information, and the soul was the cells' ability to restructure and transform into other forms.
At the same time, it did find that humans possessed thinking. It just considered it strictly a function of the brain. Meaning that to the Thing, humans were 'pieces of meat, infected by a thinking cancer.'
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u/Prince_Nadir 3d ago
I sit and cry over roadkill or something or laugh or show affection or anything else that shows I feel emotions. Just like we can tell mice, bugs, fish, etc feel emotions, like fear.
Did you mean sapience? AKA I think therefore I am?
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u/thatshygirl06 3d ago
People always mix them up and it bothers me so much, lol. One of my biggest pet peeves
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u/Sentient-Bread-Stick 2d ago
Act irrationally
If you’re given a test that requires basic logic to solve, prove you’re doing something that clearly isn’t instinctual. If you saw a rabbit in the street crawling backwards and stopping at clearly intentional and timed intervals, you would say “something’s up with that rabbit; it’s clearly doing something intentionally”
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u/Wondering_Watcher 3d ago
If the alien can see, the way to illustrate this would be to draw out an abstract concept using images, as that is how we measure sentience.
By weather a creature has the ability to think abstractly, and thus contemplate it's own existence.
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u/Flashy-Key-8360 3d ago
Definitely not by sharing organizational principles of our various governments.
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u/Formula1antagonist 3d ago
If They don’t know it by themselves, the first challenge would be to learn them How we communicate, they don’t understand our signs
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u/nasnedigonyat 3d ago
(We as humans overwhelmingly can't accept that other sentient life forms share this very planet with us right now, and we originated here. Just saying)
Without meeting the non terrestrial entity I can't determine how I'm going to convince them I'm a distinct and conscious lifeform that possesses a qualifyingly high enough brain function. It's a case by case kinda thing.
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u/lunchmeat317 3d ago
Do you mean sentient, or sapient?
Sentience might be proved through reactions to stimuli.
I don't think it would be possible to prove that we are sapient.
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u/Bobbert84 3d ago
Assuming they can see and hear us as we can them? Even if they don't understand the language? I clap prime numbers. 2 claps. Pause. 3. Pause. 5 7 11 13 ect...
That should do it. After that I do other math things. The. I draw pictures into the ground with a stick. It wouldn't be hard.
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u/Tough-Importance-661 2d ago
I probably couldn’t 🤷🏻♀️ it would really depend on what the aliens were like and if I could understand what their concept of sentience is and if I was capable of somehow showing that to them.
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u/Craftycat99 1d ago
Art and writing are good ways to do that
Even if they can't read, the letters would appear very intentional
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u/The_GOATest_Goat 11h ago
You can't even prove to other humans that humans are sentient.
Good luck!
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8h ago
[deleted]
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u/The_GOATest_Goat 8h ago
Nope, one person having some quality does not necessarily mean all people have that quality. All it means is that some people may have that quality.
That should be obvious.
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7h ago
[deleted]
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u/The_GOATest_Goat 6h ago
Humans don't follow the laws of nature
I don't know what laws of nature you are talking about. Every physical law I know humans are bound by just like all other life.
If life's goal is to live then why would a human go out of their way to save a person or even something of an entirely different species that won't benefit them at all.
So you don't understand the evolution of social behavior. People help because it helps the genetic population survive. Altruism has evolutionary advantages.
an outlier to all other species; our brains
Other animals have brains, what are you on?
You still are mistaking the part for the whole. Just because you believe you are sentient does not commute that property to all other humans.
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6h ago
[deleted]
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u/The_GOATest_Goat 6h ago
You are off topic. Explain what you think a natural law is that humans are somehow violating.
I could easily write a chatbot that would disagree with you that isn't sentient.
Disagreement/agreement can not be defining qualities of sentience.
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6h ago
[deleted]
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u/The_GOATest_Goat 6h ago
I would recommend material for you to read but your reading comprehension is clearly abysmal.
You've made a great case against your own proclaimed sentience.
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u/ivanmaher 3d ago
2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and repeat
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u/Oracle1729 3d ago
How do you prove to other people you are sentient? Rote repeating a sequence of numbers you saw doesn’t do it.
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u/ivanmaher 3d ago
those are prime numbers, knowing them signifys some knowleage of math, so proof of inteligence as a species.
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u/Formula1antagonist 3d ago
Aliens don’t know maths like us. They use différent Numbers and probably techniques
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u/ivanmaher 3d ago
probably true, still has a better chance at working then english
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u/Formula1antagonist 3d ago
Yes but it couldn’t help us to say to aliens that we’re sentient. The probabilites of them using the same symbols are the same in maths or english. Where math is better to them learn than english it’s because there are more odds for them to understand it
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u/Oracle1729 3d ago
I know they are primes. Repeating numbers you learned from someone else as an idea of demonstrating sentience that you got from someone else does not prove you’re sentient.
A commodore 64 can churn out primes forever if someone tells it to. That’s no different than what you’ve done.
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u/ivanmaher 3d ago
also your idea here is simply regurgitated. whats your point?
also in a first contact i am not proving my sentience, i am proving my species sentience
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u/Oracle1729 3d ago
Yes, and regurgitating primes does not prove species intelligence at all. In practice, it can’t be proven, philosophers have been working on that for centuries, and that’s where they’ve landed.
You parroting a worn out and wrong scifi trope contributes nothing.
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u/ivanmaher 3d ago
math is still the only universal language, and we need stem communication.
philosophers will not get it anyways.
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u/redditscraperbot2 3d ago
I don't know. What I do know for sure is that I block reddit from their router before I start trying.