Cthulu gets creative!

[J-WO]

I so want this to be true. I guess we'll never know though.

 

[HareBrain]

You want there to have been an intelligent 30m mollusc, whose descendants, their cunning and brainpower multiplied by millions of years of evolution, might still inhabit the relatively unexplored depths, waiting, only waiting ...?

 

[J Riff]

tessellated vertebral disc pavement
tessellated vertebral disc pavement
say it fifty times
tessellated vertebral disc pavement

 

[J-WO]

You want there to have been an intelligent 30m mollusc, whose descendants, their cunning and brainpower multiplied by millions of years of evolution, might still inhabit the relatively unexplored depths, waiting, only waiting ...?

No bother to me- I live in the UK's most landlocked city.

Wait a minute... I think there's something coming out of that canal...

 

[j d worthington]

I'm afraid I land on the sceptical side with this one, but... yes, it would be completely fascinating if it turned out to be true....!

 

[hopewrites]

I've always found it supremely arrogant of humans to think we were the only ones capable of creative thought and expression. In reading over the article I had to laugh, but at the same time I felt sorry for the poor beast. So board and alone that it had to "make" someone to talk to. Reminded me very much of Wilson from Cast Away, and I imagined the thing talking to it's "friend" until it died alone.

 

[Metryq]

@ Hopewrites, how about "ignorant" rather than "arrogant"? Earlier zoologists defined Man as "the animal that uses tools." As we learned more about the natural world, that definition fell into obsolescence when we found many other animals using tools in various ways.

I'm with J.D. Worthington as a skeptic—this collection of bones does not prove the sort of conceptualization (as defined by Ayn Rand, for example) found in humans any more than a bee's honeycomb proves a knowledge of geometry and advanced engineering. The find is certainly noteworthy, along with other kinds of intelligence we are discovering on Earth. But be careful not to anthropomorphize it. Mankind may one day meet extraterrestrial intelligence, and the biggest pitfall will be thinking that superficial similarities indicate similar modes of thought.

Sci-fi stories should have some relevance to a human audience, which is why many aliens are very human-like in their ways. Even when an author creates a very "alien" intelligence, the difference may be a reflection on humanity. But that's fiction.

 

[hopewrites]

Well I was thinking arrogant because even when there is proof that what we thought was so isn't so we find a way to make it kind of so. (Now I have the King of Siam singing in the back of my head...) What I mean to say is that we are not the only earthlings to create art. There are some ground nesting birds who decorate their nests to attract mates. We are, as you pointed out, not the only earthlings to use tools. Perhaps we are the only earthlings to anthropomorphize, but without begin able to step into another's paws or fins we can not know that. Which is what I think the greatest strength Sci-Fi has, its as close as we can get to seeing ourselves from another's perspective.

 

[Nesacat]

I'm with J-Wo ... I so want this to be true but being the cynical newspaper editor it's hard to not be sceptical.Still it's a wonderful start to the day. Thank you.

 

[Metryq]

Well I was thinking arrogant because even when there is proof that what we thought was so isn't so we find a way to make it kind of so.

Oh, the irony...

 

[Boneman]

So HG Wells' time traveller was right after all?? Thirty million years in the future, when Earth is dying, the only creature left alive is: 'a round thing, the size of a football, or it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood red water, and it was hopping fitfully about.'

And it was complaining that nobody appreciates art any more...

 

[hopewrites]

Oh, the irony...

I am human after all

 

[J-WO]

I think I'd like it to be true because it suggests art is something that could exist without humans, that its an evolutionary advantage that might pop up all over the universe. Afterall, if it could happen twice here just on the one planet why not elsewhere?

 

[j d worthington]

Good point; but I think in this case unlikely. However, we've a lot to learn, I think, about what constitutes art and what its origins (speaking of the mechanism which drives humans -- and perhaps other species? -- to create it) are; what purpose it serves, etc. So this may at least open up discussions around that into new areas....

 

[Nik]

If squid, octopus and their ilk didn't die after reproducing, there would be no immediate limit on their size...

 

[Metryq]

If squid, octopus and their ilk didn't die after reproducing, there would be no immediate limit on their size...

I'm sure that's an absolutely titillating bit of information for lady cephalopods. And there was that scene at the end of Galaxy Quest...

 

[J-WO]

Good point; but I think in this case unlikely. However, we've a lot to learn, I think, about what constitutes art and what its origins (speaking of the mechanism which drives humans -- and perhaps other species? -- to create it) are; what purpose it serves, etc. So this may at least open up discussions around that into new areas....

Oh, it's wishful thinking alright!