-----Original Message-----
From: mark@unicorn.com <mark@unicorn.com>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 07 January 1999 17:00
Subject: Re: Major Technologies
>Samael [Samael@dial.pipex.com] wrote:
>>I agree with you. Out intelligence would almost certianly be similar, our
>>emotions, on the other hand, may well be very, very different.
>
>Oh, almost certainly; we have a lot of baggage related to our evolution as
>pack animals which aliens may or may not have. But any other technological
>species will probably have to adopt the scientific method to get there, and
>will have similar philosophical concerns, etc. Non-technological aliens
>could be very different to the average human; though possibly not that
>different from some 'insane' humans.
>
>Personally I think that 'alien-ness' is more a software issue than
hardware;
>I've known a few clinically crazy people and they're far more alien to me
>than most extraterrestrial life in SF stories.
I've only known one insane person, but she was characterised by a likelihood for making arbitrary decisions that bore no relation to reality (or at least only by accident). I would expect any race that achieved space travel to be able to think rationally (at least some of the time) and be able to cooperate (I find it hard to imagine a space faring race that had individually attained space travel with no help from each other).
Samael