Sean Carroll: preference

Transcript context

…Signs of complexity. I don’t know. I just have this nervous feeling that we won’t be able to detect. We’ll show up to a planet. There have a bunch of liquid on it. We take a swim in the liquid. We won’t be able to see the intelligence in it, whether that intelligence looks like something like ants or … We’ll see movement, perhaps, strange movement. But we won’t be able to see the intelligence in it or communicate with it. I guess if we have nearly infinite amount of time to play with different ideas, we might be able to. I think I’m in favor of this kind of humility, this intellectual humility that we won’t know because we should be prepared for surprises. But I do always keep coming back to the idea that we all live in the same physical universe. Well, let’s put it this way. The development of our intelligence has certainly been connected to our ability to manipulate the physical world around us. I would guess, without 100% credence by any means, but my guess would be that any advanced kind of life would also have that capability. Both dolphins and octopuses are potential counterexamples to that. But I think in the details, there would be enough similarities that we would recognize it. I don’t know how we got on this-…

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