[tsimionescu]

The point is that ants don't comprehend any other animals, neither those more nor those less complex than them, nor even those as complex as them (beetles). In contrast, we have at least some comprehension of all other animals on Earth that we've found. So, there is a fundamental difference between us and ants that makes the analogy not likely to hold.

It's far more plausible we could have some comprehension of even a very advanced civilization than not. For us to not be able to comprehend them, they would have to entirely be using physics we don't understand at all. Not physics we know + physics we don't, but only physics we don't know about. Which, given how much of low energy physics we understand to great deals of precision, seems extraordinarily unlikely.

[michael_leachim]

> The point is that ants don't comprehend any other animals, neither those more nor those less complex than them, nor even those as complex as them (beetles). In contrast, we have at least some comprehension of all other animals on Earth that we've found. So, there is a fundamental difference between us and ants that makes the analogy not likely to hold.

it is really important to establish some sort of vocab to ensure that we are talking about the same thing here.

By comprehend I mean you, as an ant, "understand" a bug in a sense that you can predict its movements, eat it, force it to go away, or breed the thing if you find its symbiotically useful, in a sense you have internal world model of a thing, comprehend.

hence, ant in a strict sense, does not comprehend humans, it doesn't have world model of us, as a thing. most that it can do, it can see us as a force of nature that somehow happens to it.

on the other hand, we understand it almost perfectly, we can play with them, be benevolent, or malevolent toward their entire "civilization" we can joke with then playing with their communications, we don't get everything but we understand the gist of it.

> It's far more plausible we could have some comprehension of even a very advanced civilization than not. For us to not be able to comprehend them, they would have to entirely be using physics we don't understand at all. Not physics we know + physics we don't, but only physics we don't know about. Which, given how much of low energy physics we understand to great deals of precision, seems extraordinarily unlikely.

no, just no. it is pure speculation, we think too much of ourselves.

[tsimionescu]

> By comprehend I mean you, as an ant, "understand" a bug in a sense that you can predict its movements, eat it, force it to go away, or breed the thing if you find its symbiotically useful, in a sense you have internal world model of a thing, comprehend.

By that definition, many mammals and birds, if not even the vast majority, actually understand us then, thus proving that simpler lifeforms can understand much more complex ones. Probably some of the bigger fish, reptiles and amphibians too.

The difference between ants and us is more one of simple scale. If we had been the size of ants, we also wouldn't have been able to do anything against a gorilla, even with a lot of current technologies. And yes, if it turns out there exist aliens the size of planets or solar systems, we won't have any realistic way of defending against them if they are aggressive. But that still won't mean we couldn't comprehend some of what they do, at least enough to realize they are an intelligent life form.

The bigger problem would of course be if they are (a) not made of any form of matter we recognize (imagine dark matter aliens, though that doesn't seem plausible in our current physical models), or (b) live at entirely different time scales than us, say having "neurons" that fire once in a thousand years, or once per planck time.