User blog:Mr.Robbo/Human Chauvinism 2

Human Chauvinism

Onwards! In case somebody hasn't realised, I'm listing human characteristics that are often also applied to extraterrestrials in science fiction, and suggesting alternatives. Some of the human characteristics listed may be virtually universal among extraterrestrials, while others may be unique to humans.

Five Senses
We have five main senses; seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling. Why? Because these were the best adaptations for the environment we evolved in (in fact, our sense of smell has been gradually devolving over many millions of years; this devolution has accelerated in the last few thousand years, since we domesticated dogs to smell for us)! Extraterrestrials will likely have more, less and different senses.

Basically, humans can detect photons of a certain range of wavelengths (see), detect disturbances and vibrations in air (hear), detect contact with the outside of the body (feel) and analyse the chemical composition of food (taste) and air (smell). Pretty cool when you look at it that way! Anyway, I find looking at the senses like that helps when thinking up senses for aliens. Perhaps they could detect electrical impulses from nervous systems (good for hunters) or areas of high radiation (good for radioactive wastelands)?

Don't forget variations of typical Earth senses, aswell! Why not sonar (like our aquatic pals in intelligence, the dolphins!)? Depending on the condition of a planet's atmosphere I would expect aliens would see in slightly different wavelengths than humans. In fact, why would they use a trichromatic (three base colours) colour system (red-green-blue)? They may use a dichromatic (two base colours) system, like the humble cow! You could go really out there with something like the dodecachromacy (twelve base colours!) of the mantis shrimp!!

Some senses, like sight, I expect will be pretty common just because they're so useful, but by no means universal (what if the planet is really dark?).

Communication via Speech
While I'm on the subject of senses, why not also mention communication? Speech will be pretty rubbish somewhere with a really thin atmosphere, but there are plenty of alternatives! Communication by light? Radio signals, even (basically light)? Tapping the ground and hearing others through your feet? Touch? Electrical stimuli? Smell would be difficult, because it's so slow and general, but animals on Earth use it to identify each other and mark territory, so smell could still play a big role in alien societies. Taste, even?? First contact is starting to look a lot more difficult! (Spock woefully disposes of a collection of sound-based "universal translators").

Human Psychology
Now this is something writers don't think about as much, and with good reason. It is so hard to predict what alien psychology might be like that they could be forgiven for just making them like humans. I'm going to have a good crack at it using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the Triune Brain.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a hierarchy of five main needs that humans require, building up from the most basic. Basically it goes... wait a moment... wahey! A picture!



Anyway, extraterrestrials may not have quite the same hierarchy of needs as we do (even the human hierarchy of needs changes subtly depending of the situation - eg. war or peace). If they evolved on a world where there was danger around every corner, they may put 'Safety' at the bottom, because there's no point in having food if you're sitting in the caldera of an active volcano, or in the territory of viscious predators. I'm sure you can imagine how this would change the attitudes of such a race once they develop into an advanced civilization. Why, they may even have different tiers on their hierarchy altogether, that humans just disregard.

The triune brain is a (slightly disputed) way of structuring the human brain. In the centre we have the... well, look at that! Another picture! The primitive reptilian brain represents our core instincts; fight or flight, tradition, aggressiveness, loyalty, etcetera. The less primitive limbic system is responsible for emotion, distractions, the 'bodily pleasures', and smell (a creature that relies on smell has a more dominant limbic system. The huge neocortex (only really present in humans) is in charge of rational thinking, tool use, organisation, mind-over-matter, building civilizations, you get the idea.

Aliens which have different parts of the triune brain more dominant than others will therefore have different attitudes. Reptilians would be loyal, tradiationalist, hierarchical and fierce. Limbic would be emotional, distractable and hedonistic. Neocorticals would be cold, logical and communalistic (we're heading here: the human neocortex is getting gradually bigger by the millenium!).

Of course, why not invent a whole different brain structure for aliens! They're aliens! Who knows how their brains could evolve!