Fermi Paradox: Could Technology Develop Without Fire?
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- Опубликовано: 24 авг 2024
- Fire is often considered the foundation of human technology, but there may be many worlds on which it would not be likely to practical, such an ocean planets, and on which intelligent life like Dolphins might emerge. Could such worlds host technological civilizations anyway? Or would they be forever stuck at little to no technology?
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Credits:
The Fermi Paradox: Could Technology Develop Without Fire?
Episode 220a
Written, Produced & Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur
Music Courtesy of Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.c...
Perfect timing! I was just getting into my truck for a half hour drive.
Yes of course Cody is a fan of Isaac Arthur!
Hi
Nice to know the science community is so tight knit.
@@thelukesternater My thoughts word for word haha
Katie Giles
I imagine he listens like a podcast, I too listen to Issacs videos like a podcast whilst doing other things.
Electrochemistry is another route to concentrated energy that might be more probable on other worlds. Earth's electric eels already deploy impressive voltages and a smart cooperative species with similar physiology might utilise Kirchoff's circuit laws to access significant electrical power.
Nice theory!
That would make a lot of sense.
That's actually so cool!
I was thinking that a more aquatic species could, instead of using fire, use geothermal "smokestacks" and such to advance technologically.
I was thinking the same thing. The idea of extreme heat, cold, and exotic matter being next to each other, seems like a breeding ground for technology.
That's a good point, but I think it's like Isaac said "The species needs to be kinda weird in the head to not go running in the other direction". same here
PeanutbutterJellyfishSandwich like mermaid & mermen . mer people
@@crappycomputer77t1 It might not be possible to go running in the other direction, if there isn't much dry land. If they want to forge stuff, they are likely going to need heat and pressure. Swinging a hammer may not work, but a thrusting kind of hammer would. Also, if they are anything like our aquatic friends here, their brains would likely be a bit weirder than ours.
@@threwthelookingglass7194 Humanoidish forms are not as ideal for deep water intelligences, but mollusks like octopus could be.
This made my night! Now I've got something to think about other than every mistake I've ever made :)
Could you have made all those mistakes without fire?
Probably not. Except the occasional walking into a wall thing... xD
Our brains can get damaged by trauma and process more "mistakes" than is healthy. Luckily because we made fire a thing we could make whenever... we gathered around it and started talking...
Result so far is that you should be able to get affordable or free help from licenced experts regarding that predicament. GL hf.. we all make dumbass mistakes its called life. Love.
This made my night too!
@@gumunduringigumundsson9344 that's a lovely comment.
We’ve already met them Isaac, and when they left they said “So long and thanks for the fish”.
"So long and thanks for the fish... suckers!"
what
JoelCrafter43 its from a book called hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Dolphins are aliens and they say that
They better make sure they have towels before leaving.
Slartibartfast!
What a double-whammy: evolving on a "super Earth" could mean you're stuck on a water world where fire is difficult to impossible, AND you have a higher escape velocity.
I feel genuine sympathy for any intelligent species out there that are sophisticated to appreciate the mystery and majesty of space, but are forever imprisoned on their homeworld with no hope of ever touching the stars.
@A Person Building a space elevator would still require the ability to launch something into orbit. It isn't like a skyscraper that you build from the ground up. It's more like a ribbon that you unspool from geostationary orbit, with one end going out to the far end while the other is lowered down to the planet's surface.
The only option I can see for such a species would be a massive space tower with some kind of accelerator running it's length, supported by nuclear power.
It's hardly a very practical launch system, *especially* without fire, but it's the only thing I can think of that might work.
Lack of hands would probably pose a higher barrier to technology for intelligent whales and dolphins than lack of fire. Intelligent cephalopods though: they might build some interesting things.
Of course, an alien planet would not have either. Future or alternate timeline Earth might, though, and there could still be aquatic aliens with good object manipulation abilities, maybe even tentacles.
Octopi don't live long. Imagine if they did and where a social species? Something like them with an internal biological chemical factory to make tools is the basis of a science fiction story that I am writing.
@@exhaustguy That is awesome
@@exhaustguy What is The name of that story???
@@exhaustguyStephen Baxter's Manifold Time and an uplifted sentient squid named Sheena 5 may have beaten you to it by a good quarter century... Not the internal biochem factory but it's close...
When it comes to writing under water, there was such a question posted to worldbuilding stack exchange and someone mentioned Quipu, which records information on knotted strings. It is worthy to consider the fact that looms were semi-automatic pretty early. Lacking persistent ink in waterworld might not be much of a setback after all.
Thanks, Isaac. I've been thinking about this idea too, and although you've said in many videos that you're not likely to get metallurgy without fire, you could still create metallic objects, even on a water-world, without fire by using electroplating instead. Several aquatic creatures generate or detect electricity so it would not be unlikely that an intelligent species might start investigating it. After that, all you need is a sealed container, like a shell, to keep the rest of the ocean out, an electrolyte, namely the sea itself, a mineral sample rich in metals, like copper oxides, iron oxides, or even salt water itself, and an object you want to coat in that particular metal, perhaps to make an existing stone blade more durable or repairable. It would take a lot of time, to deposit, but you could make bulk metal tools this way eventually.
You've also mentioned creating artificial organisms to create or replace tools or infrastructure in the future, so if intelligent creatures discovered bioforming, they could use GMOs to manipulate metals and construct objects out of them instead of using fire. Since it is likely that all intelligent organisms will be interested in surviving, and therefore extending their lifespans, it seems to me they would almost inevitably discover a means of manipulating their DNA, whatever that may be, to that end, and eventually to create other bioformed tools to improve their quality of life. Assuming you can use bioforming in this way to create advanced technology, and that it would be an almost inevitable discovery for a civilization, I think you could argue that, given enough time without killing themselves off with a biological super weapon, technology would not be a good Firmi Paradox Great Filter and is another reason I agree with you that life is probably just insanely unlikely to emerge naturally in the first place; fun to think about though.
The middle 3rd discussing various techs (especially with the background music) gave me a nostalgic Civilization vibe.
Great vid man
Alien underwater civilization. I find this hypothetical subject extremely interesting and stimulating for an exploratory video.
Check out Larry Nivens "Fleet of worlds". The race Gw'o is just such a brainy, no-fire bunch
@@johncarlaw8633 Isaac produced two or three videos on the colonization of the oceans and the development of life on oceanic worlds {video "Habitable Planets 06"}, but not on civilizations completely stemming from oceanic world. Like you, I try to imagine the materials, architecture and industries of this type of civilization and I must admit that it is quite difficult and intriguing.
@@maciek_k.cichon Thanks. I will look at it.
Isaac, thanks for mentioning Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. He was a sci-fi writer from 1960-2006. Solaris is one of his best novels, a very nice climate and different, very interesting look on one of the possibles life forms - a living planet, and a possible way of communicating with such life. As a fan of Lem's books I highly recommend.
Australia could use some anti-fire technology.
Edit: Good to know even the ill-tempered among this channel's followers aren't flamers.
Edit2: This thread is heating up!
David Wilcox
The Irish?
@David Wilcox maybe a developed country could spend some money to fire department so fires could be controlled.
@@dunneincrewgear LGM starting fires? I guess even Australia's Close Encounters are unpleasant, just like their wildlife.
Prevention is better than the cure
Put more water on it.
Hope that solves it.
Life has been really hard these past few years. I hope you know Isaac Arthur, your videos with your wonderful insight and comforting voice are a much needed relief from everyday problems. Thank you Mr. Arthur!!
"Mom, can we have fire?"
"We have fire at home."
Fire at home: ☢️
Fire at taco Bell ☣️
You speculated how fire might have been first discovered by humans, as I have often done. I have imagined how magical and awe inspiring it must have been for the first humans to have discovered it and then controlled it as they must have seemed like Gods. However, after pondering it more, I guessed that the most likely way it was initially controlled was after a forest fire had started and some humans have noticed a tiny stray bit of fire l, small enough to not be terrifying - and became curious. Maybe poking at it with sticks and so on... What do you think is the most likely way that the first humans set eyes upon fire and also the first ones that could create it?? (bow drill etc)
@gatheringoflight thanks Gathering! Had no idea - I will 😁😁
Judging by how our closest relatives, chimpanzees, also don't have an innate fear of fire, behave oddly during wildfires: it's likely that humans didn't set their eyes on the fire. They just noticed that if they just kept calm they would have the land to themselves. So if our story is similar to that of chimpanzees, it's likely humans noticed that fire was useful after losing our fear of it. Meaning: we weren't clever little apes, we were insanely brave little apes.
"You would expect species to accumulate more technology"
I don't think it's quite that straightforward. The amount of technology a civilization can posses is limited, and there's an equilibrium where the rate of new technologies being invented is balanced by old ones being forgotten. The number of technologies that a civilization can posses depends on various factors, from population density/trade (when connected to a market of a million people, a blacksmith, say, could specialize exclusively in something like swordmaking and contribute to the technologies of advanced sword manufacture while other blacksmiths have their own specializations, but in a less connected or dense world, everyone has the skillset of a village blacksmith and civilization as a whole has access to fewer technologies) to agricultural surplus that allows specialization of labor and in the long term the number of known technologies has gone up.
However, this isn't a steady progress that only goes to one direction. Agriculture technology probably does and in sufficiently long term it might drive the emergence of other technologies (larger populations/surplus -> civilization can posses more tech), but if you consider Western and Central Europe following the Crisis of Third Century for instance, a whole slew of technologies was lost when trade routes broke down (craftsman could no longer specialize as much) and there no longer were powerful states around to finance construction of aqueducts or anything of the sort (and with no aqueducts being constructed, the know-how was lost).
Assuming no major breakdowns of society, technologies would survive for a while after being invented and then another long while if they are useful. For a quick example off the top of my head, shoemaking is largely the same process it has been since antiquity. Materials changed a little, automation got maximized, designs improved and got refined, but shoes are still shoes at the end of the day.
you must have spent hours putting all that together. pity I never even read it.
@@OzixiThrill "Assuming no major breakdowns of society" - There are literally hundreds of empires in human history that collapsed at the Iron Age level or lower. And only one government that managed to break that barrier and become industrial. Breakdown is the rule, not the exception.
@@maltheopia None of those, however, were "major" breakdowns in this sense. Many of the ideas and technologies those pre-iron age technologies got maintained. Agriculture didn't get lost, because it was just THAT useful.
Neither did metalworking. Or animal husbandry.
That is to say, when I stated "major breakdown", I was talking about near-apocalyptic events that destroy most of humanity.
Short of that, most technologies would endure today.
Alternate title: Is there hope for advanced dolphin civilization?
I've thought about this many times. I.e. Highly intelligent deep sea life.
That's kind of the question though -- How would such a lifeform become intelligent, without things like metallurgy, combustion, artificial light, etc.? And then with ice world swimmers, they wouldn't be curious about astronomy. I mean physically it could probably happen but would it?
@@destructionman1 We became intelligent without things like metallurgy, combustion, artificial light etc. All of those are a product of the last couple of centuries.
@@destructionman1 very good... Hours of day dreaming😑
Like the mass effect leviathans😃
Boron come to mind.
The classic game Star Control 2- one of the finest ever made imo- plays on this topic with an intelligent, long-lived civilization that developed in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Because there was no solid surface (that they knew of), they had no physical technology.
In fact, the only reason anyone ever knew about them at all was because some ancient civilization developed a universal translator- a form of Clarketech- and installed a satellite that enabled them to communicate with the outside galaxy.
I've been waiting for someone to tackle this.
Snacks and beverage ready.
@@woodypigeon I was being ironic.
Archaeoptery X LMAO 😂🤣😂🤣
This channel is better than 99% of what’s on tv
The other 1% is The Expanse, Firefly, and about 3/4 of Battlestar Galactica.
They could use chemical reactions as a heat source, or cold source if necessary, not all require oxygen even though it's in the water anyway.
You'll never generate enough heat to refine metals and ceramics and such without combustion.
There are plenty of chemical reactions but I think the basic question is how do you get from the stone age into the copper age or the like without fire? You can have a reaction like sulfuric acid + metal ore, but without fire can you have a ceramic or even stone bowl to contain it and use it?
How you going to acquire the chemicals? Most easy methods of extraction require heat (distillation, roasting ignition etc)
Issac told how to make heat. With enough heat, you can invent fire.
@@minebidw1291 - His suggestion for making heat is very dubious. He mentions radioactive materials such as Uranium as one possibility. However, Uranium is a metal! You need to generate a sufficient amount of heat to refine the Uranium from the ore so that you can then get heat out of Uranium (which comes through both some spontaneous fission and mostly alpha decay).
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
No fire with out oxygen
Some of us got the Billy Joel reference
it was ryan, RYAN STARTED THE FIRE!
The first rule of intelligent life: *No smoke without a proper BBQ.*
Life has to be everywhere. Intelligent life has to be extremely rare.
The most important invention to come from fire was cooking. That alone opened so many new avenues for food that the extra nutrition allowed our brains to become what they are today. Without that kind of physical enhancement you'll never get any other kind of tech.
Another great video. Thank you Isaac and everyone.
Yay Sunday episode
I think I saw a Kurzgesagt video about aquatic civilizations living in rogue planets never getting fire, and never escaping their planet.
do you have a link?
mrmonkeboy ruclips.net/video/M7CkdB5z9PY/видео.html
@@andrelin4345 oh cool thanks
But they have deep sea vents to use as an energy source. Well not as portable it’s better than nothing. At the same time in that video I saw smoke coming out of that alien building which would require an energy source.
Your topics are the best.... I will watch this later, but I have wondered this question myself!!!! Thank you for taking time to talk about it!!! Its hard to find information about the topic, I can't wait to see what you have to say!
Volcanoes. One can get much closer to an active vent under water than on land. And then use the heat to melt stuff and drive various chemical reactions, just like with fire.
is it possible for a planet to have "breathable" air for humans.. occuring naturally without photosynthetic oxygen producing plants/organisms?
Yeh, just wouldn't be naturally replaced
It would be from whatever material accepted into the planet
Kinda like how its theorised our water came from comets
I've read in the past that any free oxygen would be eventually absorbed into rocks and what have you. But there was a paper published just over a year ago about attempts to recreate possible atmospheres of other planets and it has shown that oxygen can occur naturally in some scenarios.
It would have to be the right composition between oxygen/nitrogen for humans to breathe so it could be an incredible rare condition
Now I am going to spend the rest of this week pondering at this topic. That natural nuclear reactor idea genuinely got me thinking at the possibilities. Thanks for the weekly brain food as always Mr. Arthur!
For water worlds some ideas: they may have volcanoes and volcanic vents, it may be possible generate and utilize electricity, and they could create air chambers to produce things they normally couldn’t.
oh yea - another excuse to not study for my exam. very appreciated
Spagneto big mood, what you study?
The fact that this video is titled "... without fire." and not wheels, rope, wood, pottery, etc. should tell you just how important fire is to technology.
Trees like structures always seemed to be an overlook in rare earth Fermi Paradox solutions. Without wood for construction and fires it would be hard to make so many other things
Hey Arthur ! Love the content!
I have a finance channel, but you inspire me to post!
Keep up the great work
You could do finance without fire. Shells have been used as currency in human history.
god i love your episodes! you are hands down one of THE most original content creators on youtube. all the science channels (which i do love) are all very similar. than there's Isaac Arthur literally packed full of first time thoughts for my brain to feast on. never stop.
Robert Hanley Tortora were you speaking to god?
@@Bibibosh hahahaha... shit. it does look like that
I've been wondering this for a long time - thanks for making a video on this topic!
BlueEyedBuckeye there was a short story I read awhile back about such a world.
Question: you mentioned that a civilization taking 10 or 100 times longer than us to use fire in nonbasic ways is not a good solution to the Fermi Paradox. Based on how long most stars live now or in the future, that is clearly true. However, earlier in the universe more massive stars formed. The lifetime of a star is inversely proportional to its mass.
So did the average star size enter the longer lived size range early enough for this to not matter, or did this happen relatively recently, on cosmic timescales, to prevent all but an extremely fast advancing species to reach a detectibly level?
If I have my facts wrong, please let me know that too.
Great video once again! Thank you. I totally agree with your point about how a narrator can elevate a story with their performance. A perfect example is R.C. Bray's reading of The Martian
I love the way it's so hard to conceive of processes that are so different to the ones we came up with, the brain likes reference points. Great vid Isaac. If you're ever in New Zealand, love to have a drink and snacks with you :) Have a great new year!
So you're saying that dolphins aren't stupid, God just challenged them to build a civilization in legendary mode.
A most informative Sunday episode Isaac. Lots of good points I never considered.
I've pondered this exact thought for many, many years! Thanks so much for this video! - Fantastic!
I was hopping in my car to head off to work and the notification for the video popped up! It’s always a great surprise to get an off-day video.
The notion of fire and it’s importance to technology is a very interesting topic and one many fail to consider when pondering alien civilizations. I was glad to see you take a look at it and consider it from some different angles.
I was just thinking about this the other day. It's also possible that oxygenated atmospheres are common on planets with life, if not, we were certainly lucky to have lots of it. Things like jet engines, fire, gas combustion engine, even early steam engines, et cetera
Great video Isaac. One note though, it is very likely that a planet fully covered in water would develop artificial islands made of living plants. With time this could open door to bird-like creatures, eventually outsmarting underwater family.
Also, don't forget icecaps. Likely to occur naturally on poles, could be a living ground to yet another smart class of animals.
i cant believe i didnt think about these XDD your comment really helped me on my writers block lol
whoa, had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn't Thursday
Yes!
Now i have somthing to stream on my 45 minute drive to work, best monday ever.
Hey @existential crises, i have been having many of you with recent world event's👍🏽😅
I'm imagining some poor alien caveman guy accidentally starts a fire on his super oxygen rich planet and turns the world into a giant fireball
Had there been such risk, then the whole planet would be set on fire by a lightening or volcano a long time before...
The real answer to the Fermi paradox: all the other alien cavemen done burned themselves up.
Hmm...
Whenever I get into a debate with friends about what the most important invention in human history was, my answer is always, unequivocally, fire. Or rather, the control of fire.
My main argument has always been that fire provided humans with the one thing that allowed us to develop into a technological species: calories. Calories are the limiting factor in maximum intelligence. First off, intelligence requires big brains, which requires a lot of calories. Our modern brains require around 500 calories per day... That's about a quarter of our daily calorie intake. The problem in the natural world is the rate at which you can intake calories. Finding food is difficult, and an all day affair. This leaves very little margin for the amount of calories you can afford to power a brain, and more importantly, leaves you very little time for... nothing. And nothing time is important. Nothing time is when your mind and creativity wonder. Nothing time is what leads to inventions and eureka moments. Nothing time is the time you can spend on whatever the hell you want, such as making more and more complicated structures and tools, or learning how to cultivate plants.
Humans basically hit the cap on intelligence a long time ago... from surviving on raw food in tribes hunting and gathering. Whomever first had the idea to control fire, and then then whomever had the subsequent idea to cook food over that fire, unknowingly unlocked the future potential of humans. Cooked food is far easier to digest. This means your body spends less energy breaking it down. Which in turn means you get a lot more profit calories from cooked food... which in turn means hunted and gathered food is a lot more efficient at providing energy. This meant both more calories to develop bigger brains, and more time to spend on nothing... and the creativity and inventiveness that comes from boredom.
I did not however, consider just how important combustion has been in so many other inventions since then.
WTF....! What are you doing here HAT MAN! You are by far the scariest demon ever. i'm scared even responding to this
Amen to that!
Even on planets that don't naturally support fire, it would be possible to eventually create fire if enough technology developed to study the chemistry. It would just be much more expensive. For example, some chemicals can burn or even explode under water, notably alkali and alkali-Earth Metals. In other cases, you would just have to bring both reactants rather than just one, and maybe control the fireplace so the environment doesn't immediately douse it or anything. (We have one reactant - oxygen - readily available.) For example, if you electrolyze water, you get hydrogen and oxygen, which combine to be rocket fuel. (Obviously, you would need some fire-free way to produce electricity, and, if underwater, would probably need some kind of insulation, which you would need for the battery anyway.)
These are the thought provoking questions I subscribed for 👌
Have you read the WEST of EDEN trilogy... it might give you ideas on this subject. The were really great.
Currents have actually been more important to navigation at sea than the compass.
In chemistry the need for a open flame for a given reaction is marginal at best. The confusion between the use of heat, burning, combustion and expanding gases in developing industry is common. Fire is easy for us on Earth to produce therefore it's use as a heat source has dominated our civilizations.
And on a planet with a more static crust a constant volcano could be easy heat source to use initially.
Arsunday 😎😎
Isaanday?
Arsonday is more punny but Sonday is German
How did I miss the existence of Stanislaw Lem? Fascinating concepts. Thank you.
I've always wondered how we'd have done if there were no wood giving trees. There is no way we would have gotten this far...
More importantly than the combustible nature of wood. Is the oxygenation of the atmosphere that trees and ferns are responsible for. Without it the more complex chemistry that led to animal life would not have been possible.
@@browndd meeeeeèeh.. not quite. We'd have most of the oxygen as long as there were plankton and some form of land plant.
True that wood saved our butts in many ways. Wood rocks!
trees ferns and conifers were amongst the first widespread plants on land. Plakton, algae and other early water-based photosynthesizing plants did not contribute the majority of the oxygen to the atmosphere as they were trapped in the sea.
@@browndd Not so much trapped as encumbered since its right at the surface.
Trees almost killed off everything when they didnt understand that there was none that could digest them and recycle the wamth giving carbon and could have mostly drained it all and made another snowball earth. Lucky break some single celled genius cracked that nut.. tree.
Trees also helped us make tools to hunt and defend.. thats probably the most important use the ever had.
@@browndd Oxygen in the atmosphere comes from the sea. The atmosphere became oxygenated before the first eukaryote cell evolved. It was 100% bacteria. Anything multi-cellular like a fern did not exist.
This is your best video yet, exploring sheer possibilities and techniques without getting bogged down by calculating constraints imposed by a primitive economic ideology. Plus, you mentioned Lem.
I am really looking forward to more content on O'Neil cylinders.
I’ve been anticipating this for a while. I was not disappointed. Thank you!
I was depressed but youve made my night!
Thanks Isaac!
Me: like my fireplace?
Alien: what’s a fire
"Ah you mean the rapid oxidisation of matter. We skipped that the moment we gained sentience. You guys built your entire civilisation on it? LMAO."
Whoever came up with the name fireplace really didn't have much imagination.
Stanislaw Lem was a very good writer and a funny guy. He said once "I didn't know that so many idiots exist, before I used the Internet" :)
I just had this conversation with my mother that Octopi wouldn't be able to make it to space and not develop technology, but she just said, "why not?" And I never felt so speciesist.
Fire would have been pretty almost impossible on Earth before the Great Oxygenation Event.
Well, there is also the possibility that we've only entered an era of galactic history where it isn't (metaphorically) having gamma-ray bursts every ten seconds. Essentially, we and other aliens have, effectively, just started due to the fact that any attempt hasn't been flash-fried.
Lyall Watson wrote an interesting book 'The Role of Food in Human Evolution'.
- "What is this fire you are talking about? Must be some kind of dangerous sorcery. And nuclear reactors? Why do you even need to ask, those are easy. I have one in the kitchen to cook dinner with."
I , work in a place where we have "OSHA permit-required confined spaces". When you enter these spaces, you have to monitor for oxygen levels and poisonous gases. One of the things I learned when I first started my career was that some chemical reactions create "oxygen enriched" environments; and you have to be really careful in these environments because a small spark could trigger an explosion. I've thought about how our atmosphere is only about 20% oxygen and around 70% nitrogen. I've considered that if a planet had a very high oxygen content, it would be difficult to develop technology because a small fire might get out of control very easily.
The big thing with fire is that it allowed for a 2nd digestive process i.e. cooking. By cooking roots and meat we could make food easier to digest, allowing us to consume more calories, more protein, which allowed our brains to further grow.
Read Solaris, then all the other Lem books - your mind is Not ready for Lem's. Wonderful stuff.
One thing worth mentioning is that many plants on Earth have adaptations to avoid burning. On a world with less oxygen, everything may just evolve to be more flammable to maximize some other advantage.
I had a similar thought-process: What happens, if a planet like earth has so much water, that it forms a 10-20km deep ocean. if life can form there, it has some sort of problem... there is no going onto land, because there is none.
My solution was, that if underwater volcanos erupt, they will emit pumice, that will float upwards to the surface (my assumption was, that it actually has a liquid water surface). And these could form rafts, that would act like land, especially for plants, which maybe even evolve to free floating plants.
From there on, there could even be animals, which are rarely in water and live off of those plants... and if some sort of sentient being appears, they could jumpstart a technological civilization. Their main problem would be getting metals, because these would be just so deep below the surface, or massively diluted in this global ocean. Fire however would be something they'd try to avoid, because for us, fire can consume the wooden house, but for them, it would eat away virtually everything.
They would have one advantage though: they wouldn't require a huge moon, since if the planets axis tilts, that swimming surface might just readjust itself.
Thank you Isaac.
If an alien species were on a planet not suitable for making fire, I still would think that they would eventually learn to create it as their understanding of chemistry and physics advanced as well.
For example, we understand many chemical reactions that take place under vacuum or in different types of atmosphere than our own despite us not living in those conditions. Dolphins could eventually learn to smelt metal in oxygen chambers similar to how we fabricate things in vacuum chambers. it would take them longer, but if they are advancing along a technological path, they would eventually gain that know-how.
Technical evolution without fire would only have to proceed to a certain tipping point before it becomes an inevitability. so while the lack of fire could prevent a civilization from advancing, I don't think that an advanced civilization could advance without discovering it and its benefits along the way.
Been waiting for this one. Always thought there has to be someway around the hurdle we see, it may only be a hurdle from our viewpoint.
Alien species might have other options, like bioelectricity (in themselves, or in animals they could domesticate) or an ability to create useful materials biologically (e.g., a species that could form seashell or horn material into any desired shape) could have some advantages in getting started with tech.
Another possibility could be natural genetic engineering. Microorganisms can swap and edit genes, and some multicellular organisms (such as some species of squid) can exchange genetic material with the external environment. Or we could look at eusocial insects, whose queens have the ability to determine if a given egg will hatch into a worker, a warrior, or a queen insect. What if they were intelligent enough to invent new types? If a species could develop an ability to consciously control abilities like this, they could become natural genetic engineers.
I love your perspective.
An intelligent species on a water world would have opportunities to see phenomena suggestive of solar power:
1. Refraction of sunlight through water, or through transparent membranes
2. Reflection of light off waves and water surfaces, for concentration of sunlight
3. Basking in sunlight for warmth and the effect of colour and albedo on absorption of light.
Please do a video on life extension technology
It is easier for the digestive tract to extract energy from food when it is cooked. Some theorize that the use of fire was the catalyst for developing more complex (and energy dependent) brains. So the selection of intelligence in sapiens was in the end not directed by something internally, but by an external force.. fire. I wonder what other ways there are for a primitive species to harness and control energy to, for example, alter materials, make tools or cook their food.
Or could technology develop w/out mushrooms? Stoned ape theory.
Joe rogan is that you?
@@joziv lol
Mushrooms? Probably. Alcohol, now that is much harder to imagine. There actually is a somewhat plausible hypothesis that agriculture actually started so that civilizations could make more beer.
cringe theory of Joe rogan? Yikes.
@Sanic The San8c i agree that alchohol is shit but it rarely has it postives too, but rarely mostly it is just shouting and balling.
In an aquatic environment, I think the development of husbandry and cultivation is entirely feasible without fire, and would be the main route to advanced technology. Without fire as an 'easy' way out, the process of agricultural selection and scientific observation and engineering improvements could lead to extremely advanced biotechnological solutions, over time.
Undersea animals and plants could be developed not only for consumption, but for transportation. They could breed to develop an array of venoms, mucus, and other organic compounds for medicine, enhancement drugs or to change the physiology or phenomics of organisms, including themselves. They could be grown to yield certain shapes or physical qualities of bone, shell or hide as tools or tool components. They could even be used to grow highly metallic structures (think of limpet teeth). They could grow housing or housing components.
In time, probably after already being quite advanced in their biotechnology, they could develop underwater structures that have the water removed from them for the purpose of doing things with fire, or begin developing surface structures (assuming they don't live under a thick planetary ice sheet).
If they happen to be on a gas giant's moon with low mass relative to earth's, it would be even easier for them to eventually get off their rock after they had finally breached the surface and modified themselves. And being so advanced biotechnologically, and culturally accustomed to biomodification, they could readily adapt their physiologies to a space environment.
this is awesome uwu
especially if some parts of the ocean planet arent too deep, which allows them to reach the surface easier!
I can imagine octopus carving armored suits from whale bones or something, and attaching some giant fish's bladder to pump fresh cold water through a a tube to keep them cool, for them to gain access to explore underwater vents. Even without a particular reason, curiosity comes with intelligence, and this suit is primitive technology, equivalent to humans developing shields and blowpipes, or at least not much more complex. Surely they'd realise the value of metals and volcanic glass after discovering them near underwater volcanic vents. That would be the stimulus for any smart, cooperative, and curious culture to develop those suits I mentioned.
Once they have access to the thermal vents, they would potentially begin forging metal and making ceramic type products fairly quickly.
Eventually they'd end up with "mines" of a sort, for accessing underwater volcanos. This would lead to other scientific experiments, distillation of new chemicals, etc. Of course, there is plenty of oil in the oceans, and so discovery of plastics would be possible even with very crude metals and ceramics or coral and bone type materials.
So, they have metal, even if it's very different to forge, and plastics, ceramics, advanced use of all the wonderful bits of whale parts and corals etc... And eventually nuclear reactors. The hard jump is from an early industrial revolution level technology to modern tech.
I don't see why this would take longer than the million years we've been around. There is also a lot of food around volcanic vents, making them a natural place for this intelligent, top-of-the-food-chain species to base themselves.
Underwater is still home to a huge variety of materials, and surely any social and intelligent tool-using creature would take advantage of them all.
I don't see the lack of fire being a huge problem, and possibly not even delaying things too far. If humans did not have fire, we'd have started using lava.
If there is no lava, and it's an ice planet without geothermal energy, then I can see a species harvesting the sun using, say, fish scales or quartz or whatever to make mirrors and lens to concentrate the heat at first, either for comfort or, if their biology is cold, the. As weapons to blind/burn prey and enemies. Some smart cookie amongst them develops a better version, and an entire solar powered tech tree shoots off.
If it is a dark and thermally dead planet, such as an ocean and ice covered rock, I don't know. I suppose eventually they'd get curious what was above the ice, and then it'd still be cold and dark, and they'd starve to death because your planet has no energy source.
Veyr much looking forward to the next chapter of this story - SQUIDS IN SPAACCCCEEEEEE!
Niven's Gw'oth are an aquatic species living on an icy moon. They develop fire in a unique way. Intelligence is the key to their creative solution.
Fire still works underwater as long as you provide the oxidizer, as opposed to the "traditional" fire we think of where the oxidizer is so helpfully provided by the oxygen in the atmosphere.
Hypergolic chemicals (solids, possibly? Keeping them from being dissolved would be somewhat difficult) would be great underwater for fire, or forging metal.
thank god for captions
nah but fr well done and very informative and *exactly* what I was lookin for 💯👍
While the topic of this video is about the development of technology without fire. It is important to remember that the greatest advantage fire offered was to improve the caloric value of food through cooking.
Solaris is great book. Is a story for the men (mankind), who went to get to know another planets, but they still can not know them-self.
This all has me wondering how underwater magma flows or volcanic eruptions might help when it comes to metallurgy or substituting fire.
Big assumption that seems to be a problem:
We need to mine uranium and concentrate with forged tools.
If uranium was very plentiful, you'd have lots of natural nuclear reactors that would be hostile to life.
Fire or the ability to refine and form metals seems necessary to use nuclear power for useful work.
The natural nuclear reactor we found functioned by boiling off water, if ground water levels were higher then the natural reactor wouldn't have functioned properly, never having a period where the water boiled off stopping the reaction from getting carried away. With constant water levels, the stray neutrons are always moving slow enough that they are always hitting the other fissile materials proceeding to a critical chain reaction causing it to run out of fuel very early, likely long before life evolved.
Even on a water world, once knowledge of chemistry reaches a critical level, knowledge of fire will quickly follow. At its core, it's nothing more than a highly active exothermic chemical reaction.
This made me realize something. Cancer typically doesn't express itself until about 40 years down the line. Octopi typically live around 40 years. So in other words, a very short-lived species would probably be pretty much immune to cancer from a non-lethal dose of radiation.
Wrong; octopuses - or octopoda - typically live for 3 years
The thing about fire is: the Oxidation Process accounts for the majority of useful chemical reactions, and without those reactions, Technology probably doesnt advance very far. But perhaps some other process would replace oxidation ? if not, then I think animals wouldnt likely discover usefulness in proto-science. They would stick to smashing rocks to make sharper rocks and thats about all the is necessary to thrive as a human-like animal, so there wouldnt be a need to advance.
In otherwords: technology is just a happy accident, that came about due to curiosity and subsequent investigation of a mystical-seeming natural phenomena
is there another similar phenomena that might strike that level of fancy? Like, rainbows are cool and intriguing, but we dont see them convert a forest into a field of ash, so we dont attribute "POWER" to the mystery of Rainbows
Maybe Volcano ? what is a volcano without fire? it would be atleast Rocks being thrown into the sky ... that might be enough? Well the more you think about there are plenty of Powerful phenomena that dont have to rely on fire/oxidation to exist:
Tornadoes. Earthquakes. Lightning. etc
Who knows maybe ultimately science is inevitable for any stage of evolution that produces a curious enough brain? Even underwater, these kinds of events could still be enough to drive a species to discover the workings of physics
I think it's safe to say that the more we look into what is needed to develop sentient life that can develop technology and even have a slim chance of getting off planet and an even slimmer chance of becoming space-faring, the more we realize how rare such life might be. I think we are alone in our Local Group in terms of life we can communicate with, alive at this time.