scott1328 wrote:I am just going to come right out and say it: three-eyed flying sapient lampreys are impossible.

Fair enough!

DavidMcC wrote:
This is all nonsense. Tbh, I don't know how you have the nerve to post such junk. The items were on the internet for years, but have obviously been dropped recently, no doubt because of doubts about their validity. Still, that wouldn't be anything new in evolutionary biology, which is, after all, one of the murkier areas of science.

If the information is of doubtful validity, how would one use it to support a claim? What would that say about a claim you were using it to support? If the only information you can come up with to support your claims has mysteriously disappeared from the internet, possibly because of issues with the validity of the information, then perhaps you should stop making those claims.

What about all those other claims you've made in all those other threads and then refused to support? Should we assume that all of those claims are premised upon information that has since mysteriously disappeared from the internet, possibly because of issues with the validity of the information? That would be pretty fucking embarrassing.

This is just like the time SS* argued about Ichthyosaurs and all the information had mysteriously been sucked out of the internet on that too.

Anyway, I think sapient Ichthyosaurs sound like fun.

*It wasn't actually SS, it was Spearthrower (except it wasn't, because he was just accused of saying stuff he never had), but IIRC SS was later accused of being in that discussion, although later all evidence of his participation had been removed from the internet...

I had taken some time off this thread to reconsider my initial position in light of helpful responses by various members and being busy with work.
I am currently deliberating whether it's worth my time, not to mention patience to return to the state of the thread, it has since then turned into.

Now back to the topic at hand.

What kind of an environment would increase the probability of a flying, sapient, bird-like creature? A creature that is sufficiently similar to birds to be considered bird-like.

Lighter gravity with denser atmosphere, like Titan? What else?

scott1328 wrote:Now back to the topic at hand.

What kind of an environment would increase the probability of a flying, sapient, bird-like creature? A creature that is sufficiently similar to birds to be considered bird-like.

Lighter gravity with denser atmosphere, like Titan? What else?

A highly variable substrate: big treelike things, or rocky pinnacles and mesas, or lots of canyons, or an archipelago world, in which flying organisms could more readily colonize additional land than non-flyers. This might make the benefits of retaining flight outweigh the energy detriments as critters got larger and brainier.

scott1328 wrote:Now back to the topic at hand.

What kind of an environment would increase the probability of a flying, sapient, bird-like creature? A creature that is sufficiently similar to birds to be considered bird-like.

Lighter gravity with denser atmosphere, like Titan? What else?

is basically what I was getting at with the OP.

22 pages later, here we are, at the beginning of the thread.

ScholasticSpastic wrote:A highly variable substrate: big treelike things, or rocky pinnacles and mesas, or lots of canyons, or an archipelago world, in which flying organisms could more readily colonize additional land than non-flyers. This might make the benefits of retaining flight outweigh the energy detriments as critters got larger and brainier.

I was thinking about the "colonise land" aspect of this as a requirement for a species to develop beyond intelligence. I suppose the thing with colonisable land, is that you need that to build any sort of permanent or semi-permanent structures or features. Otherwise the very nature of your species existence is a transitory one.

The pterosaurs were successful 200 million+ years and reached truly fantastic sizes and some of the larger species were, according to some researchers, capable of intercontinental flight. There was a huge variety of pterosaur species before their extinction and it would some reasonable to say they had "conquered the air" for the duration of their existence.

ScholasticSpastic wrote:

scott1328 wrote:Now back to the topic at hand.

What kind of an environment would increase the probability of a flying, sapient, bird-like creature? A creature that is sufficiently similar to birds to be considered bird-like.

Lighter gravity with denser atmosphere, like Titan? What else?

A highly variable substrate: big treelike things, or rocky pinnacles and mesas, or lots of canyons, or an archipelago world, in which flying organisms could more readily colonize additional land than non-flyers. This might make the benefits of retaining flight outweigh the energy detriments as critters got larger and brainier.

I was thinking similarly. An environment that makes flying a better alternative than non-flight. however in an archipelago world, why wouldn't amphibiousness be the best alternative?

Sendraks wrote:
I was thinking about the "colonise land" aspect of this as a requirement for a species to develop beyond intelligence. I suppose the thing with colonisable land, is that you need that to build any sort of permanent or semi-permanent structures or features. Otherwise the very nature of your species existence is a transitory one.

The pterosaurs were successful 200 million+ years and reached truly fantastic sizes and some of the larger species were, according to some researchers, capable of intercontinental flight. There was a huge variety of pterosaur species before their extinction and it would some reasonable to say they had "conquered the air" for the duration of their existence.

I guess as long as they settle permanently enough to manufacture tools, there's no reason they needn't be nomadic. While agriculture was a big deal for civilization as we do it here, we were already pretty much modern-sapient by the time we figured that out. Tools are important, though. At least, tools are important given our sample size of one.

scott1328 wrote:
I was thinking similarly. An environment that makes flying a better alternative than non-flight. however in an archipelago world, why wouldn't amphibiousness be the best alternative?

Sea monsters.

ETA: So, seriously, big predators, maybe. Alternatively, given the contingency of evolution, once a lineage has gone down the flying path, you're going to have wings. Allowing for predators that can also travel between islands (say, your amphibian-analogues) it might be advantageous to keep flying once they've gone down that route. Or to become sapient penguin-analogues, which I find similarly awesome. I could totally go for sapient penguin-analogues.

DavidMcC wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

DavidMcC wrote: My concern is that such threads as this owe more to a desire for fantasy than science.

Then don't post in them. Just leave them alone. Attempts to derail and disrupt them as you are doing should be sanctioned by the mods. Either participate sensibly in the discussion or leave it alone.

I probably will, now, but, as I said, I don't like the site to get a poor reputation for science again among lurkers.

If this site has a poor reputation, it is due to the moderator's tolerance of you and a few other disruptive posters.

ScholasticSpastic wrote:I guess as long as they settle permanently enough to manufacture tools, there's no reason they needn't be nomadic. While agriculture was a big deal for civilization as we do it here, we were already pretty much modern-sapient by the time we figured that out. Tools are important, though. At least, tools are important given our sample size of one.

The problem, such as it was for the pterosaurs, was that they hadn't reached a point where tool use was necessary to exploit an environmental niche. Being able to fly increased the range in which they could seek out food and seek food in areas where the only risk of predation was from other pterosaurs.

scott1328 wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

DavidMcC wrote: My concern is that such threads as this owe more to a desire for fantasy than science.

Then don't post in them. Just leave them alone. Attempts to derail and disrupt them as you are doing should be sanctioned by the mods. Either participate sensibly in the discussion or leave it alone.

I probably will, now, but, as I said, I don't like the site to get a poor reputation for science again among lurkers.

If this site has a poor reputation, it is due to the moderator's tolerance of you and a few other disruptive posters.

Hardly! If it is poor, it is because it emphasises that fantasists aren't all of the religious kind, not because of those who post in favour of rationality and against excessive emotions being expressed, as has occurred here.

David, just leave it. The only thing you are achieving here is disrupting the thread with your thoroughly uncompelling and unauthoritative opinion on whether this discussion should occur or not.

Sendraks wrote:
The problem, such as it was for the pterosaurs, was that they hadn't reached a point where tool use was necessary to exploit an environmental niche. Being able to fly increased the range in which they could seek out food and seek food in areas where the only risk of predation was from other pterosaurs.

I don't think that was the whole of the problem. Unless you've got the beginnings of a brainy animal to work with, you're just not going to start using tools. Pterosaurs were probably just insufficiently pre-sapient to work as a model for sapient flyers. One thing David had to say in this thread may be true: generalists are probably more likely to wind up sapient than specialists. Ignoring all the other bullshit he tried to hang from that, it makes sense. If you're a specialist, you can get by more relying upon simple instinct, but if you're a generalist you will regularly encounter situations for which instinct may not have prepared you. So generalists should be expected, instead, to have a suite of problem-solving instincts rather than a suite of solution instincts.

Also, David, get on-topic or shut the fuck up.

Sendraks wrote:David, just leave it. The only thing you are achieving here is disrupting the thread with your thoroughly uncompelling and unauthoritative opinion on whether this discussion should occur or not.

As you wish. Perhaps you don't care what potential rationalist members think.
Having said that, I will not post any more in this thread.

DavidMcC wrote:
Having said that, I will not post any more in this thread.

Buh-bye!