Sumerian King List, Power and Aliens.
It is interesting that the Sumerian King List, the oldest historical chronicle in existence, dating back 4000 years, is all about an abstract concept called "the kingship" that supposedly "descended from heaven" and keeps being taken from one city to another. So, already in the earliest days of human civilization, when writing and metal tools were new inventions, people understood the concept of power.
"After the kingship descended from heaven, the kingship was in Eridu. In Eridu, Alulim became king... Then Eridu fell and the kingship was taken to Bad-tibira... Then Bad-tibira fell and the kingship was taken to Larag..."
I suppose we could bring it up to date. The most recent line on the kingship would be:
"...Then London faded, and the kingship was taken to Washington."
Some people postulate the chronicle was about aliens. Ancient ones.
Well, there are very good reasons to conclude that there are no intelligent aliens out there (at least not within our galaxy), and I am one of the people who firmly hold to that conclusion. The idea of ancient aliens is particularly insane, because it not only requires intelligent aliens to exist, but also requires them to be absurdly human-like (i.e. carbon-based, oxygen-breathing, about our size, often humanoid in appearance, traveling around in things that look like our own metallic vehicles, and having developed intelligence at practically the EXACT SAME TIME that we developed intelligence, from the point of view of a cosmic timescale).
The timescale issue alone is enough reason to conclude that any other intelligent species must develop either millions of years before us or millions of years after us - meaning that they either don't exist yet, or have advanced so far that we couldn't possibly comprehend them.
Realistically, any intelligent aliens out there should be expected to:
- Be far removed from us in time as well as space, meaning that they exist in the far past or far future, not the present.
- Have less in common with us than we do with jellyfish, oak trees, or mushrooms.
Any intelligent alien more human-like than a mushroom is unrealistically human-like. And that's not even going into the Fermi paradox.
I think not just people but every species understands the concept of power. Power is probably the most natural thing, since no two things are absolutely equal, therefore someone is bound to be more powerful and the other aware of this fact.
I do like your logic with regards to aliens and will be shamelessly appropriating it for drink table arguments :D
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One thing that can imagine is about the physical size of the human body at that time could be humongous where they able to lift that huge stones to the top of the pyramid...even by using support tools to make it to the top. haha its just my crappy vision
A point to consider: we are constrained by space time, whereas an advanced alien civilization may not be. They may have developed technology and biology capable of observing different dimensional perspectives that we are too limited right now to perceive or understand. Some species may adapt more slowly than us. We are learning that biology and nature are governed by fractal patterns. I imagine if intelligent life develops elsewhere in the universe, it's physical form at some stage will probably contain appendages. The brain is a fractal pattern in organ tissue form. It may not be "universal" but it could be a common occurrence among life. An I've listened to a scientist talk about the development of eyes and unlikelihood of an eye developing independently in the universe, but then again scientists recently discovered that scallops see in the same way that existing specialized telescopes (that are already in existence) gaze into the galaxy
also I like the insinuation that the kingship can potentially be some kind covenant between nations and alien factions, even if you do dismiss the idea as hooey
one more thing: The Fermi Paradox vs Drake's Equation is like the glass half empty and half full debate. I don't believe it can effectual be argued either way. That's an opinion based statement, obviously. Thanks for the article. It's a fun think.