Well of Souls Forums

@Tamri "There are no such systems now. The maximum that exists now is multi-node relay, when the final machine is controlled by an operator through a chain of intermediary machines, and a complex autopilot capable of performing complex flight missions in predictably changing conditions." I assure yo...

Swarm intelligence might work, but I could see some problems with it. Looking an social insects like bees or ants, individually they are stupid but get a bunch of them together and they can do awesome things (something similar was used with the Geth in Mass Effect). However things can get problemat...

What is it about swarm intelligence that makes you think it can't be controlled, either via pre-programmed instructions or some sort of user interface? Bear in mind the US is already testing swarm intelligence drones, and while they do have some practical drawbacks, being able to direct them at spe...

What is it about swarm intelligence that makes you think it can't be controlled, either via pre-programmed instructions or some sort of user interface? Bear in mind the US is already testing swarm intelligence drones, and while they do have some practical drawbacks, being able to direct them at spec...

The most interesting speculative possibility is, to me, true "Swarm Intelligence". True swarm intelligence is an AI distributed across a large number of autonomous self-propelled nodes. Each individual member of the swarm is relatively simple, but they have just enough programming and sensory input ...

Yeah, I'm going to say that once you have the technology to travel faster than light, achieve 30+ g's acceleration in sublight, and fire particle beams across thousands of miles, you can figure out radiation protection.

The same thing is still happening to me, and in addition, I find that the system sometimes doesn't recognize when I am signed in.

I would think that the Loroi would have some rather sardonic opinions about the Golim, at least.

Unfortunately, the evidence indicates that bipedalism began evolving millions of years before the earliest evidence of tool use (about 3.3 million years ago). See here: https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-010-0257-6 Of course, we might have started using wooden tools...

OK, I understand now. That seems plausible--cats are even more sedentary, and lions are famously muscular. Everything evolves to meet the needs of it's own niche. Our niche, as you point out, was constantly running down prey and gathering plants. That presumably selects for chronic low level activit...

Maybe you didn't mean it this way, but I just wanted to clarify that organisms cannot evolve features so they can then use them for some function they can't attempt until after they evolve the feature. To take one example, neither humans nor reptilians could have evolved an upright posture so that t...

I have a weird thing--when I submit a new post, I get sent to a blank page, with no way of getting back to the thread. I have to manually type in the main forum page, or else Google and look for it that way.

Except it's not consistent--for example that didn't happen just now.

My definition of "evolution" is "involves genetic mutations, selected by natural conditions." The effects of being a couch potato are not evolution, except indirectly (via behavior and motivation). But perhaps we are talking about different things. I was responding to the idea that our ability to in...

Needs more cowbell.

As their tool use evolves, they will become less and less dependent on next fixed nest building behaviors. By the time you get to the neolithic, I imagine a bowl shaped artificial "nest" constructed out of woven fibers, sort of like an upside down human hut.

Of course there wasn't, otherwise very likely we wouldn't be here. But the OP is asking for speculative origins for an intelligent, civilized reptilian race.

"Maybe the ability to rapidly gain and lose muscle mass is a human adaptation specific to tool-using culture? Flexibility is important to our way of life, I think." Heh, I'm reasonably certain it's a non-evolutionary outcome of a modern, sedentary lifestyle (ie, we didn't evolve to become more flexi...

I think I read somewhere that the point of the upright bipedal stance is that it conserves energy such that we became marathon runners/walkers, about to run down any prey we targeted. Or at least that "run them till they drop" is one of the common hunting strategies among indigenous people. I don't ...

If you want to stick to earth-life, I'm of the opinion that no current reptile would plausibly evolve advanced social intelligence. You pretty much have to go back to the dinosaurs for that. Troodon is the most likely candidate, and there's even a scholarly article, by an expert in the field, specul...

You can read more about them at Atomic Rockets, here: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist2.php#nswr "Zubrin calculates that the 20% enriched uranium tetrabromide will produce a specific impulse of about 7000 seconds (69,000 m/s exhaust velocity), which is comparable to an ion drive....