Spaded
06-08-2006, 08:57 PM
Okay, maybe not. But consider a giant brain that encircles the biosphere of a planet. An example:
In an innovative computer turn-based strategy game called Alpha Centauri, you play as one of seven independent ideological factions that blast off from a dying earth to land on a planet named "Planet" in the Alpha Centauri system. You quickly discover that Planet is home to disgusting pink blobs of fungus called Xenofungus that are capable of defending themselves through their symbiotic creatures called "mind worms". Eventually, the Xenofungus blobs scattered about Planet grow at an alarming rate and threaten to destroy you! You develop a psychic bond with these fungi and the fungus talks to you in your sleep. The fungus asks you questions about humanity as you try to understand what the fungus is before it grows too large and overwhemls the human race. Just as the fungus is about to bloom and take over Planet and destroy human life as we know it (by now all life on Earth is gone), you use a computer to blast the sum total of all human knowledge and history into the fungal mass. The Xenofungus then chooses not to destroy your kind, instead it merges with your mind and you and the fungus rule the world, and eventually create a Dyson(?) sphere around Alpha Centauri and use all of its radiant power in order to sustain your massive energy requirements.
Is it possible to have an organism that spans an entire planet? A gigantic mass of neuron-like cells in a gigantic net, presumably photosynthesizing and harvesting plants and animals to sustain its obviously massive energy needs? Xenofungus went through a cycle every 300 million years where it "bloomed" and became sentient and achieved "godhood" for a few years. Unfortunately for the fungus, it used too much energy and most of it died because Planet cannot sustain it, and the cycle began again as the other native life slowly recovers. Only when humanity gave it knowledge did it survive the metamorphosis into sentience. The gigantic planet-organism I'm talking about could, perhaps, save energy by having parts of its brain sleep during whatever day-night cycle it happens to be in.
A sentient "brain" covering most of a planet sounds like it could be very smart, given time. Of course, it would have to even evolve in the first place, which would be tricky. Perhaps parts of it could evolve independently and it could share information with other areas of itself. For the creature, the discovering of scientific knowledge would not be slowed down by war, money, or religion.
Outer space has a seemingly infinite number of stars, and undoubtedly billions of billions of planets (isn't there something like a mol, or 6.022x10^23, of stars?). Could it actually happen? If, 1000 years from now, we DID happen upon a giant brain, how would we know? Did it even need to evolve language or social skills? It probably would consider us a threat, or study us first and THEN consider us a threat. Most likely, it would only develop the skills necessary for its own survival and it would take millions of years to develop any kind of self-awareness, if any at all!
In an innovative computer turn-based strategy game called Alpha Centauri, you play as one of seven independent ideological factions that blast off from a dying earth to land on a planet named "Planet" in the Alpha Centauri system. You quickly discover that Planet is home to disgusting pink blobs of fungus called Xenofungus that are capable of defending themselves through their symbiotic creatures called "mind worms". Eventually, the Xenofungus blobs scattered about Planet grow at an alarming rate and threaten to destroy you! You develop a psychic bond with these fungi and the fungus talks to you in your sleep. The fungus asks you questions about humanity as you try to understand what the fungus is before it grows too large and overwhemls the human race. Just as the fungus is about to bloom and take over Planet and destroy human life as we know it (by now all life on Earth is gone), you use a computer to blast the sum total of all human knowledge and history into the fungal mass. The Xenofungus then chooses not to destroy your kind, instead it merges with your mind and you and the fungus rule the world, and eventually create a Dyson(?) sphere around Alpha Centauri and use all of its radiant power in order to sustain your massive energy requirements.
Is it possible to have an organism that spans an entire planet? A gigantic mass of neuron-like cells in a gigantic net, presumably photosynthesizing and harvesting plants and animals to sustain its obviously massive energy needs? Xenofungus went through a cycle every 300 million years where it "bloomed" and became sentient and achieved "godhood" for a few years. Unfortunately for the fungus, it used too much energy and most of it died because Planet cannot sustain it, and the cycle began again as the other native life slowly recovers. Only when humanity gave it knowledge did it survive the metamorphosis into sentience. The gigantic planet-organism I'm talking about could, perhaps, save energy by having parts of its brain sleep during whatever day-night cycle it happens to be in.
A sentient "brain" covering most of a planet sounds like it could be very smart, given time. Of course, it would have to even evolve in the first place, which would be tricky. Perhaps parts of it could evolve independently and it could share information with other areas of itself. For the creature, the discovering of scientific knowledge would not be slowed down by war, money, or religion.
Outer space has a seemingly infinite number of stars, and undoubtedly billions of billions of planets (isn't there something like a mol, or 6.022x10^23, of stars?). Could it actually happen? If, 1000 years from now, we DID happen upon a giant brain, how would we know? Did it even need to evolve language or social skills? It probably would consider us a threat, or study us first and THEN consider us a threat. Most likely, it would only develop the skills necessary for its own survival and it would take millions of years to develop any kind of self-awareness, if any at all!