I wonder what a civilization would even need metal for. Mind you, need. The only thing I can think of that is definite is electricity, but you could probably make a lot without it, and by then you could probably find a way to leave the water just like we humans have figured out how to go back into the water. Also I remember mentioning just using the living things around you and modifying them to your need through domestication. It turns out you can make many replacement items that usually use electricity without it. The first computer was made 2,000 years ago using entirely mechanical components. If you wanted to know how a display screen might work, I’ve gotten an idea from mechanical mirrors like in this video: How This Guy Makes Amazing Mechanical Mirrors | Obsessed | WIRED - YouTube
We tend to think of the stone age as a limiter, but maybe that isn’t the case. Yes metal is stronger and more capable and conductive, but you can get far into the technological race for a while hypothetically, especially considering what alien life and rocks might be like. Might even be able to go to space without metal, though that might be too hopeful.
I am almost confident that the limitations and difficulties of water will allow for innovation once a settlement is formed. It would be incredible to see what is produced.
I very much doubt it could qualify as a computer. As a specific calculator perhaps, but it was definitely nowhere near a Turing machine, let apart sufficiently efficient one.
Computers were essential in building modern day society, doing daily calculations that would take us years or decades (if not more). Students at the ENS Lyon built up a computer in legos, and while it clearly is remarkable, it is definitely too slow. With a 50-meter size, it can hardly compare to a modern phone, taking more than 3168 years to do 1-second worth of computations. And the issue is not the students, but the mean of doing so: mechanical computations are slow, and very much error-prone (undesired movement can occur with the pieces). Of course, you could shrink the size even further but you’d need specialized tools… that often require computers.
In the end, electricity (and its light speed) is the key. Could you imagin mirrors to replace it? Perhaps, but how do you make them without smelting? And you’d need to convert light energy anyways.
Of course, there are many interesting things to consider here, and especially the actual need for metal. But when it comes to space flight, I highly doubt you could do without it and electricity.
To Maxonovien first, yes the light speed of electrons is hardly unbeatable, yet that does not dispute that there are still alternatives, and mechanical alternatives. The goal is not to make the most efficient best working computer, it is to make a computer. Using the definition that a computer is “a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically” then yes the 2000 year old machine is a computer. As you speak of scaling and speed, I would digress with this quote:
The reason I disagree is because it is the exact same with metal and electricity and pretty much all technology. We make tech that can help us, and use some tech to help us make other tech that can help us make more and better tech. You would build a starter gear computer, then you would use that to build a computer with smaller components thus becoming more efficient, and you would repeat. As for fralegend015, yes we used metals because it was the best of materials, but that does not rule out everything else. You could still build a tank with wood and keep the pressures safe depending on how deep you would like to go. There is also the flaw of too much oversimplification in your comment which treats a fleshy human body diving underwater would apply the same rules as and alien attempting to go from deep underwater onto land.
I am fairly confident that an alien could use something like a pneumatic or hydraulicly powered computer or fully mechanically driven gear computer to control a space craft, though not optimal, and to us it would just be “but why would you if you have this”? As if the spacecraft could be built without metal entirely is a bit more difficult. But one without electricity isn’t exactly impossible.
Ok, but how would an underwater species get wood? (under water plants don’t need an hard structure like wood) And how would they work it after aquiring it? (wood floats)
What is that supposed to mean? “A species that lives in pratically all of the dry land of the planet (including costal ones) has gone underwater, so species that live deep underwater that probably don’t even know of the surface, too will want to go to dry land!” Also most technology to go underwater has developped only after the discovery of metal working.
So your point is that an intelligent aliens species in the deep blue would not gain curiosity around exploring the ocean floor, eventually finding a ridge upwards to the surface, and question it? We could easily say our aliens have made their population spread all over the ocean, but it isn’t like the sea floor is infinite. Soon they will find slopes upwards and go upwards, even if they are just curious.
The ocean isn’t like some infinite void of space, it has a floor, which they would quickly find, and a surface, which a settlement could find by looking and exploring upwards, or falling the oceanic walls out of the abyssal zone. Betting that an ocean settlement in the stone age would not eventually find the surface seems silly to me. Also that’s not really the point I am trying to get at.
If you want to ever land onto something so distant you’d take years to arrive on it, and which is at the same time moving at incredible speed, you’d need to run out your computation within reasonnable time, or else measure errors will start being too important. So, yes, you actually want to make the best working computer.
Alright, then from this much simpler definition, computers in general are pretty useless to a civilization, and then we have to come with another word for useful computers, which the 2000-year old calculator most likely isn’t.
First of all, this would take ages: if we consider that the first machine created is akin to the lego computer (which is already very ambitious), then having a slightly better machine would take more than 10 000 year. Rince and repeat, you’d end up waiting quite a long time before having something even close to electrical computers.
And that is assuming that you won’t reach physical limitations, e.g. mechanical movement in water (as everywhere else) which has a maximal value due to fluid viscosity. Also, you can’t make it to small because you’d need hard enough materials.
I can’t tell for sure without electricity, but using mechanical elements has minimal size limitations (due to solidity constraints) which leads to a minimal mass to bring in. You can easily guess that the more mass you put inside your spacecraft, the harder it is for it to take off (and this may even be impossible if this minimal mass is too high). Of course you could limit the size with little machinery in the spacecraft, e.g. taking off commands… but I’d not think this would be a very interesting choice.
(Also, speaking of mass, your aquatic species will need water in the spacecraft, which is… pretty heavy)
So you understand that it is impossible for them to discover the surface!
Because we invented the adjustments to go in the upper atmosphere or deep into the ocean througth… Metals! (and remember: your underwater species wouldn’t even have “wood”)
I was gonna write an essay to maxonovien but tripped over myself from how much there is to focus on. Let us back track from the space age since I need more time to think on that, and focus on aquatic specie’s land exploration since that is a lot more simple. Why do you think it would be impossible for them to discover the surface? Would that not make it the same with humans then? I do not get your point here. You have started by saying that we make water equipment with metal, yet I claim that you might no need metal and can compromise, even if less efficient. I then say that bringing a human underwater and bringing an aquatic deep sea alien onto land are two different challenges and that oversimplifying and only looking at the transition and how we did it is the only way is wrong imo. Then you argue aquatic aliens have no reason to go outside of their home, but I say same with terrestrial organisms like humans. You then basically say that we would go underwater because we can see the water, yet an alien underwater might not see the surface. I then argue against this by saying that no they might not see the surface, but they would probably find the ocean floor, expand and explore outwards, and find an oceanic ridge that leads upwards, therefore able to have the objective to travel up. You then argue that the aquatic life would die of pressure change, but then I say so would a human. Now you are saying that I understand it is impossible for them to discover the surface, yet that is exactly what I am disputing and I have given my reason why to that. And we came back around to the start and you and I have come to nothing.
I think this is the right way to go overall. My point was precisely that space-faring aquatic species are unlikely because there are so many parameters to take into accound and check. I for one am however not fully opposed to it if there is an actual way for them to happen.
And I’d say the best approach is to wait for aquatic worlds to be a thing and build societies from it, and then check if there are ways for them to develop further, and in which direction. This seems much more effective than trying to start from a space-faring civ and try to find their origins.
Yes! My point was not that such systems are likely or superior, but that they are not impossible! Though unfortunately the devs are against the possibility of aquatic societies mostly, and testing these out in thrive is unlikely to work by the fault of the game. Unless you mean waiting to find aquatic alien civilisations in real life.
