Aliens? On the same level as Humans?

Are Alien's more advanced than us?

If they are visiting the earth, they defiantly have a "one up" on us in space travel. But what about other aspects of their existence. What if we used the standards we employ to measure the advancement of our species?
Are they more advanced Socially? Spiritually? And do they possess a greater Maturity than us?

Are they a thousand or a million years ahead of us? Could they be 100 or 600 years ahead of us? Or could they be the same as us in terms of evolution?
I wanted to play devil's advocate here and create another line of thought to be contemplated.
I searched earlier for a thread on this and couldn't find one.

Here's a scenario that I pondered, It deals with a time in our history "400 AD to 1000 AD" that we refer to as the "Dark Ages". A time when Religion ran rampant and any form of scientific thought was considered the work of the devil.
Let's say the Dark Ages never happened. And science was accepted as the advancement of knowledge it is know to be.
How much technologically could we have advanced in those 600 years we wasted.
What did we lose from those years ?
If knowledge progresses at a certain rate, could we be technologically where we are now in 1411 AD?
What if we could jump 600 years into our future from the point we're at now?
Where would we be technologically then?

That said... How about this scenario?
On an Alien world life starts out about the same time as us.
They unlike us suffer no period in their existence known as a "Dark Age". Nothing as long as 600 years. Maybe just periodic set backs. But they somehow retain the information that came before these set backs.
And since the universe is full of life. An alien ship crashes on their home world. They are able to reverse engineer it. And apply this new technology to serve their needs. Remember...we lost those 600 years. How much could we reverse engineer a UFO 600 years from now?
What if they we're given the knowledge to build UFO's. What if they stole it?
They could be as Mature or Immature "depends on how you feel about humans" as we are.

So instead of expecting a divine perfect enlightened being from the stars, they could be just as screwed up us!
I'm not saying they mean us harm I'm just saying they could be plagued with good and evil as we are.

Even if they are 100,000 years or more advanced, and they did have a hand in creating us. What are we "you' gonad do? Will you fall to your knees and worship them?
Or are you going to do what I'd like to do and say "Thanks for whole creation thing! Really appreciate it. We owe you one! Oh....and by the way? How did your race come into being?".
sorry....My God doesn't need a space ship to travel around in.

Well...there you have it. My food for thought. I know it's on the level with day old McDonalds food but so be it.

I just hope the thread Nazi's don't chime in and say "There's already a thread on this! Star hunter!".
I don't give a damn about stars or flags. And I tried a search and found nothing.

I wouldn't buy it either. If they were older than us then I say begone. But If it is an advanced race thats younger than ours they just take over if need be for their needs!!!!

It's an interesting question.

So, let's look at our assumptions:

1) These beings would have to be capable of interstellar travel, as we doubt they are from in the solar system.
2) Being interstellar travelers, resources are likely a given (just mine an asteroid for any needed substance, etc.)
3) If they wanted to conquer us, they would have done it by now.
4) They're here for a reason.

Now, considering those assumptions, we've got some serious questions:

1) What is with the secrecy?
2) What is their agenda? (what do we have that they need)
3) If benign, why the lack of mass assistance from wars to natural disasters?

I have to think (hope) that the main drive of such beings would be sheer discovery and curiouity

You're seriously asking? we are all in the dark on this matter just like you

Considering how affected by polarity most of us are. I would consider that a very good assumption.

I mean, the magnetics of the earth affect the way they think don't they?

And if the magnetics are not affecting the way we think then why the hell does the solar system look the way it does? It is held together by magentics isn't it?

reply to post by DreamVapor


According to my father, the typical 'Grays' should be more-or-less same, as far as social and spiritual maturity is concerned. They were provided with more advanced technology earlier, but messed up their reproductivity with a war.

This could explain abduction stories with the typical 'Grays' where the reproduction organs of people are examined. There are videos of cases where cattle had been cut and relevant organs removed. Perhaps this could be related as well.

Provided that there are interstellar crafts flying around and as we have stories of them having crashed here on Earth as well, it's highly probable that there are groups who have been reverse-engineering spacecrafts for quite some time already (points at "secret" military facilities). There have been sightings of strange aircrafts and vehicles around some of these suspicious restricted areas. So, I believe that we are already using this technology .. it's just kept from general public.

Moreover, there are hints that we might have been using this technology already before the Dark Age. There are old Sanskrit texts like Vymaanika-Shaastra ("Science of Aeronautics"), Sanskrit epics with 'Gods' fighting on flying chariots and firing weapons that remind today's rockets and nuclear warheads, weird helicopter-like symbols among some Egyptian hieroglyphs and so on..

I believe that we have more visitors than just our neighbors 'Grays' and that there are more advanced races who are concerned about our future, trying to help us. I also believe that in addition to us they are keeping an eye on the 'Grays' as well.

interesting invitation to reflect.
so let's try and do so by first cleaning out the information a little bit.

Your title refers to aliens as does the first sentence. Only to be attributed at least one aspect: having visited earth, which serves as a logical vehicle to assume "they" are advanced in that kinda travel, at least.
While I still take the position we don't know for sure if this happens (there are some indications but then again, there's also Occam's razor ;-) ), from a logical perspective the reasoning is solid. Logic after all doesn't tell us about the truth out there, it's just a way to check if the steps we take are valid or not.

I find the paragraph that introduces the question what would have happened to technological evolution if it wasn't for those catholics and their tendency to keep people stupid, very stimulating!
However I sense an implicit assumption (I can of course be completely wrong) that technology evolved at a steady pace, smoothly linear. This would be a pretty skewed image of the way technology so far did evolve.

For starters we should always take a look at the broader picture when trying to understand the emergence of a technology. What were the economic conditions? Whose practical needs were trying to be tackled by it?
Even today, when society is still open enough (let's hope we can still slow down it's closing tendency) to allocate money to research we call "fundamental", actually meaning: "doing stuff those who fund it can't yet cash on", most of technological break-tru's are driven by particular needs particular people with influence and means would like to be addressed.
While we're observing these co-determining external "causes" we shouldn't forget that these cause in their own time are being effected by technologies. In other words, technologies "pop up" as a result of the particular constellation of circumstances and next impact these circumstances, giving rise to again a step into a direction.

If I try to translate this into your scenario, it translates into the question whether constellations of external factors would have been such that our technologies would have been far more advanced. I'm not sure it's a good idea to assume that since the dark ages lasted X years, that advancement would be X years as well.
For the sake of the reasoning I'll go with the start and end dates you mention (I would argue that the dark ages began after the demise of the Carolingian dynasty, somewhere after 814. I assume you take the demise of the roman catholic empire as the beginning?). How did the societal organization look like in 400 AD, let's say in Germany? Oh, that's right, Germany didn't exist in those days. What was the main economical activity? Was there (I feel uncomfortable using this vague term "there" as it matters where ;-) ) an intellectual climate that allowed for transmission of information and knowledge?

Although the dark ages did indeed put peoples behind, I think it might be possible that the restrictions on thinking didn't impact "scientists" as much as it impacted plain people, basically scaring the # out of them with wonderful tales of god. There's quite some documentation on investigative activities that were taking place. "Alchemists" for example didn't really obey, did they? They just kept it out of view.

Interesting as it is I fear it is pretty impossible to get an idea on the progress of these people if they hadn't to hide it and, much more important, if the religious ideas weren't basically a solid part of their world view. Would they have raised other questions?

I have to stop :-)
I would like to conclude with the alternative suggestion that probably we would have been totally different people in certain regards if the dark ages wouldn't have been there. less fearful people, more respectful people? Or is this that ol' idealistic fool hiding in my scientific brain dreaming aloud?

thanks for making me come up with this nonsense ;-)

My answer is "yes"
Yes to it all
they are so incredibly advanced compared to us it will seem like deitys
also they are barely more advanced than us, and even lack in some areas
and everything in between

like saying "Are neighbors smarter than us or dumber than us"
depends on the neighbors, there is no one size fits all when we are talking about...who knows...thousands? millions? billions of different species shooting around the universe...

Add:

oh, and I firmly believe that a highly advanced alien race would find it a nice hobby to create life on dead rocks, and perhaps advance life on planets with only basic lifeforms.

We discuss this all the time in our sci-fi movies (star trek genesis anyone?) and I don't particularly believe such an idea is outlandish to any advanced civilization.

Gods? Well, I will have a healthy respect towards anyone more advanced than myself, however, I would not see anything as a god (that implys magic)...I may be mystified by technology, but I would know that advancements in science is at play here, not space wizards.

The universe is an extremly varied place and there could be species more technollogicly advanced but less socially advanced and vice virsa. But i would never worship them as gods even if they did create us becuase beliving in a god is illogical to me even if its standing right in front of you.