I've been tossing around some ideas for odd intellegent species, and I have a few questions I'd like to get everyone's take on. I've imagined a species that lives on the bottom of the deep ocean, near geothermal vents. They would be blind, relying on echolocation to "see". That got me thinking, what kind of technology could a blind species develop? Without any way of sensing electromagnatism, would they ever know it existed? Could a blind species discover cells, stars, or atoms, or would they never be able to know that they existed unless someone else came along?

Certain kinds of Pit Vipers can "see" with heat sensory nodes on their snout. They see in infrared. Apparently these nodes are connected to the same portion of the brain as vision.

Think "Predator" movies...

So you may have other options for sight even without light.
Also if geothermal vents are present, sometimes they glow or give off light too right?
Perhaps a subspecies could have vision of sorts as well, that another species relies on.

As far as technology goes, a lot of the time in working with technology, we are also working blind. Granted that it was sight that allowed us to explore certain fields. But once in it, we were blind until we developed instruments to "see" for us.

Like using a voltmeter because I cannot "see" electricity going through a line (In spite of Hollywood visual effects).

What I think might be more of a constraint would be living underwater. there are some very smart creatures under the sea (squid, dolphins, ) but none of them as far as we know have developed technology, despite the fact that they are very inventive and quite good at figuring out problems, and some even have a very effective set of manipulators. And even if they did, they would still have a major stumbling block, fire. Or rather the lack of it. Of course, a blind creature doesn't have to live underwater. Maybe a great underground ecosystem in a set of caves under most of the world, also heated by geothermal sources. Of course, they would be unlikely to discover stars.

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Underwater species might have trouble building advanced technology, but given that, they might eventually build devices to detect light, etc. and convert it to signals they could recognize. That's what we have done, after all. We can't directly sense EM outside of a narrow range, particle radiation, etc. Edit: I see Neverfly had similar comments.

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Deep-sea creatures are not necessarily blind. Their eyes may be large and designed to amplify whatever light is available --- like that from thermal vents. Sentient creatures might develop lenses or filters or some other optic technology to aid them in seeing in the dark environment.

But fire a s a major obstacle. Without fire, they can't do metallurgy. Sure, they could pound metallic ore to make tools, and perhaps heat it with superheated water from the geothermal vents. But it's not like a real kiln.

More than likely, they would use bone, stone, coral, and other readily-available materials for tools and weapons.

Their technology could, however, put greater emphasis on organic materials, even exploiting marine life itself. Maybe they put more emphasis on chemical compounds drawn from these life-forms.

For examples...

Bio-luminescence for light.
Toxins used for weaponry, then refined for medicinal use.
Organic glue and cement.

I see no reason they couldn't advance into some sort of industrial phase. Their means of using levers, tethers, ramps, wedges, wheels and spindles...all would be tailored for the bouyant submarine world they live in.

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Perhaps they could use ceramics in place of metals? If they developed genetic technology they could breed tools, like using modified cultures of brain tissue in place of a computer.

Ceramics still need a kiln, and while I was wondering about genetic engineering as well, the tools I have seen for genetic engineering require quite a bit of metal in and of themselves.

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I have to agree that landbased creatures have the advantage. The only way I can imagine any sea-based creature having a plausible chance of using metal is if they're near perpetually erupting volcanoes. Now what are the odds of just the "right" creature inhabiting just the "right" (i.e. continuous-or-nearly-so chains of volcanoes)

I thought that the gist if the opening post was to speculate about an EM blind species in general, rather then with the added disadvantage of being aquatic.

If they were terrestrial critters, well, it's hard to imagine how such a species could evolve in a 'habitable zone' planetary environment. They would have to be somehow shielded from all light, like living underground etc (light sensitivity evolved early on Earth). But if that were the case, then I can't see how they could evolve even a primitive technical society - the conditions just wouldn't be conducive for that sort of thing IMO.

I think being able to resolve the world in hi-res EM frequencies (whether it's visible light or some other sub-spectrum) is an important evolutionary driver that may lead to intelligence (along with other factors of course).

Hm, well I didn't consider that they would probably be able to sense heat. So I suppose they could do something of the like. Thanks for the discussion.

For variety of sensorial input, take sharks.
From their perspective, we are the blind guys.

A shark can smell blood from miles away,
and perceive electrical impulses from its victims as it gets nearer.
I think they also use magnetism for general orientation (Edited: ups, sorry, that's EM of course)

And we haven't even started with tact-, hearing- or heat-based senses
(as mentioned before in this thread),
or active exploration (as 'ultra-sonar' in bats)

I have very little sense of tact.

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Heat can also be generated by chemical reactions.
If an intelligent species recognized that, it could generate heat for practical purposes through such chemical processes. Still, the temperatures needed for metallurgy would be unlikely. Since water boils 212 F, you can hardly expect them to boil themselves for the sake of making a better drill-bit.

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"I am Ripper...Tearer...Slasher...Gouger. I am the Teeth in the Darkness, the Talons in the Night. Mine is Strength...and Lust...and Power! I AM BEOWULF!"

How touching.

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Hypothetically, a tailored lifeform could deposit metals just as some Earth lifeforms deposit calcium carbonate or silica. They might be bred to produce various forms and shapes, with different metal content.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Interesting. An intelligent life form might have herds of domesticated creatures for that purpose. As the silk worm spews silk, these critters secrete minerals useful to their masters. And maybe as oysters produce pearls, the alien life can be bred and nurtured into producing ingots or nodules that can be useful.

WOW! That's some cool stuff!

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"I am Ripper...Tearer...Slasher...Gouger. I am the Teeth in the Darkness, the Talons in the Night. Mine is Strength...and Lust...and Power! I AM BEOWULF!"

Like bog iron. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_iron only in a more pure form. All though, if I had access to that kind of biotechnology, I would be using things like spider silk, chitin and dentine.

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Why do you assume that blind people could not work with technology?

I know a number of legally blind programmers.

I also know a couple of guys who are auto mechanics but totally blind -- in fact one of them rebuilds transmissions. TOTALLY BLIND.

There are lots of electromagnetic waves that we cannot see but we have developed the technology to work with them. I see no reason a totally blind civilzation could not develop telescopes, microscopes or any other devices that we currently have.

If the atmosphere was opaque to visible light, (extremely high albedo gasses, tons of water vapor, ect) then they might be blind to typical light sources. But then that sort off kills of the plants that pump solar energy into the biosphere. The plants have to use some wavelength band (doesn't have to necessarily be green, like on earth), and odds are that's also the one that creatures will try to use to see.

I could see a sort of sonar-ranging as an auxilliary sense though, perhaps as well developed as vision. If anything like that developed, a technical society might try to use high-frequency surround sound as a type of visual monitor. :-P

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