The Gradient of Being

The aliens divide life forms into a number of "awareness" or "mentality" levels.

First Level

Able to sense the environment and respond adaptively. No central nervous system or equivalent. Single-celled organisms, fungi, algae, plants, etc.

Second Level

Central nervous system, advanced sensory organs, some problem-solving ability. No language, not considered self-aware. Animals.

Third Level

Complex language. Complex tools if possessing appropriate manipulative organs. Self-aware. Mentalities at this level and above are considered sapient. Behavior primarily emotion-driven. May have some reasoning ability, but tend to use this to justify actions after-the-fact rather than planning behavior ahead. Thus, "pre-rational." Humans are considered third-level mentalities.

Usually incapable of developing advanced technology (past say 16th-Century Earth). Pre-rationals usually fail to discover the scientific method. When they do, the civilization rarely lasts more than a few centuries. Civilization falls to war, corruption, environmental damage.

Normally, third-level technology stagnates after the invention of gunpowder and the printing press. The lethality of war tends to remove the more irrational members of the species from the gene pool. The spread of literacy and complex economic organization make rational thinking a survival advantage. They evolve into fourth-level mentalities.

Fourth Level

Primarily "rational" behavior. Emotions usually exist but are subordinate to reason. Able to maintain complex technological civilizations, discover hyperspace and paraspace travel. Most member societies of TDEC are populated by fourth-level mentalities.

Eventually, the scientific method is discovered and technology develops at a steady pace. This is still much slower than human technology has developed, because fourth-levels won't deploy a technology until they feel they fully understand what effects it will have on their society and their environment.

Fifth Level

A community of fourth-level mentalities joins together in a group mind. The individual members retain their individual consciousness and personalities. The group mind is shared between them.

Sixth Level and above

Group minds can join together to form larger group minds. The component minds retain their separate identities within the larger group mind. The aliens believe that eventually, all intelligent life will join together in an infinite composite mind. This mind may become God, or it may already be God, waiting for all life to join with It.

Back to Sufficiently Advanced Technobabble FrontPage

Copyright © 2006 by Richard C. McCluney, III