An... interesting hypothetical

[Nieroshai]

So what are the natives eating?

Alien planet. Alien biology is, by definition, alien. They can eat the native plant and animal life just fine, since it's their home planet. It's only incompatible with you because you aint from around there.

Besides, that's not the point. The point is what you would do.

Most of the indigenous life is arsenic in origin, the natives, who are the only "normal" carbon based life, have developed an organ that streams the arsenic from their system. Everyone should know arsenic is highly toxic to us.

I'm sorry, but I just have to point out how stupid this is, biologically speaking.

If their very body chemistry is based on carbon, they never would have survived long enough to actually evolve into anything with a specialised organ to deal with arsenic. The very first proto-lifeform would have starved to death.

-.- we are carbon based life forms. Every major element we use, inc oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, 3 of our main building blocks, are bonded to carbon to allow us to use them....

Yes, but note how arsenic-free our environment is. By setting every single most other life-forms as arsenic based, you essentially state "there is a significant percentage of arsenic in the environment".

And as a specialized organ cannot evolve before the organism it is part of actually lives and survives, but at the same time the organism cannot survive without the organ. This means either there are other sources of nutrient that are arsenic-free (violating the OP condition), or divine intervention of some kind must have happened to allow for that specific organism to live long enough to evolve an arsenic-dealing mechanism while retain inherent non-compatibility with the arsenic-based life.

Ie. There is no logical way for this to have happened - invoking magic is the only solution.

No, an isolated environment that for the most part remained so for a sufficient length of time could breed an organism capable of developing such an organ. You dont need a large area. Just an area that has remained unaffected, or with limited contamination for sufficient time. Just because the dodo evolved to have no fear response doesn't mean it couldn't have learned one given time.

If both sets of life evolved simultaneously, then by the time life had become able to encroach on the environment, the other life would be evolved enough to adapt.

EDIT: By the time the environment became contaminated beyond repair, it is plausible that life could have evolved to cope. Which would also support the reasoning behind there only being one form of carbon life.

Problem: arsenic is an element found in minerals. It doesn't spread and for the most part isn't the byproduct of anything. It's either in the rocks or not in the rocks.

 

[wfpdk]

so the question at its heart is, would i do harm to an innocent creature for self preservation... yes.

 

[Choppaduel]

Imagine, if you will, that you're stranded on an alien planet. By some miracle, the atmosphere is breathable and the wildlife isn't trying too hard to kill you. Unfortunately, you're running low on supplies and there is only one single edible thing on the planet: the natives. They're intelligent, friendly, and peaceful. They have done you no wrong. So the question comes down to this: murder an innocent or slowly starve to death.page=3#9164533

Take your remaining supplies, go to the natives, and eat the supplies in front of them. Then try and learn to communicate with them as fast as possible and relay that your hungry. Look around for a cemetery or mortuary that the natives use in there burying rituals, them once you start suffering from starvation, they'll either have figured it out by now that the only thing you can eat is them, or you can show them by trying to eat there dead, and if possibly trying to take a bite out of one of em. I wager this is the most likely scenario for your continued survival that doesn't include hunting and eating live natives.

EDIT: after reading the "hard science version"

In addition, the beings have a feudal culture which forbids any desecration of their dead; under no circumstances will they give you their dead, and they will fight to the death to protect their dead.

this is inconsistent with both the notions that these are peaceful and intelligent beings.

If you must though....
This is the only obstacle potentially in the way of my plan. Hopefully, they are capable of empathy and are intelligent enough to realize you need that to live and affect change in their culture.

 

[Nieroshai]

I thought this up a while ago, and I've been trying to decide how it would turn out ever since. For the life of me, I can't decide.

Imagine, if you will, that you're stranded on an alien planet. By some miracle, the atmosphere is breathable and the wildlife isn't trying too hard to kill you. Unfortunately, you're running low on supplies and there is only one single edible thing on the planet: the natives. They're intelligent, friendly, and peaceful. They have done you no wrong. So the question comes down to this: murder an innocent or slowly starve to death.

I want to think that I'd do the noble thing and die, but I simply can't know for sure.

actually, if the natives have tissue that you can eat that lets you absorb the nutrients that you need to survive as a human, then they had to get those nutrients through some means, which you could repeat and spare the locals.

I win.

No you don't.

For those trying to knock down the hypothetical, here's a hard-science version. The alien planet's life does not use an amino acid which is essential for human survival. Without this amino acid, you die. (Since there are eight to ten amino acids which humans beings cannot survive without, depending on which text you consult, it would hardly be surprising.) Now, it turns out that the planet's life forms do not use methionine, threonine, or isoleucine, three amino acids without which we humans cannot live. Eat these amino acids or die. The only beings who use these three amino acids are the alien's sapient species, who modify other amino acids to form them. These amino acids are used to make a protein inside the sapient being's cardiac muscle.

In order to get the amino acids you must have to live, you must eat the cardiac muscle of these beings. In addition, the beings have a feudal culture which forbids any desecration of their dead; under no circumstances will they give you their dead, and they will fight to the death to protect their dead. Neither you nor the alien sapients are able to synthesize these amino acids in the lab, in your case because you do not have any know-how, and in their case because their culture is not technological enough. Nor do you have the time or resources to try this on your own. Maybe a future expedition can study the biochem of these creatures and learn how they work, but you're just a lonely pilot who is -very- hungry and far from home.

There you go, a hard science version to get to the same question.

Going by THIS version, I'd either try to "prove" myself to be a god through my superior knowledge and hope theey don't kill me for witchcraft, and demand their dead in return for safety(from me or whoever their enemies are) or barring that, kill myself because murder of one of them would not go unpunished.

 

[Nieroshai]

The problem with this scenario is that any alien that is edible to us, must also have a food source which is edible to us.

I can eat a koala. I cannot eat eucalyptus.

 

[Turbo_Destructor]

How intelligent are we talking about? Like dog intelligent or people intelligent? Coz I'd eat dog intelligent, but people intelligent I might have to work out something else,

Perhaps if they had people dying of disease - I mean if the disease is alien it's quite likely that it wouldn't affect my, as my biochemistry would make my body inhabitable for it. But if I had no other option, I guess I would eat them. I'd kill them humanely, try to take only the elderly or something

 

[TrollOgerElf]

well if they where humans then yeah id eat them fairly quickly
but they haven't been proven as a race of tardsmackdickbags and....
wait how do i know they are the only thing i can eat....

 

[Nieroshai]

The problem with this scenario is that any alien that is edible to us, must also have a food source which is edible to us.

I can eat a koala. I cannot eat eucalyptus.

*any Secondary Consumer or greater which is edible to us must also have an edible food source.

If you eat eucalyptus unaltered, you would become extremely ill or in large quantities die. Koalas can eat it. Koalas are edible. An existing exception to a rule proves a flaw in the rule, not the nonexistence of the exception. We can consume eucalyptus extract that's been processed and heavily diluted, but cannot consume it in its plant form, especially if stranded in the wilderness with no way out as per our scenario. This continues: TECHNICALLY if you had an advanced enough lab and weren't starving, you could extract the arsenic from local flora and fauna and eat the result. But you're dying and need it now.

 

[TrollOgerElf]

The problem with this scenario is that any alien that is edible to us, must also have a food source which is edible to us.

I can eat a koala. I cannot eat eucalyptus.[/quote

*any Secondary Consumer or greater which is edible to us must also have an edible food source.

have you ever tried eating a koala?

also assuming i already know their customs on their dead id go with those
despite what my "friends" may say about me i am not an "evil" man
and still too many unanswered questions like. do i find them appealing to look at?
are we compatible?

 

[enriel]

Prolly just off myself.

Starvation = very slow, painful way to die.

Murdering the natives = most likely infuriating them and getting lynched.

You're gonna die no matter what you do.
Unless of course they're pacifists and they won't attack you for murdering and eating them. Just be terribly sad and disappointed at you. In which case, you'll either be an alien eating monster or overcome with guilt...which could kill you.

Chances of survival are pretty low.

 

[kikon9]

The problem with this scenario is that any alien that is edible to us, must also have a food source which is edible to us.

I can eat a koala. I cannot eat eucalyptus.

Yes, but you could prepare the eucalyptus in a way that would allow it to be edible, in the same way that the Japanese can prepare an incredibly poisonous pufferfish for safe consumption.

 

[Squidden]

I'd do what alot would do and try and negotiate them into giving me condemned criminals or their dead. If for some reason that wasn't possible I'd probably starve to death and let them study my body.

 

[thedoclc]

I'm sorry, this is just making you look desperate (in the sense that you won't admit it's a rubbish hypothetical). Just because you allude to some obscure deus ex machina concepts doesn't mean that it's hard science. We eat proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. Amino acids are in proteins. We can suffer deficiency illnesses if we lack protein in our diet (such as Kwashiorkor), but we cannot die in the way you seem to think.

These amino acids are all essential in that they cannot be created de novo (out of nothing, in the body). They have to be supplied by the diet.

1 - You won't die from lacking them, and 2 - how did the aliens create essential amino acids, de novo?

Eventually, yes, you would suffer various diseases from a lack of them. A loss of three essential amino acids would prove deadly. For example, Tyrosine is normally unessential, but in people with phenylketonuria, a lack of Tyrosine would lead to severe neuro problems. Not exactly something you can deal with on a hostile planet.

The second question you ask answers itself; what is essential for human beings is not essential for other organisms, who can still synthesize the substance. Where do you think Vitamin K comes from? We humans cannot synthesize it and rely on the normal flora of our guts to do it for us. This is why long-term antibiotic treatment often results in various bleeding disease and increased prethombrin time. Every essential amino acid undergoes synthesis by some organism for which it is not essential. This is why, for example, the ability to synthesize Histidine might be used for an Ames test. A bacteria may be able to synthesize the essential FOR US amino acid Histidine. Introduce a recombinant with a single point mutation to make the organism unable to synthesize Histidine, then expose it to a substance to see if it reverts faster than the background rate of mutation. Bingo, an organism for which Histidine was not essential, then was, then wasn't. (Yes, I am aware that the Ames test is overly sensitive; the point stands.) At this point, I'm forced to conclude you are not aware of what an essential amino acid is. It's a relative term; we say it's essential when we mean essential FOR US. Other organisms will undergo de novo synthesis of what we cannot, and vice versa. I really don't give a rat's left testicle what's essential for a rat; they seem to be doing just fine. This can be expanded to any essential nutrient, such as the vitamin C example below.

We cannot synthesize somewhere between 8-10 AA's (again, depending on the book and how you define "essential." We -do- synthesize a small amount of methionine via the homocysteine salvage path, but it cannot and does not come close to what we need for de novo protein synthesis. So without it, you are screwed. Is methionine essential? Depends on the text.} A similar pattern exists with the synthesis of ascorbic acid. Humans and other primates need it or they get scurvy and die. Most other animals still retain a synthesis pathway for it. For humans, vitamin C is essential; for rabbits, it's something they produce in small quantities as necessary.

Since you do lose amino acids from your body to actions like oxidation attack by reactive oxygen species, incomplete reuptake in the kidneys, loss through injury, secretion in the form of surface proteins, secretion of Ig's, creation of keratinized skin, etc ad nauseum, you would eventually "run out" of your store of said amino acids. Tryptophan is lost making neurotransmitters like melatonin and serotonin and is also essential. Suppose that is a missing AA in your diet. You are royally screwed; enjoy neuropathy and death.

Also, you'd do yourself more credit by refraining from personal attacks. And you may want to hold off on saying something is -rubbish-.

Finally, the point of a hypothetical "philosopher's puzzle box" is to explore a moral question; the premises are taken as a given rather than nitpicked. Nor was it my hypothetical example to begin with. Hell, one of my favorite attacks on utilitarianism in moral philosophy involves using a really fat guy to stop a train and save lives by shoving him on the tracks. How on earth someone got big enough to stop a train isn't the question. The real question is, "Is it alright to actively use a person, taking steps which will definitely kill them, to save the lives of others?" It's often also asked in the form of a physician who can murder one patient, harvest their organs, and save four others who will die without those organs. The Kantian says people cannot be used as means to an end, the utilitarian says the expected utility is greater by killing one to save four, and we're off to the very, very boring freshman in philosophy 101 races.

Oh, and...I wasn't the OP. It wasn't MY hypothetical question.

 

[Faladorian]

I thought this up a while ago, and I've been trying to decide how it would turn out ever since. *snip*

If the planet's life forms didnt use the amino acid, then the creatures wouldnt have it in their body anyway and eating them would be in vain

I said they modify other amino acids into those amino acids, and are the only ones to do so. This has been observed in nature; we -create- the amino acid ornithine in our bodies. We don't rely on it from our diet.

And ornithine isn't even an amino acid coded for in DNA. The enzymes which make it are, of course.

So, yes, an organism could have an amino acid in its body which is not found in another organism or in the creature's diet.

I they produced the amino acid and didn't need it, wouldn't it be expelled as waste? If so, you could ingest the waste (given that there are no toxic chemicals such as ammonia, like human waste) and get them that way.