On Alternate Realities, Eolving Paint, and Bugs. With Possible Spoilers for the Last Episode of "Star Trek: The Lower Depths"
Just another one of my back-tracking and re-tracing the many paths I took wandering down one of my winding trail of thoughts:
With the right tectonic activity, erosion, and distribution of rocks of varying compositions; in enough time, I could see nature easily form a mug-shaped formation out of "chaoitically"-arranged rocks. I feel the example given for entrophy of there being no-unbreaking mugs actually goes to show that one must put energy in a system to realize the least likeliest of outcomes.
This insight comes from my thinking about how if there are "multiverse-s"/"many worlds"/"parallel universes;" thereoitically, one wouldn't have to leave earth in search for alien lifeforms. One could just observe this planet from these alternate dimensions, and eventually we'd see every possible world that's out there, assuming the "multiverse" is infinite, unlike this universe). How did that lead to entrophy? My imagining that the further the alternate Earth(s) resembled our own, the further away it's likelihood. Meaning that it would be easier to peering into parrallel Earths with the fewest differences from ours, and requiring more work to reach Earths with more remarkable dissimilarities. The idea of needing to take more and more energy to make possible more extreme variations of reality was where I forked into thinking about mugs and entrophy.
((A lot of my 'exploring alien life through parallel Earths' thoughts were inspired by episode "Fissure Quest" from "Star Trek, Lower Decks," which I had recently watched, you see…)
And THAT comes from my pondering speculative evolution; where I was wondering if and how other lifeforms could naturally develop human-like behaviors that naturally gives them advantages over other animals. Specifically, how could creatures covergently stumble upon the idea of finding hidden predators/preys by forcibly "making them easier to see?" Humans do this inavertedly by enviornmental destruction and painting everything white, giving advantage to only those with albinism and polar bears. I know sonar and echolocation are already a similar stragey, but what about actually "marking" a target (living and moving, that is), in a way where they are visible and/or tracable?
Now, I've thought of a few possibilities, some more costly on natural resouses, than others. Co-depedent relationships seem the easiest. Using an animal that's easier to see to track down animals that aren't, in exchange for security or shared food. Symbiotic relationships with micro biomes on the skin/hair could do the trick too, where a creature could naturally shed them about, and if they land on something that they want to eat/avoid, those symbiants provide a unique reaction, making them easier to sense. That's most likey to be scent-based, instead of sight. Hard to make visual adjustments to predators/prey in a color-spectrum exclusive to a single species, after all.
(* @theoctopuslady, inadvertedly explaining the shortcomings of "highlighting" your target, in a way that makes that target more revealing to anyone and everyone else, as well. It's at about the 14:32 mark of their "Tier Zoo" reaction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsBqMILGgY )
I fear that indiscrimate spraying would be the hardest stunt to pull. Sprays are already best used as an offensive/defensive weapon in the animal kingdom. The energy and resources needed to just periodocally burst out scents, or even pigments, in an area large enough to maximise the chances of hitting anything of interest, seem way too high. Especially at the rate that other lifeforms emit sound waves to achieve that very effect. I can't imagine any synapsid managing that without the means of paint-guns, carpet-dusters, or other externally-sourced ingenuity. Perhaps plants with the means of an explosive and vast seed dispersal could be coaxed to developing seeds with chemicals that affect one animal's ability to be sensed or not sensed by others. Probably in a commenselistic relationship; I doubt it could come to benefit the plant in any way.
However, I did think of two bizarre ways that could work. One is where a flying preadator spots prey in an area that's difficult to reach, like having to navigate through tree foliage or something. What that predator could do is develop prehensile hemorroids that allow them aim and shoot out small projectiles—"paint pallets," I'll call them—to hit said prey instead. There could be multiple outcomes to this that could also be combined to maximize effectiveness. The "paint-droppings" could leave a pigment that's difficult to clean, so that the prey is easily spotted when it moves to more favorable areas for easy-access. But for more immeadate gratification. The pallet could have irritants that cause the prey to injure itself or slow down to try and remove it, giving the aerial preadtor time to maneuver over to it. It could also come with scents that repel other competing predators from swooping in to catch the now incapicated prey…
The second idea was of a colony/bee-type of stinging inscect which leaves their stinger which, instead of having a poision sac, has a sack full of chemical traces that the rest of the colony can track down to attack the creature en-masse…
*(Note that some new ideas I had, while writing all this, got mixed in, especially in the flying-predaror part)
…And why did I start thinking about all that? Because of this bug I saw in the hallway of the apartment building. Which I'm sure had evolved a masterfull camouflage that renders them practically invisible—were the poor thing in their own enviornment:
Are "spelling bee's"—as we were taught by Author and Charlie Brown to be understood as being—still a thing? I feel like they could be more compelling if there was more variety to the challenge then just saying a word and waiting for a kid to spell it. There could be things like: "In British-English, spell cheque," or: "How many 'e's' are in 'arguments?'" More advanced competitons could even introduce phonetic spelling bee challenges as well...I suppose it starts to sound like more of a game show, which might trivialize the competition in the eys of parents & educators...To that I refer back to "Where In The World Is Carmen San-Diego?" —A game show that took seriously multiple fields of study: geography, geopolitics, history, etc...So yeah, make spelling bees a game show. That might actually be all that's needed to revive America's public interest in them...
JelloApocalypse's LP of "Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness"
Voting ended onMay 12, 2023
Since tumblr released this feature, I've been wanting to make use of this poll feature but couldn't decide on the topic—until now.
I just finished watching the VODs for @jelloapocalypse's "Dogs In Love" series, but I haven't watched @snapscube's NeoPets in a long time, so I might be a bit biased in feeling that Jello's was funnier. All that surfaces for me is the episode that started out as an animatic because Penny forgot to record video or something, and the whole "Hello Tor" Pet-Pet bit.
A poll involving Pet-Pet and Jolteon did come to mind, as well.
