Why do humanoid aliens always have equal-or-less fingers on their hands than us?
80 replies, posted
[QUOTE=WastedJamacan;28052337]
Playing piano :colbert:[/QUOTE]
Technically you could still play the piano just fine, you might not be able to play certain songs exactly as they were written, but its still perfectly possible to play.
[QUOTE=Stopper;28050511]Because five is the optimal path for evolution. Anything more than that and you have an excess you don't really need.
Same goes for less than five - it's optimal, so that's how they've evolved.[/QUOTE]
"e" is actually the natural number for all life.
[QUOTE=Master117;28051543]Because if intelligent aliens look too different than us, we would be unable to emphasize with them and actually hate them and the movie/TV show would fail. Humans are shallow as fuck.[/QUOTE]
QFT. Imagining anything marginally different than humans would be be too big a nut to actually portray on screen, so we'll just stick with the additional rubber antennae.
[QUOTE=Randdalf;28050669]For something as specific as humanoid creatures to develop independently of Earth is highly unlikely.[/QUOTE]
Well.. tbh.. you don't know that? Maybe the humanoid form naturally is the basis for intelligent life.
We have [I]nothing[/I] to compare it to, so you shouldn't make assumptions like that.
[editline]14th February 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=Hori;28052676]QFT. Imagining anything marginally different than humans would be be too big a nut to actually portray on screen, so we'll just stick with the additional rubber antennae.[/QUOTE]
Was I the only one who sympathized with these?
[img]http://loyalkng.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/district-9-alien.jpg[/img]
Basically, the more different a species is, the more work you have to put into making the audience feel sympathy for that species. If your species is a quadruped with crab legs for appendages and mandibles, you're going to have to spend a while making your species relate-able/pitiable.
Humans can act naturally if you remove functionality from them, but current technology doesn't make adding functionality to humans feasible. Actors can't act, animators can't animate etc. if they don't know how to. Taping actors' fingers together is easier than sewing new fingers on them.
[editline]14th February 2011[/editline]
Of course as AI advances you can soon just write an AI or an evolutionary algorithm that quickly comes up with natural ways of moving extra limbs in virtual environments.
[editline]14th February 2011[/editline]
And why not physical environments as well.
If you think about it would you really use your pinky finger if we didn't use it to type? I think we have five because we needed enough fingers to clime trees or what have you five toes because it's optimal for balance wile running for our body shape.
It so they seem more [I]alien[/I] to us.
[QUOTE=LCBADs;28050487]Right off the top of my head, E.T., the Na'vi, and the Tau from 40k have four fingers. The prawns from district 9 have three. Every humanoid alien from Mass Effect except for the asari and batarians(maybe the vorcha too, I didn't check), have only three fingers. The rest have five, in the same plan as ours. you could get it for where it was prosthetics or animatronics, but you see this in animation and drawings too.
The only exception I can think of are the xenomorphs, who have six, I think.
Everybody already knows why they would have five fingers, I'm wondering about the less-than-five part.[/QUOTE]
Probably because they're fucking made up and modeled on humans anyway.
[QUOTE=Randdalf;28050559]The question you should be asking is, why are all aliens humanoid? Yet it's a virtual impossibility any alien life we encounter in our existence will be.[/QUOTE]
They don't look like us......
WE LOOK LIKE THEM
[QUOTE=Randdalf;28050669]I said it was virtually impossible. Life as it is on Earth is the specific result of billions of years of random events - even the slightest change could have completely altered the way humans turned out (they might not even have turned out at all!). For something as specific as humanoid creatures to develop independently of Earth is highly unlikely.[/QUOTE]
You forget us even being here is highly unlikely.
Wouldn't 3 be optimal with 1 thumb? It would make a triangle.
[QUOTE=Randdalf;28050669]I said it was virtually impossible. Life as it is on Earth is the specific result of billions of years of random events - even the slightest change could have completely altered the way humans turned out (they might not even have turned out at all!). For something as specific as humanoid creatures to develop independently of Earth is highly unlikely.[/QUOTE]
Different paths can lead to the same destination.
I say to many humanoid aliens. I want me an octopus whatever and we have the technology to do it. so why do they always look so human?
[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;28065113]I say to many humanoid aliens. I want me an octopus whatever and we have the technology to do it. so why do they always look so human?[/QUOTE]
Because they made you in their image, using the indigenous species on Earth.
[editline]15th February 2011[/editline]
Honestly, I'd rather have had evolved as some jello-like substance.
The next step of human evolution.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQeDKjxMKbU[/url]
Why are they all shirtless.
[QUOTE=Tetsmega;28063934]Wouldn't 3 be optimal with 1 thumb? It would make a triangle.[/QUOTE]
But... 3 + 1 thumb = 4. 4 != triangle.
Also lol Cirno avatar. How appropriate.
Think of this, aliens out there could look WAY weirder than they do now, like having suction cups for hands, had to sniff to see and shot a regenerative liquid out of their tits.
The 5 fingers thing is just there to avoid mental implosions.
Fibonacci sequence, the next highest is 8, which is a ridiculous amount of fingers really.
[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;28069262]Fibonacci sequence, the next highest is 8, which is a ridiculous amount of fingers really.[/QUOTE]
why would the fibonacci sequence matter
[QUOTE=ThePuska;28069622]why would the fibonacci sequence matter[/QUOTE]
An unreasonably large amount of numbers in nature follow the fibonnacci sequence.
Fingers on your hands.
The number of petals on a normal flower (one that isn't damaged obviously)
Breeding patterns often reflect it.
and other stuff.
[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;28069680]An unreasonably large amount of numbers in nature follow the fibonnacci sequence.
Fingers on your hands.
The number of petals on a normal flower (one that isn't damaged obviously)
Breeding patterns often reflect it.
and other stuff.[/QUOTE]
You can't make predictions based on random instances of the nature following some pattern.
[QUOTE=Otsegolation;28062426]They don't look like us......
WE LOOK LIKE THEM[/QUOTE]
written by m night shyamalan
[QUOTE=LCBADs;28050487]Right off the top of my head, E.T., the Na'vi, and the Tau from 40k have four fingers. The prawns from district 9 have three. Every humanoid alien from Mass Effect except for the asari and batarians(maybe the vorcha too, I didn't check), have only three fingers. The rest have five, in the same plan as ours. you could get it for where it was prosthetics or animatronics, but you see this in animation and drawings too.
The only exception I can think of are the xenomorphs, who have six, I think.
Everybody already knows why they would have five fingers, I'm wondering about the less-than-five part.[/QUOTE]
Maybe because people that draw aliens are uncreative (We are such a self-centered race :rolleyes:) or want people to feel identified with them, same as why movies with animals normally have them talking and doing human things.
We have 5 fingers because we are very basal mammals and we didn't evolved hooves, big claws or lost any fingers when evolving, aside from the thumb that evolved as a arboreal grasping feature in the first primates, same as the thumbs on the opossum's feet, the two thumbs of the koalas and chameleons (3 fingers + 2 thumbs), the finger placement in common birds (3+1) and trogons, owls and parrots (2+2) and the Giant Panda's "thumb" that is actually an elongated wrist bone (5+"1").
We became intelligent by pure coincidence, so I think having 4 fingers + thumb is not obligatory for an species to become intelligent, and any study that says so
Animals have a 5-toes standard since the very first tetrapod species with the exception of Acanthostega, who had 7/8 fingers, and since then they adaptated to other forms with less fingers or with the same fingers.
There's a lot of theories about why exactly 5 fingers and not only one (like insects) or 7 or 9 or 437. Well, I think it was just pure random ocurrence. If we had 6 fingers we would be in the same situation and we would ask ourselves "Why do we have 6 fingers? It's because it's a pair number or because we are the 3rd planet and 3 x 2 = 6?"
[QUOTE=Tetsmega;28063934]Wouldn't 3 be optimal with 1 thumb? It would make a triangle.[/QUOTE]
You mean like this?
[img]http://horobox.co.uk/u/jorori_1297883838.png[/img]
[QUOTE=Empty_Shadow;28069262]Fibonacci sequence, the next highest is 8, which is a ridiculous amount of fingers really.[/QUOTE]
I don't think Fibonacci has something to do with that. A lot of animals have [B]four [/B]fingers (Pigs, deers, tapirs, pottos, birds), and we know Fibonacci series is 1,2,3,5,8,13... (Four isn't even on it)