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This blogger has a point, with mobility, resources, and something resembling an organic planetary INTERNET accessible at all times for hundreds of years why aren't they more technologically advanced?

An explanation could be they were highly advanced, but some doomsday weapon wiped everything out and turned back the clock in terms of technology.

The reason we have such technologies today is cause we manipulate our resources with full control.

Now on Pandora, if you pluck out a single tree leaf, Egwa will know... and probably send a mutant rhino after you. The Na'vi is aware that everything is about maintaining balance, therefore, a perfect natural ecosystem in order to thrive.

i think the one who kena own doomsday weapon are the humans.. so that's why their on Pandora to blast out the mineral thingie.... probably to make better weapons.

science was born out of rationalism. rationalism born out of the need to understand the surroundings. necessities brought over creativity, and creativity utilizes science to develop technology.

there are a few things that MIGHT be absent on pandora.

rationalism is something that is not clearly defined. they also have little need more than they already have. just like the tribes in rural areas currently existing in malaysia, australia and much in afrika. we have the technology to help them, but some still prefer to live in their old ways.

imagine if an alien landed in afrika (and did not come in contact with other parts of the world), they might assume that earthlings are just as primitive as we see the na'vis .

read guns, germs and steel... it explains the difference between the developement of humans in diff part of the planet

Err.. Its a "movie"

Yeah, but still we can assume it as real and discuss it right?

In a "what-if" situation, but still discussing an "imaginary" civilization and taking it as "real" is a bit unrealistic, isn't it?

i think its fun to temporarily indulge myself in these kind of stuff once in awhile.

Like discussing how can Superman manage to catch Lois Lane as she plunges down at 50 miles an hour with his bare hands, decelerating just in time 2 inches above the ground while she miraculously did not suffer massive internal pulverizing from his arms of steel.

Imagination + logic... we do that a lot as kids

Suppose that oneself consciousness is being transported to another body, would it be correct to say that you (the consciousness) had a new body, or that body had a new consciousness (you)? Could you regard yourself as the same person, with a different body? Perhaps you could.

Suppose the body were of the opposite sex, could you regard yourself as the same person?

Suppose the consciousness is being transported to an animal, could you regard yourself as the same person? Much of what makes you, your personality, capabilities and so forth, is tied to chemical and physical conditions of the new body (animal). And what if your memory were wiped out during the transfer? Does it then make any sense at all to regard the new animal as you?

These questions arise when one speculates about "duplication of the self" regardless of any forms. And this is one of the centric philosophies in Hinduism and Buddhism.

If you are interested, kindly refers to “consciousness” topic for additional discussion.

Extract from wiki, in a 2007 interview with Time magazine, Cameron addressed the meaning of the film's title, answering the question "What is an avatar, anyway?" Cameron stated, "It's an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form."
He said that "in this film what that means is that the human technology in the future is capable of injecting a human's intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body". Cameron stated, "It's not an avatar in the sense of just existing as ones and zeroes in cyberspace. It's actually a physical body."

Na'vi people, they don't need technology. They are already an advance biological creature which connected directly to the nature. They can be said as 50% plant.

Err.. again, this is PhD School section.. Not "tadika" one..

Imaginary technology = maybe okay as long as we have a will and knowledge on how to achieve it

Imaginary culture/civilization = err.. Good to make movies.. but that's it! I wonder if we're still remembering Ewok.. Without them, Lucas Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo wouldn't succeed

this have been discussed before.

superman have the ability to alter the state of those he comes in contact with. this allows him to snatch a person in split second without suffering from concussions or whiplash effect. this is also the same ability that allows him to bring another person to fly with him.

Yes this is a movie but it's also a sci-fi story, which means some plausible science is needed for the story to work.

In the movie, humans excel in science, but science is just a low level tool subservient to the whims of mega-corporations. Mercenaries for hire become private armies for the purpose of looting and destruction. This is as near as it gets to what is really happening right now in 2010.

The origin of science is curiosity, and all science starts from examining stuff with the mind of a child, all the way to re-examining advanced concepts as if they were still 'tadika' level in the hopes of breaking ever newer frontiers. Now you could say the Na'vi emphasizes warrior training over intellectual study, but even so surely a millennial old database could give any curious Na'vi some idea for innovation, but if we use the rule "necessity is the mother of invention" then we need to examine which areas of Na'vi life are under some sort of pressure to improve.

Example: Compare & Contrast

Transportation -
Communication -
Entertainment -
Warfare & Defense -
Housing -
Agriculture -
Education -
Healthcare -
Economy -
etc..

What's the incentive to make things better, faster, and in bigger numbers? Is there a major threat (there is now, seeing as the humans will probably come back with a vengeance and deploy nukes/bioweapon to obtain the Unobtanium)

Back to our world, Avatar presents a mirror image critique of the present state of the human condition:

1. You could say we've came a long way from the stone age, but then again, by not improving upon the systems used so successfully in the previous centuries to deal with TODAY'S COMPLEX ISSUES, we are actually coming face to face with diseconomies of scale, the costs > the benefits.

2. "Dead World" means what? Cold winter from nuclear war? Food supply system devastated from the effects global warming? Supervirus epidemic? Social chaos from unsustainable overpopulation?

3. Most important, what is humanity's VALUE SYSTEM? From the movie it looks like the priorities are.. #1. Money, #2. Things (resources/fuel/beer), #3. People, #4. Flora & fauna -- as an afterthought.

My thought too. I felt the 'invasion' was just so American like, while the planet Pandora was Earth's counterpart of Iraq.

Like, the stuff they want are exactly underneath where they live? Couldn't sound more like the Iraq war to me XD

so whoever he touch becomes the temporary person of steel?

Hmmm... Since the Na'vi can connect to their supercomputer and access all their ancestors knowledge, they don't need to advance so much.

I mean for transport they have the horses(not sure what they are called) and ikran/banshee for flight(though only for one person).

And also since advancement needs sacrifices (cutting trees,minig for minerals and oil), the Na'vi can't do that as they are linked to every other living thing via their supercomputer.

The strange thing is how come they have carbon fibre in their bones when the gravity their is lesser?

I believe it was Einstein who said that we should always look at the universe as children do to the world without preconceived notions .

I dont think its too far-fetched to discuss how a civilization may remain stagnant/regress despite having a huge number of resources at their disposal. In this case, I believe it was their culture that "held them back" (perhaps for the better). While their technology might have appeared stone age, the sheer wealth of resources the had did not appear to really cause them to have a particularly poor quality of life either.

It's quite easy to explain actually. The evolution process at Pandora occur much later than earth. It's the same as if advance alien race visit earth during stone age.

Eywa has a lot of potential to improve Na'vi lifestyle, but because their evolution has yet to reach that level, it was not put in proper use. Same goes with human race and hydrocarbon, gun powder.

Their respect for nature is synonym to religion. Destroying the nature is almost the same as sun eclipse to ancient people.

Their ability to connect with creatures, well, it's like sixth sense. Unless we have it, we won't know how it feels. It like trying to explain sight to a blind man. Having the ability doesn't mean they must be able to create intellectual device to enhance that ability. Human have sight, but it was not until thousands of year later that we discover how to enhance this sense (telescope and microscope).

Haha, I didn't really like the movie, plot-wise and with the character development. But there topic does seem to point something to think about.

I think the statement,
"But the Na'vi are also very physically capable, obviously very intelligent, aware of their global environment, well-nourished, healthy, omnivorous, adaptive, and even inventive.

They have domesticated animals, are troubled by few serious natural predators, can live in different environments, have easy access to many varied natural resources (for sustenance and building/making), and can travel and therefore communicate over long distances (dozens if not hundreds of miles a day on their winged animals).

And most importantly, the Na'vi have regular and intimate access to a moon-sized supercomputer -- a neural net supercomputer at that -- that connects them to every other living thing on their world and have had such access for what could be millennia."

would explain it the most. Its like today, our way of living evolved throughus adapting. Like tools last time were created in order to make life more convienient. Or a better example would be a computer is needed to process data but the more data is needed to be processed, the RAM is it needs to be upgraded. So for the Na'vi tribe, we could say that they already have quite a lot of convieniences or are already confortable with their lifestyle. Also with that, their culture may also be helping to soften any other inconvieniences they have. Just saying only, haha.

The navi chose to live that way... they respect nature therefore technology isnt needed.

Humans need technology to compensate for their weakness, looking at Navis...I don't think they need it judging from their biological needs and ability. But Pandora could be relatively new world and might be different few hundreds years later when Navi found technology themselves instead being forced fed by humans.

What the... dude, such fantastical speculations on works of fiction are not befitting of a Ph.D school.

While it is true that the Na'vi may not need a lot of technological advances like for example, aeroplanes or ships because they have nature on that side. And it's that very nature that they do not want to upset by cutting down trees and building bigger and bigger colonies.

However, the threat of the humans are very present. And this blogger really just hit me and intrigued me.

With the threat of the humans being so real, and with their intelligence, I don't see why they should just rely on bows and arrows while they can actually build fire cannons etc.

It's interesting to consider avatar from this perspective. Scientist have often wondered about different categories of civilisation. Perhaps they happen in stages. From a roaming family of creatures, to a tribe, to a government, nations, coalition etc.

The Navi would probably be a tribe stage species(not considered a civilisation yet). While it could be concluded that a tribe species is technologically inferior, it is also possible that they may have knowledge that even a civilisation may not have due to differences in the ecology or their planet.

Think about it. If the Navi could use guns, cannons etc, they would need an industry. A system to govern a larger population for mass production and heavy mining(which goes against their tribal philosophy in the story).

But most of the reason why the Navi are the way they are is, I suspect has more to do with it being a fictional story rather than a realistic look at what other intelligent life may be like.

The storyline of Avatar is also heavily influenced by elements of white guilt over the genocide and massacres of American Indians and Aborigines as well as the fantasy of the "native rescuer", i.e the white man who becomes one of the tribe and does what they could not do - saving themselves from other white people - being innately superior to the native champion, and getting the native chick as a foregone conclusion.

It's really cliched but as long as these elements are present many morons and dilettantes will feel that it's a movie that represents the human condition and uplifts us with a story of hope.

LMAO!

This post has been edited by Dickson Poon: Jan 14 2010, 07:33 PM

I've watched the movie again (free tix!) and noticed a couple of things,

1. Eywa is obviously sentient as she could understand what Jake told her about what humans did to earth and verify the fact by going through Grace's memories.

2. Grace is the top biologist in her field, and everything she knows about DNA and stuff like neural networks is now part of Eywa.

3. Since they can download/upload data at will, it will just be a matter of time before all this new information is spread throughout the populace, or any scientifically inclined native.

Looking at real world ventures into science like,

Nanotech, nanobots
Swarm intelligence
DNA computing, quantum computing
Biowarfare

It's not hard to imagine that if the Na'Vi do progress scientifically, the organic element will be quite a prominent element in their tech, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Remember War of the Worlds? The common cold virus turned out to be humanity's savior vs the technologically superior Martians.

wth is science FICTION doing in phD school?

edit: they arent advanced cos they go around raping horses n birds

This post has been edited by b3ta: Jan 15 2010, 06:46 AM

Aiyoh. People don't want to have newfangled gunzszxzx that go pew pew pew then dowan lah. Why still must ask

But to me, Avatar sucked anyway. The juxtaposition of the 'advanced' technology that was *nearly* sci-fi and the lack of sophistication in a storyline was too awkward- the only saving grace was the nice graphics, and I am not exactly a graphics person.

The movie Avatar, in my opinion, is kinda a reflection of the above. Why? first of all, the Na'vi are contended with their existing technologies, i.e. the bow and arrow. They don't need gas stove, computer and such. And even is Egwa is like a supercomputer that demands balance, I believe that the advancement towards developing technologies comes from the very mind of individuals that thinks and rationalises that they are better way to do things.

And another thing, it is such movies that makes us think further and deeper. Example? Star Wars movies and Astro Boy. Those kind of movies enabled inventors and scientist alike to emulate devices and advancement to better (or suffer) our lives. PErfect example, handphones. A lot of Sci-fi had some sort of communication device. Thus the birth and evolution of the gadget itself.

The truth in avatar is,

the navi people is HUMAN, and the Human is the Gods who taught us technology.

They are just laughing at us!!!

I concur... and again... I once read this... philosopher once theoretise this level of cilivizations.... where we were at the lowest level.... where we greatly depends on the resources on our planet... and the next level is to harnest the sun`s resources on earth.....

and up next is the transformers level.... to harnest sun`s energy and move to another solar system when the one is depleted...

and lastly.... cililivaztions which know everything and are everything around that is able to utilize all resources available

maybe na'vi ppl know how to control the natural power which more powerful then the weapon created by human..

Biotechnology!