The modern technologies on the planet. Earth would be rather a puzzle to an observer from another planet. If he happened to land in Germany, the most conspicuous animals in sight would be automobiles, and if he examined these vigorous hard-shelled creatures, he would find that each contains one or more soft, feeble organisms that appear notably helpless when removed from shells. He would decide, after talking with these defenseless creatures, that they had no independent existence. Few of them have anything to do with the production or transportation of food. They need clothing and shelter, but do not provide them for themselves. They are independent on their distant fellows in thousands of complex ways. When isolated , they usually die-just like work-ants that wander helplessly and hopelessly if separated from their colony.
If the observer were intelligent [and extraterrestrial observers are always presumed to be intelligent] he would conclude that the earth is inhabited by a few very large organisms whose individual parts are subordinate to a central directing force. He might not be able to find any central brain or other controlling unit, but human biologists have the same difficulty when they try to analyse an ant hill. The individual ants are not impressive objects-in fact they are rather stupid, even for insects-bu the colony as a whole behaves with striking intelligence.
When human observers descend on a foreign planet, they may find it inhabited by organisms in an even more advanced stage of social cooperation. Perhaps its moving and visible parts will be entirely secondary, like the machines of man. Perhaps the parts that are really alive will be even more helpless : mere clots of nerve tissue lying motionless and sedentary far underground. Perhaps this organic stuff , having served its creative purpose will have withered away, leaving the machines that it has created in possession of the planet.