Typically when we think of sentient life on this planet, we think only of ourselves. We place ourselves above the other animals, even our closely-related primate cousins, because homo sapiens exhibit recognizable signs of civilization. We have complex social guidelines that influence every aspect of our behavior. We form communities. We work together. But truly the same can be said about many social animals. What so clearly differentiates us is the way in which we seek to control and manipulate our environment. We use tools. We depend on shelter and clothing to protect us from the natural elements. We create art. We seek entertainment. We think and experiment. We contemplate the unknown.

But, is manipulation of the environment the only factor that defines intelligence? Theoretically, it is not. This essay will illustrate a fictitious example of such a being. It is based on the theory that some sentient beings have no need to use tools or walk upright in order to achieve civilization. Instead of exerting force over their environment, they have expanded their intellect in other ways.

My theoretical creatures have no name for themselves either as a species or individually, for they themselves have no language that we can easily recognize. Put succinctly they can be described as psychic jellyfish of the deep ocean.

Physically, they are little more than a highly evolved species of deep-sea jellyfish. They live for about 50 years, which is much longer than most other jellyfish, due largely to living deep in the ocean where there is little current to harm their fragile, ephemeral bodies. Like most jellyfish they have a semi-gelatinous bell or umbrella-shaped body with long dangling, stinging tentacles, and frilly mouth arms. They grow to up to two feet in diameter with tentacles reaching a length of about four feet.

They eat plankton and very small fish and fish eggs, they catch their food with the tentacles, killing their prey with the venom. Unlike most jellyfish, the creatures can control the amount of venom in their stings with a great deal of accuracy. In this way they can also use their tentacles for self-defense or attack and they can control whether or not they inject enough venom to cause pain, injury or death.

Their bodies are nearly as transparent as glass and when they choose to be they can be invisible in the ocean depths where light does not penetrate. However, their bodies are tightly threaded with highly advanced nerves, muscles and neural synapses that are laced throughout with a calcium ion that produces bioluminescence. When a creature so desires, he or she triggers the luminosity. Unlike less evolved animals with bioluminescence, the creatures highly control this light-producing effect resulting in extremely complex patterns of pulsating colors of varying brightness. The colors are used to convey emotions, moods and personality. The pattern of light forms a complex language, which is only understood amongst the creatures. The brightness is the equivalent of volume.

While the creatures have no eyes, the neural net threaded throughout their bodies act as visual receptors and detect light with a high degree of discernment. They also detect smell and taste through their mouths. They have no hearing. They also have no hearts or blood and their brains are threaded throughout the body as a direct part of the nerve system rather than a central organ connected to a network of nerve endings by a spinal column. This is perhaps why they are so highly advanced intellectually.

At least such is one of the more popular opinions amongst the creatures. They also commonly reason that they developed such specialized perception because in an environment where physical senses are so limited, information about the animals around them, both predator and prey, is crucial. The more elderly amongst them enjoy nothing more than to float along, munching tiny sea creatures and debating with brilliant animation, their theories on how they came into being and what force granted them the spark of intellect. They also enjoy discussing philosophy and spiritualism and their interpretations of the cultures of other advanced life forms.

Of course, the creatures have no physical contact with any of these other advanced life forms since none of them live at the extreme ocean depths. However, they do commune with other distant entities regularly through a form of astral projection. It is important to note that the creatures can engage in psychic contact with other nearby life forms without astral projection. The purpose of the projection is to make contact with creatures that are unreachable by distance and habitat.

Spiritual projection for communicate with distant life forms can be undertaken in different ways. If the creature merely wishes to observe he or she will simply absorb surface thoughts from a distant creature that is searched out by the roaming soul of the tranced creature. If the creature wishes to have interactive communication with a distant entity, he or she typically projects a physical self image into the mind of the life form. The distant life form in effect "sees" the creature floating before him or her and communicates with this image as if it were a physical visitor.

With proper supervision, projection is encouraged as a healthy and productive pastime for young but mature creatures. For safety reasons, astral projection is customarily undertaken only under the protection of another creature. While in this state, the creature's physical body goes into an almost deathlike trance. The neural network shuts down, and the creature drifts. Its soul detaches and seeks communion with the consciousness of other creatures.

The creature can only be awakened again by a very moderate sting from another creature's tentacles, which jump start the neural system and pulls the soul back into place. If a companion does not rouse the tranced creature it would eventually starve or possibly become prey to a predator. Because the responsibility of guarding and waking tranced companion is so great, it is almost always an arrangement conducted between close friends, mates or within a family.

Sometimes, more than one creature will enter a trance together guarded by another, but this is rare because mature creatures are only able to communicate psychically with other life forms and not with one another. The creatures are very fond of sharing emotions. They are especially attracted to sexual interaction because the creatures are themselves incapable of intercourse due to the fragility of their physical bodies. But they very much enjoy absorbing the emotional energy of lust, love, bliss and ecstasy. The creatures cannot communicate in tranced state or share these sensations with one another, but they enjoy knowing that they are feeling them together and so mated creatures sometimes undertake a trance together and seek to have this experience at the same time. It is a highly revered undertaking and the creatures often speak endlessly and poetically about such events.

Young creatures are encouraged to explore as many types of consciousness as possible. They first start with their fellow inhabitants of the deep sea, who can be reached without the need for spiritual projection. As the creature become older they experiment with projection. Typically they then move on to communing with their cousins, the non-sentient jellyfish. Then they usually spend a great deal of time with the more advanced sea creatures such as dolphins, porpoises and various whales who are also able to communicate psychically and convey useful knowledge.

Most of the creatures are content to form friendships with other sea species and limit their realm of experience to the world of the oceans. However, some highly adventurous or extremely curious creatures make it their life calling to explore the intellects of land creatures, especially mankind. This is a somewhat dangerous prospect as the thought processes of humans are so alien and so complex; the creatures often become very confused and frightened and are often too distressed to find their way back into their physical bodies when stimulated to return. For this reason, only the very wise and experienced are encouraged to undertake such a risk. Those who are able to commune with the human world are highly revered by other creatures and heavily protected during their trances in exchange for sharing their insights and information.

Discussing humans and other advanced land creatures is a thrilling topic of conversation for the creatures, much as discussing the supernatural would be for us. They have a very hard time understanding the motivations of such aliens and a great deal of mythology exists among the creatures regarding the humans' use of tools, possessions, and complicated civilization. This is all made more frustrating by the fact that most older humans have a natural mental shielding that prevents virtually all of them from perceiving the existence of the creatures' astral projections. For this reason, the creatures cannot communicate with them directly but can only absorb the humans' emotions and surface thoughts. They do however, have the ability to commune with human infants and young children and very much enjoy those interactions.

Because humans present such difficulties, many creatures prefer to commune with other advanced land-based creatures who are not quite as complicated as humans. These include the higher primates, dogs, cats, and a variety of other creatures. Humans' pets are especially preferred as they can indirectly offer some insight into their masters. Unfortunately, most dogs and cats are initially skittish about the sudden "appearance" of one of these creatures and often resent the intrusion, causing them to flee or act in aggression. Of course, they can do no harm to the creatures, who are in a spiritual form, but it is very trying on their patience.

When appearing to one of these land-based animals, the creatures usually create a visual thought projection of themselves to which their new companions can relate. In other words, they appear to the land-creatures as a mammalian type representation of themselves. They generally retain their bell shape but present a colorful furry or hairy covering instead of a transparent gelatinous body. Their tentacles are made to somewhat resemble arms and legs and they produce features resembling eyes and a mouth so that their mammal companions are more comfortable. All in all the effect is like an impressionistic version of a McDonald's Fry Guy. This likely explains why their sudden presence is usually a source of distress. Perhaps the creatures could do more to be less frightening, but in reality they tend to be very mischievous and get a huge amount of enjoyment from sharing stories about the land creatures' shocked reactions.

Aside from this mischievous streak, the creatures main other flaw is vanity. They have no means by which to see themselves aside from taking their image from the minds of neighboring fish or other sea life. But based on that and on seeing one another, they take great pleasure in knowing that they are amongst the most beautiful creatures on the planet. In fact, it's a common jest to insinuate that one of the creatures is prolonging a conversation just to show off his beautiful light language. Along with vanity another common flaw is an inflated sense of self-importance or genius. This is especially common amongst the most accomplished astral projectors.

For the most part all grievances amongst the creatures are settled peacefully through dialog. There are no binding laws or government amongst them. They conduct themselves based on societal expectations and constructive relationships. The only crimes amongst them are to assault another creature unprovoked, to harm or neglect a juvenile creature, or to abandon a tranced creature. Such crimes are usually punished by death meted out on a vigilante basis. On rare occasions there have been small wars between groups of the creatures based on over hunting of a territory, a disputed case of vigilante justice, or even passionate disagreements of philosophy. Fortunately, such instances of prolonged violence are highly disdained and rarely occur, probably because violence amongst such delicate creatures has such a high level of fatality and so creatures with violent tendencies often take themselves out of the gene pool.

Reproduction, development, and life cycle occur in much the same way as non-sentient jellyfish. Eggs produced by a mother are held in skin flaps around the mouth and then fertilized by a male mate's sperm. The developing embryos attach to the mother's mouth arms where they develop into polyps. While in the polyp stage, the young absorb intelligence and knowledge directly from the mother in a psychic bond. All of the mother's intellect is passed on to her children, including knowledge of the outside world and the ability to communicate. For this reason females are prized for the magnitude of the intellect that they can pass on to children. Once the polyps mature and detach, the juvenile creatures lose this psychic connection. It is a profound and emotional event. The creatures often speak about it very poetically.

The same is true of a creature's passage through death into the next world. Almost all of the creatures believe strongly in the existence of their souls, which pass into a spiritual dimension wherein all sentient creatures join in communion upon their physical death. It is a beautiful and bittersweet event. Once the soul has finally departed the physical world permanently, the friends and family of the dead creature usually encourage their fellow sea creatures to immediately consume the dead body so that they contribute to natural circle of life in their environments.

Do these creatures exist? Only in the realm of imagination. Could a creature like this exist? I see no reason why not. Humans are still striving to understand the nature of our own evolution and the mysteries of our own minds. It would be foolish, therefore, to assume that we can immediately recognize evolved intellect if it takes a radically different form.