Thread: Aliens!!!!!!!!!!

seditee,

I think your missing one big point in all these arguments. Your assumeing that the aliens have the baility to contact, visit or destroy us. They merely may be unable to do so or unaware of our existence

I guess this is related tot he above post:

How amuch more advanced would we have to ge tin order to be able to contact any intellengent civilization that is as advanced as we are at the time? I'm sure it's hard to define this by some factor (say 5x), but we would have to have much better technology/knowledge in order to contact a civilization ANYWHERE out there if one existed.

Now, to switch the tables: this should show that even if another intellegent civilization out there is as advanced as us they would be unable to contact us. It would require much better knowledge for them to do that, so... chances are, even if there's something out there that's as smart as us, we might never hear from them.

I think it's safe to say that if aliens were to actually land out on Earch and come with: "Greetings, earthlings", they would be MORE advanced than us at this time.

I would suggest anyone interested to buy and read Carl Sagan and I.S. Shklovskii Intelligent Life in the Universe. New York: Random House, 1966.

It addresses all this issues in a manner I couldn't possibly do here. But basically, yes. There should be life outside earth. Intelligence is another matter as is, the technological advancement of said intelligence. These last two can hardly be quantified given the present knowledge we have of the universe... (just remember only recently did we discover the first few planets outside the solar system).

<<Lightatdawn if you wrote a movie about alieans comming to earth and they came in peace How populer do you think it would be?

<<of course it wouldn't be popular.

Say's who? Isn't this just two people's opinion out a many? There was a movie that came out awhile back called k-pax, the movie was about a peacful alien, i wanted to see it.

<<I think it's safe to say that if aliens were to actually land out on Earch and come with: "Greetings, earthlings", they would be MORE advanced than us at this time.

Not true, if human's where to ever be able to travel far in space and find alien's and i got of the ship and greeted them, does that make me more advanced than the rest of our planet, no. Even the most antiscocial of human's would not respond the same way to an intelligent alien than to his own kind because this antisocial individual know's that they would'nt understand his behavior, thus no result's, which would make it a waste of his/her time. That pose's some interesting thought's on human to intelligent alien interaction's. Mabey intelligent alien's could teach alot about our own behavior...

Originally posted by Fountain
i guess he meant is there CURRENTLY life outside of earth...heehh

The universe is huge (!). There might be a civilication out there who died out a million of years ago, but we won't find out they existed until another million of years have passed due to the delay of their signal transmissions.

Even the light from out own sun takes ~8 minutes to travel to earth. Who knows, the sun might have died 5 minutes ago, but we won't find out until another 3 minutes pass .

i have to agree with some of you, but how do we know that there is no life other then the humans right on earth. We know that the center of earth is very hot.....but there could be some kind of a life form that can stand that heat and is able to live down there....

>>there is no life other then the humans

Well... We're highly aware of other life around abouts. I assume you mean "intelligent" life?

I take it you mean intelligent life...since there's more life than humans around my neigborhood alone.

Not really... at least not carbon based (as is all the life forms we know off). Carbon based molecules can't stand those temperatures.

There seems to be a general consensus among the scientific community that carbon is an essential element for life. Again this may as well be a mental limitation of our own heritage... but I tend to believe those guys are not prone to this kind of single-mindedness.

LightAtDawn:

>>> I assume you mean "intelligent" life?

How do you define intelligent? There are few that would dispute Dolphins, Orca's Chimpanzees etc. are intelligent. (I ask this question about once every 3 months actually - usually in connection with AI though).

Mario:

>>> scientific community that carbon is an essential element for life.

"Life as we know it", (in best Spock accent!). There are several dubious studies purporting to demonstrate the possibility, under certain conditions, of a Silicon based life process. Plenty of Silicon in the Earth under various extreme conditions, (maybe not so much the core, but certainly the mantle).

Originally posted by adrianxw
How do you define intelligent? There are few that would dispute Dolphins, Orca's Chimpanzees etc. are intelligent. (I ask this question about once every 3 months actually - usually in connection with AI though).

Yes. You are absolutely right. It's not a word that one can use lightly. Usually, in informal speech, Intelligente Life means all life that is technologically capable. The use of a stick by some chimps does not constitute technology. Communication doesn't either. Neither does logical reasoning... so I guess this leaves us humans as the only intelligent life form on earth (that we know of).

But that's only for informal speech. Fact is the definition is rather minimalist and doesn't take into account that logical reasoning and communication are in fact building blocks for further development (and mutation) so that life form will eventually be capable of technology.

So bottom line is that any life form capable of logical reasoning (even if primitive. The likes of "if... then...") already is intelligent. It's degree and use of that intelligent may be minimal. But the potential for further evolution is there.

As for silicon life based forms... i'm skeptical. It would take 100th times what it took for carbon to build the first molecule. and 100th more times what it took for the first algae... and this considering that it would at all be possible for silicon to combine and slowly produce a life form. So the planet or whatever astrological body would have to be really stable and with a huge life span to allow this slow evolution.

<<So bottom line is that any life form capable of logical reasoning (even if primitive. The likes of "if... then...") already is intelligent. It's degree and use of that intelligent may be minimal. But the potential for further evolution is there.

My question is this, have human's evoloved to their extent? We have no natural enemy's that are a serious threat on a day to day basis. Will we just stay this evolved, or will we devolve?

There's no switch on evolution. You can't just simply turn it of. As soon as you are capable of technology you will indeed (at least happened with us humans) to artificially enhance the speed of transformations.

Humans are far from "being complete". We may as well be the dominant species. But a shark, for instance, is far more evolved than we are. They face almost no diseases, have a huge life span considering their metabolism and are on the top of the food chain. Conversely, we humans, have an huge array of diseases, have a short life span (debatable of course, but we have to take in mind that a city dweller with access to gyms and diet food is not your average human) and can only avoid natural predators by means of sidekick weapons and inteligence... a shark has no predators by means of sheer power.

So, basically no. We are still evolving and we will most probably always be as long as we can keep our numbers. Evolution is a process by which a life form better adapts to its environment. It's not a guarantee of "positive" evolution. We may evolve to some life form capable of biologically dealing with all the known diseases on earth... and die from the very first virus we get when we decide to colonize planet XK45.

they just found a jupiter-size planet with a similar orbit to jupiter near a sun-like star...it's been said there is a gravitational factor that may be evidence of an earth-sized planet between the giant and the sun...life, you think? i certainly dooooo...what should we call this brave new world? i say earth II. i.e. we should take it. & dissata - i don't believe in what you're saying.

>>> jupiter-size planet with a similar orbit to jupiter

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

(If your not reading this today, go back to 14/6/2002).

Mario:

>>> As for silicon life based forms... i'm skeptical.

Me too, however...

>>>
astrological body would have to be really stable and with a huge life span to allow this slow evolution.
<<<

... I would not doubt that such worlds exist. By the way, you mean "astronomical" - "astrological" is all that fairy story stuff about your destiny being governed by the position of the planets when you were born!!

>>>
There's no switch on evolution. You can't just simply turn it of.
<<<

A little counter argument, surely by "treating" genetic "disorders" we are able to switch it off. Consider any of the "genetic diseases" that are currently being researched to be "cured", just supposing that one of these "diseases" is actually a modification that under cerctain circumstances, would be an advantage?

Maybe that chronic disease gene, in combination with a yet to evolve chance mutation would create a super intelligence, or something else, and by breeding out/genetically manipulating out the disease gene, we miss the step forward.