Aliens

[Notoriously Unknown]

No doubt about it. With the size of the universe we live in it would be arrogant and foolish to think that we are all that's out there.
The queston is not whether life exists on other planets. The queston is if we can contact them or vice versa.
To this I give a hearty "Yeah right". Even if we were somehow able to contact an intelligent race (Despite the astronomical chances against it) who's to say they would be interested in us? This is why I have such a big problem with people who say they've seen and/or been abducted by UFOs. Why would some random being from god knows where choose to abduct you? It's grandoise and arrogant thinking.

 

[opaltiger]

who's to say they would be interested in us?

who's to say they wouldn't? We are very interested in the prospect of an alien race; I don't think it's too big a leap of faith to assume it might work the other way, too.

 

[Butterfree]

If there is one thing I'd like to happen in my lifetime, it would be the discovery of extraterrstials. I mean, I want world peace as much as the next time, but that could happen, say, the day after I die, and I'd be happy.

Anyway, it doesn't even have to be intellagent. It would be nice if it was intellagent, but, meh, who cares? Although it would be nice if there was something like Pokemon out there.

Is it just me or does this sound very suspiciously like a paraphrased version of my old LiveJournal entry on the subject? :/ Feel free to agree with me, but do you really need to word it almost exactly like I did, which was in a pretty personal manner, as if it were something personal from you? You know, "If there's one thing I'd like to happen in my lifetime..." I'm pretty sure that would be called plagiarism in academic circles. :/

Thus, to repeat myself, I am extremely excited by the idea of discovering extraterrestrial life, not that that is precisely relevant to the likelihood of its existence. I'm convinced aliens do exist somewhere in the universe, though; with the sheer number of planets and length of time involved, it's pretty much inevitable life would arise here and there. It's just whether we'll ever be able to detect it that's questionable.

 

[Phyro Phantom]

The thing is, we really don't know yet. But I think that's more of a limiting factor on our part... The universe is vast, possibly even endless, (prove me wrong =P) so I think it's stupid to completely deny the possibility that life exists elsewhere.

Also, from a Christian standpoint, (bear with me lol) why would God create the universe just to put us humans on some random planet? Sure, God loves us, but I think it's kinda stupid to think that of all the universe, this planet was the only one He bothered to put life on... But that's just me.

 

[glitchedgamer]

I am almost certain that there is life out there somewhere. There is an incomprehencable amount of planets out there, and we can't even see more than the tiniest fraction of them. Earth has proved life is possible, so why couldn't it happen elsewhere? There could be alien species out there that are older than Earth itself. We are not a special case. We got lucky that Earth met the almost impossible conditions for life, and I'm sure we aren't the only lucky ones.

 

[opaltiger]

prove me wrong =P

Law of conservation of matter. Before the Big Bang there must have been a finite amount of matter, because there is a limit, however high, to how much can exist in a limited space; an endless universe presupposes an infinite supply of matter, which violates the law of conservation of matter.

 

[Music Dragon]

Law of conservation of matter. Before the Big Bang there must have been a finite amount of matter, because there is a limit, however high, to how much can exist in a limited space; an endless universe presupposes an infinite supply of matter, which violates the law of conservation of matter.

I'm not going to pretend to know anything about physics, but if it really was this easy to prove that the universe is finite, wouldn't it be a well-known and relatively undisputed fact by now?

 

[Tarvos]

The universe doesn't have to be finite: there is just a finite amount of MATTER inside the universe.

 

[Music Dragon]

Oh. I thought we were disproving the earlier statement that "the universe is vast, possibly even endless", but perhaps I was wrong.

 

[opaltiger]

My point is, even if it is endless, the limitation on the amount of matter makes it a moot point in our discussion.

 

[Music Dragon]

I see. Although, just for the purpose of discussion: isn't it possible that the principle of matter conservation is flawed?

 

[opaltiger]

I'm sure it's possible. I think it pretty unlikely. An irrelevant question, at any rate.

 

[shiny jiggly]

I think there are aliens out there (assuming you're talking about aliens from outer space, not aliens from other countries).
They probably don't look like we think they do, and they most likely aren't going to drive around in some kinda spaceship, and we probably aren't going to find them, and they most likely are wondering about life on other planets as well.

But IF they maneged to get here (probably in a traveling dome thingy for many generations) these are the chances that I see of the usual alien things happening:
Random abductions: this seems pretty likely if the came. though it would all depend on their nature with foreign organism interactions.
Destroying random stuff with lazors: Most aliens that are intelligent enough to pilot a traveling dome thingy should at least have appreciation for foreign structures such as buildings, towers, and stuff. I don't think this would happen very often.
An attempt at world domination:...maybe. It is very possible if they came, but what would they gain from it?
Peace treaty: this depends on the type of alien. The government wold probably disregard it and chop them up like what they almost did to E.T.
Immigrants protected by the men in black:...I'm not sure about this one. (also I'm getting kinda tired...) Maybe I should stop getting my alien ideas from movies.

 

[Scyther]

Is it just me or does this sound very suspiciously like a paraphrased version of my old LiveJournal entry on the subject? :/ Feel free to agree with me, but do you really need to word it almost exactly like I did, which was in a pretty personal manner, as if it were something personal from you? You know, "If there's one thing I'd like to happen in my lifetime..." I'm pretty sure that would be called plagiarism in academic circles. :/

Ahh. That's where I read it from...

 

[Zuu]

If I had the chance I would assimilate myself into their alien empire. :|

also why wouldn't they use spaceships? I think it'd be a pretty common goal across civilizations to see what's beyond their planet.

 

[Minnow]

We got lucky that Earth met the almost impossible conditions for life, and I'm sure we aren't the only lucky ones.

I know you're not really saying this, but you reminded me of how a lot of people say things about how 'lucky' or 'amazing' it is that Earth's conditions and placements are perfect for the development of life. This ties in with the thing about life-not-as-we-know-it like some posted before. No, it's not that Earth is perfectly suited for us, we're perfectly suited for Earth. If the conditions weren't right we wouldn't be here to say they aren't, so it's a pointless idea.

Anyway, yeah, it's very nearly completely impossible that out of 200 billion stars in our galaxy, out of the countless galaxies in the entire universe, and out of some number of possible 'other universes' (Which I'm rather neutral on, who can really say? And even if they did, so what?) that there has been only one instance of Life.

And, on the subject of aliens, what is Life, really? The Other Wiki says living things usually exhibit most or all of these traits:

Homeostasis
Organization
Metabolism
Growth
Adaptation
Response to stimuli
Reproduction

With a little thought, you could use these traits to classify something distinctly not alive as a living thing, like fire, for example. It doesn't exactly fit all the traits (only, metabolism, growth, reproduction, and possible response to stimuli), but this just opens the door for looking at Life. Like others said, why do we only keep looking for life similar to us? Carbon-based, needs water, cellular, solid (as opposed to gas or liquid (plasma?)). I guess it's because that's what we know the most about, but still, it seems rather shortsighted.

As for other species contacting us, it makes sense if they had a higher level of technology than us then they would probably either try to contact with someone, or, depending on their personalities and emotions, they could possibly abduct a few for research. If they were less technologically advanced then they'd probably either hide in fear or, again, depending on their nature, contact us, somehow. Possibly through math, as they say it's the universal language.

I think it's rather obvious that other species would be nothing like us, or anything found on earth, given our current understanding of evolution and life. It would be extremely interesting, though, if they were similar to us or some other Earth species, as that would either imply a common ancestor or some sort of order to how life forms, with the possible implication that whatever they resemble is the closest to a sort of 'perfect organism' in the sense that it has traits that are universally useful and would have evolved into.

I do find it annoying how some scorn the idea of aliens or even things like SETI because of the few who claim to have seen UFOs and the fanatacism surrounding that, although who know? Maybe they're right.

Oh, one more thing. To those who say that, yes, life is likely to exist elsewhere, but the chances of them visiting us is incredibly unlikely because of the massive distances involved, it's just as likely that some race developed 2 light years from us as it is that they developed 200 billion light years from us, so nothing is safe to assume.

Additional discussion idea: pyramids and other ancient structures and how they possibly relate to aliens.

 

[Zuu]

I just think Egyptians were really smart. :o

I think it's a possibility that aliens maybe visited us in the past but that's extremely unlikely. Just possible.

 

[Minnow]

One thing about the pyramid stuff that annoys me is that some people say things like, "Oh, the cultures are on the other side of the planet from each other, so they must have made contact or it could have been aliens," when a pyramid is simply the most stable and easy structure to build when you have hundreds of tons of rock to work with.

 

[opaltiger]

With a little thought, you could use these traits to classify something distinctly not alive as a living thing, like fire, for example.

don't trot out the fire analogy. it makes absolutely no sense. okay, so suppose you say fire spreading counts as growth. what the hell is reproduction supposed to be? no, a spark starting a new fire is not reproduction, it's just more spreading.

metabolism, I'll give you, in the very very very limited sense that Fire Burns Things. except that metabolism is defined as the chemical reactions in a living organism that maintain life.

response to stimuli? what the hell? what exactly is fire responding to?

also, you've missed arguably the most important one: organisation. most of the other traits only make sense if you're speaking of an organism, which fire is clearly not. and you can't just pick and choose. it says "most or all" because no one can decide if viruses count.

I'm sorry, but this is one of those things that really, really annoys me.

eta: because this was a terrible post I wrote in about sixty seconds, let me expand a little.

The traits of life are a pretty good litmus test for whether or not to define something as living. The problem is that they are often simplified. You've at least got the right list, but you're still simplifying greatly. You say fire grows; this is perhaps the only example that more or less fits, since fire does get bigger as it uses more fuel. But the analogy breaks down right there. Reproduction: you could argue that a spark spreading the fire to a new location is reproduction, but then you've got the problem of saying that the fire spreading is both growth and reproduction. A more severe problem is the fact that reproduction is fundamentally the replication of some sort of hereditary material (ie. genetic material); that is, the parent must be able to pass down certain traits to the child. This is clearly not the case with fire.

Metabolism, as I said earlier, refers to all the processes that keep things alive. Simplifying it down to "fire burns wood, releases water and carbon dioxide" is to lose the point of the word. Yes, pretty much the exact same reaction occurs in cells, but the sub-units within the cell responsible for it are not alive themselves (or more precisely, are no longer alive themselves). It is generally accepted that the smallest living unit is the cell, so anything within it cannot be alive. Additionally, fire doesn't survive by burning, it is burning. You cannot argue that the process that keeps things alive is alive itself. And response to stimuli? Well, sure, fire moves when the wind blows! But so do rocks, when the wind is strong enough. Don't confuse response to stimuli with physical reactions.

That said, I know what this analogy is trying to say. It is trying to say "life is not strictly defined". But I'm not sure why we'd need a contrived example like fire when viruses, a much more relevant example that doesn't enjoy a general consensus, are a lot more convenient for getting the point across.

 

[Tarvos]

Fire is a physical manifestation of a chemical reaction - this has nothing to do whatsoever with life in any shape, way, or form.