Anything about extraterrestrial life

[CE5]

I am prepared to engage in this conversation, if there is any interest for me to do so.

 

[Benm]

You're always welcome to chime in!

One interesting thing is what science fiction comes up with too. I watched the movie 'Life' (the one about a life form brought from mars to the iss) last week.

The movie has it plot fails and goofs, but is generally like many sort of average sci-fi films involving alien life one way or another.

It does make me think on how aliens would look at earth life, and how wrong this might go.

For us, it seems pretty obvious that humans are the dominant species of this planet, control all the technical things like radio transmitters and such... but what if some alien culture just scooped up another earth organism and assumed that was the dominant species?

They could themselves be aquatic creatures and hence pick one from the ocean, perhaps they could even come from a fully water covered planet/moon that has no land at all, or has land but no sentient land dwelling creatures.

They could scoop up something like an octopus, and determine it's pretty intelligent when it comes to problem solving tasks and such.

This may seem odd, but if a planet has only aquatic life (even if it had landmass, but no rain for example) it would probably be as strate to them that a land dwelling creature could create a spaceship, just as it would be odd to us if some marine creature managed to do it on earth.

 

[CE5]

Thank you, since this thread has been dormant since March/2017 I did not want to misstep into another faux pas, by an overt "necro' intent.

To address your thoughts.
Most SciFi, is a vehicle to drive and enforce specific agendas or to simply use the genre to achieve 'cheap thrills'.

Any sentient lifeforms that posses the advanced technology that is capable to transport their physicality to this planet, would also have the ability to discern quickly, what the different types and functions that most of the animate life forms on the planet under observation are capable of and how they perform and carry out those functions within the biosphere.

Some of the aquatic memes, were explored in a few SciFi productions as follows;
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Abyss, and others but I prefer to only note features with positive messages rather than 'aggressive aliens' since if this were in fact the nature of the universe, the sentient species inhabiting earth would not exist and we would not be having this conversation.

 

[Benm]

Threads like these can be dormant for a while but get picked up at some point. I don't think this is a problem because relevant circumstances have not chaged over the period involved.

The concept of aquatic alien life has been explored in scifi indeed, both my star trek and stargate. I would remark that in either series this is pretty rare though, most aliens contacted seem to be land based and even compatible with our atmosphere - stargate offers a reasonable explanation for it for most of it's seasons.

As far as how aliens would consider humanity, i think anything is possbible. They could see is as food, as slaves, as partners/equals, as a rare protected species, or just as plain enemies to kill asap.

Realistically i won't make any assumptions that have a good outcome for us humans though. History has shown that all technologically inferior groups have been ruled by the technogolically superior invading force, for millenia.

 

[CE5]

Thanks again for helping me get 'the feel' for this forums behavioral norms.

To touch briefly again on the aquatic notion and the ISS. There has been some recent discussion about the existence of 'plankton' life forms living on the exterior of the ISS. It is also a proven fact that extremophiles, are capable of surviving in exospace. Now whether the plankton, has simply hitched a ride from the surface, or is in some way perspiring up from the surface is still being studied and investigated.

As concerns your observations that humans, with superior technology have often overcome and forced their will over other humans, with inferior technology is of course true.

Fortunately, this does not appear to be the nature of the universe.
But it certainly is the nature of humans, at this stage of their development.

Again, if aggression was the way of the universe. Any technologically advanced species with space faring technology, would have in many models and theories already have had their way with this planet if they chose to do so. Given the age of the planet, and the flora and fauna within the biosphere.

Unfortunately, if humans continue to use their 'history has taught us' view when looking outward. Humans will continue to be self restricted, in many aspects of development.

One way to remove the shackles of history, is to forge a more positive future.

 

[Rokakku]

It is also a proven fact that extremophiles, are capable of surviving in exospace.

I always thought tardigrades looked like tiny moles in space suits. But the ability of extremophiles to exist like this solidifies my belief in extraterrestrial creatures.

Fortunately, this does not appear to be the nature of the universe.
But it certainly is the nature of humans, at this stage of their development.

I'd argue it is the nature of any being that becomes self aware. Stefan Molyneux talks about three main things that influence people in being cruel and dominating others. Fear of death, fear of pain and fear of loss of freedom. It's why you can't point a gun at a pig and say "get in the cage or I'll blow your legs off." It makes us controllable. Via religion, dictatorship, or corporate.

As you say this is a huge shackle of society, and it leads onto the Fermi paradox. The advancement in alien technology progresses faster than the politics of these civilizations are able to manage them so they kill themselves before they can make contact with or exploit other extraterrestrial beings. Maybe they have a platitude of models and theories. However as we know Utopian ideologies can often be the most dangerous in bringing us close to extinction, for example Nazism.

Imagine if we did make contact though, it would shatter conceptions of all organized religion and cults. Islam and Christianity alone have 3.8 billion followers. We need a more scientific future, however a problem with this is we have for as long as history has been recorded based our values and norms to some extent on religious scripture. I'm not saying "religion is all that stops us killing each other" at all like some evangelists would. But if we begin to base our values and norms of scientific theory we run the risk of seeing people seen as subjects in a test rather than people. It could lead to very high productivity but general low quality of life if we aren't careful. In this volatile geopolitical climate we have the power to destroy the Earth a number of times over yet nearly every country is going through some civil unrest, be it Venezuela or Syria, much of it likely just a proxy for superpowers like the US, China and Russia. God knows how we will overcome this as we have nothing to base our future from. We're at that point in the Fermi paradox where we are developing space age technology but our species is still at each others throats, acting individual rather than for the betterment of the race. I have hope though, we are still young.

Sorry if this has already been touched upon, I wrote this out before I read the rest of the thread.

 

[CE5]

In the movie: The Fifth Element, when the Mondoshawans made their appearance I thought to myself 'Those are the largest Tardigrades, that I've ever imagined'

And your Molyneux, argument introduces many valid points.
It could also be further distilled down to simply fear of the 'other' or quite simply fear, as a base emotion. Fear, is a great motivator for many of the lifeforms on this planet. Fear, triggers the self preservation instinct, and ego can also be successfully argued to be the prime motivators for humans.

The Fermi, paradox is also a very valid argument. Even if only for the purpose of provoking more thought.
https://www.seti.org/seti-institute/project/details/zookeepers-alien-visitors-or-simple-life

Also, I do not feel that the religious, or other cultural values, norms or concepts would be shattered beyond repair. Quite the opposite may also occur. This is also a possibility, is it not?
I have personally witnessed events, that produced unexpected results.
This sort of assumption that Mankind's psyche, and institutions would implode are not based on even recent historical outcomes.

How did the wonder, discovery and implementation of Electricity, effect Mankind's psyche, or social/religious etc; institutions?
How did that knowledge and technology effect the human condition?
Did it usher in a Utopian shift? Shatter long held beliefs?

I am of the opinion, that direct contact with other, and especially with more advanced civilizations would most likely follow this model.

The fact that we have had the Nuclear and Biological, capabilities to self destruct for several decades has not come to pass.
Does provides a glimmer of hope. And here we may also call on that curious emotion of faith.

 

[Benm]

I think religion will find a workaround if extraterrestial intelligent life is confirmed somehow.

For the christian creation myth it would not be that problematic, since god created both the earth and and sky/heavens. If you are religious enough you could simply deduce that those other beings are also part of god's creation since they are in the sky. That they are not mentioned any further could be because the bible was written as a guide for people on this planet, and other planets could have their own versions etc.

Usually things can be spun in such a fashion that they are still compatible with a faith even when there is scientific evidence against it. The earth was not formed and populated in 6 or 7 days, but you presume those are 'earth days'. You could also define a day as the time it takes for galaxies to rotate from some perspective and somehow come up with a definition where 7 days equal a billion earth years... as long has you must cling to a religion.

I'm not religious myself and probably be somewhat amused at a pope stating that those aliens are also gods creation and what not, but i'm sure they'll figure something out.


What I am interested in is how common intelligent life actually is. We can be fairly sure there is no other intelligent life in our solar system at this moment, though we cannot be certain that it will not appear at some point in time.

But what about other star systems? How common is life in general, and how common is sentient and intelligent life? These are the questions to be answered: does every other star have a planent with sentient lifeforms on it, or is it one in a thousand, million, billion or even fewer?

We do not know, and perhaps cannot know at this time.

Perhaps we will never know, though if life is very common we should be able to confirm it by analysing radio transmissions from other planets: there is a sort of natural evolution in radio technology that makes a society 'visible' in radio waves for a brief amount of time. It should be noted that this window of time is closing on earth at the moment since we are doing away with analog FM and TV broadcasts rapidly.

While we all enjoy things like 3G/4G cellphone connections, earth is going dark where radio transmissions detectable and decodable at large distances are concerned. I think we'll be radio-silent in a decade or two.

 

[H2Oxide]

I think we'll be radio-silent in a decade or two.

Until the ham radio community decides to pool their money and build a massive multi-gigawatt transmitter because they're tired of just talking to each other.

 

[CE5]

I'm not religious myself and probably be somewhat amused at a pope stating that those aliens are also gods creation and what not, but i'm sure they'll figure something out.

The current Pope, has already addressed this subject a few times. And the Vatican, has been addressing it for several years prior.
Makes one wonder if they have evidence, and already know something?

https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/02/23/catholicism-handle-discovery-extraterrestrial-life/

There has been a noticeable uptick in 'Soft Disclosures' emanating from many governments, agencies and institutions over the last few years.

 

[angelsnow]

I actually find this topic interesting! Everyone seems to have many theories about aliens. Many articles describing them as more like human but stronger.

 

[RedCowboy]

Based on the vast number of stars and accompanying unseen planets there simply must be other life, granted we are separated by enormous distances but an advanced civilization could well have discovered how to warp the fabric of space/time and traverse through it, but even if we don't have visitors other life is bound to exist, have existed and will exist.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Agree with the above statement. I personally believe that we have been visited. But I chose the word believe on purpose, as there is no undeniable evidence, or at least not obtainable by the general population.

 

[Alaskan]

less you see something undeniable yourself...

 

[CurtisOliver]

True.
Problem is though. The way humanity concludes is based in collective information rather than individual.

 

[Alaskan]

The collective can be far behind an individual, but i'm not telling you anything new.. problem is, can be vice versa too.