Alien Life

disabled · #1 August 15th, 2002, 05:25 PM

that outer limits episdoe, wasn't the aliens talking in english, but since the lived in an aquatic enviroment the message was nearly unreadable until they adjusted for the water content.

Of course, it was too late by then...

Atrocities · #2 August 15th, 2002, 05:46 PM

Face it, we are the only life in the universe.

If we happen to come acrossed other life, well then, its food.

zen. · #3 August 15th, 2002, 05:58 PM

I'm sure that's what those colonists in Aliens thought, too...

zen

Stone Mill · #4 August 15th, 2002, 06:20 PM

I voted "other," in agreement with those who lean toward... well... irrelevant.

The existence of Homo Sapiens Sapiens is a veritable miniscule fraction of a drop in the vast ocean of time. As stated, other life probably would have no idea we're around, or even care, even if our timelines were congruent.

I often think of how aliens are most oft depicted in movies... humanoid, bipedal, single point of consciousness (our active conscious minds can engage only one thing at a time). Who's to say single-cell organisms would not split off and mutate in radically different ways? Life may be something we can't even recognise.

Singollo · #5 August 15th, 2002, 06:48 PM

I'm with Geo on this one. Given the vastness of the Universe, and the absurdity of the assumption that life must necessarily involve oxygen, water, rock planets, etc., I think it's pretty much a given that other life has existed, exists, or will exist. Seriously now, this may sound really corny and stupid, but for a long time now I have been fully and completely convinced of this. You wouldn't surprise me by proving it to me; I judge it as truth already. It seems so obvious...I even find myself taking it for granted in conversations with others (which is a little embarrassing, as you can imagine). The idea that we could be the only intelligent life in this Universe is incomprehensible to me.

That being a given, the real question, and point of contention, is this: is there other intelligent life out there right now? As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, we as a species have only been "sentient" and "aware" (if, indeed, we are) for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second, from the Universe's perspective. I think it is granted that there is/was/will be intelligent life out there...but I think that it is perfectly possible that we are the only intelligent life at this point in time.

For me, this creates a scenario of haunting sadness. Imagine dozens, maybe hundreds, of intelligent civilizations rising, expanding, and dying out, all without ever having contacted one another, existing alone in time, always wondering if there is anybody else out there. It makes me feel very lonely.

geoschmo · #6 August 15th, 2002, 07:08 PM

Singollo, that's quite a deep thought. I suppose that it is entirely possible we are the only intelligent life right now. That would depend on the 'life span' of intelligent species. One of those Drake variables we have no concrete data on.

It reminds me of a story I once read. The theory goes that the universe is expanding, and that eventually it will stop expanding and collapse back into a single point, and then blow up into a new big bang and form a new universe. This race had developed very late in the life of the universe during this contraction phase. It had interesting parallels like they had discoveries of blue shifts instead of red shifts, and so on. IIRC for them the big bang was harder to conceptualize becasue all there evidence told them the universe was contracting and always had. They didn't like the fact that there exsistance was going to end "early" just because they had the bad luck to come along so late, so they were trying to figure out a way to leave a message for the next universe. Just a "Hello, we were here" kind of thing.

I would expect the desire to make contact is quite strong with most if not all intelligent creatures. It would be a sad irony indeed if the vast distances made it impossible to do so.

Geoschmo

Singollo · #7 August 15th, 2002, 08:06 PM

Wow, that sounds like an awesome premise for a story. How cool. That would indeed be a cruel joke, to be stuck at the end of the universe, near to the Big Crunch. IIRC, the most recent evidence points to an unending expansion of the universe, though, although the Big Crunch scenario cannot be completely ruled out. (Yeah, as if we can completely rule anything out as far as this stuff is concerned.)