Alien Life

[Lord_Shleepy]

Odds are that an encounter with an alien race would be effectively "hostile". Between miscommunication, culture clash, human/alien paranoia, economic pressures, matters of racial supremacy, etc. things would probably end up quite nasty even if the original intentions of both sides were good. Not that such an encounter is particularly likely...

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Lord_Shleepy:
Odds are that an encounter with an alien race would be effectively "hostile". Between miscommunication, culture clash, human/alien paranoia, economic pressures, matters of racial supremacy, etc. things would probably end up quite nasty even if the original intentions of both sides were good. Not that such an encounter is particularly likely...

that Last bit reminds me of an Outer Limits episode, where an alien race wants to peacefully live in our ocean, and lands there, but we can't understand their msg, so we think they are invading us, and lauch all the nukes we have at them, they don't even get hurt and start attacking all the big cities.

[DirectorTsaarx]

The August 2002 issue of Scientific American has a short article on the Drake Equation (the Skeptic column, page 33). The main point of the article is calculating the variable "L", which (in the Drake equation) is the lifetime of a communicating civilization. The article also mentions that, out of the 7 variables in the equation, we only have significant data on 1 variable: the rate of formation of "suitable stars". Of course, the entire equation is based on the idea that Earth-like planets are the only ones capable of sustaining intelligent life. Depending on your definition of intelligent life, that may be accurate, i.e. if "intelligent" is defined as "able to effectively communicate with humans". If "intelligent" is defined in a more philosophical context, there may be many intelligent races in the universe, but we'll never know because we (and they) can't communicate well enough to make that determination.

Just my 2 cents...

[geoschmo]

Unless you are of the belief that life is unique to Earth, the sheer numbers of stars makes it almost a mathematical certainty that there is life elsewhere in the galaxy, let alone the universe as a whole. It really doesn't matter what number you plug into the other variables in the Drake equation, as long as they aren't zero the result is going to be a fairly large number.

The real question is assuming there is life and intelligent life, is there any possible way we could make contact with them considering the vast distances involved.

EDIT:I should say "meaningful contact". We could beam radio message back and forth, but a 50+ year message lag would be a real pain. It's bad enough in the game waiting two turns for a response.

[ August 15, 2002, 16:29: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[disabled]

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]

Face it, we are the only life in the universe. If we happen to come acrossed other life, well then, its food.

[zen.]

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

zen

[Stone Mill]

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]

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]

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