Does Life Exist

[Grandpa Kim]

To get back to the original question, it is my estimation that life is pretty rare in the universe. Not as rare as Atrocities believes but still, mighty rare.

I would not be surprised if we are the only civilization in this galaxy. I would barely raise an eyebrow if we were the only one in our local group of 17 galaxies. But thoughout the whole universe, the absolute number of civilization is reasonably high-- say between 100 and 100,000.

Unfortunately at our state of tech development we can never know for sure.

That brings to mind 2 points that have received little attention: tech level and intelligence level.

Tech Level

All the below assumes approximately equal brain power.

Right now, it is impossible for us to detect another culture as little as 100 years behind us-- a cosmic microsecond-- and it is impossible for them to detect us. This may not be true in as little as 200 years (2 cosmic microseconds). By then we may be able to see planets around another star as easily as we see the earth from the moon now. And this time span is just a tiny blip!

A society only 10,000 years more technologically advanced than us may not be obvious to us at all. Who knows what tech they might have? Whatever you guess is probably wrong. At the same time, they could hide from us easily if they so choose. If not, their antics may not even be noticed by us. Take longer spans and the gulf becomes ludicrous. We are not just "not on the same page", but in entirely different libraries!

Intelligence Level

To define, let me argue that there are various intelligence levels here on planet earth. Microbes are at one level, then perhaps worms, then insects. When we get to vertibrates, intelligence increases by quantum leaps. No doubt we are a quantum leap beyond dogs and horses and even chimps. The questions that are fairly simple to us cannot even be imagined by these creatures. I will paraphrase James Allen Gardner from one of his books.

Imagine a rock on the edge of a cliff. Its easy for us to see that eventually that rock will fall-- an errant gust of wind, an earthquake or simple erosion will push it over the edge. A few seconds observation and thought tells us this but is so unremarkable we hardly think about it. The chimp cannot even form the question let alone reach a conclusion!

It is not hard to imagine a quantum leap beyond our own level. What we can't imagine is the form it will take. In a million years, we will evolve somewhat but a million years is merely a cosmic day. It may not be enough to make that quantum leap. 10 million years may be enough. But imagine a race one billion years more evolved than us! Well, I really can't anything factual about such beings. I can say they may be all around us but we just don't have what it takes to recognize them.

The individuals of our species are very self centered. More than once (hah! many thousands of times) something has been "impossible" and we went ahead and did it anyway, yet we continue this self centered, "today" centered attitude. So, when someone says something is impossible, I just smile knowingly.

[Atrocities]

If you rule out evolution and the religious factors, what could be some other possibilities for how we came to be on this planet?

I am sorry, I do not believe that we evolved from apes and monkies nor do I believe that we were "POOOOF" created. I think there is truth in both however, but no substantial answers.

If we did develop on this world, then yes it is likely, however remote, that life could develop on other worlds. I Subscribe the theory that we are a unique side effect of a lot of rare occurances that lead to our being. I do not believe that the universe is teaming with life and the evidence to date supports this depressing view.

But if we did not evolve on this planet, and were not magically created by some super being calling itself GOD (Government of Domocracy or General Operations Director) then a whole new avenue of possiblities opens. It is this theory that we came from somewhere else that holds the most hope for imagination and coversation for me.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

there would be little point to this life if i remembered the time before my birth. how could i be challenged if i knew absolute good?

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by JurijD:
Oh no, you missunderstood my post entirely

You said that you don´te believe us to be the product of evolution from lower hominids (you called them apes and that you also don´t believe we were created by a "pooof" ....

I explained then (in great detail) that we are actually (with the highest degree of probability science can offer us now) the product of evolution starting from "apes" as you called them or hominids as they are correctly termed.

... the quote you put up has nothing to do with what I said... perhaps I didn´t make that sentance clear enough.

I wanted you to reconsider your disbeliefes in the evolution of man... and I tried to name a few arguments to get you satrted on that way. This god bussiness you developed below has nothing to do with my argument and nothing to do with what I said...

quote:

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Reconsider what? That we were created instantly or we were not created instantly?

To reconsider that we were created instantly or arrived from somewhere else... which is not the case...we most probably are the product of evolution.

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Would you consider that our species evolved from several differant lower primates? That over time cross breeding has created what we are today?

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by Gozra:
I would like to point out a few things.
First God is a God of law He obeys the RULES just like the rest of us.

"Gods thoughts are not our thoughts. Gods ways are not our ways." - Unknown

I think this to be true as well.

[JurijD]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Would you consider that our species evolved from several differant lower primates? That over time cross breeding has created what we are today?

Yes, that is an interesting idea that was proposed a few years back. For now it cannot be definately proven nor can it be disproven. But since cross-species breading is an extremely unlikely event (the offspring of such unions in most cases are infertile) I think this is not very likely, but it could have happend.

I still think the most likely event is that we came about by slow mutation of our genes mostly... perhaps cross breading played a role too. but in any case it was all natural, aliens most likely didn´t play a role here and neither did some magical being that flipped a finger and the wolrd appeared... maybe that´s how time-space got started but later on I think physics governs everything.

[ August 10, 2003, 09:40: Message edited by: JurijD ]

[JurijD]

Back to the original debate:

Simple life:
I still think that life in one form or another will be very common in our galaxy. By this I mean some form of lower single-celled life. Bacteria, protozoa etc. etc. (if cells will even be the building blocks of life on other worlds... who know !) I base this on the discoveries we made in the Last few decades. Life has turned out to exist in the most unusual places... at the bottom of the sees, in vulcanos, 10km unde ground etc. etc. where the temperature, pressure and other conditional extremes challange our usual perception of a life friendly environment. I wouldn´t be at all surprised if we found bacteria living under ground on Mars and perhaps even Venus... the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and perhaps even further out.

Complex life: The evolution of multicelular organisms requires a certain environmental stability that earth provided. But obviously the more complex life gets the more rare it will be because the more complexity an organism has the greater are its envirnomental requirements. So I´m pretty sceptical that we will find complex multicelular organisms in our solar system... perhaps on Mars, Titan or Europa... but I doubt it.

Intelliget life: Lets put the early hominids as a base line. Anything more evolved is intelligent anything less is not. By this cretaria if we found some form of aliend dolphin it would not be an intelligent life form.... Noone can really answer this question, as I pointed out erlier. I wouldn´t be surprised if our galaxy had 1.000.0000 intelligent species in it and neither if we were the only one. This is because I cannot make a realistic approximation of the number for myself... its just not possible, the Drake and the Rare Earth equations are a bunch of §%!%"§ ... they can give whatever results you want, depends how optimistic you are so they are virtually useless.

Conclusion:
I think theis question will only be answered when we have explored our entire galaxy... or have enocountered an alien race that will share its knowledge with us. since both events are very unlikely I think this post could hang around for a very long time...

[oleg]

Originally posted by JurijD:

quote:

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Originally posted by Atrocities:
Would you consider that our species evolved from several differant lower primates? That over time cross breeding has created what we are today?

Yes, that is an interesting idea that was proposed a few years back. For now it cannot be definately proven nor can it be disproven. But since cross-species breading is an extremely unlikely event (the offspring of such unions in most cases are infertile) I think this is not very likely, but it could have happend.

I still think the most likely event is that we came about by slow mutation of our genes mostly... perhaps cross breading played a role too. but in any case it was all natural, aliens most likely didn´t play a role here and neither did some magical being that flipped a finger and the wolrd appeared... maybe that´s how time-space got started but later on I think physics governs everything.

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Earlier this year there was a paper published in Nature that proved (apparently) there was no crossbreeding between neanthertals and modern man. We simply wiped them out.

[JurijD]

Originally posted by oleg:
Earlier this year there was a paper published in Nature that proved (apparently) there was no crossbreeding between neanthertals and modern man. We simply wiped them out.

Interesting. Thanks for the input. I guess crossbreading really was an imposibility and not only very unlikely.

[oleg]

There are several recent and more or less rigourous scientific papers that assert we mayin fact be one of the First Ones - stars evolution indicates stars older then our Sun are too poor in heavy elements. At the same time, younger stars give up to 20% chance of planets observable by modern - and VERY rudimentary technics ! Basically, we still have some time handicape to evolve and go to the stars. If we fail, in a millenium or two, aliens will come and resolve our pitty squables