Maybe that's why the first intelligent extraterrestrial life we find will be machine.
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Aliens, The Definitive Guide
- Thread starter canuck
- Start date
Conscious Bob
Well-Known Member
It's not a moral choice, they haven't evolved the capacity for doing so.
True.
The number of lives lost and the damage that needed to be fixed was overwhelming though. Hopefully we can learn before it's too late.
beer good
Well-Known Member
A while back I read Paul Davies' The Eerie Silence. He's very skeptical about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life; his argument goes something like this:
No matter how huge the universe is, and no matter how many planets could support life, we still have no statistics on how likely life is to a) arise in the first place, and b) evolve intelligence. We have a data point of 1: we know exactly one case where it's happened, and no cases where it hasn't happened. What's worrying is that as far as we know, both things have happened exactly once on Earth. In about 5 billion years life has arisen exactly once, and it's managed to produce exactly one intelligent, sentient, scientifically minded species. That doesn't speak well for the odds. If life arose easily, there'd be different life forms on this planet that weren't in any way related to each other, yet we share DNA with every life form ever discovered. If intelligence was a logical end point of evolution, the dinosaurs (who ruled the planet for much longer than we will) would have beaten us to the moon.
And even if intelligent life does evolve, experience tells us it's not unlikely that it'll wipe itself out before it has the chance to get off its home planet.
That's an interesting positition, worthy of consideration. On the other hand, it's just the sort of lily-livered thinking that'll get him eaten when the xenomorphs get here.
No matter how huge the universe is, and no matter how many planets could support life, we still have no statistics on how likely life is to a) arise in the first place, and b) evolve intelligence. We have a data point of 1: we know exactly one case where it's happened, and no cases where it hasn't happened. What's worrying is that as far as we know, both things have happened exactly once on Earth. In about 5 billion years life has arisen exactly once, and it's managed to produce exactly one intelligent, sentient, scientifically minded species. That doesn't speak well for the odds. If life arose easily, there'd be different life forms on this planet that weren't in any way related to each other, yet we share DNA with every life form ever discovered. If intelligence was a logical end point of evolution, the dinosaurs (who ruled the planet for much longer than we will) would have beaten us to the moon.
And even if intelligent life does evolve, experience tells us it's not unlikely that it'll wipe itself out before it has the chance to get off its home planet.
That's an interesting positition, worthy of consideration. On the other hand, it's just the sort of lily-livered thinking that'll get him eaten when the xenomorphs get here.
That's a bit silly. Any "new" life rising after Life 1.0 doesn't stand a chance because Life 1.0 can out compete it. Life only needs to arise once then evolution will take over.
Of course, AI doesn't count.
Meadow337
Former Moderator
I do however think that the statistical analysis of there are so many suns with so many planets of which x percent will be earth-like = Z chance of life arising elsewhere in the universe is a little illogical for the very reason stated - we only know for certain of one planet on which life has arisen so science is just guessing wildly at how many other planets may or may not contain life and not all of them may resemble earth.
Conscious Bob
Well-Known Member
Fair enough, shall we discuss the Fermi Paradox?
beer good
Well-Known Member
Thanks, Polly.
Meadow337
Former Moderator
Where are they?
I like this - 11 Weirdest Solutions to Fermi's Paradox
http://io9.com/11-of-the-weirdest-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox-456850746
I like this - 11 Weirdest Solutions to Fermi's Paradox
http://io9.com/11-of-the-weirdest-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox-456850746
Conscious Bob
Well-Known Member
Number seven on that list is in vogue at the moment.
http://engineeringevil.com/2013/04/09/alien-megaprojects-the-hunt-has-begun/
The Transit Method can't determine shape as it says in the i09 article but it would be able to detect unusual patterns of dimming.
http://engineeringevil.com/2013/04/09/alien-megaprojects-the-hunt-has-begun/
The Transit Method can't determine shape as it says in the i09 article but it would be able to detect unusual patterns of dimming.
Conscious Bob
Well-Known Member
Here's the consequence, taken up from the Evolution Thread.
The immense difficulty in getting DNA to spontaneously form is I think one of the main reasons we are likely alone in our Galaxy if not the Universe. Humankind has been around for 50000 years which isn't much to show for almost 4 billion years of Evolution. 4 billion years is almost a quarter of the time the Universe has been in existence, it's more than likely that our alien neighbours are floating about as microbes if they exist on Earth type planets.
The immense difficulty in getting DNA to spontaneously form is I think one of the main reasons we are likely alone in our Galaxy if not the Universe. Humankind has been around for 50000 years which isn't much to show for almost 4 billion years of Evolution. 4 billion years is almost a quarter of the time the Universe has been in existence, it's more than likely that our alien neighbours are floating about as microbes if they exist on Earth type planets.