The Plausibility of Alien Life

in the topic "The source of Life homunculus asked I would like to address this in a new topic.My point is that given that the size of the visible universe and the amount of galaxies within it, that it would be plausible that there are many stars similar to our sun. Given that a rocky planet that was at a distance that would allow for liquid water to occur and was dense enough to maintain a sizable atmosphere, then life would be possible and intelligent life would be plausible.If such life was advanced, far beyond our own, the yes it would be plausible that alien life could travel to our earth.Do you agree or not and why?Edited by bluescat48, : typo

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

The only (potential) point of disagreement that I have with you is I say potential because I'm not sure how far you want to go with this.Is it plausible that alien life could travel to Earth? Yes.It is plausible that alien life would travel to Earth? No. There is nothing particularly distinctive about our 3rd rock from a rather ordinary star that would attract alien life here. About the only thing Earth has to distinguish itself from even the other planets in our solar system is our production of radio waves. Since this production has been ongoing for around 100 years or so, there's nothing to attract any alien civilization that's more than 100 light years away.It is plausible that alien life has traveled to Earth? (I'm addressing this point only in the interests of thoroughness. I'm fairly confident that you don't ascribe to this idea.) There's not a single bit of verifiable evidence that it has and, given what I said in the immediately preceding paragraph, good reason not to believe it has.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I somewhat agree with the 2d statement. Maybe they would not intentionally aim directly for the earth, but if they were in the neighborhood for some unknown reason, seeing that the planet appears to be similar to there own start point, just might just take a look at it.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Obviously evaluating to probability of such a claim depends on many variables we can only guess at. However, my belief (which I cannot prove with objective evidence) is that such a possibility is exceedingly small.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Why would they send life? Couldn't they send robots or droids across the universe, looking for other life? Why should they use the method Columbus used to discover America?Edited by Agobot, : No reason given.

Well, with our meagre naked eye we can see several stars similar to our sun. Alpha Centauri A is a little over 4 light years away Tau Ceti is a mere 12 light years away, 51 Pegasi is about 50 light years away. I think from that alone we can infer it is almost certainly the case that there are many G V stars in the universe. Agreed. If by could you mean 'they would have the capability' then yes. Humans might have such capability to go visiting extra solar systems if we had the will to do it. By postulating that they are far more advanced that our own - we have entered into speculation territory. Does this mean they are able to find us (given the aforementioned size of the universe that is a tricky proposition normally). Then do they have the technology to get here within a time frame that they are concerned with and finally are there other planets they'd rather visit?The final hurdle is that they would have to exist within same time as us. Right now we've only given off interesting signals into space for at best a century or so. That doesn't cover a lot of space. If the nearest more advanced species is a mere 6,000 light years away we might well be extinct before they receive the signal and decide to come here.It doesn't seem likely from our perspective, but speculation can lead us all over the place I suppose.

So if one involves speculation, let's assume that this planet has a natural history very similar to our own, formed about the same time, with similar amounts of water, the same minerals and same climate and everything evolved the same way. The one difference is no Dark Ages. the discoveries we made since the 1600's they made 1000 years earlier.
Thus they would be advanced. That is what I meant when I said

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

vThat's pretty much what I thought you meant - though I kept it open just in case. Since we don't know (by definition) what those advancements might be, it is speculation. I mentioned that they might have better technologies for finding us and maybe they have better methods of getting here, but it is pretty big on speculation and it would still be hugely impractical unless they had FTL technology.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Factors relative to life advanced far beyond our own.1. Such life, being in a higher dimension than our own, like invisible forces of science may be invisible to the level of human eyesight.2. Such life may have powers capable of affecting the human Psyche.3. Such life, being of a higher intelligence may exercise higher energy than humans consider natural; i.e. supernatural powers.4. Such intelligent energy may not be restricted to the necessities of life required on planet earth or to moving about in the cosmos. As is the case with inanimate forces operating in the cosmos, so may it be with these intelligent creatures.In summary, if a higher level of intelligence is possible, why not a higher state of physiology.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

There is one thing that most people forget to consider when dicussing about alien life. Right now, we believe that the universe is about 13 billion years old, more or less. Our species has only existed a couple million years, more or less. Civilization on this planet has only existed for about 5-10 thousand years. We've only become technologically advance enough to transmit and listen to radio waves. We haven't even gone to another star system.What are the chances of 2 or more technologically advance civilizations existing within communication range of each other at the same time to be able to come in contact with each other?Time isn't just a problem. Time is THE problem.

But why should a higher state of physiology imply supernatural powers. It wouldn't take much in that there have been humans who have done that.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Hi, Buzsaw.Being a long-time science fiction writer, I feel somewhat qualified to answer some of your questions. In this case, "higher intelligence" need not be an entity with a better or more efficient brain than ours, or even be built superiorly to us: they need only to have studied longer, harder or with less distraction. No new "type" or "state" of intelligence is needed.I won't say it that a new state of intelligence is impossible, but we don't need to discuss it to consider a being that could travel space.I would personally be more interested in the non-intelligent alien life that we might find. I suspect that non-intelligent life is much more likely to be abundant, and it could really expand our knowledge of biology rapidly.

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-Bluejay/Mantis/ThylacosmilusDarwin loves you.

I was wondering when someone would get around to alien life that was not humanoid. I agree that it would be more likely to find "non-intelligent life" considering that the planet would not have to be able to sustain more advanced forms of life.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Why require the same physiology as ours? Why not an advanced psyiology allowing for space existence and like inanimate objects which move about in the universe? Why not the possibility of intelligent properties relative to some objects which we humans would consider inanimate? Could, perhaps, the mysterious aspects of things like particles or some other phenomena be related to intelligence in them?Many humans of sound mind have made claims of powers relative to alleged encounters involving entities greater than our own in both the good and evil such as witchcraft, voodoo, paganism, spiritism, Biblical, flying saucer claims, etc.Is it rational to insist that each and every one of these, claimed throughout human history are all bogus? Multiple eye witnesses of sound mind, have attested to the phenomenon of levitation in spiritualist meetings, for example.Is what earthlings regard as supernatural really super natural or, perhaps, a super and natural form of intelligent creatures.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.