Are we alone?

[Jumonji]

I'd be happy just to find intelligent life in Congress.

 

But what about stupid life in the universe? Are we so baised that we won't accept stupid life? I bet there's a lot of stupid life out there and if we wouldn't be so judgemental we'd settle for that.

 

-Jumonji

[ninja_lord666]

I think most people believe that there is something or someone out there, but, I'd agree with ninja that the probability of beings likened to us is fairly low.

The chance is even lower if one believes the currently accepted theory for the creation of the moon. According to that theory, there was another planet in between Earth and Mars called Orpheus. Orpheus was about half the size of Earth and had an orbit very near Earth's orbit. Eventually, Orpheus hit Earth which formed the moon. I won't go into detail, but the hit completely destroyed Earth as it was, reconfigured the atmosphere (adding O₂), and forming the moon. If this never happened, Earth would be very different. What are the chances of something like this happening again somewhere else?

 

I liked the reference to ants, as well. I don't believe they would be 'more' intelligent, but on par with us. There are certain species which sole purpose is to wage war on other species and to enslave them, oddly reminiscent of our own behavior from the past and even today.

You also can't forget octopuses. They are quite intelligent as well. I'll bet, if Orpheus never hit us, Earth would be controlled by some form of octopus.

 

I'd be happy just to find intelligent life in Congress.

;D NICE!

[Vagrant0]

So witch was your opinion?

I believe he was being sarcastic.

Not sarcastic. I was merely stating that if we are the only form of intelligent life in the universe, someone made a mistake. In truth, it doesn't matter, if we are, we'll just continue killing eachother over petty disputes, if we aren't, we'll still kill eachother over petty disputes, but will also be killing aliens since they are different. Although it would be fun to see how those excessively religious types would respond to aliens.

 

At any rate, the discussion is pointless. Even if we did find evidence, we probably wouldn't be able to act on any of it, and there would certainly be people who would be trying hard to disprove it, or to foil any attempts to act on it. Our current society is just too damn stupid to be able to handle it either way. And we aren't particularly on a road where that is close to being changed. Heck, aliens enslaving humanity might just be the best possible outcome if you considder the long term implications. Although even that won't happen, humans just aren't suited for slave labor, we're too stubborn, rather weak, not very bright, and can't survive in harsh conditions for long. We don't even taste good. It's no suprise why aliens havn't bothered with humanity. We are no good to them, and we've screwed our planet over so much that our resources probably aren't even worth taking any more.

[DecalMirror]

Vagrant..

You're speaking like every intelligent species uses same resources as we do. I'm not saying they don't but I think that the physical phenomenons and basic elements we see here in earth are only a few percents from them all. Just, take a look to black holes. They are only one prove how less we know about physics. I mean that there's so much we don't know but the aliens may know.

 

Besides, from your posts I can see that you imagine aliens to be just like in movies, their behavior, physical and social structure is very near to human. So, let me quote you: "that's narrow minded.." :wink:

[ResidentWeevil2077]

So witch was your opinion?

I believe he was being sarcastic.

Not sarcastic. I was merely stating that if we are the only form of intelligent life in the universe, someone made a mistake. In truth, it doesn't matter, if we are, we'll just continue killing eachother over petty disputes, if we aren't, we'll still kill eachother over petty disputes, but will also be killing aliens since they are different. Although it would be fun to see how those excessively religious types would respond to aliens.

Yeah - it's called "xenophobia".

 

At any rate, the discussion is pointless. Even if we did find evidence, we probably wouldn't be able to act on any of it, and there would certainly be people who would be trying hard to disprove it, or to foil any attempts to act on it. Our current society is just too damn stupid to be able to handle it either way. And we aren't particularly on a road where that is close to being changed. Heck, aliens enslaving humanity might just be the best possible outcome if you considder the long term implications. Although even that won't happen, humans just aren't suited for slave labor, we're too stubborn, rather weak, not very bright, and can't survive in harsh conditions for long. We don't even taste good. It's no suprise why aliens havn't bothered with humanity. We are no good to them, and we've screwed our planet over so much that our resources probably aren't even worth taking any more.

Are you then saying you're a misanthropist?

[Vagrant0]

Are you then saying you're a misanthropist?

 

Nah, I'm just being exceptionally cynical with this thread as it is pretty much an all or nothing situation where nobody currently has any real, concrete, scientifically testable evidence one way or the other. Therefore it serves everyone better to point out that humanity may not be around long enough to find out, and that humnanity is quite possibly too flawed at this point in time for any extraterrestrial life to really want to make the journey. A misanthropist would have said that this is how it will always be, I am not making those claims. We can change for the better, we just apparently need a reason bigger than our own selfishness.

 

It's not narrow minded, it's simply refusing to accept this ideliogic view that many people have about this subject. As for aliens having to appear humanoid, I never said such a thing, stop putting words in my mouth. As far as resources go, while they may have slightly different uses for them, due to the physical/chemical properties of those resources, it is more likely that they will have the same general uses no matter what. If common resources could be used in very different ways, they probably would already have been.

[DecalMirror]

..stop putting words in my mouth.

Sorry, I didn't. Or at least I wasn't trying to. In the way you described your points I just saw a stereotypical picture of an alien. Thinking aliens to be like that can be very limiting in the subject itself: is tere life and is it intelligent. Being intelligent is not the only criteria to have successful history of the entire race. Take a shark for example. They have lived millions of years already yet they are still almost unchanged from what they've been in past.

[Abramul]

A starfaring race may reasonably be assumed to be intelligent. Whether or not said race would consider humans intelligent, or care if they were, is a different question.

 

I should note that by 'starfaring', I mean capable of building starships, rather than merely being capable of interstellar travel.

[Vagrant0]

A starfaring race may reasonably be assumed to be intelligent. Whether or not said race would consider humans intelligent, or care if they were, is a different question.

 

I should note that by 'starfaring', I mean capable of building starships, rather than merely being capable of interstellar travel.

Why exclude a race which has become capable of using starship technology, but not the ability to create them themselves? A race using borrowed, discovered, or stolen tech would be just as likely as one having able to develop that tech themselves. There's also symbiotic life forms (Goa'uld, atleast conceptually) , or the very unlikely case of a species which can survive in space (crystaline entity, or something completely different), or a race being able to exploit such a species (living ship). Wouldn't be better to just leave it to oragnisims which are capable of logic, or life which is of significant complexity?

 

*Edit* Then there's the case of a race which is capable of trancendental relocation (K-pac, or whatever), should we discriminate against them since they don't need ships?

[Abramul]

My point was more that a lifeform that is capable of designing and building starships may be assumed to be intelligent, but forms that use designs provided by others, or that are intrinsically capable of interstellar travel, would have to be evaluated on an individual basis. Which, given that you'd need to establish communication in order to know how they attained their starship design, isn't very useful.

 

As an example, a self replicating spacecraft could be considered to be alive, and is capable of building more spacecraft, but whether or not it's intelligent depends on its programming.

 

And yes, I know I didn't mention designing in my previous post.