Extraterrestrials

[Thrand]

I have never seen an extraterrestrial from another planet but that doesnt mean they dont exist. The government might know about them but I doubt it. Extraterrestrial space ships visiting earth would have nothing to gain in contacting us, humanity is paranoid, violent, and ignorant.

 

I believe the 1st requirement for a species to survive long enough to advance beyond the elementry level of human scientific understanding would be for them to resequence their genome and throw away any agression and greed, then replace it with pure reason.

 

Humanity is so ignorant, they are overpopulateing, depleating, and contaminateing the earth to no end. According to Steven Hawking if our planet continues to overpopulate the earth as it does, then the ammount of energy that will be needed to support the human race in the next 700 years will be so great the earth will glow red hot like the sun.

[MolecularMan14]

well hopefully within the next 700 years we'll be able to recycle some energy, so that we wont all be incinerated .

[Stumblebum]

The population can only grow to a point where there isn't enough food to sustain it. Stoke up the Soylant Green cooking vats boys, we eat tonite.

[Sayonara]

I'd like to know exactly what kind of population would use that much energy (and why they're so inefficient, if most of it is lost as heat). I think Hawking might be lost in the figures again on that one.

[[Tycho?]]

Well, Hawking was apparently assuming that growth would continue with the same trends we have today. Now this is obviously not possible, current world population is about 6.3 billion people. I did a basic glance at population growth, and actually found something reffering to a Hawking quote, something like it doubles ever 40 years. So population of 6.3 billion doubles every 40 years for 700 years...

 

700/40=17.5 6.3*2^(17.5)=1167791.9

 

Over 100 trillion. Which is a stupidly high number, but each person would not have to burn much energy to make the earth a very very warm place indeed.... hell, maybe they could do it just on body heat!

[Sayonara]

Well, average body heat is not a difficult number to find, so work it out

[nur_agus_ipftiuii]

There could be many probabilities. We still don't know exactly what our children can do. Maybe they can reversed smokes back into burnable material..or maybe they could use sun like we use fuel...maybe....

about the heat...we still have abundant water in our seas. If we can build city infrastructures in deep sea, we will not have to worry about heat.

thanks

[LucidDreamer]

I don't think the Hawking quote was suppose to be an actual forecast, just pointing out that we could have a population problem and not enough energy to support a giant population.

 

I too believe genetic engineering could have many benefits, but we are going to have to be very careful not to screw ourselves up. You wouldn't want to remove all forms of aggression because we might need it at some point. You would want to make people like Cain from Kung Fu--very adverse to violence, yet capable of kicking ass if need be.

[Alexa]

Some people are paranoid, violent and ignorant, but to generalize it to entire humanity, it's too much.

 

Ah, the genetic engeneering ! Maybe in about 700 hundreds years, our geneticians will be so advanced to manipulate the genome at the level of a future behaviour. I'm not sure I'll love it.

[ydoaPs]

The population can only grow to a point where there isn't enough food to sustain it. Stoke up the Soylant Green cooking vats boys, we eat tonite.

 

 

I have heard that the American Midwest is so fertile, that, if fully utilized, it could provide enough food for the entire population of Earth. Damn, I have to move so they can plant more soybeans.

[Edisonian]

I have never seen an extraterrestrial from another planet but that doesnt mean they dont exist. The government might know about them but I doubt it. Extraterrestrial space ships visiting earth would have nothing to gain in contacting us' date=' humanity is paranoid, violent, and ignorant.

 

I believe the 1st requirement for a species to survive long enough to advance beyond the elementry level of human scientific understanding would be for them to resequence their genome and throw away any agression and greed, then replace it with pure reason.

 

Humanity is so ignorant, they are overpopulateing, depleating, and contaminateing the earth to no end. According to Steven Hawking if our planet continues to overpopulate the earth as it does, then the ammount of energy that will be needed to support the human race in the next 700 years will be so great the earth will glow red hot like the sun.[/quote']

 

You are assuming that extraterrestrials would be advanced enough to travel in space ships and have cognitive functions advanced enough to reach that conclusion.

 

I think extraterrestrials have already visisted the earth millions of years ago and they continue to stop by in the form of alien microbes embeded in rocks and particles. These microbes are the building blocks for life on earth.

 

I don't share your views on humanity. If anything, humanity is preparing life for something most cannot even conceive at this point. For example, our goal could be to use earth's resources to be able to extend higher life to other regions of the universe. In that sense, our progress in 700 years could be remarkable.

[Stargazer]

I have never seen an extraterrestrial from another planet but that doesnt mean they dont exist. The government might know about them but I doubt it. Extraterrestrial space ships visiting earth would have nothing to gain in contacting us, humanity is paranoid, violent, and ignorant.

But then again, maybe they are similar to us in some respects and so they think it's great to see someone with a psychology as similar as theirs.

 

I believe the 1st requirement for a species to survive long enough to advance beyond the elementry level of human scientific understanding would be for them to resequence their genome and throw away any agression and greed, then replace it with pure reason.

Our species could very well survive itself as long as we don't decide to use all our nuclear weapons at the same time. But to get out of our current behaviour is necessary to maintain a stable technological civilization, I think. But to alter our genetic code might not be the answer. Maybe we are so complex that if we remove some instincts, the others will be affected as well.

I think the problem is more complex. What we have on this planet is a species with higher intelligence than any other, still we have the primitive instincts as well. Sometimes there seems to be a conflict, sometimes it seems like we use technology to satisfy some of thise instincts and other things that makes us who we are. This species is divided up in different societies, cultures, belief systems, philosophies, customs, languages, etc., and combine that with instincts and advanced technology. Many clashes between two cultures have not ended well. With advanced technology this does not have to be the case. We don't have to fight for resources anymore. And to fight over imaginary friends is even more silly.

[albymangles]

You are assuming that extraterrestrials would be advanced enough to travel in space ships and have cognitive functions advanced enough to reach that conclusion.

 

I think extraterrestrials have already visisted the earth millions of years ago and they continue to stop by in the form of alien microbes embeded in rocks and particles. These microbes are the building blocks for life on earth.

 

Quite possibly true, but what will these alien microbes have evolved into now?

You would have to assume that these microbes would be travelling through space for a vast period of time, and when you think of the probability of multiple meteor strikes carrying life hitting our planet, at least some of these sources must have survived long enough to evolve.

[Ophiolite]

QUOTE=Edisonian]

I think extraterrestrials have already visisted the earth millions of years ago and they continue to stop by in the form of alien microbes embeded in rocks and particles. These microbes are the building blocks for life on earth..

 

Quite possibly true' date=' but what will these alien microbes have evolved into now?

[/quote']

 

Edisonian is refering to a hypothesis called panspermia. The idea is that life on earth originated somewhere out there. It has a long history of proponents beginning with the Greek Anaxagoras and most recently Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. If you want to know more this is a good starting site (Till I read this I thought the idea started with Oparin in the 1920s):

http://www.panspermia.org/

 

So, Edisonian, and myself on even numbered days, believe that we are what those impacting microbes eveloved into.

[philbo1965uk]

 

I don't share your views on humanity. If anything' date=' humanity is preparing life for something most cannot even conceive at this point. For example, our goal could be to use earth's resources to be able to extend higher life to other regions of the universe. In that sense, our progress in 700 years could be remarkable.[/quote']

 

Or with methane levels in the atmosphere so high,make a huge tail rudder out of australia strike a match and blast us and the earth to orbit some other star system

[ydoaPs]

I think extraterrestrials have already visisted the earth millions of years ago and they continue to stop by in the form of alien microbes embeded in rocks and particles. These microbes are the building blocks for life on earth.

.

 

 

 

Edisonian is refering to a hypothesis called panspermia. The idea is that life on earth originated somewhere out there. It has a long history of proponents beginning with the Greek Anaxagoras and most recently Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. If you want to know more this is a good starting site (Till I read this I thought the idea started with Oparin in the 1920s):

http://www.panspermia.org/

 

So' date=' Edisonian, and myself on even numbered days, believe that we are what those impacting microbes eveloved into.[/quote']

 

so, you think microbes lived through travelling through space in a near vacuum for most likely billions of years then smashing into our atmosphere and still be healthy enough to reproduce? sounds far-fetched to me. also, where did that life come from? it had to come from somewhere; why not earth?

[Mad Mardigan]

I wont be alive then, so I wont know the difference.

[Ophiolite]

so, you think microbes lived through travelling through space in a near vacuum for most likely billions of years then smashing into our atmosphere and still be healthy enough to reproduce? sounds far-fetched to me. also, where did that life come from? it had to come from somewhere; why not earth?

I'm going to answer this briefly now and more fully later, if you wish, with proper references.

1. I only view it as a possibility, by no means a certainty.

2. We are identifying increasingly complex organic molecules in dust clouds in space.

3. This then becomes an excellent souce of pre-biotic chemicals akin to the famous primodial soup.

4 Don't worry about temperature, a collapsing dust cloud gets pretty hot

5 You have so much more VOLUME to play with in space, so that concerns about the probability of life emerging are reduced

6 I don't think the 'microbes' are coming in alone, but on meteorites, so that's protecting them

7 And yes life had to come from somewhere, but since there is so much more of 'there' than 'here'......

 

I know most of the objections to each of these points and have, I think some reasonable supporting evidence I can supply. Its not conclusive just suggestive. Take your best shot at any or all of them and I'll see how I can respond. Or google Hoyle & Wickramasinghe, or go to the link on my previous post.

 

(If you find the bit about the spectral signal of interstellar dust clouds really only being a match for a particular bacteria, ignore it. I think even they conceded that was too far out in left field.)

[MadScientist]

I think extraterrestrials have already visisted the earth millions of years ago and they continue to stop by in the form of alien microbes embeded in rocks and particles. These microbes are the building blocks for life on earth.

 

I thought things worked like this...

Stars that go supernova form a few basic elements which go on to form more stable stars like our own which form all the elements, like carbon, etc..

Do we know enough to say the elements we know of today are the only ones that could exist anywhere??

 

I don't see what importance microbes arriving on comets makes to anything.

On day one all life in the universe was part of the same soup anyway.

 

If you trace evolution further back than the first amino acids, all life really is is just something that gets made by stars, stars just get made in star factories which just get made by something else..

And aliens then are really just really distant ancestors of ours.

 

 

Something that interests me about ET's though is how we might act as ET's ourselves when approaching a new planet with intelligent life on it.

Things like..

 

We wouldn't want to get to know them if they were hostile because we wouldn't want them flying around the universe in ships like ours but with hostile intentions.

 

If they were more primitive than us we wouldn't want to disturb their development too much. Leaving clues like zipping down to the atmosphere might be an idea though. I won't mention genetically engineering a human to become like one of them and performing spectacular feats using advanced technology like walking on water or anything like that.

 

 

If the universe is 13.7 billion years old or even older and life on Earth's only been evolving for the past 5 billion there could be species out there a good few million years further ahead than we are.

 

If in 1 million years time we come across a planet with intelligent life equal to our own as it is now, from our perspective then they'll seem like apes to us now. Abducting a few of those to examine them then putting them back wouldn't bother us much. We'd know from our own history that no one would believe them anyway. In actual fact we'd be doing them a favour, think of all the great films they could start making about these so called aliens.

 

 

And because of all that I don't think aliens will introduce themselves properly until the whole planet sorts itself out.

We need to stop fighting and start helping each other out. Instead of spending billions on warfare develop technology for turning sea water into drinkable water. Or bung it all into medical research or the space program.

We need to stop thinking of ourselves as English, French, African, Chinese, American, etc.. or black, white, yellow etc... and start thinking of ourselves as humans.

But that means some extremely radical changes like throwing all the religions out and creating a new one.

Rascism will only die out when all the races have interbred so much that there's only one race left.

 

I don't expect ET to come knocking any day soon.

Unless they can monitor our internet and pick all us good guys up.

[JohnB]

Ophiolite, you do realise that the scenario you put forward vitually ensures that the Universe is full of life? I fully agree with you by the way.

[Ophiolite]

Ophiolite, you do realise that the scenario you put forward vitually ensures [/i']that the Universe is full of life? I fully agree with you by the way.

Absolutely. I lean strongly to the view elegantly put forward by Ward and Brownlee in their book Rare Earth (ISBN 0-387-95289-6) that microbial life is commonplace, but advanced animal life is rare indeed, perhaps unique.

Where I differ from them is having extreme discomfort with the idea that we could go from nothing to blue-green alagae in just a few hundred million years. For that we need a longer time. So, I look 'out there' for the origin. Heh, if it was good enough for Francis Crick, it's good enough for me.

[tecoyah]

It is my opinion that indeed life is abundant in this universe. That said, the distances, and timescales involved would make contact relatively unlikely in the short lifespan we have had in our civilization. As I firmly believe nothing is impossible (just not done yet) we will likely find evidence of space buddies in the extended future......should we allow ourselves to exist that long. It is pretty much proven that some form of microbe set the stage for the evolution of life on Earth, and these could very well have been of extra-terrestrial origin. This does not mean they were neccessarily "placed" here....but who knows.

There is also compelling evidence (Carl Sagans' Tholins) of an early Earth atmosphere, that would have inevitably produced the complex organics needed to create RNA, but again, all of this is theoretical.

While I of course, hope for some SETI miracle to find evidence of Alien presence in my lifetime....I am not holding my breath (as this would shorten my lifespan) but I am hopeful.

[Sorcerer]

Absolutely. I lean strongly to the view elegantly put forward by Ward and Brownlee in their book Rare Earth (ISBN 0-387-95289-6) that microbial life is commonplace' date=' but advanced animal life is rare indeed, perhaps unique.

Where I differ from them is having extreme discomfort with the idea that we could go from nothing to blue-green alagae in just a few hundred million years. For that we need a longer time. So, I look 'out there' for the origin. Heh, if it was good enough for Francis Crick, it's good enough for me.[/quote']

 

Bah, you sound like my mum nagging my dad.... "Slow down, you're going to fast." Why does life need a longer time, is it just because you say so?

[Ophiolite]

Bah, you sound like my mum nagging my dad.... "Slow down, you're going to fast." Why does life need a longer time, is it just because you say so?

My, Sorcerer, you do have such an elegant way with words! I'm sorry if I awoke oedipal cravings in you.

 

Several noted scientists who have intellects, experience and knowledge far in excess of my own have expressed disquiet with the available time for life to arise on Earth. I have found their reasoning to be lucid and plausible.

In contrast many of those who favour the Earth origin seem to do a lot of 'hand waving' to bypass the difficult questions.

 

It is my opinion, based on an objective assessment of the evidence I have been able to review that there are many uncertainties as to the exact path by which life arose. I do not know whether life arose independently here on Earth, or arrived here from space. There is evidence for both. So I lean towards the extra-terrestrial option. I would not be surprised if it were to turn out either way. I think it's called keeping an open mind.

 

Nullius in verba

[MadScientist]

My' date=' Sorcerer, you do have such an elegant way with words! I'm sorry if I awoke oedipal cravings in you.

 

Several noted scientists who have intellects, experience and knowledge far in excess of my own have expressed disquiet with the available time for life to arise on Earth. I have found their reasoning to be lucid and plausible.

In contrast many of those who favour the Earth origin seem to do a lot of 'hand waving' to bypass the difficult questions.

 

It is [i']my[/i] opinion, based on an objective assessment of the evidence I have been able to review that there are many uncertainties as to the exact path by which life arose. I do not know whether life arose independently here on Earth, or arrived here from space. There is evidence for both. So I lean towards the extra-terrestrial option. I would not be surprised if it were to turn out either way. I think it's called keeping an open mind.

 

Nullius in verba

 

Nice but "Your mind you must open a little more young Jedi..."

Did life start on Earth or did the seeds arrive from space. It doesn't matter, step back and look at things, the earth itself came from space. So you're right to go for the ET option.