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Amaris
Guest
I would certainly love to be alive if/when we make the discovery that there is life on other planets, and I don't even mean highly evolved intelligent life. It would just be satisfying to me to finally know for certain that life can and does exist elsewhere in the universe.
I wouldn't be too sure of that. Yes, eggheads have been reminding us from since The Beginning how Life is made of the most common substances throughout the known Universe. Which heavily implicates -- as they've also said -- that where Life CAN occur, it DOES occur. Whilst our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Yet dinosaurs reigned for about 150 million years or whatever the exact number was, but it was ample time, one would expect, for them to arrive at a point where they reached Human-level awareness and eventually walked on the Moon. Birds are dinosaurs, of course, and certain crows and parrots have already been shown to be self-aware, though they have yet to write Shakespeare. More than that, there have been a number of great extinction events where Humanity's ancestors could've been made extinct without our even having a chance. Even amongst the other animals in the wilds, only the most primitive have shown any true adaptability, beyond ourselves: the insects, in particular.
And once we've eradicated ourselves, due to war or whatever, they will rule the Earth. I wouldn't be very surprised, at all, actually, if it took an entire Universe to chance upon Human-like awareness. And even if our Galaxy is teaming with Advanced Civilisations, it's always amused me how people assume that these Aliens would be interested in bringing us up to their level, just to be in a position to make small talk with them. Scientists are only on the edge of understanding technologies that aliens could apply to investigate Earth, without ever making us aware of it. I mean, if they wanted our fresh water, they could just abscond with Europa and we'd never know who did it, or how. They don't need us for anything other than to alleviate boredom, if that. But had there been other Intelligent Life in this Solar System, like if Venus were The Planet of Scantily Clad Women ... you'd see the Space Age warp speed ahead on our world, pretty damn quick ... I can tell you that.
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Amaris
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The chances certainly seem slim, but if there's one thing about humans that I've come to understand over the span of my lifetime, it's that we're stubborn to the point of futility. I doubt we'll give up on the search, and it may very well pay off.
Scientists have studied the possibilities voraciously. And there are formulas for determining the right cosmological conditions to support life as we know it. Even taking the most conservative side of the calculations, based on what we've observed thus far, there are perhaps several billion planets that could sustain life similar to Earth. We have no idea how many other variations of life could exist with other parameters.
But look at it more simply -- the universe is mind boggling enormous. We're but ONE planet. The odds that we are the only sentient life in the entire universe is likely to be several trillion to 1. The human frailty is ego... always has been. We simply have to accept the fact that we're one tiny incarnation of life. AND we must divorce ourselves from OUR time constraints. The data we see through Hubble represents the echo of cosmological events that took place millions of years ago. Remember "Long ago in a galaxy far away?" There may very well have been space faring species that have already come and gone... and we may one day encounter their signals, not knowing whether they still exist or not.
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Amaris
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I'm also curious what meeting another non-human culture would do for various religions on Earth. I am certain some would adapt easily, while others might be stubborn. Would meeting "aliens" change anyone's faith?
I doubt it. If anything, it'd strengthen the fanatics' tendencies to shut their eyes from reality and pretend it doesn't happen.
It'd be a nice chance if an extraterrestrian intelligence were discovered (which still leaves the question open to discussion whether there is any intelligent life on Terra. Considering the results of several elections around the globe I have grave doubts).
And since I'm a newbie to this thread, please allow me to introduce me as far as the original post is concerned: atheist by conviction, raised catholic but never ever believed those stories and officially resigned from that club the instant I turned 18; don't believe in any other deity or magic(k)ally endowed entity and never have done so.
A scientist by profession and conviction I consider it certain we are not alone in this universe. I do doubt, however, that we'll ever contact extraterrestrian lifeforms due to the distance. Also, I am not sanguine as to wether we'd recognize them as lifeforms at all, life not necessarily having to be water and carbon based as it is here.
(Great topic, Amaris! It's been ages that we had something that interesting in Misc.)
It'd be a nice chance if an extraterrestrian intelligence were discovered (which still leaves the question open to discussion whether there is any intelligent life on Terra. Considering the results of several elections around the globe I have grave doubts).
And since I'm a newbie to this thread, please allow me to introduce me as far as the original post is concerned: atheist by conviction, raised catholic but never ever believed those stories and officially resigned from that club the instant I turned 18; don't believe in any other deity or magic(k)ally endowed entity and never have done so.
A scientist by profession and conviction I consider it certain we are not alone in this universe. I do doubt, however, that we'll ever contact extraterrestrian lifeforms due to the distance. Also, I am not sanguine as to wether we'd recognize them as lifeforms at all, life not necessarily having to be water and carbon based as it is here.
(Great topic, Amaris! It's been ages that we had something that interesting in Misc.)
I believe there is sentient life 'out there' and they are as interested in us as the average human is interested in ants.
... or not.
SETI is fun. At a company I once worked for, one of the IT guys got his wrist slapped for running SETI on one of the corporate servers without authorization.
Kor
It genuinely bothers me that if we will probably have proof of alien life long after I'm dead. It bothers me I'll miss it.
However. If actual space ships showed up in the skies I would shit myself in terror.
However. If actual space ships showed up in the skies I would shit myself in terror.
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Amaris
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Thank you! Also, you make an excellent point. Right now we look for life based on our own understanding of how we identify its processes. For all we know, there are alien life forms out there looking for life in the universe, and they have a list of 10 things, and we don't qualify. Who knows?
They hang out in some of the best places. Chill in a natural hot spring and take care of your own.
Ignorance can be bliss.
I think it's both. I think there's a universe of thinking as well as consciousness. Every being has both with differing degrees. It's something that's highly subjective.
This of course makes it very difficult for science to come up with theories and explanations of consciousness and thinking, because by its very nature science tries to get the objective reality in terms of laws. Even if some laws speak of observer dependency (Quantum mechanics), they are supposedly universal. I don't think there's an objective way to measure consciousness, at least not yet.
I'm agnostic so I like to think I am open to the possibility of their might being some kind of God and maybe no God at all. I can see some logic to their being a God but then I also consider my fear of death might be influencing that opinion and thus I doubt everything. I'm almost certain that if their is some kind of God it won't be anything like any religion on earth has ever conceived. In fact if I had to make a guess I think a God would be more like a sentient but emotionless computer than as a being that cares about the life that has created anymore than we care about the feelings or emotions of are organs. All we care about is making sure they function properely by keeping them going by eating,breathing etc.
I have even more doubts about a afterlife because even though a God sort of makes sense I don't know what the point of a afterlife could be. Humans couldn't handle imortality without going crazy and if you altered us in away to live in that kind of enviroment we would no longer be who we are. Imagine yourself 5 billion years old in a place were no normal human society stuff no longer exists and ask yourself if you really,really want to be that kind of being. With that said I still sort of believe in near-death experiences and I think they are more than just dreams but I also know that contradicts my thoughts on a afterlife so I am not sure how to settle that in my mind.
Jason
I have even more doubts about a afterlife because even though a God sort of makes sense I don't know what the point of a afterlife could be. Humans couldn't handle imortality without going crazy and if you altered us in away to live in that kind of enviroment we would no longer be who we are. Imagine yourself 5 billion years old in a place were no normal human society stuff no longer exists and ask yourself if you really,really want to be that kind of being. With that said I still sort of believe in near-death experiences and I think they are more than just dreams but I also know that contradicts my thoughts on a afterlife so I am not sure how to settle that in my mind.
Jason
Then there is the spectacular possibility that man in fact did create God or the concept of it. But not just in the sense of the way we create systems of thought or concepts like democracy, capitalism etc. There is quite possibly a....dimension or force or all-pervasive consciousness that allows us to create things. To take a reverse-analogy from Information Technology, a cloud. We quite possibly have this ability to read and write onto this cloud. But the ability to do this varies in degree from person to person. It's possible that there are people like Jesus, Mohammed, Krishna/Rama etc. who have this natural ability (due to their unique combination of genes) that allows them to read and write more effectively and deeply than anyone else. They have great reach. They simply chose, as was the custom of the time, to write stories that would appeal to many, that would help them live their lives as it was in their respective eras. And they also probably made a decent attempt at making their creations as timeless as possible. They weren't perfect, which is why we today have to reinterpret some of what has been textually written to suit our own time.
All just my thoughts of course. Snow monkeys may know more.
All just my thoughts of course. Snow monkeys may know more.
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Amaris
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I find this idea rather fascinating.
[Would`t this fit my theory of God basically being like a sentient, unfeeling computer? The living universe, idea. JasonQUOTE="Serveaux, post: 12307376, member: 59347"]Consciousness is a real conundrum; no one really knows what it is; no one knows if it is, in fact, useful or necessary. Consciousness does not necessarily follow from intelligence. There may well be a universe of thinking going on with very rare instances of consciousness. Or, it may be that some kind of consciousness pervades everything. I think the former is more likely than the latter.[/QUOTE]
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