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Pat_B - I use the term "sentient" life because it is not likely that any
other life forms in this universe (if they exist) will be human as we know it.
We are a carbon based life form, distinctly a product of the chemicals, gasses and elements that are found on the planet earth. The combination of these elements may not exist, at least in the same proportions, anywhere else in the universe. We really don't know much beyond this pertaining to what other sentient life forms may look like but we can only hope that they aren't human.
posted by
gomedome
on May 28, 2007 at 9:45 AM
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If life is discovered .... assuming you mean human life...
it would be surprising, even amazing. It would have no effect whatsoever on my religious belief, but it might make me want to get in shape for space travel...
posted by
Pat_B
on May 28, 2007 at 8:13 AM
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Tonyzonit - we cannot escape the fact that we know little of the existence
of life on other planets.
Our perceptions of this are derived from our entertainment mediums more than from our collective knowledge base. The scientific community can only make educated guesses as to first; the existence of other sentient life in the universe and second; if they have ever visited us or will at some time in the future. In attempting to guess the likelyhood of these things there is only limited and incomplete information to extrapolate from but these limitations have given us two sets of odds that seem plausible. In the blog I linked to the odds of there being other life in the universe is hypothesized to be very high in favour. 70 sextillion (70,000 million) to 1 is the ratio arrived at with the limited information we have. On the other hand the odds of us having been visited in the past or the likelyhood of such visits in the future by extraterrestrials are a similar number but not in favor. Where the determination of the odds of life existing elsewhere in the universe was simple a matter of estimate counting the numbers of stars that we can see and extrapolating what sounds like reasonable math from this estimated number, arriving at the odds of the likelihood of a visit is much more complicated.
We only have mankind's history to extrapolate from. We have been in existence for 450,000 years to use a popular number. We have had air travel for about 100 years of that existence, we have had space travel capability for about 50 years and very rudimentary space travel when speaking in intergalactic terms. For a sentient species to visit us, they must to some degree parallel our development simply for us to understand who they are, (they would have been gods if the landed as recently as 200 years ago for example). We are also working on the assumption that the great distances of space can in fact be conquered. When we consider that we may destroy our habitat or ourselves as a species long before we are able to travel deep into space, we must also accommodate the notion that other sentient species suffer from these same shortcomings. When we go back to our 450,000 years number, we must now realize that any sentient species anywhere in the universe may not come close to following this pace of development (or lack thereof). We simply do not know if we are highly advanced as far as sentient species go, or if we are severely retarded . . . . the 70 sextillion number could also represent the odds against us ever visiting or having been visited by extraterrestrials.
I know I didn't address the other aspects of your comment but I do agree that many types of research need to be prioritized but we also have more mundane but nonetheless pressing problems to solve.
posted by
gomedome
on May 27, 2007 at 5:02 PM
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Interesting point, Gome - life on other planets.
I don't have much to say about the religious angle beyond what you said, but what interests me is whether it is possible to evolve naturally very far beyond the point we've reached, at least in brain power, scientific knowledge, art, technical ability and so on. Although science may continue to improve over time, it would improve so much faster if any life form, our own or one on another planet, carried out genetic engineering with the goal of improving their intelligence - e.g. if there was some way of clearing out the junk DNA and replacing it with good DNA, and especially trying to improve the intelligent genes or even mechanically improving our living brains somehow by some sort of implant. It seems to me that only that way could we be clever enough to reach other planets. And if that is the only way, then either we should do it sooner rather than later, or some ther race will do it and could potentially colonise our earth and maybe even wipe us out if they choose? Any thoughts on this?
posted by
Antonionioni
on May 27, 2007 at 2:41 PM
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