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| do you believe in UFOs and/or life on other planets? |
| yes |
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72% |
[ 45 ] |
| no |
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14% |
[ 9 ] |
| i'm an alien! |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| God, as humans know It, is an Alien! |
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1% |
[ 1 ] |
| i'd go anywhere, anytime, any place with your alien, handsome ass, boy next door... |
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4% |
[ 3 ] |
| you're a neurotic psychopath that needs to be hospitalized, TBND! |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| i once had sex with an alien and now my baby can read minds... |
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6% |
[ 4 ] |
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| Total Votes : 62 |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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 Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:09 am Post subject: |
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The odds of a planet being like our own are very small.
If it's human-centric to think only our planet has life, isn't it also human-centric to think there may be other things like us out there?
There are trillions of pieces of space debris out there too, but no one expects to find life on them.
On the other hand, we know very little about life and the universe so we can't rule anything out. I'd click a 'don't know' option if there was one. |
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the boy next door
Joined: 08 Jun 2008
Location: next door
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| Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:20 am Post subject: |
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moon-beings live inside the moon and during the eclipse tomorrow they will take over the earth and send all the politicians to hell.
mark my words!  |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2009 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
| isn't it also human-centric to think there may be other things like us out there? |
No. It's a mathematical certainty. The likelihood of Earth being the only planet/satelite with intelligent life - in just our galaxy - is zero. So says the Drake Equation.
Not that humancentricity is remotely relevant, mind you.
| Privateer wrote: |
| On the other hand, we know very little about life and the universe so we can't rule anything out |
We know enough about life in order to conclude that it doesn't need much encouragement to get started. Life on Earth began in a variety of 'hostile' circumstances - geothermal circumstances, for example (the least commonsensical place one would think life can emerge), and our very early living ancestors were bombarded by cosmic radiation greater than those exposed in the vacinity of Hiroshima after Little Boy was dropped.
And we know enough about the universe to conclude that it contains 140 billion galaxies and counting.
Even if advanced life is a one-star-in-a-billion shot, we're still talking one hell of a number. |
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Privateer
Joined: 31 Aug 2005
Location: Easy Street.
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| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 4:46 am Post subject: |
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We don't really know how life got started here. We have some idea of what conditions were like around the time it did but that just tells us it must be possible for life to start under those conditions; it doesn't tell us whether those are the only conditions or how life actually started.
We have a better idea of what conditions life in its present form needs to survive, but that's not the same thing as conditions required for genesis, let alone the cause of genesis.
If we could say with certainty that life will occur under conditions x, y, and z, then we could look for places in the galaxy that satisfy or at one point satisfied those conditions and predict the existence of life, but AFAIK we can't.
We also don't really have a satisfactory definition of what life is, other than that it self-replicates, which leads to the unsatisfying result that certain types of crystal may be called 'alive'. |
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phoneboothface
Joined: 26 Apr 2009
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 5:28 am Post subject: |
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| way too many planets out there, got to be life on at least one of them right? |
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Sergio Stefanuto
Joined: 14 May 2009
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2009 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Privateer wrote: |
We don't really know how life got started here. We have some idea of what conditions were like around the time it did but that just tells us it must be possible for life to start under those conditions; it doesn't tell us whether those are the only conditions or how life actually started.
We have a better idea of what conditions life in its present form needs to survive, but that's not the same thing as conditions required for genesis, let alone the cause of genesis.
If we could say with certainty that life will occur under conditions x, y, and z, then we could look for places in the galaxy that satisfy or at one point satisfied those conditions and predict the existence of life, but AFAIK we can't. |
The absence of a full understanding of how life began on Earth hardly strengthens skepticism about life existing elsewhere.
Since the life we know is, first and foremost, based on carbon - a substance made by the fusion of helium late in a star's life - it's easy to imagine carbon-based life evolving all over the place, recycling stardust and minerals from space. And the process of evolution is, in theory, not limited to carbon chemistry.
| Privateer wrote: |
| We also don't really have a satisfactory definition of what life is, other than that it self-replicates, which leads to the unsatisfying result that certain types of crystal may be called 'alive'. |
"Entities with the properties of multiplication, varation and heredity are alive, and entities lacking any one or more of those properties are not" (John Maynard Smith, Oxford biologist)
"The ability to evolve is what distinguishes systems that are alive biologically from pre-biotic chemical systems" (Jack Szostak, molecular biologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston) |
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MissLady717
Joined: 04 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| its a big universe. i seriously doubt were the only ones here. |
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the boy next door
Joined: 08 Jun 2008
Location: next door
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| Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 5:46 am Post subject: |
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| MissLady717 wrote: |
| its a big universe. i seriously doubt were the only ones here. |
me too... |
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rchristo10
Joined: 14 Jul 2009
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| Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 12:04 am Post subject: |
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Gosh, I thought our ARC cards were proof...please tell me I'm not still on Earth!  |
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Medic
Joined: 11 Mar 2003
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| Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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There has to be. Our atmosphere is conducive to life as we know it, and they have found moons and asteroids with atmospheres totally different within the same vicinity of each other as our earth and the moon. Some might be all nitrogen and another might be all methane. It's all pot luck and random.
What would it do for us to be confronted with people from another planet? |
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AgentM
Joined: 07 Jun 2009
Location: British Columbia, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Medic wrote: |
| What would it do for us to be confronted with people from another planet? |
If anything can unite Earth, it would be meeting an alien species. We'd just better hope they're friendly, or we're screwed.  |
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The Gipkik
Joined: 30 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:26 am Post subject: |
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| AgentM wrote: |
If anything can unite Earth, it would be meeting an alien species. We'd just better hope they're friendly, or we're screwed. |
This is the only thing that will unite the earth, whether they be friendly or hostile, but don't hold your breath. Subconsciously, we wait for this kind of encounter, we clearly need it, our myths, our legends, our stories yearn for this. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:08 am Post subject: |
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So would you rather go out with the long horned, green skinned girl who danced for Jabba the Hutt or would you rather go out with the green skinned girl who danced with Captain Kirk?
For the ladies who is sexier- Worf or Chewbacca?
To seriously answer the topic, odds would seem to dictate that there is other life. However there is a microscopic chance that we are somehow the first sentient life form to exist in this universe. Possibilities are endless.
And define life and aliens. Sentient or not? carbon-based or not? Matter-based or energy-based? |
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Teelo
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
Location: Wellington, NZ
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| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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Jay: Do you ever think we're alone in the universe?
Tee: Yes
...
Tee: No
Jay: Hey let me buy you some pie |
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thoreau
Joined: 21 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Biblethumper wrote: |
| God says that he created man and biological life on earth only. |
Chapter and verse please! |
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