Do You Believe in Higher Lifeforms in the Universe?

[Stardust]

Equations.  We're foolish to think we can sum everything up with an equation.  Unless we could look at each planet individually, find the ones that contain intelligent life, and make an approximation based on the ratio, I really don't see how anyone can create an equation of any kind.

I don't think you can only equationate something using statistics. We know what it takes to make an inhabitable planet; we can determine how far planets are from their sun; we have statistics on how much suns their are in our galaxy; etc.

I think we can get pretty far with our foolish heads.

We know what it takes to make an inhabitable planet?  The first few pages of this discussion was a debate over this.  We don't even know how we came to be, so how can we say what's necessary for life?  We can get a lot of information with equations, but unless we have the necessary data, we're going to have at least two unknown variables.

Sorry for being stubborn, but I really don't see how we can create an equation for life when we don't know anything about it.

 

[Me(tm)]

I never said we could make the equation of life, but yes, we know what it takes to make an inhabitable planet - at least that's what discovery told us back in elementary school. We know what temperature range is acceptable for our kind of organisms and we know what of the atmosphere must consists. Now I don't see where your two unknown variables are.

Again, I was talking about potential habitats, not actual life. There's a big difference, as taking the environment part out of the equation is one thing; predicting life is another.


What if there's life out there - what if we know the location and we got the means to go there. What the hell are we going to do? Enslave them, talk to them, exchange medicines and/or technology; or are we to destruct them, and move humanity to the stars and colonize the planet so we have a new home, in case our sun might explode - doomsday virus comes along or whatever other space-like and humanoid-destruction-like disasters you can think of are to extinguish our pity selfs?

 

[Stardust]

Ah, that makes sense.  I was thinking that the equation predicted life itself, not the possibility of life.  It's a small thing, but it made a big difference in how I view it.  Sorry if I'm a bit slow sometimes.  It can take me a while to fully understand something.

If we ever find and are able to get to another intelligent life form, we'll probably try communication via machines before we go there ourselves.  For starters, their environment may contain something that's poisonous for us, and they'll probably have a whole different set of germs and diseases which we don't have immunities to (this happened when the Europeans came to America).

 

[Tachiba]

I for one believe that aliens exist.  Hell, that's what inspired me to do my project.  There possibly over 25 million galaxie in the universe.  One should have a at least one planet with life.  And, unless the technology suddenly rises to Star Trek or Andromeda level, I highly doubt we may be able to meet them.  Unless they visit Earth.
But, I dont believe in the small green big headed aliens, I believe they could even look human. 

 

[decemberfox]

I was arguing with my mate about life on other planets, they learned in his science class they learn that for there to be any form of life (I mean ANY form) there has to be:
- A gaseous atmosphere containing oxygen
- A large amount of (liquid) water
- perfect heat and other enviromental conditions(Imagine what would happen to the earth if we moved life 5% closer or further away from the sun)
- The correct elements which are required for life (reproduction and metablism) such as carbon.

I think this is dumb, how do we know that life that isn't dependent on oxygen or water couldn't form? When you get right down to it, we can't even prove that the laws of physics can't be broken, so why are some people accepting as fact that the way that humans have evolved is the only way intelligent life can form? How silly!

I think that there is probably a huge amount of lower life forms (like, single cells). I think it would be great if there are other sentient beings in the universe, but I doubt we'll have any contact with them in our generation =] (Or the generation of the older members or whatever). The nearest spiral galaxy (which is what the milky way is) is 2.5 million lightyears away, other galaxies and planets are much closer but whatever. That means if we travel at the speed of light, It'll take us 2.5 million years to get to the edge. And I don't think that's gonna happen any time soon.

 

[mawk]

When you get right down to it, we can't even prove that the laws of physics can't be broken

And yet heavenly bodies all still attract each other according to their masses. Isn't that weird?

If there were a life form that didn't require oxygen or H20 or any of those other things, how would it survive? It couldn't use the Krebs Cycle, that's for sure. Now, are there possible alternatives to the Krebs Cycle for planets with different elemental compositions? I dunno, but keep in mind that there are limitations to the whole "aliens are different so anything's possible!" school of thought. The way the elements behave and react with each other is instrumental to the survival of an organism. I'm not saying that a sort of Krebs Cycle couldn't be derived from, say, ammonia and the by-products of the presence of nitrogen, but it probably couldn't unless everything that organism ate and was exposed to interacted in such a way as to create a form of chemical energy the body could easily utilize.

Space is cool, but I think it's safe to say that regardless of how far Planet X is, us humans and the amazing ammonia-eating hovermolluscs of the X System still live in the same universe with the same laws of physics.

 

[bradleydfc]

What about alien dogs. I mean, how many species of other living things on our planet? Too many.

 

[mawk]

Ducks live on the moon
But die on the sun
They put them in a rocket and send them to the sun.

If we're talking about species from space, my money's on the dolphins. Interstellar transport, swimming backwards with 90% of your body out of the water... they both sound about as difficult.

 

[decemberfox]

Yeah, haven't you seen hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy?=p

What I was saying, Chimmy, is that despite the minute probability, we have no evidence that there isn't some strange condition on other planets that allows what we would consider impossible. For all we know, there could be other subatomic particles or even elementary particles not found on or near earth. If that was so, an atom could have an entirely different makeup to the atoms on earth, and theoretically make anything. And maybe when whatever condition happens and this fancy particle is created, a large number of these product atoms are made (high efficiency) and bond in ways that allows simple life that can become sentient (without the need for crap like dna). Life that doesn't require water or oxygen, but is powered by nothing more than, say, the sun (like some kind of superadvanced photosynthesis).
Or instead of a new subatomic particle, it's simply a new group of elements (though i believe we can predict more complex atoms reactivity to some degree).

Yeah, I'm talking out my ass, but go ahead and try to disprove a thing that I said. I personally can't see the physics laws being broken, but if it is simply a matter of a particle or something similar that we don't know about, there's nothing much we can say on it.

 

[mawk]

"And if fish had bicycles, every river would be the fuckin' Tour de France."

 

[arbiter]

;D

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

I'm not so much arguing decemberfox here, though I'm using the quote, but those who claim this

I was arguing with my mate about life on other planets, they learned in his science class they learn that for there to be any form of life (I mean ANY form) there has to be:
- A gaseous atmosphere containing oxygen
- A large amount of (liquid) water
- perfect heat and other enviromental conditions(Imagine what would happen to the earth if we moved life 5% closer or further away from the sun)
- The correct elements which are required for life (reproduction and metablism) such as carbon

- A gaseous atmosphere containing oxygen
unless of course the alternate biochemistry theory is true
- a large amount of (liquid) water
unless of course the alternate biochemistry theory is true
- perfect heat and environmental conditions, which mean "hey look, if you have life it's perfect", so you can toss that one out.  Billions of years ago our sun was 30% weaker than it is now, and we had life.  30% is a huge difference, "perfect" is subjective in the sense that if you have, it's perfect until you don't.

The idea of alternate biochemistry can use other atomic structures as a base.  We're carbon, technically our planet is a carbonchauvinist when it comes to life, as far as we know.  Water doesn't have to exist, it merely exists in our carbon chauvinistic view, because we happen to have it.  And we happen to have lots of it.  Very few places in the world do not have water (solid or liquid) in quantity enough to support our way of life, (known) terrestrial life requires it.

What makes water special aside from having so much of it, is that it has a very wide temperature range, and can break down numerous compounds.  And oddly enough that it's less dense as a solid (ice freezes top down, not bottom up - allowing for life to still develop below and under it).
A possible Hydrogen fluoride mix, ammonia, methanol, sulfide, and hydrogen chloride and hydrogen peroxide could theoretically all support life (though chloride and hydrogen sulfide are rare in a cosmic sense).

The deal is, if you notice, hydrogen is used a lot in those last set of examples.  But let's not mistake water (hydrogen oxide) for hydrogen.

Also if oxygen was that important carbon dioxide is equally important, if not more.  It is what blocks the sun, cools our planet giving us a comfortable planetary temperature.  It also affects numerous things, and has helped life evolve more than oxygen.  It literally sustains our atmosphere in a very disjointed logical sense.