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Disscusion: Aliens
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Disscusion: Aliens
Disscusion: Aliens
Who believes that there are intelligent life forms living in other solar systems? I believe there are. The universe is so massive, that Earth can't be the only planet containing life forms. I believe that one day, Humans will find other intelligent life forms on other planets as our technology advances, or they will find us first. What do you think? Do you believe that Earth is the only planet in the entire universe with life forms contained? Or do you think that there are weird green blobs in some foreign solar system? Humans might never know.
submitted by BookBug, Australia
(January 23, 2017 - 4:08 pm)
(January 23, 2017 - 4:08 pm)
I think there is life somewhere else in the galaxy. The entirety of space is massive, so large humanity cannot begin to fathom it. While the classic trope of green, four-eyed creatures seems, uh, a little "out there", it's highly improbable that within the giantness of everything Earth is the only planet that can hold life.
(Also, like, supremely humanoid aliens— think Spock — are unlikely. Life on other planets would be as varied as the planets themselves. They might have features, habits, and more that seem crazy to us, whereas we'd look ridiculous.)
As you said, BookBug, we may never know. It's not reliable. However, there is still much we are unaware of about our very own solar system, and microorganisms could reside on several of them, in places we haven't discovered.
Certainly, "intelligent" life forms are another matter entirely, but who is to quanitfy intelligence? Humans ourselves try, but perhaps in another galaxy we could be considered to have no more than brainpower than a fly to us.
Who knows, really! That's probably why writers love the concept. Space is so large, so insane, so unpredictable, that it's a favorite setting for books and movies. Star Wars, anyone?
(January 23, 2017 - 8:55 pm)
I agree, Abi!
(January 23, 2017 - 10:53 pm)
I dont agree. I think that there are no other intelligent creatures on other planets. There might be incomplex life forms that just blob around in water doing nothing, but I dont think there are any other creatures to match our intelligence.
(January 24, 2017 - 1:47 am)
In my opinion, there are so many other worlds out there it's nearly impossible for there not to be life on other planets.
(January 24, 2017 - 6:18 am)
I agree with Abi.
(January 24, 2017 - 7:04 am)
I agree with Sparkle Girl. Humans have such great technology, that we would already have found them.
(January 24, 2017 - 4:08 pm)
Do we really have such great technology, though? We still haven't found a cure for cancer. I don't think it's quite fair to say that if other intelligent beings existed, we would have found them by now.
Just think of how many planets, solar systems, galaxies, nebulas, and clusters we've already found.
Then think of how many we haven't.
(January 24, 2017 - 8:55 pm)
Exactly, hotairballoon! If we have such great technology, why can't we read minds and teleport? The expanses of the universe probably go on forever, how can we have discovered every part of it?
(January 24, 2017 - 10:47 pm)
Pause for a second and think how perfect the world is to support life. It's just the right distance from the sun, has just the right size moon to balance ocean tides, the perfect atmosphere, perfect gravity, enough water, just the right planetary neighbors to block us from asteroids, the perfect place in an arm of the Milky Way with little radiation and not much of a chance of a dangerous supernova happening nearby... the list could go on and on! Since everything originated by itself and the universe formed randomly, this is very, very unlikely.
But yes, there are bazillions of planets out there, so let's say another one of them meets all of these requirements. Is there any guarantee evolution would occur there too? That just the perfect crashing of the waves and lightning and atmospheric pressure and stuff would create life in a similar fashion to how it was created on earth? And that it wouldn't just die immediately due to the violent conditions necessary to concieve it?
Personally I think that the earth's placement, and evolution, happened in such an extraordinary manner (not to mention the way all of the species in between the evolution of, say, the ape to the human died out but the original ape did not-- but I guess I don't know enough about how all that worked) that it is little more than impossible to happen again. (Not to say that it doesn't make sense-- what other origin of life does?)
Someone said before (sorry I forget who but I liked your point I think :) that there could be living blobs floating around on some distant planet. That? Possibly. Intelligent beings? I don't think so.
(January 24, 2017 - 4:56 pm)
It doesn't matter how impossible the odds are when you have infinity. This isn't proving the existence of unicorns. It's logic. If life on Earth exists, even to one in a trillion trillion, then life similar to Earth's must logically exist somewhere else becaauuseeee......infinity!
Often, l find these kinds of arguments are based on a bit of a misunderstanding of the size of space in general and just how vast it is. Like l know it's huge but my mind has no understanding, no comparison of something that large.
(January 24, 2017 - 11:33 pm)
Good points. I admit I do not understand the fullness of the vastness of space-- as you say, none of us can. Just for fun, though, (I love trying to wrap my mind around infinity and completely failing) let's go into the theoretical a second.
So infinite planets mean that there must be many planets with life forms. Actually, since infinity goes on endlessly, wouldn't one trillion-trillionth of infinity also be infinity, making there infinite planets with life forms?
Let's say that the chance for the earth to be exactly as it is now (literally identical) is one in googleplex^4 (realistically it would be infinitesimally less, but whatever). However, if infinity really goes on forever, infinity times one/ googlepex^4 would still make infinity, so wouldn't that mean there were infinite earths exactly like this one? And infinite copies where there would only be a slight change to the way the world is now, or bigger changes? Or the proverbial "green blobs"? Or unicorns?! (ok, maybe not those...).
I could go on about infinite galaxies and whatnot, but you're right-- infinity is hard to grasp! Personally, I think that it would be impossible to have there literally be an endless amount planets. A number so big we don't have a name for it? Sure. Actually infinite? I'm a little skeptical.
However, my argument would mean that there would be an end to the universe somewhere, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But if the universe began with the Big Bang and is still expanding, wouldn't there have to be somewhere, something it's still expanding into?
You know, I'm spending way too much time on this. Ta-ta!
(January 25, 2017 - 7:10 pm)
I agree, Shoshanah!
(January 25, 2017 - 9:36 pm)
Well there's the observable universe, the actual physical limit of where we'd be able to go because of the speed of light and whatever boring scientific nonsense and yada yada yada. You get the point. There could very well be an infinite number of planets with life, but there is no way that we'd ever get to a fraction of them.
For the purpose of this argument, you really don't have to care about all of infinity, just the finite (but still vast) observable universe :)
(January 25, 2017 - 11:58 pm)
Two words: Water bears!
What if extraterrestrials don't require the same conditions for life that we do? Some life forms might be able to exist in temperatures we consider life threatening. Maybe some would be able to persist without key nutrients, or even without an atmosphere. Case in point - Tardigrades, also known as water bears!
I agree it's possible there's no other planets out there like Earth (Shadow, as far as I know, scientists are still not 100% certain if the universe is infinite or not), but aliens might not need the same conditions we require in order to survive.
(Ack, I posted more than once on a debate thread! What have I become?!)
(January 25, 2017 - 6:52 pm)
You do have to take into account how little we can actually see of space, we look around and see that there are no Earth-like planets are around and therefore assume that the rest of the universe is more of less the same. What if we live in a desert-like section of space and yet never realized it? What if there are millions of Earth-like planets right next to each other, but they're just out of our reach? What if we're the water bears, extraordinary because we have come to exist on this planet when everything else is trying to kill us? Aliens might have it way easier than us, perhaps millions of them because life on their planet came about far easier than ours.
We might be the anomaly, not the norm.
(January 26, 2017 - 12:11 am)