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the thought that we could be the only sentient life out there is, I think, quite terrifying.
Really?
Terrifying might not quite be the word but I agree with the thrust if it means that life on earth is even more incredibly precious than we'd previously thought.
(And I'd include elephants, bonobo and higher primates, octupuses, dolphins in this as sentient not just humans.)
Also, whilst I'm at the top of the page, as molgrips says it's not just about imagination. Maybe a banyan tree is sentient, but seems unlikely according to any useful definition, whatever, carbon chemistry involves complex structures, they just happen and (waves hands) hence life. Silicon chemistry not so much. Plasma? Complex strutures? Or liquid helium? Nah.
I can imagine new atoms, particles etc but so what? There are some parameters as to what is and isn't possible which are not imagination-based. It's about the way the universe is, which means life is overwhelmingly likely to be carbon based. And also on this planet all life seems to share the same underlying chemistry - nucleic acids, RNA, DNA, proteins - as in it's emerged only once from one source, even the stuff clustered round ocean volcanic vents miles from sunlight, bacteria deep in the earth's crust - it's all part of the same stuff, there have not been multiple occurences which is another argument for rareness,
Finally there's a limit to radio waves for remote comms, for me I don't expect to see little green folks, but I would want to listen in to alien Archers. But they're not there.
We could be alone. Us and the squid. Scary...
how would a cold war era jet fighter appear to a WW1 airman who was born before powered flight was invented?
Also, how would a modern drone appear to that fighter pilot?
Of course loads of big brains have thought about this but no one can escape their limitations and no one can imagine all possibilities as the possibilities are infinite
I am with you on this. People (scientists) are limiting themselves by what they THINK they know. Whose to say on other planets light years away there are things that people simply can't comprehend as they are just so different to what WE think life is, life requires etc,.
Man from 1,000 years ago would not have comprehended a lot of stuff we have today...
Due to the characteristics of the periodic table there is basically only one atom that can do this easily – carbon – which we know is very common and widespread in the universe. It’s so good at creating complex structures that it has an entire branch of chemistry devoted to its study which is as big as the rest of chemistry combined. We know that atoms are going to be the same everywhere so other planets with liquid water are quite likely to have the same setup as we have with cells and membranes and all.
I'd posit that Organic Chemistry (the study of carbon) is popular on earth because it is the basis for our lifeform, and the materials we use for survival/economic benefit as well as being relatively easy to do under the conditions of temperature, pressure and atmosphere we have on earth. Its not entirely inconceivable that other "life" could exist based on radically different chemistries in which case if it was sufficiently "evolved" enough to educate/research, other elements may make up the bulk of the research on those planets. If conditions on those planets would not support carbon based life alien-chemists may regard carbon as one of the pesky smaller elements that's hard to work with!
I'd further suggest that its not carbon which is the special part of "life" as we know it - but hydrogen bonding which makes water special. Without hydrogen bonding, water would be a gas at room temperature and pressure and ice would not float on water. Those are pretty unique characteristics for a material. Its very unlikely that anything we would currently recognise as "life" exists without water, but that just makes you ask existential questions about what life means.
However having the basis of life (e.g. simple bacteria) is rather different from "intelligent life" (e.g. dinosaurs) which is further removed from the idea of intelligent life with the knowledge, motivation and technology for inter-planetary travel. There is a possibility that basic life didn't actually start on earth but arrived on comets etc which significantly changes the probability of life other similar DNA based life on other planets.
Humans are (as far as we know) the only life form to have lived on earth with anything close to the means or "intelligence" to attempt interplanetary travel. We've been around for 0.0003% of the planet's existence. Its likely that we won't survive as the dominant species to 0.003% because of our inability to cooperate sensibly together over finite resources. We've still not actually put an actual human on another planet. However life has been around in some form for about 3/4 of earth's history, and complex multicellular organisms for over 10% of the earth's history. Mammal for over 1% of the time.
Man from 1,000 years ago would not have comprehended a lot of stuff we have today…
Again, so what? This is not about comprehension, it's about physics and chemistry and how the universe is (how fundamental particles make atoms and how complex compounds are formed, speed of light etc). That won't change in another 1,000 years.
Jonathan Grey is a generational officer of the United States Intelligence Community with a Top-Secret Clearance who currently works for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), where the analysis of UAP has been his focus. Previously he had experience serving Private Aerospace and Department of Defense Special Directive Task Forces.
“The non-human intelligence phenomenon is real. We are not alone,” Grey said. “Retrievals of this kind are not limited to the United States. This is a global phenomenon, and yet a global solution continues to elude us.
Apparently they don't just visit the US...
But why are they only ever found by the military?
But why are they only ever found by the military?
...and by people whose shirts don't have sleeves?
Good breakdown of numbers involved & the Fermi Paradox here
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
Thanks for that, 2bit..an interesting read
Again, so what? This is not about comprehension, it’s about physics and chemistry and how the universe is (how fundamental particles make atoms and how complex compounds are formed, speed of light etc). That won’t change in another 1,000 years.
That’s all according to what we know now. Science, and therefore understanding, evolves over time. There could be an alien species out there looking at us like
People (scientists) are limiting themselves by what they THINK they know.
No, they really aren't. Scientists read science fiction. The popular perception of scientists as arrogant know-alls with a rigid view of the world is at best a century or more out of date. So much weird shit has been discovered since then that scientists are absolutely humble. No-one is more aware of what they don't know than an astrophysicist - except maybe a neuroscientist.
However, everywhere we look in the universe we see the same stuff. So whilst it's theoretically possible that there is a world populated by superintelligent shades of blue, all the evidence we can see points to that not being the case. BUT (and this is crucial) if such things were discovered, scientists would go 'oh wow that's really interesting', they wouldn't try to deny it.
You are free to theorise about the complete unknown, but that's just science fiction at this point. Which is fun, and all, but it's of limited value. We can't really invent some concept with no evidence behind it so we can then build expensive machines to look for it on the off-chance we were randomly right. I'm not sure what you are asking scientists to do here - you want them to treat every groundless theory with equal weight?
how would a cold war era jet fighter appear to a WW1 airman who was born before powered flight was invented?
Humans have been watching birds for millions of years, so we have always known flight was possible and it was achieved by forcing yourself through the air with effort, and it involved wings. The Wright brothers created the first plane but they didn't invent the concept of flight, that's always been there. Modern computers on the other hand - that's a completely abstract concept.
I think that people from 10,000 years ago would recognise a lot about the modern world. We are human, we eat, we sleep, we trade, we do work, we socialise and get pissed. In fact, you don't need to imagine this. Not all of humanity developed at the same pace everywhere, because it wasn't all subjected to the same stimuli to drive it. When Europeans went to North America the inhabitants were in their stone age still. That was used as the basis for the terrible racism we've become familiar with (and I don't subscribe to it) but as we belatedly found out they were just as intelligent and sophisticated as we were, just without metal tools. Now, there are still a few uncontacted tribes who are still essentially like us from 10,000 years ago. And yet, they aren't stupid. The ones who have been studied don't melt down when presented with modern gadgets, they tend to go 'wow that's cool/useful can I have one?' or 'what's the point of that?'
Its not entirely inconceivable that other “life” could exist based on radically different chemistries in which case if it was sufficiently “evolved” enough to educate/research, other elements may make up the bulk of the research on those planets.
Oh yes, there's a lot written about this.
The problem with non organic(carbon based) hydrogen compounds is bond strength/energies methane and ethane are relatively stable, as are molecules based on hydrocarbons.
But silanes are not, relatively simple to make but spontaneously combust.
For life you need stability in your base material.
Chemistry doesn't really change in other parts of the universe and the elements are universal. Bond energy, steric hindrance, electronegativity and all sorts of other things govern how molecules can for and act.
Other elements appearing are possible but unlikely as they'd have to be above element 118 which makes them inherently unstable.
The latest newsagents podcast has a good interview about this
The Wright brothers created the first plane
No, they didn't, they may not have even been the first to get to powered flight - Might have been a guy called Gustav Whitehead. The Wright Bros were just very good at litigation if you said otherwise.
The plane idea is an interesting one, The A-12 - (became the SR71) series of aircraft started being designed around the late fifties/early sixties when most folks idea of a jet was some thing like this:
Were so advanced that people seeing them reported them as alien craft as the concept was so vastly different to what folks expected an aircraft to look like, and the CIA even encouraged UFO spotters, it was a useful cover story that they extended when they were developing Have Blue in the 70's. Given that both the A12 and Have Blue are 50-60 years old, I'll bet there are unmanned planes flying that can pull some pretty impressive G and interesting manoeuvres, and the little green men story is still just as useful.
what these latest 'revelations' reveal is that theres a lot of conspiracy types out there, exacerbated by the likes of trump, antivaxers, covid etc, the internet does a good job of amplifying it, the obvious conclusion is that covid was an alien virus introduced by our secret CIA/democrat/WHO/WEF lizard/👽 overlords to allow them to vaccinate us with alien tracker devices/DNA and steal all our hydrocarbons by via net zero, 15 minute cities and low traffic neighbourhoods
makes you think
what these latest 'revelations' reveal is that theres a lot of conspiracy types out there, exacerbated by the likes of trump, antivaxers, covid etc, the internet does a good job of amplifying it, the obvious conclusion is that covid was an alien virus introduced by our secret CIA/democrat/WHO/WEF lizard/👽 overlords to allow them to vaccinate us with alien tracker devices/DNA and steal all our hydrocarbons by via net zero, 15 minute cities and low traffic neighbourhoods
makes you think
whilst it’s theoretically possible that there is a world populated by superintelligent shades of blue,
I read about those in a historical document, they're the Hooloovoo.
You are free to theorise about the complete unknown, but that’s just science fiction at this point.
Germs. Atoms. Quarks. Quantum theory. String theory. The notion that looking at something can change its state.
Imagine going back a couple of hundred years and trying to convince people that the reason they were getting sick wasn't miasma, it was invisible little creatures. They'd think you were mad.
I think that people from 10,000 years ago would recognise a lot about the modern world. We are human, we eat, we sleep, we trade, we do work, we socialise and get pissed.
10,000 years ago the thought process would likely have been "can I eat it / fight it / shag it?" On which basis, I concur with your hypothesis. 😁
10,000 years ago the thought process would likely have been “can I eat it / fight it / shag it?”
You do humans a disservice. People weren't primitive grunting animals then just because they didn't have iPhones, just as uncontacted tribes, or those with limited contact aren't today. I know you're joking, but given the historical context of that suggestion it's probably not a good subject for humour.
Anyway, the interesting point here is the question of fundamental truth, and how that could manifest itself (one of the central themes of Anathem by Neal Stephenson incidentally). The things that we observe here on Earth are all made up of fundamental particles in various combinations. There are only so many of these particles, and we predict them using the standard model in a similar way to how the existence of new elements was predicted using the periodic table. There are set numbers of fundamental things, and the stable combinations of these things are seen all through the visible universe. So we're fairly confident that things do work the same way on Earth as they do elsewhere.
However, the reason I asked to define 'life' (and the follow-on definition of 'sentience) is that we may be looking at things and not seeing life or intelligence. The film Avatar was an interesting one (spolier): the planet was covered in plants and trees, which appeared dumb, but they communicated with each other like neurons, so the entire planet was a brain and was sentient. That's a nice idea but why would that happen? How do you become sentient with no-one to talk to about yourself? A comparable question on Earth is wether or not ant colonies as a whole could constitute a single organism with intelligence. But the difference between ant colonies and the planet in Avatar is that there are lots of ant colonies competing with each other, and it's that evolutionary pressure what drives the complexity to increase.
You do humans a disservice. People weren’t primitive grunting animals then
My (as you noticed) tongue-in-cheek point was, we still are.
I'm not sure what historical context you're referring to though.
The film Avatar was an interesting one (spolier): the planet was covered in plants and trees, which appeared dumb, but they communicated with each other like neurons, so the entire planet was a brain and was sentient.
Don't we have something similar here on Earth anyway? Some sort of fungi or something, has a massive underground comms network? Or have I made that up?
Thrre is a theory iirc that trees ina forest can communicate via fugal networks. Sort of symbiosis
Some sort of fungi or something, has a massive underground comms network? Or have I made that up?
No I read something about that too. And how much of it is literally across much of the worlds land mass as one single entity.
Cougar
Don’t we have something similar here on Earth anyway? Some sort of fungi or something, has a massive underground comms network? Or have I made that up?
Yeah. This....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycorrhizal_network
There are two or three of them around, super colonies of fungus.
Edit:- ^^^^ what he said
kimbers
I call BS, because we dont have hoverboards yet
I guess you guys aren't ready for that, yet. But your kids are gonna love them........
I’m not sure what historical context you’re referring to though.
really? https://www.utas.edu.au/about/news-and-stories/articles/2018/513-explainer-the-evidence-for-the-tasmanian-genocide first eg that comes to mind but so many others once you dehumanise people, inc slavery.
I think it's far more likely that what we classify as life does exist but is far from the capabilities of our imagination to understand and theorise what that looks like, than not exist.
However UFO's/UAP's, I've seen some weird stuff in the sky thanks to years of night photography and sitting in the back garden till late hours with a big dobsonian telescope but I've never seen a "UFO" come flying down and abduct anybody or stick a probe up a cows backside. From what I've learned about physics and light I think if there is such a thing as interstellar travel it's more likely based around quantum particle bonding and long time deployed craft or a way of breaking time and light to wholly jump around space, which technically goes down the time travel theory, as the size of the universe and due to how light actually travels, combined with the radiation involved and the disintegration of matter is likely impossible. Ergo little green humanoid men flying around in metal discs, load of tosh. A type of technically existing life form out there somewhere, yeah I reckon that exists.
There are two or three of them around, super colonies of fungus.
Mycorrhizal fungi are widespread, from what I remember. Just Googled - they are present in most plants. There's an excellent Infinite Monkey Cage about it where the expert said that she used to get laughed at when she said that plants communicate with each other. Now, she's taken seriously, and that's interesting in this context when people here are arguing about our perceptions of aliens and other conscious life forms. We can't even identify what is conscious on our own planet yet.
It won't be the insects that get us, it will be the fungi.
far from the capabilities of our imagination to understand
I'm not sure what about humanity leads so many people to believe that we lack imagination.
Some sort of fungi or something, has a massive underground comms network?
Yeah but only in the sense of emitting chemical signals when they are under stress, as far as we know. Theoretically it might be a giant brain but hard to see how it would have evolved the behaviours that define intelligence. Again, 'life' and 'sentience' need to be defined really.
The intelligent mycoid thing was the plot of that Star Trek show wasn't it?
Yeah but only in the sense of emitting chemical signals when they are under stress, as far as we know.
No. Go and read about it - there's too much to post in a few sentences. It is very, very interesting.
really? https://www.utas.edu.au/about/news-and-stories/articles/2018/513-explainer-the-evidence-for-the-tasmanian-genocide first eg that comes to mind but so many others once you dehumanise people, inc slavery.
Going from a fairly weak joke that we're all basically still animals, to genocide and slavery, is something of a leap.
Anyway, the interesting point here is the question of fundamental truth
The concept of a 'Fundamental Truth' is in direct opposition to the scientific principle.
The adoption of this idea by humanity shows a blatant refusal to acknowledge the intrinsic flaws in our nature.
We have evolved to destroy each other because of a refusal to acknowledge our flaws.
Going from a fairly weak joke that we’re all basically still animals, to genocide and slavery, is something of a leap.
To be fair your fairly weak joke seemed to be based on the suggestion that modernity is the only thing which distinguishes human beings from animals.
It might seem like a completely harmless comment but it was certainly an attitude which both prevalent a hundred or so years ago and one which was used to justify genocide and slavery, as in "savages are subhuman and therefore their lives don't have the same equal value as modern Europeans".
Unfortunately this attitude hasn't completely disappeared. Which might explain why your joke didn't totally work as intended.
I'm sorry you didn't understand it. Maybe reread Mols' comment that I quoted, that might make it clearer.
I had re-read it before I posted.
Then I’m sorry you didn’t understand it.
I still can’t fathom out the UFO/UAP I saw (and posted about straight after on here) whilst watching the YouTube feed of a spacewalk from the ISS a few years ago
Then I’m sorry you didn’t understand it.
I understood what you were saying, I was just trying to explain why your joke didn't seem to work. I am sorry that you apparently haven't understood my attempt to explain it! 🙂
I just chatted with a bloke who works on CAMS, a NASA project that watches for asteroids. He says they have been photographing the entire sky in super detail every night for years (decades, going by the look of their website) and they have not seen any aliens. At least, none that weren't disguised as asteroids.
The boys that look for rogue asteroids discover new stuff all the time, so it is quite possible for them to miss stuff, especially if it wants to be missed.
Carbon is interesting as you find organics all over the place, comets etc., and compex organic compounds seem to form very easily. Which kind of makes the 'life on earth is unique' theory seem like a bit of special pleading. Sentient, space travelling life might be rare, life per se, not so much. I'm waiting for fossils from mars, and in some of the moons of Jupiter, Saturn things may live in an enviroment very different to earth.
I don't agree on your timespan thing from earlier. There's been a pretty competent crust on earth the last 4 billion years, and life on earth for an awfully large part of that. There's been plenty of time for advanced life to develop and become extinct several times over. We had a thought experiment at work one day, if mankind evolved and bacame extinct in the Carboniferous, what would be left now (and I work with good geologists, geochemists etc). Probably not much more would be left than a lot of hard to explain geochemical anomalies