• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Will Scientists Know Alien Life When They See It?

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
Staff member
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
27,230
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
'Shadow biosphere' might be hiding strange life right under our noses | Science/AAAS | News

We may not know what alien life forms look like, because we are so biased by our experience with life on Earth. I even believe there is life on Earth that hasn't been found yet simply because it doesn't match our expectations of what life should look like.
If it is on Earth, can it be considered alien? What constitutes "alien"? I always associated that term for life that was not indigenous to Earth.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
All native life on Earth for about four billion years has the same DNA consisting of four digital letters.

We are sequencing the genome at an increasing rate of life on Earth. So if we discover DNA with more or less than four letters, we will have discovered alien life. Life utterly alien to life on Earth.
 

Mal12345

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
14,532
MBTI Type
IxTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
If it is on Earth, can it be considered alien? What constitutes "alien"? I always associated that term for life that was not indigenous to Earth.

I didn't mean to imply that life on earth could be alien life. I'm saying that there could be non-alien life on earth so strange to our experience that we don't recognize it as being alive. Consider also the fact that our idea of life is that it exists within the visible light spectrum only.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
I didn't mean to imply that life on earth could be alien life. I'm saying that there could be non-alien life on earth so strange to our experience that we don't recognize it as being alive. Consider also the fact that our idea of life is that it exists within the visible light spectrum only.

Chemistry and biochemistry is the same on any planet so it is possible, even likely, that life on other planets has DNA with four letters, just like us.

But over billions of years that DNA would adapt to the alien planet and the alien planet would adapt to the DNA, with results we can't imagine. But what is most likely is that life on another planet would consist of one celled animals and bacteria, as these are the most plentiful and long lived life on Earth.
 

sprinkles

Mojibake
Joined
Jul 5, 2012
Messages
2,959
MBTI Type
INFJ
Chemistry and biochemistry is the same on any planet

The premise of the article is that this might not necessarily be true.

Yes DNA is made from a combination of four specific compounds/molecules but chemists have constructed nucleic acid analogues, such as PNA or TNA so maybe we don't actually know that DNA is the only natural genetic 'instruction' in the universe.
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
Staff member
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
27,230
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
Consider also the fact that our idea of life is that it exists within the visible light spectrum only.
Whose idea? Scientists certainly don't have such a limited view.
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
The premise of the article is that this might not necessarily be true.

The periodic table has been created by exploding stars uniformly throughout the universe.

So nothing in the universe is alien.

And just as there is no alien life on Earth: every living thing for four billion years is related to every other living thing, there is no alien life in the universe. We are all related through the periodic table and exploding stars. Who would have guessed?
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

Up the Wolves
Joined
Jul 24, 2008
Messages
19,444
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
So nothing in the universe is alien.

Counterpoint:

CarrotTop.3.250.jpg
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
Saving us from the aliens

We used to think life in the next tribe was alien and must be fought and killed, and we thought life in the next village was alien, then life in the next county, then life in the next country, then life in the next religion, then life in the next ideology, but we are running out of aliens and can only find them in the movies.

The very idea of aliens is a throwback to premodern times when we believed demons caused disease and mental illness and so we needed a Saviour to drive out the demons.

Who, we ask, in our primordial mind, will save us from the aliens?
 

grey_beard

The Typing Tabby
Joined
Jan 28, 2014
Messages
1,478
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
We used to think life in the next tribe was alien and must be fought and killed, and we thought life in the next village was alien, then life in the next county, then life in the next country, then life in the next religion, then life in the next ideology, but we are running out of aliens and can only find them in the movies.

The very idea of aliens is a throwback to premodern times when we believed demons caused disease and mental illness and so we needed a Saviour to drive out the demons.

Who, we ask, in our primordial mind, will save us from the aliens?

This brings up a good question: if we have contact with aliens, is it guaranteed they will be the equivalent of Space-Mongol-Hordes?
What if they are the equivalent of Galactic Traveling Salesmen? Will we be suckered or run them out of town on a rocket?
 

Mole

Permabanned
Joined
Mar 20, 2008
Messages
20,284
This brings up a good question: if we have contact with aliens, is it guaranteed they will be the equivalent of Space-Mongol-Hordes?
What if they are the equivalent of Galactic Traveling Salesmen? Will we be suckered or run them out of town on a rocket?

Fortunately the speed of light and the size of the universe make an encounter with conscious aliens impossible.

The reality is we only encounter aliens in our imagination.

This is a site devoted to the psyche so we should ask, who are these aliens hiding in our psyche?
 

Mal12345

Permabanned
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
14,532
MBTI Type
IxTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sx/sp
We used to think life in the next tribe was alien and must be fought and killed, and we thought life in the next village was alien, then life in the next county, then life in the next country, then life in the next religion, then life in the next ideology, but we are running out of aliens and can only find them in the movies.

The very idea of aliens is a throwback to premodern times when we believed demons caused disease and mental illness and so we needed a Saviour to drive out the demons.

Who, we ask, in our primordial mind, will save us from the aliens?

THEY have found the aliens in US.
 

Coriolis

Si vis pacem, para bellum
Staff member
Joined
Apr 18, 2010
Messages
27,230
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
The periodic table has been created by exploding stars uniformly throughout the universe.

So nothing in the universe is alien.

And just as there is no alien life on Earth: every living thing for four billion years is related to every other living thing, there is no alien life in the universe. We are all related through the periodic table and exploding stars. Who would have guessed?
quote-some-part-of-our-being-knows-this-is-where-we-came-from-we-long-to-return-and-we-can-because-the-carl-sagan-263938.jpg
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

Up the Wolves
Joined
Jul 24, 2008
Messages
19,444
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
Who, we ask, in our primordial mind, will save us from the aliens?

The concept of the alien is not represented the same way across sci-fi. Star Trek and Star Wars both feature humans as villains as often as they feature aliens. The difference between the two is that Star Trek's worldview is scientific, while the Star Wars worldview is mysticism (it flounders when it loses the mystical element).

I'd argue that there's nothing inhuman about evil; it's incredibly human.

Bring on the singularity.
 
Top