Do aliens ask - Are we alone?

[DONTEATUS]

I'd offer to have you spend some time with my dogs. Everything I bring into the house has to be checked out by them. Recently, my daughter left her purse open and within their reach...by the time she noticed the contents were strewn all over the floor. And no, there was nothing edible in there, my dogs were simply curious as to what was in the bag.

Better ck your credit card charges,thats the same story my kid gave me right after he told his teacher the dogs ate his home work. Clever those little Aliens !

[Legaia]

I'd offer to have you spend some time with my dogs. Everything I bring into the house has to be checked out by them. Recently, my daughter left her purse open and within their reach...by the time she noticed the contents were strewn all over the floor. And no, there was nothing edible in there, my dogs were simply curious as to what was in the bag.

Lol gotta love them.. I was referring to BM's original statement, however, about animals having thoughts about a higher power.. Not curiosity in general..

[Beckys_Mom]

Lol gotta love them.. I was referring to BM's original statement, however, about animals having thoughts about a higher power.. Not curiosity in general..

I feel you may have misunderstood me.and it could be my fault for not being clear enough.

.. Allow me to explain . I never suggested animals have thoughts on higher power... Scroll up you will see I only said animals get curious too I added this in with genral statement on how we humans will always get curious and ask questions to ourselves .. Meaning about anything, it is natural..

I was not saying they are curious about higher power, there is no possible way of anyone knowing that...I am sorry if you took it like that.. But was not what I was saying.....

My point is to sum up - Curiosity is part of nature, whether be humans or animals.. It doesn't matter what it is we all get curious about, it is still part of who and what we are.. I think if it has a brain in its head , then it can be curious and wonder ...Again this is about anything in life.. Not speaking of higher power ..It can be anything..

So ..When I push out questions about what must aliens think if they are out there? And I make up a list of questions I ask.. Then I am not running off any assumptions

I hope that clarify s all I have said so far..

.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Beckys_Mom

[DONTEATUS]

I feel you may have misunderstood me.and it could be my fault for not being clear enough.

.. Allow me to explain . I never suggested animals have thoughts on higher power... Scroll up you will see I only said animals get curious too I added this in with genral statement on how we humans will always get curious and ask questions to ourselves .. Meaning about anything, it is natural..

I was not saying they are curious about higher power, there is no possible way of anyone knowing that...I am sorry if you took it like that.. But was not what I was saying.....

My point is to sum up - Curiosity is part of nature, whether be humans or animals.. It doesn't matter what it is we all get curious about, it is still part of who and what we are.. I think if it has a brain in its head , then it can be curious and wonder ...Again this is about anything in life.. Not speaking of higher power ..It can be anything..

So ..When I push out questions about what must aliens think if they are out there? And I make up a list of questions I ask.. Then I am not running off any assumptions

I hope that clarify s all I have said so far..

.

Theres a thread of what you would like to ask E.T ? Somewhere in here !

[psyche101]

I have absolutely no doubt of it. Wether these aliens are within a distance that can ever possibly be reached I honestly do not know, but with convergeant evolution, I do not think it is entirely impossible for a species that look just like us to be sitting on the edge of the andromeda galaxy looking at the milky way discussing on a forum where one might find life "over there". Considering how successful the hominoid model is for the advent of an industrial revolution, it seems to me highly likely that other intelligent life is very likely to be rather similar in appearance, and as we all have to work with pretty much the same materials, it seems a high probability that others have managed what we have.

[lost_shaman]

I have absolutely no doubt of it. Wether these aliens are within a distance that can ever possibly be reached I honestly do not know, but with convergeant evolution, I do not think it is entirely impossible for a species that look just like us to be sitting on the edge of the andromeda galaxy looking at the milky way discussing on a forum where one might find life "over there". Considering how successful the hominoid model is for the advent of an industrial revolution, it seems to me highly likely that other intelligent life is very likely to be rather similar in appearance, and as we all have to work with pretty much the same materials, it seems a high probability that others have managed what we have.

Right on psyche! My views are very similar and in one paragraph. Bravo!

[Lilly]

Personally, I don't think it's very likely (at all) that ET is going to look like us. To quote Carl Sagan: "(ET)...may live on the land or in the sea or air. They may have unimaginable chemistries, shapes, sizes, colors, appendages and opinions. We are not requiring that they follow the particular route that led to the evolution of humans. There may be many different evolutionary pathways, each unlikely, but the sum of the number of pathways to intelligence may nevertheless be quite substantial."

Of course, all this remains nothing but speculation until we do encounter ET. But, I'd be willing to bet good money that ET isn't going to be a bipedial primate like us.

.

[scowl]

Personally, I don't think it's very likely (at all) that ET is going to look like us.

Are we restricting ET to intelligent creatures? Because most life on Earth doesn't look like us.

[DONTEATUS]

And life on earth as we know it changes as we type ! We are all but an experiment in the grand Universe of experiments.

E.T. may just be the light that leads us towards the new discoverys ! It would be totally awsome if E.T. were the 60 foot tall Women too ,but thats just one of the possibilities!

!! Keep Looking up cause we just might miss the real E.T`s right under our feet.

[lost_shaman]

Personally, I don't think it's very likely (at all) that ET is going to look like us. To quote Carl Sagan: "(ET)...may live on the land or in the sea or air. They may have unimaginable chemistries, shapes, sizes, colors, appendages and opinions. We are not requiring that they follow the particular route that led to the evolution of humans. There may be many different evolutionary pathways, each unlikely, but the sum of the number of pathways to intelligence may nevertheless be quite substantial."

Of course, all this remains nothing but speculation until we do encounter ET. But, I'd be willing to bet good money that ET isn't going to be a bipedial primate like us.

I fundamentally disagree. In as much as the bipedal primate design both arose in nature and is perfectly suited for technological civilization. The fact that we are typing out our replies to each other with 'fingers' is proof that the bipedal Hominid design is the superior design for animals that attain technological civilization.

[Lilly]

An alien lifeform could readily have appendages that function as our fingers do for us and not be biologically similar to humans in the least. Humans were in essence formed by various circumstances and the forces of evolution taking place here on planet Earth. It stands to reason any alien life would have been subject to the circumstances and forces of evolution on their respective planets. The likelyhood of running into ETs that look 'just like us' is based on more on popular culture than anything else. But, since no one can produce an ET for comparison, such discussion remains purely speculative.

[Junior Chubb]

I like to think ET's do ask if 'we are alone'. And they have similar discussions to we would have on-line.....

ET One - "I saw this thing in the media, apparently there is a lush water filled planet we have discovered light-years away with life on it. But the images we see have been edited to make it look like a barren wasteland that is inhospitable. We will invade it for its water soon"

ET Two - "Really wow where did you see that, I gotta read more about that I knew our leaders were lying to us."

ET One - "Yeah, they call themselves Humans and they call the planet Earth. Its all true do some research and you will see."

ET Three - "What a load of crap, are you two OK? There is not a single shred of evidence to prove alien life outside our planet. Why would our leaders lie to us?"

ET One - "Open your eyes ET Three, the proof is out there, you are just a SheeAlien being spoon fed by our leaders. We all know there is a water shortage here on Aquarian."

ET Four - "Dudes, forget other planets and humans. My mate saw Big Tentacle in the forest the other day. We have got a great blurry pic of him."

ET Moderator - "ET Four stay on topic please."

ET Three - "Show us your evidence ET One!!!!"

And so on and so on....

[Lilly]

There's really no way to know much about how aliens are likely to look and think. We can only surmise that ETs physical appearance will be based on the conditions and circumstances of their world, that evolution will have shaped them as it did us. IMO, the Star Trek notion of all sorts of humanoids everywhere in the galaxy is nothing but pure Hollywood...makes for a great story line, but it's just not very realistic.

[quillius]

Alien

Lilly and LS....does this one cover both your stances

[Lilly]

That's one weird alien those guys described. However, all one really has there is a personal story, no real way (that I can think of) to corroborate it. When push comes to shove the hard evidence for alien visitation is simply lacking.

[DONTEATUS]

You are all forgetting the "Horta`s" they were silicon based no eyes ,fingers,face,nada ! But the Good Dr. fixed him up with some concrete quick patch in the documentary I saw once a long time ago ,in a Far away space and time !

We should be open minded to all possibilities ! Even the bazar ! Even the mundane even creatures that Look just like us .

Maybe they Like Texas B.B.Q ?

[lost_shaman]

An alien lifeform could readily have appendages that function as our fingers do for us and not be biologically similar to humans in the least. Humans were in essence formed by various circumstances and the forces of evolution taking place here on planet Earth. It stands to reason any alien life would have been subject to the circumstances and forces of evolution on their respective planets. The likelyhood of running into ETs that look 'just like us' is based on more on popular culture than anything else. But, since no one can produce an ET for comparison, such discussion remains purely speculative.

Obviously we don't have an E.T. to examine. However, that doesn't mean that we can't talk about evolution on other planets or that what we "speculate" is inherently wrong. Evolution produces designs that work and if we are going to talk about technological civilizations then there must be some serious physical constraints that limit what body-types such a species must have. Wild imagination may be fun to contemplate but evolution itself must follow relatively straight forward pathways to achieve the end result, in this case a technological civilization.

Here any imaginary body-type simply won't do. The reason for that is simple, a species that develops intelligence must have a body that allows it to capitalize on that intelligence and allows for it to be manifest in the physical environment the species inhabits so that this intelligence can actually become itself an evolutionary advantage. Other wise intelligence in a species that doesn't have a body-type to take advantage of it is nothing more than a quirk at best. Therefore the body-type is of extreme importance and must be present in order for intelligence to become a meaningful and useful trait that gives a species an advantage in that it has the body-type that allows it to physically translate that intelligence into technology that is useful in it's environment.

O.k. so an Alien civilization would have to have the right type of body first before intelligence can flourish in that species. The clear example of that here on Earth is found in Hominids. Once the bi-pedal line arose all the conditions of body-type were met to allow intelligence to be translated into simple technology that gave "smart" groups an advantage in the environment, meaning that the natural selection for intelligence itself became a useful trait. But not only that but also simple ideas can also reverberate across the population of species laterally because the body-type allows the individual and the group/s to mimic eachother. We see mimicking in other species here on Earth the difference between those species and bi-pedal hominids is that the latter can carry a simple tool around and use it again.

Not to get ahead of myself, the point here is a technological species must have a body-type that will allow it to both capitalize on intelligence first in its immediate environment and afterwards need only minor tweaking to allow the species to achieve a true technological civilization. So clearly many body-types evolution tends to produce in nature here on Earth can not meet this simple criteria, but one certainly does the bi-pedal Hominid.

So what body-types that are so far nothing more than 'thought experiments', excluding the bi-pedal Hominid which is real, would fit the bill? I'm not sure as I personally have a hard time imagining something else that would work and be different without being redundant. Therefore I'd ask those who disagree to, at least as a thought experiment, present a body-type for discussion.

[hucksterfoot]

There's really no way to know much about how aliens are likely to look and think. We can only surmise that ETs physical appearance will be based on the conditions and circumstances of their world, that evolution will have shaped them as it did us. IMO, the Star Trek notion of all sorts of humanoids everywhere in the galaxy is nothing but pure Hollywood...makes for a great story line, but it's just not very realistic.

Though it wouldn't surprise me if we found many morphologically similar creatures in similar environments. Would they be a bipedal humanoid like species interested in Shakespeare? ...Well. :]

[lost_shaman]

There's really no way to know much about how aliens are likely to look and think. We can only surmise that ETs physical appearance will be based on the conditions and circumstances of their world, that evolution will have shaped them as it did us. IMO, the Star Trek notion of all sorts of humanoids everywhere in the galaxy is nothing but pure Hollywood...makes for a great story line, but it's just not very realistic.

As my last post above shows, I fundamentally disagree with your opinion here. I've outlined in a simplistic way what is 'realistic' and I'm not willing to accept 'imaginary' body-types for 'Alien' civilizations unless they biomechanically can preform as well as a bi-pedal Hominid. This begs the question what other viable body-types can there be? Those who believe an Alien civilization is so different should attempt to make some evolutionary argument for such a design.

[lost_shaman]

Though it wouldn't surprise me if we found many morphologically similar creatures in similar environments. Would they be a bipedal humanoid like species interested in Shakespeare? ...Well. :]

I'd point out that an 'interest' in "Shakespeare" is meaningless to most of us bi-pedal Hominids who are alive today.

[bLu3 de 3n3rgy]

As my last post above shows, I fundamentally disagree with your opinion here. I've outlined in a simplistic way what is 'realistic' and I'm not willing to accept 'imaginary' body-types for 'Alien' civilizations unless they biomechanically can preform as well as a bi-pedal Hominid. This begs the question what other viable body-types can there be? Those who believe an Alien civilization is so different should attempt to make some evolutionary argument for such a design.

I don't think you are listening. All anyone can do is speculate here, and it is a perfectly reasonable point to make that an ET's physical appearance would be based on the conditions and circumstances of their world. Calling anything other than what you want to discuss 'imaginary' and unacceptable in a speculative conversation is ludicrous. That doesn't automatically outrule that intelligent lifeform would not have a humanoid physical structure. Coming at this point the way you did makes no sense at all.

[lost_shaman]

I don't think you are listening. All anyone can do is speculate here, and it is a perfectly reasonable point to make that an ET's physical appearance would be based on the conditions and circumstances of their world. Calling anything other than what you want to discuss 'imaginary' and unacceptable in a speculative conversation is ludicrous. That doesn't automatically outrule that intelligent lifeform would not have a humanoid physical structure. Coming at this point the way you did makes no sense at all.

It's not fair to say I'm not "listening" when I addressed the salient points and made my own arguments.

As for the conditions on the hypothetical planet, that planet must be conducive to technological civilization itself as well! Just as Earth is.

I tend to think my position makes lots of sense considering I've based it on what Dr. Simon Conway Morris and others have said about evolution. Evolution isn't mythical or imaginary, we can see in large part exactly how it happened here on Earth.

Therefore I don't agree with you.

Edited February 12, 2012 by lost_shaman

[bLu3 de 3n3rgy]

Speculating how lifeform evolves or may be presently adapting under the environment and so on conditions is not imaginary. Not for a speculative conversation. That's why i say you are not listening. Pretty much anything goes, how can any of us say 'this couldn't be' because of xyz when we don't even know. I'm not disagreeing with your ideas, or anyone's. I'm disagreeing with your apparent tic to just disagree.

[lost_shaman]

Speculating how lifeform evolves or may be presently adapting under the environment and so on conditions is not imaginary. Not for a speculative conversation. That's why i say you are not listening.

That doesn't make sense. To say I'm not listening, in an argument where I've gone out of my way to clarify my position.

Pretty much anything goes, how can any of us say 'this couldn't be' because of xyz when we don't even know.

No. I disagree. I explained why I disagree in my more detailed post earlier.

If we are being honest my point is the only one that is based in fact. Bi-pedal Hominids are the only body-type known to have attained technologiocal civilization.

I'm not disagreeing with your ideas, or anyone's. I'm disagreeing with your apparent tic to just disagree.

I don't accept that. The fact that I am making a legitimate agrument is proof that I'm not arguing simply for the sake of it. I'm arguing because I don't agree!

[Lilly]

I'd point out that an 'interest' in "Shakespeare" is meaningless to most of us bi-pedal Hominids who are alive today.

"But man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he ’s most assured,

His glassy essence, like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As make the angels weep." ~Measure for Measure