Are there foriegn life forms out there? Thread

And, by out there I mean in space, just to clear up that issue. Considering there are billions of stars in our universe alone, with an indeterminable amount of planet orbiting each of those planets, is it wrong to think that we are the only intelligent life (aside from our own creatures here on Earth) forms in the universe? What about the 'every person has a perfect twin' theory? Could there be a star that we don't know about yet, that has the exact technology that we do? And if this is possible, are they conversing the same subject as we are?

Love to hear some views from the varied audience of moddb.

Ofcourse there is

Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, you name it.

Don't forget the infamous teletubies. Now those are as foreign as it can get.

I agree with UberSoldat. The teletubbies are fucking scary....

CheapAlert wrote: Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, Cardassians, Ferengi, you name it.

NEBER

if you notice, some of them are based on human activities

Klingons = Vikings
Vulcans = Monks
Cardassians = Nazies

Cnat think of a human equivlent to the rest

(but yes, there is definetly real , other lifeforms out there, no doubt about it , weather its intelligient or not, who knows)

- Edited By chis-wk On Thu 24th, Jun 2004 @ 2:29:44pm

Babylons: Freaks that you find in the sewers

Don't forget the goaulds and åsgards.

I think there's some life out there. Probably some primitive aliens like us. Or maybe they're just some idiot vegetables or some superintelligent mushrooms...

I think it would be ignorant to believe this entire universe is here solely for us.

40ozFreak wrote: I think it would be ignorant to believe this entire universe is here solely for us.

*me is ignorant

i can't help but thinking otherwise!!! don't blame me, blame my brain!!!

40ozFreak wrote: I think it would be ignorant to believe this entire universe is here solely for us.

Exactly. Who's to say what `life` is though, everything seems normal to us but what if these other life forms are like us, its weird how I cant convey what I mean.

Well Cosmos has kinda gone to hell recently, hasn't it! :/

azz0r wrote:

40ozFreak wrote: I think it would be ignorant to believe this entire universe is here solely for us.

Exactly. Who's to say what `life` is though, everything seems normal to us but what if these other life forms are like us, its weird how I cant convey what I mean.

I think I might know what you mean, since I have thought about this kind of thing before, and in at least my version of it, it goes like this:

Life is completely relative; if snails were the highest form of life (and lets just say for arguments sake that these snails were self-aware :o), then they might view plants in the same way that we view snails at the moment, and in turn if these plants were the highest form of life (yet again for arguments sake, they are self-aware ), they might view single-celled creatures as we view snails at the moment, and as snails would view plants if they were the highest form of life. Then we get down to if single celled creatures were the highest form of life (you guessed it; self aware... yada yada), by common usage, this is the most primitive life.

However, can you really draw the line? Before whole cells were around, there was basic DNA that was busy evolving, but little scraps of DNA floating around aren't classified as life in common usage today. Want to take it another step? How about the basic sugars and things that make up that DNA? Then why not take it a step further and talk about the individual atoms, and then the subatomic particles within?

When we really think about it, there is no clean-cut way to define life without creating the line ourselves; there simply is no such natural line. Therefore, we can consider that maybe life as we currently define it is nothing special*. Ok, let's do that; lets have a look at evolution. There is only so much we can tell about the big bang from our observations, but this amount of information is surprisingly large, and is growing all the time. For one, we know that the structures in the universe as we know it have not always existed; chaos reigned for many billions of years, then slowly the universe started to arrange itself into defined structures (although if you think about it, that chaos is actually no more chaotic than the current, apparently 'ordered' universe we have now). Why did it do this? Evolution. Survival of the fittest. Natural selection. Whatever you want to call it, basically what was happening, is that the most robust structures - the things that came together that stayed together - survived. Now, although this may seem different to life and evolution as we know it, in my honest opinion it is merely a more primitive form of exactly the same thing.

* By "nothing special", I do not mean to say that life is not something that should be cherished and respected, but that if anything, perhaps this should also extend into so-called 'lower' forms of existence - appreciate the whole lot if you can!

Now, think about this: What if we were to come across a lifeform which were much further developed than us; a whole different type of life completely that we could barely begin to comprehend. Would it not be likely that they would consider us as we consider plants, and have no moral issues with clearing us out of their way if they saw fit? (perhaps to build a hyperspace bybass or whatnot! ) Just food for thought... if you wan't nightmares.

Ok that was a kind of long rant, but if you can understand what I was rambling about, its some interesting and confusing stuff! You could take it as far as you like, and even use it to theorise that perhaps matter itself evolved, and the big bang was simply some even more[i]basic elements that just happened to fit together, and our entire universe is but an atom in some infinitely more complex universe.

Entirely possible, and highly probable; scientists recently found in space (within the last year or so I think) clouds of what they belive to be essential elements of life - sugars and whatnot. It has long been thought by many that the life we have on Earth did not develop from scratch [i]on Earth, but rather some primitive forms of life may have been deposited here by comets or meteors. This discovery gives credence to that theory, and also to the thoery that there is life on other planets, especially considering the extreme abundance of what they found.

I probably should end this post now before I go and lose it or something! :o

Cheers,
-jEFF

Thats exactly what I meant, me and you are so connected.

FRANK DRAKE'S EQUATION: N = Ns fp ne fl fi fc fL

Ns = 200 billion = approximate number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

fp = 10% = fraction of stars I think have planets around them (<2x10-10 assumed)

ne = 0.33 = number of planets per star I guess are ecologically able to sustain life

fl = 0.000001% (1 of 1,000,000) = fraction of those planets where I think life evolves

fi = 0.000001% (1 of 1,000,000) = fraction of fl where I think intelligent life evolves

fc = 0.0000001% (1 of 10,000,000) = fraction of fi I think can communicate

fL = 1/100,000th (100.000 y) = fraction of time during which I think culture survive.

N = 6.6 x 10-24 = probabilities on existence of communicating civilizations in Milky Way galaxy.

Ment to be able to answer your question to how many lifeforms are out there if you can understand it

Yeah ive seen that equation

azz0r wrote:

40ozFreak wrote: I think it would be ignorant to believe this entire universe is here solely for us.

Exactly. Who's to say what `life` is though, everything seems normal to us but what if these other life forms are like us, its weird how I cant convey what I mean.

exactly. what if there was a species unknown yet of humans that breathed nothingness? or one that lived on a hot desert planet with no atmosphere? Would they breathe sunlight?

heh breath photons,

They would look very odd , and I cant imagine them being very intelligent, but who knows

I can imagine this when we're all decomposed to 5 molecules in the dirt: Scientists have found a miror world that is strangely remniscent of our planet during 2004. We spoke to some lardass named Sticky, and some idiot who loves cake as well as a man who said we should be scared! Exploitation and strip mining commence in 5 minutes thanks to Geroge Bush the LMCXXXVII

EDIT: I realise that that is no real roman numeral, and I do know a lot of it, but it's summer, and I'm just really fucking lazy.

- Edited By sticky On Fri 25th, Jun 2004 @ 4:46:17pm

Theres a fish the lives near vents in the earth or lava flows under water and breathes Co2 .... scientists didnt think that was possible so hey who knows

Scientists dont think many thngs are possible

silly buggers

there meantto believe = anything is pobbible

Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.

nice way 2 look at it

prolly cause we are prmitive and destructive

Hey! We're only human! (That's the problem though...)

EDIT: Limey, you stole that from Calvin and Hobbes

- Edited By sticky On Fri 25th, Jun 2004 @ 10:26:26pm

Albert wrote: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."

How prophetic. How true.