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Post by Ranger Joe on Aug 23, 2009 23:32:07 GMT -5
Ok, I had a thought on all of this. I will preface by stating I know absolute zero regarding space exploration or biology...
I do know that we are carbon based life forms that depend on water. I also know that the majority of our planetary exploration is centralized around water or water that used to exist.
Do you think it possible that on some other distant galaxy, that life formed from a different subject matter? Say sulfur for example. Could it be that we are looking and asking questions, but simply asking the wrong questions? I'm curious to hear everyone's thought on this one. It was something I just started thinking about earlier this evening and figured I'd share it with you lovely, but pleasantly strange folks I have become rather attached to over the last week. LoL.
Thoughts?
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Post by Armand Tanzarian on Aug 24, 2009 2:03:57 GMT -5
Yes this matter has been speculated on, many many times. But the truth is, we're only really knowledgable about how carbon-based lifeforms work; everything else is pure speculation. (We may also speculate that we have a good idea how silicon-based lifeforms may work, once our computers develop all the criteria for life) So until we know what we're looking for, we can only look for carbon-based lifeforms, with the signs we know.
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Post by MaybeNever on Aug 24, 2009 3:01:17 GMT -5
The problem with non-carbon lifeforms is simple chemistry. Carbon is an excitingly promiscuous element, and the variety of bonds it can form make it a prime candidate for the formation of complex molecules and thereupon life. Silicon is somewhat similar in its ability to bond, which is why it's popularly a second candidate for lifeforms, but even it falls short. Somebody more knowledgeable about chemistry can explain further (and correct wherever I'm wrong).
Of course, in a nearly infinite universe there are nearly infinite possibilities. Could life form with another element as its basis? Sure, it's *possible*. The resilience and adaptability of life continues to make a mockery of every limitation we try to put it on it.
The question of whether or not we would even recognize alien life as alive or, realizing that, as sentient, is another important one. As Armand Ganja points out, we wouldn't even know what to look for. It would hopefully be obvious, but it'd be a bad idea to count on that.
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Post by Vene on Aug 24, 2009 3:19:38 GMT -5
The problem with non-carbon lifeforms is simple chemistry. Carbon is an excitingly promiscuous element, and the variety of bonds it can form make it a prime candidate for the formation of complex molecules and thereupon life. Silicon is somewhat similar in its ability to bond, which is why it's popularly a second candidate for lifeforms, but even it falls short. Somebody more knowledgeable about chemistry can explain further (and correct wherever I'm wrong). No, this is correct, but, the molecules would be vastly different. Also, about water, yeah, I don't see that being needed, another oxidizing agent could work, maybe ammonia. |
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Post by Ranger Joe on Aug 24, 2009 6:51:43 GMT -5
The problem with non-carbon lifeforms is simple chemistry. Carbon is an excitingly promiscuous element, and the variety of bonds it can form make it a prime candidate for the formation of complex molecules and thereupon life. Silicon is somewhat similar in its ability to bond, which is why it's popularly a second candidate for lifeforms, but even it falls short. Somebody more knowledgeable about chemistry can explain further (and correct wherever I'm wrong). No, this is correct, but, the molecules would be vastly different. Also, about water, yeah, I don't see that being needed, another oxidizing agent could work, maybe ammonia. Of course, all of this is speculative, but is it even required for a sentient life form to be physically seen? Would it be out of line for a life form to be a conciousness formed by a cloud of chemicals/molecules that has no solid shape? I am fairly ignorant when it comes to the exact details of these processes, but I have lots of ideas and random thoughts about the entire process. I think that there is, without question, sentient life somewhere in the Universe. It would be incredibly vain to think otherwise, IMHO. This has always been an overly interesting subject for me. I think that if NASA came out tomorrow asking for volunteers to fly into the deepest areas of space knowing full well there would be no opportunity for return, I'd go in a heart beat. I would love, and often dream, about seeing alien spacial "landscapes". -sigh- It would be beautiful  |
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Post by MaybeNever on Aug 24, 2009 11:49:54 GMT -5
No, this is correct, but, the molecules would be vastly different. Also, about water, yeah, I don't see that being needed, another oxidizing agent could work, maybe ammonia. Of course, all of this is speculative, but is it even required for a sentient life form to be physically seen? Would it be out of line for a life form to be a conciousness formed by a cloud of chemicals/molecules that has no solid shape? I am fairly ignorant when it comes to the exact details of these processes, but I have lots of ideas and random thoughts about the entire process. I think that there is, without question, sentient life somewhere in the Universe. It would be incredibly vain to think otherwise, IMHO. This has always been an overly interesting subject for me. I think that if NASA came out tomorrow asking for volunteers to fly into the deepest areas of space knowing full well there would be no opportunity for return, I'd go in a heart beat. I would love, and often dream, about seeing alien spacial "landscapes". -sigh- It would be beautiful I think that that's a question that falls right into the realm of No Idea At All. Our understanding of cognition doesn't even have the limitations and thoroughness of the aforementioned carbon/silicon deal, because at the moment we don't actually know what, exactly, CAUSES cognition. Every thinking animal on Earth has certain similarities, so obviously it's connected to nerve bundles using electro-chemical signals, but that's probably not the only way to do it. We probably can't posit a gas-cloud creature, at least not scientifically defensibly, but it's not too far off to suggest that somewhere out there might exist an animal that is basically a collection of gnats which share cognition through hormone exchange or similar. I've read before that the way to understand ants or bees is not as the tiny little critters we view them as, but as the entire hive - that it's the hive that's the relevant organic unit, not the ant or bee itself. This makes a lot of sense to me, and really such a gnat commune creature isn't too far off from that at all. Unfortunately, barring serious advances in technology, we as a species probably won't see more than the planets in our system and a handful of the very nearest stars. There are 11 stars within 10 light years of Earth, and three of those are part of the trinary system colloquially called Alpha Centauri. While I maintain optimism that we'll eventually (not in my life time, but eventually) work out a way around the lightspeed limit or just angle for generational ships, I'm not counting on it. While at least one deep space probe used a gravitational slingshot effect to go back to the 1980s and save the whales achieve much higher speeds, the speeds you can count on using modern rocket technology are about 25-30000mph, or 7-8 miles per second. At that rate it would take about... oh... 96000 years to get to Alpha Centauri. |
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Post by Ranger Joe on Aug 24, 2009 12:12:11 GMT -5
Of course, all of this is speculative, but is it even required for a sentient life form to be physically seen? Would it be out of line for a life form to be a conciousness formed by a cloud of chemicals/molecules that has no solid shape? I am fairly ignorant when it comes to the exact details of these processes, but I have lots of ideas and random thoughts about the entire process. I think that there is, without question, sentient life somewhere in the Universe. It would be incredibly vain to think otherwise, IMHO. This has always been an overly interesting subject for me. I think that if NASA came out tomorrow asking for volunteers to fly into the deepest areas of space knowing full well there would be no opportunity for return, I'd go in a heart beat. I would love, and often dream, about seeing alien spacial "landscapes". -sigh- It would be beautiful I think that that's a question that falls right into the realm of No Idea At All. Our understanding of cognition doesn't even have the limitations and thoroughness of the aforementioned carbon/silicon deal, because at the moment we don't actually know what, exactly, CAUSES cognition. Every thinking animal on Earth has certain similarities, so obviously it's connected to nerve bundles using electro-chemical signals, but that's probably not the only way to do it. We probably can't posit a gas-cloud creature, at least not scientifically defensibly, but it's not too far off to suggest that somewhere out there might exist an animal that is basically a collection of gnats which share cognition through hormone exchange or similar. I've read before that the way to understand ants or bees is not as the tiny little critters we view them as, but as the entire hive - that it's the hive that's the relevant organic unit, not the ant or bee itself. This makes a lot of sense to me, and really such a gnat commune creature isn't too far off from that at all. Unfortunately, barring serious advances in technology, we as a species probably won't see more than the planets in our system and a handful of the very nearest stars. There are 11 stars within 10 light years of Earth, and three of those are part of the trinary system colloquially called Alpha Centauri. While I maintain optimism that we'll eventually (not in my life time, but eventually) work out a way around the lightspeed limit or just angle for generational ships, I'm not counting on it. While at least one deep space probe used a gravitational slingshot effect to go back to the 1980s and save the whales achieve much higher speeds, the speeds you can count on using modern rocket technology are about 25-30000mph, or 7-8 miles per second. At that rate it would take about... oh... 96000 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Indeed. I wish I could see the Earth after 5000 more years. I'm truly curious to see what we would know (if we were even still around).. |
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Post by MaybeNever on Aug 24, 2009 12:49:48 GMT -5
You should check out Celestia. It's a decent little program, and you can kind of explore the galaxy a bit. The one major drawback is that it's accurate, which you might not think is a problem until you realize how unbelievably empty the universe is.
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Post by Ian1732 on Aug 27, 2009 12:05:01 GMT -5
Sometimes I feel that before we can look for intelligent life on other planets, we need to find intelligent life on Earth, first. *da dum tsh!*
But I digress... The one thing I'm concerned about is, if we make contact with another sentient species, it could result in an interstellar war. If they're hostile, it's pretty much self-explanatory, but if they're friendly, some asshat fundie is going to try and convert them and make them hostile.
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