Really? That surprises me. I know you're smart enough to know that discovering life elsewhere in the universe is not necessarlly good news.Originally Posted by RevolverRob
Really? That surprises me. I know you're smart enough to know that discovering life elsewhere in the universe is not necessarlly good news.
Not if it's a robot probe that finds it, with no way for it to come back to Earth. There are advantages to unmanned missions.
But to be clear - we are highly unlikely to find intelligent Life on another planet, which is an important distinction to draw. We are much more likely to find Life (capital L) of the unicellular type on another planet. Particularly the ones we are currently exploring (i.e., Mars).
The discovery of Life on another planet has profound implications for understanding both the history and evolution of Life on our planet (up to and including our origins). And it has profound implications for determining if Evolution is a natural law. Life on Earth currently evolves, but because we have an N=1 sample size, we do not know if that is a universal natural law or merely the a localized law to Earth.
Statistically speaking, there should be Life on another planet out there in the Universe. Perhaps not in our galaxy, though I suspect we will find unicellular life on planets in our galaxy, but certainly within the universe. There may even be intelligent life, but that does depend on a number of factors and right now we lack the ability to make appropriate observations to determine which galaxies may have a higher probability of produce life. Partly, because we only have Earth as the exemplar. So we keep looking for "Earths". When for all we know, below the thick cloud of Jupiter's atmosphere are a bunch of hydrogen breathing 'animals', we don't think there are, because our perspective is Geocentric and as far as we know, right now, that's the only way Life can exist, but we could be wrong.
Yeah that's not what I was driving at. I was more referring to the implications of the Fermi Paradox and the Great Filter.
JFC.
Another thread on ignore.
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That's actually the best reason to find Life on another planet. Fermi was almost certainly wrong. He forgot to account for several critical factors including the time it takes for Life to arise and evolve into "intelligent" forms AND the rate of extinction. The Law of Evolution not only dictates change over time, it dictates extinction of all species will eventually occur.
Fermi's Paradox also doesn't account for what "intelligent" really means. Which is and of itself a highly contentious set of ideas. Humans take an anthropocentric view of what dictates intelligence - something that would want to leave its home planet and explore beyond, it's probably bipedal with a "big brain" etc. Really what Fermi and to a less extent Sagan meant when they said "Intelligent Life" was - Humanoid Life.
The Great Filter is really nothing more than a summarization of things that we understand limit or condition life on Earth. The most compelling hypotheses for why we haven't found Life on another planet are two -
1) We haven't explored nearly enough to find it.
2) The "They Are Too Alien" problem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_..._are_too_alien - Where we might not recognize the Life we're looking at. Which is actually what makes ExoBiology such an interesting field of study. Trying to identify the critical components of Life that need to be recognizable to identify even far too alien things, as living. That's a fascinating problem and one which is as difficult to answer as it is to contemplate.
The implications for the Great Filter and Fermi's Paradox are great reasons to keep looking, as opposed to reasons to not look, in my opinion.
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I'll openly admit though, I have virtually zero concern that the impact of discovering Life on another planet may have on philosophical/existential realms and in particular religious ones. Since we're humans and can be selfish, I am far more interested in the discovery and study of Life than the effects it may have on individuals who define their existence in the vacuum that is being human. Which I know is one reason why philosophers and theologians do not want to find Life on another planet. It will create chaos, at least with respect to some religious sects. But then again, those sects need to spend time separating and compartmentalizing their philosophies in order to be adapt to new discovery.
Last edited by RevolverRob; 07-11-2019 at 03:57 PM.
I still prefer my taxes stay on earth............................................. ................................................
To play devils advocate ; one unanswered question is whether or not manned exploration is even medically viable?
Long term stays on the Moon aren’t exactly risk free. Lunar dust is basically volcanic ash on steroids, and would need to be addressed on any habitation structure. Radiation means those structures have to be located underground : with launch costs averaging $10K per lb , it’ll be awhile before we see construction contracts for moon bases.
Even an orbiting structure has a nonzero chance of awful radiation exposure from CMEs, and unless gravity could be simulated bone loss is certain. Mars is exponentially more risky, both physically and psychologically. What would await our brave astronauts is a dusty, poisonous percholrate rich rock which still wouldn’t shield them from radiation exposure.
Until our medical technology catches up to our rocket science, any discussion of non-Earth addresses is moot. There may be a valid argument to conclude we are and will forevermore remain a one-planet species. After all, no amount of technology is gonna get a dolphin to Mars despite it being an intelligent animal.
The Minority Marksman.
"When you meet a swordsman, draw your sword: Do not recite poetry to one who is not a poet."
-a Ch'an Buddhist axiom.
I need to LOL at this comment. Who do you think is paying the private sector to develop their shit? It isnt all funded out of Elon and Bezos pockets... who do you think they want to sell their product to? If NASA isnt doing it I can tell you no one is going to the moon or mars anytime soon.
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Go read Blindsight for a good novel on why we don't want to find anybody else out there. Short answer: they might not behave, think or reason like we do. Or at all. There's some deep themes in here that'll leave you thinking about our existence long after you're done reading.
Aaaanyway I'm raising funds for my asteroid mining venture. PM for Venmo.
Haven't read the whole thread. But I want to make sure, you don't miss that:
apolloinrealtime.org/11
Audio and pictures from Apollo 11 exactly 50 years ago. Awesome. Moon landing in 1 h 13 min.
If you click on the picture on the right side, then you get it in big.
Last edited by P30; 07-20-2019 at 10:38 AM.
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