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Out of the 7 other planets we know of, none are like ours. You better hope if you ever need a liver transplant they look at more than 7 possible candidates.
Yet you use the same understanding of life that we know to form your opinion that it must be out there somewhere in the same basic form that we would categorize as life. You can call a rock "life" if you redefine the term.
Out of the 7 other planets we know of, none are like ours. You better hope if you ever need a liver transplant they look at more than 7 possible candidates.
I totally agree and thought of that. Just not sure how to talk about this in any other way.
I seriously doubt "they" know what a liver is.
What?
You gave me an article and I explained it. If that's aggression sorry about that.
What do you mean " all things as we know them" ? We are constantly making up new particles with new theories to explain how they might work? What are you saying? There are a tremendous number of phenomena we can't explain thoroughly or that defy rules we have already made which means the rules might need changing. Science is very dynamic.
You can't get in that boat and throw stones at this one, since that boat doesn't really exist. We all use basically the same perspective on life and if you argue that something is above anyone's understanding, you're using a logical fallacy called amazing familiarity. It's basically standing on an argument that relies on knowing things that you claim cannot be known.
Unless you're expecting aliens to do a liver transplant, the "they" is obviously referring to doctors.
When asked about what you or me or anyone thinks is out there, how can we answer that question?
Can we even talk aliens and livers?
Another thing we as humans do is use metaphor and analogy to describe phenomena that don't really fit anything we are able to experience. You and I are human and we must have some basis to understand each other to discuss things we observe. So we do rely on similar experience and use agreed upon analogy( which we often don't realize). IWe must fall short in this area though math can help a bit. We are limited. We don't know everything and never will IMO. We just shift our modeling and our math to describe things a bit better. Which then seem to lead to new questions.
Yes, which is my song n' dance, we are just too limited right now to understand things we haven't experienced as you mentioned. So we have to fall back on what we know. Using our experiences as the guidlines when we really shouldn't. We need to look outside our perimeters/boundaries and try to realize we are unique and others will be also.
What I mean is we must use descriptors such as "it's like a ball rolling down the hill" it's like, it's like... This is where math becomes very important. If we can describe phenomena using math exclusively then we don't have to rely on metaphor and analogy. But nonetheless the math also might be flawed.
What I don't get is what you are trying to propose we do to get around this.
When you are inside watching leaves move you should have a model of molecules of air striking the leaves, the leaves getting pushed, orienting in such a way that catches less wind, and then sprining back again due to elastic tension in the cells of the petiole or branch of the leave only to get rammed by air again. This model works fairly well. But the only reason we can understand this or agree to disagree is based upon a bunch of modeling and analogy and belief in atoms we can't see.
So how do you propose we attempt to describe things that can't be described. I'm not following. You are following a fallacy DMC mentioned?
So many sci fi novels written about aliens, little green/gray beings. Barsoom in ERB epic Mars saga. So many have had no problems coming up with far distant worlds and planets and space dwelllers. I'm just curious as to what your sci fi novel would have. Not really too concerned with dealing with things known, this is about the unknown. So do you have a world, a civilization to talk about or are you too limited with our limitations we have spoke of? And I don't mean that as a slam.
No this is a very interesting point.
I find sci fi very boring as our own world is much more inventive than a writers mind. The numbers of strange organisms that exist and are studied by scientists are much more interesting than what movie makers can come up with. I have a number of friends that love old sci fi just because they find it so... I guess juvenile. But they really like them. I won't watch them, they seem so much the same.
From a more physical science point of view I am very interested in the types of moons and planets that might exist based on the great diversity we have already found (The pictures and evaluation of Pluto being the most recent surprise) but trying to put some form of life into a certain situation... Nahh.
I mean for Fck sakes we can't even make aliens that are not bilateral in movies, it's so lame... For me. Head and feet arms... Jesus, get some creativity. The Blob was much better.
If you answer with anything besides "I don't know" you're blowing smoke. Why do you need to answer it? We are ignorant of these things, so if we form an opinion on something we know nothing about, we're basically building dogma around what should be science. Let's wait until we know something and then speculate just a bit further to build predictive models based on scientific method instead of front porch chatter.
Sure we can. We know livers exist and I've seen a few aliens recently, mostly in the Home Depot parking lot looking for day work.
You cannot talk outside of your boundaries. You might think you can but how do you get mentally there if it's outside your boundaries? More amazing familiarity. You're approaching epistemology from a 3rd person perspective but you're not a remote viewer. You're actually part of the experiment.
Here is some more solid evidence for life on other planets.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...o-of-new-York/
Who have you actually read when it comes to sci fi? I take it you really haven't read any of the classic authors and books. If you did I think you'd change your mind. No way this world comes close to comparing to what Arthur C. Clarke, Isacc Asimov, Frank Hebert wrote, but you won't know that until you change your opinion about the sci fi novel. Some of the greatest minds we find in the literary world are in this field.
Olaf Stapledon's "Star Maker" a must read.
Star Maker is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon, published in 1937. The book describes a history of life in the universe, dwarfing in scale Stapledon's previous book, Last and First Men (1930), a history of the human species over two billion years. Star Maker tackles philosophical themes such as the essence of life, of birth, decay and death, and the relationship between creation and creator. A pervading theme is that of progressive unity within and between different civilizations. Some of the elements and themes briefly discussed prefigure later fiction concerning genetic engineering and alien life forms. Arthur C. Clarke considered Star Maker to be one of the finest works of science fiction ever
Last edited by Avante; 03-28-2016 at 02:39 AM.
Well when you take into consideration nobody can prove you wrong why not take a stab at it. And your guess is as good as anyones elses, which is a rarity. Few things find everyone on the same level of ignorance.
I see alien beings that resemble a large snake, a snake with intelligence. Tall and lean, with large eyes and elongated limbs. Very slow in movement but precise and calculated in those movements. They find us amusing in appearance and are totally baffled at our warlike at udes and aggresive behavior. Curious about why we are no different when it comes to violence than what we were a 1000 years ago when they first discovered us. In their world violence towards a fellow Amonian is unheard of. Only in the swamps and jungles on Zamboria and Tauras where the wild life dwell do they see something similiar to an earthling.
Last edited by Avante; 03-28-2016 at 03:26 AM.
Since life has proved possible here, it is definitely possible elsewhere.
Chemistry and physics being what it is, we may be getting some glimmer about how probable.
Organic chemistry follows certain patterns, and those reactions are fairly well understood.
Given the right conditions, i.e. planet in "sweet spot" for liquid water in a cluster of space created from a supernovae there is a pretty good chance there is life elsewhere. I base this on the fact that we are discovering a LOT of planets orbiting stars. That is a lot of lottery tickets.
We have several models of abiogenesis. Remember that DNA has a more primitive version, RNA.
All that requires is a certain amount of organic acids pooling around to have some basic versions start forming. There is more to it of course, such as a lipid bubble that would cons ute a very primitive cell membrane for the primitive prokaryotes. Prokaryotes are simply blobs of protoplasm/DNA with no nucleus, and arose before the eukarotes that really started off the chain reaction with the first real specialized structures. Lipids (fats) tend to clump and form naturally as well.
A bit on unicellular organisms:
http://www.ck12.org/biology/Prokaryo...aryotic-Cells/
A bit on some of the things about lipid formation
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
More links to other explanations here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/
Both of the above have put it into context of creationism/evolution controversy, but if you filter that out, there are some good links to the underlying science.
"After determining that the ocean beneath the icy surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus has roughly the same pH as Windex or soapy water -- an indication that the water has been in contact with rock, creating potentially life-friendly chemistry -- scientists are moving on to the trickier hunt for evidence of hydrothermal venting............... "
http://news.discovery.com/space/alie...dus-151215.htm
Good sci-fi, like any good fiction or art, asks important questions. TV and movies tend to be entertainment and drama overlaid onto the basic questions.
There is some reason to think that life will develop some symmetry, as even primitive life on our planet has such.
Eyup. We will probe, and eventually someone will get some samples back.
What happens if/when the samples include primitive organisms?
They dont come close for me. Especially if you are specifically interested in life. Assimov was very good at explaining science to the masses. His fiction is a reflection of this.
There is a difference in appreciating the art of film making and story telling compared to the absolute incredible diversity of oddities that many will never appreciate without understanding biology. No human I have ever read comes close to creating what nature has actually given us. So I guess we need to separate these.
One has to attempt to understand biology to really appreciate life and evolution. I suggest you read Stephen J. Goulld's collection of Natural History Articles concerning life on Earth. Hen's Teeth And Horses Toes, As a starter, then the Pandas Thumb.
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