Alien life right here at home...

[franklin]

Ya. I see what you are saying.

Mathmatics is the language of the universe. Its hard to comprehend math being any different any where else. 1 object is 1 object, 2 is 2, and so on , and so on.

But I dont think we are done finding out more about math. I dont know if we ever will be. It might just be like peeling back the layers of an onion that never ends. Which brings us back to the term infinite and what it really means.

It appears to be the same thing when we study the small and just how small can you go. String theory, then what? On and on.

No doubt on the new discovery part. We will deepen our understandings of what we've already accumulated.

The criticism I have is taking a pre-1940ish heritage mindset (that ironically is born out of modern science proving old suspicions and wives tales wrong) that says we don't know because science. Does that make sense?

Modern science is quit refined but we are still living underneath the fragments of the folly mindset that existed pre-science. In other words, we are paranoid of new findings being hubris because they happened to often be so under the old, archaic pseudoscientific structure.


That's up The Babe's alley, I think.

 

[LogGrad98]

I think we comprehend life just fine. Laws of physics pretty much guarantee that alternative life forms do not exist in non-carbon or hypothetically silicone based forms. If this weren't true then we'd have The Thing jumping out of caves to scare little children.

As far as bacteria goes, that's about as lively as prions or viruses IMO. There's more to "life" than chemistry reacting like a well orchestrated symphony to external stimuli. Science needs to catch up to this.

Actually some of the theories I have seen explain this pretty well. We see the type of life that the environment here was capable of developing and sustaining. It is possible that life developed under far different circumstances and exists in environments we could not. So partly the anthropic principle again, that life developed here because this was an environment conducive to carbon-based life to develop. That isn't to say that some other type of life couldn't have developed in far different circumstances with far different properties, say with ammonia as a base medium instead of water on a planet cold enough to sustain liquid ammonia, but perhaps heated from within. It might even still be carbon-based, but without the water component, and it could represent a far different biosphere than we would think possible. I also am just not a fan of making blanket statements based on our knowledge of physics and science when it is obviously not really that far developed and saying definitively that something could or could not exist. It is fair to say that as far as we understand the laws of physics we cannot see a way that it could work. It does not preclude the possibility that we don't know everything and maybe it can, in a way that would teach us more about the science.

 

[LogGrad98]

No doubt on the new discovery part. We will deepen our understandings of what we've already accumulated.

The criticism I have is taking a pre-1940ish heritage mindset (that ironically is born out of modern science proving old suspicions and wives tales wrong) that says we don't know because science. Does that make sense?

Modern science is quit refined but we are still living underneath the fragments of the folly mindset that existed pre-science. In other words, we are paranoid of new findings being hubris because they happened to often be so under the old, archaic pseudoscientific structure.


That's up The Babe's alley, I think.

I posted my other post before I saw this one. I think you are right, but also think about the recent postulations by Hawking, that event horizons of black holes don't really exist. There is so much that is plainly obvious that we do not understand about the quantum nature of the universe that it is flat out silly, in the face of all we still cannot explain, to say that we have refined science to the point where anything new will just expand on what we already know. There are still areas where breakthroughs can and will occur, imo. I think both points of view can exist in harmony. Yes, taking the pre-1940's mindset to anything and everything scientific is one risk, but taking the polar opposite is another.

 

[addictionary]

I think there is a correlation between the the term infinite and what it means to possibilities. If the universe is infinite then so may be the possibilities.

What do you picture when you use the word "infinite"?

I dont think its a huge surprise to find water on that asteroid/planet. Its relatively close to us. So the elements should be the same.

The elemental similarity is understandable, but the asteroid having been told to have an atmosphere is the reason to the possible existence of water and that is far more important I think, considering its structure not being similar to the core based Earth structure to create an atmosphere.

You're talking about altering the structural makeup of elements and their electron clouds, which I find more than highly unlikely.

Isn't it possible to find new elements and new forms of existence as far as you sail away? Even considering the within the Earth's boundaries, we still come across amazing creatures that we could not even comprehend that they existed before the deeper we search the oceans. No elemental critical difference, just a great deal of difference in the conditions, pressure, heat etc. God knows (or Science knows if you will) what we would contact if we successed at reaching Andromeda in one piece and undamaged conscience before we crash.

The fact that our very smartest have consistently been able to come up with calculations to explain away the previously unfathomed by using our science (as opposed to your unknown variables) wipes away all this mystery doubt to me.

Dramatic shifts in paradigms won't occur as sharp as the ones that had been experienced entering the empirical methodology's world from false beliefs that explained the universe. But that shouldn't keep us away from thinking that any truth we know may change someday regardless of the validity of their current states.

 

[franklin]

Actually some of the theories I have seen explain this pretty well. We see the type of life that the environment here was capable of developing and sustaining. It is possible that life developed under far different circumstances and exists in environments we could not. So partly the anthropic principle again, that life developed here because this was an environment conducive to carbon-based life to develop. That isn't to say that some other type of life couldn't have developed in far different circumstances with far different properties, say with ammonia as a base medium instead of water on a planet cold enough to sustain liquid ammonia, but perhaps heated from within. It might even still be carbon-based, but without the water component, and it could represent a far different biosphere than we would think possible. I also am just not a fan of making blanket statements based on our knowledge of physics and science when it is obviously not really that far developed and saying definitively that something could or could not exist. It is fair to say that as far as we understand the laws of physics we cannot see a way that it could work. It does not preclude the possibility that we don't know everything and maybe it can, in a way that would teach us more about the science.

Entire planets of piss drinkers eh?

Isn't it possible to find new elements and new forms of existence as far as you sail away? Even considering the within the Earth's boundaries, we still come across amazing creatures that we could not even comprehend that they existed before the deeper we search the oceans. No elemental critical difference, just a great deal of difference in the conditions, pressure, heat etc. God knows (or Science knows if you will) what we would contact if we successed at reaching Andromeda in one piece and undamaged conscience before we crash.

All these new creatures are made up of the same stuff though.

 

[addictionary]

Entire planets of piss drinkers eh?




All these new creatures are made up of the same stuff though.

So the possible other stuff forming newer creatures?

 

[franklin]

So the possible other stuff forming newer creatures?

I don't buy the piss drinkers option. NH3 doesn't hold enough heat because it isn't nearly as polar.

As has been posted, we already know of organisms living in extreme environments, yet none of them have evolved using separate building blocks like you're expecting them to have done elsewhere. That tells me the chemistry required for life creates the same type of organisms Billions of random events will always lead to the same outcome in chemistry (equilibrium).

Why do we need to dream up new potentially, maybe possible because the universe is big and unknown scenarios anyway?

 

[Hotdog]

I don't buy the piss drinkers option. NH3 doesn't hold enough heat because it isn't nearly as polar.

As has been posted, we already know of organisms living in extreme environments, yet none of them have evolved using separate building blocks like you're expecting them to have done elsewhere. That tells me the chemistry required for life creates the same type of organisms Billions of random events will always lead to the same outcome in chemistry (equilibrium).

Why do we need to dream up new potentially, maybe possible because the universe is big and unknown scenarios anyway?

We need to dream up new potentially, maybe possible because thats what direction everything is moving. Forward. The only constant in existence is change.

 

[LogGrad98]

I don't buy the piss drinkers option. NH3 doesn't hold enough heat because it isn't nearly as polar.

As has been posted, we already know of organisms living in extreme environments, yet none of them have evolved using separate building blocks like you're expecting them to have done elsewhere. That tells me the chemistry required for life creates the same type of organisms Billions of random events will always lead to the same outcome in chemistry (equilibrium).

Why do we need to dream up new potentially, maybe possible because the universe is big and unknown scenarios anyway?

Why not?