aliens

why is it aliens are always portrayed as being relatively the same size as humans? arent the chances of alien life living somewhere out there are inhabiting a planet that is an incredibly different size to that of earths?

wouldnt that make these aliens way bigger or way smaller in comparison to us?

also, i have been thinking about the types of societies these aliens might embrace? would you think that perhaps they would have religion as we do?

what would the opinion be if we discovered aliens, or they discovered us, only to find out they were in fact humanoids and embraced the same religions we do here on earth? my, wouldnt that be something?

anyways, id love hear some other peoples questions or opinions on this matter!

 

It is a very interesting and debate filled topic as to what range of conditions can support life, and to what extent life can differ from life on earth. If life does not require carbon then there could be living forms that would be very different from the forms on Earth. If the range of suitable conditions is small such that any life bearing planet would closely resemble earth, then maybe similar forms would develop there.

It is probably reasonable to assume that other intelligent life forms would create religions, at least to the extent that it might be reasonable to suspect similar cognitive development among intelligent forms.

 

what about life forms surviving in nitrogen or methane rich environments?

there is just so many questions. i keep reading up on what these scientists are talking about, but i never hear questions such as these raised?

im very interested in hearing more theories and hypothesis on how other life forms might exist, live, reproduce, conduct order, etc.

its all so amazing to think about

 

What would be incredible is if it turns out that liquid water is not necessary for life. If liquid water is necessary then that definitely limits where we can expect life. I think that scientists do raise the issues of whether life can exist without water or without carbon, but in terms of searching for life I think they stick with what they know best, and that is carbon forms on planets with liquid water.

 

For life we're looking for an "organic" molecule that can easily combine with a freely availibe and common atom/molecule and give off excess energy.

My understanding of biological complexity supports the theory that, besides carbon, only silicon has the reactive propeties nessacary to support life as divergent and complex as it is on Earth.

As to atomosphere-- Hydrocarbons are too reactive, nitrogen is not reactive enough, but oxygen is just right. it would also work with silicon.

What would other life would be like? I'll have to go with Arthur C Clarke-- same solution for the same problems. The development of manipulative intelligence my go hand in hand with the development of the humanoid form.

Or maybe not.

 

I imagined a plant or other satellite inhabited by...well I suppose we could call them ghost aliens.


Like, ethereal life forms (most likely invisible to human eyes).

To think a space alien resembles a human seems shallow minded to me. My guess is most aliens aren't measured the same way as humans.

 

im not a very smart guy, but what if there are life forms that can exist on elements that we dont know about. is it possible that there is more to the periodic table?

i mean, there has got to be things out there on other worlds that our human mind cannot grasp or even theorize at the moment. there are just to many things we dont know.

and @ hazed, i like your idea of ethereal life forms. very interesting.

 

Have you ever read "Sphere" by Micheal Crichton?

In this book one of the main character explain that the problem is bigger than we normally think. We cannot think an alien that is not humanoid. Whether it's a giant clam or a crystal (this one is not very clear to me) we must attribute to it some human characteristics.
Moreover, we assume that an alien would necessarily exist in our three dimensions, but it can live in two, or one, or other dimensions unknown to us.

It's creepy.

 

I've always loved the depiction of aliens in The World Jones Made by Philip K Dick.
They are basically gigantic one-celled organisms.

 

there is no more room for stable elements in the periodic table. any concievable new elements would be radioactive.

Even on other worlds the basic natural laws apply.
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I have read sphere. Chrichton was an MD and amatuer scientist.
But he was also a fiction writer, and Sphere is not one of his based-on-true-facts novels.
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the basic problem is this: where does the chemical energy come from to sustain life?
A basic fuel burning system is a requirement-- or it's not life.

And a minimum of complexity is needed.

A gaseous cloud would lack the complexity UNLESS it was extremely massive and made up of many chemicals. which means, to maintain it's gaseous state, it would have to be HUGE. otherwise, it would have to be as dense as a "solid".
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come to think of it, the Orion Nebula meets the criteria

 

Imagine a "being" who's complex organs and other extremities are found in 1 particle per billion. However these particles are independently operating parts of a complete organism which spans over light years. Each particle being able to electromagnetically communicate with each other. You could be standing in the belly of an intelligent cosmic beast and not even be aware of it.


everything your saying is true, but I'm saying think outside the box. Saying there is no more room on the periodic table is true, but dependent on existing logic. I'm just saying, I don't think these rules apply so strictly throughout the universe. I grew up understanding that there were 4 dimensions, and it was inconceivable to me that there could be more.
did you know there are 10 dimensions and the 11th is a matter of debate?
Granted human beings only deal with 4 on a day to day basis...but could you possibly comprehend what the 5th 6th and 7th dimension are hiding behind this illusion of a world? most likely not.

things that seem to defy explanation, need to be examined before they can attempt to be explained. as far as I'm concerned, what goes on outside our galaxy is a crap-shoot. who knows, even if we traveled there our human brains might not even be able to comprehend whats going on.

 

Sure he was, but why is not possible what he told?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch#playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=D_nITDqXqzo&v=Nh7Uv556xZQ

 

See above

 

Editorial note: Don't get me wrong-- I'm open to anything. but it must be possible
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The Basic Assumption of Science is that natural laws apply throughout the Universe. if you don't accept this, your arguing faith.
And forget about Blackholes-- that's why they are called anamolies.
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The 1 particle per billion needs a mechanism that ties it all together and allows interaction. Also, and more fundementally, a means of energy transfer between particles is needed, a synaptic response mechanism.

If the orion Nebula were alive, communication from one part to another, limited to C, would take many decades.

if it took 15 billion years to evolve our kind of life, how long would it take to evolve life that is trillions of times slower to adapt to an evironment (space) that is billions of times more static?
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More dimensions than 4 have not been demonstrated in reality.

They have merely been postulated to fill in the blanks for Unified Field Theory, which only applies if one postulates the existence of additional dimension for which there is no evidence except unified field theory...

However,
since the other Dimension we know of are accumulation of the previous dimensions "shadowed' by the subsequent dimension,
logically, the 5th dimension would be Motion.
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all that being said, It would be more resonable to go the other direction and, perhaps, look for a more solid apparition such as a planetary body.

(Ever read the Dosadi Experiment?)

The notion of the Earth itself as an organism isn't all that crazy.

 

Terence Mckenna!

PLEASE!

 

LOL ^ nice vid.



Well understand, I'm certainly not arguing your points, and your scientific background at a glance looks more developed than mine.

But let me make this final point.

Imagine today you are in the same position you are in, only the argument we are having is weather or not an organism could live underwater (assuming of course for our purpose that no one has ever discovered a fish.)

Now in thousands of years never encountering marine live, you might be able to thoroughly convince me that because of the lack of gaseous oxygen and water's current form does not allow for a living beings lungs to extract o2 molecules efficiently enough for that creature to stay submerged indefinitely, that a fish could not exist. Perhaps everyone would believe this because it follows currently existing scientific laws perfectly, and there is absolutely no evidence to disprove it.

however upon the discovery of the first fish one would learn that not all creatures use traditional lungs for extracting the gaseous form of oxygen out of the air. That previous assumptions that were understood to be unalterable fact were actually only part of a larger explanation. In other words, the rules would change in order to explain the fish.


so If i brought you an extraterrestrial who did not require oxygen to survive, and who's body functions best at -200c , you would have no choice but to edit these scientific laws in order to explain this.

at one point the earth was the center of the universe. If you argued this observable, scientifically proven fact, you were seen an idiot.

 

^
I totally agree.

 

great point hazed, this is the type of ideas i like.

how can anyone logically say life on other planets must be similiar to that of earth's? think about it, if jupiter was a solid planet, and could sustain mobile creatures, not just bacteria, how enormous must these creatures be? given the gravity there, one would have to admit that these creatures would have to be what, 300 times the size of us? since jupiter is roughly 300 times the size of earth right?