• Life on Other Planets

    From Toadster@21:1/192 to All on Thursday, June 24, 2021 09:40:54
    So,
    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    What blows my mind is that it's 2021 and we're still asking this question.

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  • From Argos@21:1/203 to Toadster on Friday, June 25, 2021 08:21:50
    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    We live on a very young 3rd rock in a very vast solar system and beyond. If
    one thinks it is not even remotely plausible there exists some form of what
    we call life, their just nuts. In short, absolutely !

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  • From Arelor@21:2/138 to Toadster on Friday, June 25, 2021 14:21:24
    Re: Life on Other Planets
    By: Toadster to All on Thu Jun 24 2021 09:40 am

    So,
    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    What blows my mind is that it's 2021 and we're still asking this question.

    Well, everybody knows aliens built the pyramids, right? Nobody is asking the question because everybody knows this!

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  • From HSM@21:2/162 to Toadster on Friday, June 25, 2021 15:53:18
    On 24 Jun 2021, Toadster said the following...

    So,
    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    What blows my mind is that it's 2021 and we're still asking this
    question.

    Life on other planets would definitly be different than ours. Given the amount of Stars with plants in the "Goldy Locks" zone, It's almost a certain probablity that life exists out there. It's a big universe!

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  • From Blue White@21:4/134 to Toadster on Friday, June 25, 2021 15:31:10
    Toadster wrote to All <=-

    So,
    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that
    there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    What blows my mind is that it's 2021 and we're still asking this
    question.

    Yes. I actually believe there could be life within our solar system. Some
    of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are believed to have sub-surface oceans
    that could harbor life at least on the microbial level.

    Once you get outside the solar system, who knows?!? :)


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  • From TALIADON@21:3/138 to Toadster on Saturday, June 26, 2021 01:42:00
    Do you think there is life on other planets?

    An interesting question which science is yet to elevate beyond the philosophical: what were the empirical prerequisites of elemental life (carbon in our particular case), and what is the probabilistic frequency of this particular pattern?

    As our current understanding of spontaneous life remains the subject of considerable conjecture, an accurate probabilistic frequency is likely to
    prove elusive within the foreseeable future.

    Whist some have hedged their opinions by leveraging the vastness of our known universe, this isn't a particularly robust strategy that's likely to withstand casual statistical scrutiny: as it's trivial to hypothesise an infinitely unique sequence encapsulating but one instance of each pattern, predicating regularity upon a finite universe, however vast, is an intrinsically flawed paradigm.

    Having said that however, I have a sneaky suspicion that the probabilistic frequency is neither unique nor rare.

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  • From Avon@21:1/101 to Toadster on Friday, July 02, 2021 15:50:52
    On 24 Jun 2021 at 09:40a, Toadster pondered and said...

    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    Yep, there's going to something somewhere I think :)

    I agree it may not look anything like us though, so communication could be a problem... perhaps maths?

    What blows my mind is that it's 2021 and we're still asking this
    question.

    I know! Me too.

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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Argos on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 07:49:00
    On 06-25-21 08:21, Argos wrote to Toadster <=-

    Do you think there is life on other planets? It is my feeling that there is, but it's highly unlikely that it would look anything like humans, because humans evolved on Earth.

    There's a large number of possibilities of what life on other planets could be like, and yes, highly likely to be unlike us. We've inherited some traits from successful species hundreds of millions of years ago, like being tetrapods (4 footed, though we evolved again to only need to walk on 2 feet), bilateral symmetry and vertebrate. But I don't see why those traits are necessary for an intelligent, sentient species. They just happen to be dominant traits in our lineage.

    We live on a very young 3rd rock in a very vast solar system and
    beyond. If one thinks it is not even remotely plausible there exists
    some form of what we call life, their just nuts. In short, absolutely !

    I believe that primitive life is almost everywhere that liquid water (and possible other suitable media, though water has some unique physical properties) exists. I also believe that we are close to finding primitive microbial life elsewhere in our solar system - Mars, Europa, Enceladus, to name a few of the more likely candidates. But Titan offers the possibility of life based on exotic chemistry, and you can't rule out the clouds of Venus, where conditions might be suitable for acid loving microbes.

    As for complex life, especially sentient life, that's another matter. The Earth's history suggests more complex life requires a largely stable environment, punctuated by infrequent catastrophies, which allow niche species the opportunity to evolve and become dominant. Earth also has some other key characteristics - a large moon that acts as an "anchor" to keep the planet's tile within a relatively narrow range. The Moon also provides tidal activity, and the collision which created it also provided a relatively fast period of rotation for a terrestrial planet. In addition, the Sun is a relatively quiet star for its type and age. It's also towards the heavier end of what it could be to allow sufficient time for live to evolve to where are. It is predicted that Earth will become uninhabitable within around a billion years, as the Sun heats up (The Sun is around 30% hotter than it was when it was formed).

    While there's plenty of lighter (and longer lived!) stars around, these require their life bearing planets to orbit closer, which means (1) there's a higher chance the planets could be tidally locked to their star (no idea how this would affect evolution, and could possibly mean no magnetosphere - another vital component on Earth), and (2) such planets will be a closer target for any stellar flares - many smaller stars can be very active.

    So the best answer I can offer for the probability of intelligent life is "We don't know", as there's too many unknowns. However, the sheer size of the Universe suggests there must be intelligent species _somewhere_, even if they're too far away for us to be able to ever know about each other.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Arelor on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 07:50:00
    On 06-25-21 14:21, Arelor wrote to Toadster <=-

    Well, everybody knows aliens built the pyramids, right? Nobody is
    asking the question because everybody knows this!

    But has anyone found the Stargate? ;)


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to HSM on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 07:51:00
    On 06-25-21 15:53, HSM wrote to Toadster <=-

    Life on other planets would definitly be different than ours. Given
    the amount of Stars with plants in the "Goldy Locks" zone, It's almost
    a certain probablity that life exists out there. It's a big universe!

    If only we could just go there and take a look around! That's still a very long way off.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Blue White on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 07:53:00
    On 06-25-21 15:31, Blue White wrote to Toadster <=-

    Yes. I actually believe there could be life within our solar system.
    Some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are believed to have
    sub-surface oceans that could harbor life at least on the microbial
    level.

    Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if we discovered microbial life among the planets and their moons in the not too distant future. I believe that level of life is very common. Complex life like ourselves is an open question, because of the timescale and the sheer number of unknowns involved.

    Once you get outside the solar system, who knows?!? :)

    Definitely possibilities.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to TALIADON on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 08:08:00
    On 06-26-21 01:42, TALIADON wrote to Toadster <=-

    Do you think there is life on other planets?

    An interesting question which science is yet to elevate beyond the philosophical: what were the empirical prerequisites of elemental life (carbon in our particular case), and what is the probabilistic
    frequency of this particular pattern?

    The Drake Equation is our best effort to work this out, and we're working through the variables. These days, we know that planets are common, and even planets in the Goldilocks zone are fairly common. We don't know how common life is, ond even less of an idea how common complex life is - it's hard to extrapolate from a sample size of 1!

    We also don't know how long detectable civilisations last - we've only been detectable remotely for around a century - a short window in the 4.6 billion years that the Earth has been around.

    As our current understanding of spontaneous life remains the subject of considerable conjecture, an accurate probabilistic frequency is likely
    to prove elusive within the foreseeable future.

    Finding microbial life elsewhere in our solar system that's unrelated to life on Earth would definitely improve the probabilities a lot! I believe there's a good chance we'll discover some in the not too distant future. There's close to half a dozen possible places for current or past microbial life to exist or have existed.

    Whist some have hedged their opinions by leveraging the vastness of our known universe, this isn't a particularly robust strategy that's likely
    to withstand casual statistical scrutiny: as it's trivial to
    hypothesise an infinitely unique sequence encapsulating but one
    instance of each pattern, predicating regularity upon a finite
    universe, however vast, is an intrinsically flawed paradigm.

    True. The scale of the Universe just leaves a lot more unknowns!

    Having said that however, I have a sneaky suspicion that the
    probabilistic frequency is neither unique nor rare.

    I highly doubt we're unique. As for "rare", that would depends on what scale you're looking at.


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  • From Vk3jed@21:1/109 to Avon on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 08:13:00
    On 07-02-21 15:50, Avon wrote to Toadster <=-

    I agree it may not look anything like us though, so communication could
    be a problem... perhaps maths?

    Yes, maths would be a universal commonality - for example prime numbers. Providing the species can count, there's at least opportunity for making each other aware of our existence.

    What blows my mind is that it's 2021 and we're still asking this
    question.

    I know! Me too.

    It's a much tougher question to answerthan first thought! But it's one of our must philosophical and existential questions.


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