Alien Life? You better hope God exists!

[Votto]

I'm not sure what you consider "intelligent life" but dinos certainly had some intelligence. They were evolving for as long as mammals and were much more successful at it. If that asteroid had missed us the dino could well have become sentient given another 65 million years. As to the asteroid, it was a rare but regular event. Throughout earths history large asteroids have continually hitting the earth every few million years.

Well, I suppose you could believe that, given time, dinosaurs would have sent dinos to the moon and invented science to cure diseases and discover physics. I don't believe that because there is no evidence to suggest they were moving in that direction.

And yes, asteroids hit planets all the time but this particular one just so happened to be large enough to destroy the dinosaurs but not all living things, and it happened at just the right time along the evolution scale to allow mammals to benefit from the extinction event.

My entire point is that our "intelligent life" is the result of quite a few circumstantial events which preceded it and made it possible. And even with all this amazing menagerie of circumstantial events happening, it's only within the past 60,000 years or so that we see anything resembling what we would consider "intelligent life" if we discovered it elsewhere.

Nothing to see here.

Just a trillion different coincidences.

 

[alang1216]

Well, I suppose you could believe that, given time, dinosaurs would have sent dinos to the moon and invented science to cure diseases and discover physics. I don't believe that because there is no evidence to suggest they were moving in that direction.

If you think evolution has a 'direction' you don't understand it at a fundamental level.

And yes, asteroids hit planets all the time but this particular one just so happened to be large enough to destroy the dinosaurs but not all living things, and it happened at just the right time along the evolution scale to allow mammals to benefit from the extinction event.

An event that has happened many times in earth's history. The only thing unique about this one is that it was the latest global extinction. It was not even the cause of the greatest extinction.

My entire point is that our "intelligent life" is the result of quite a few circumstantial events which preceded it and made it possible. And even with all this amazing menagerie of circumstantial events happening, it's only within the past 60,000 years or so that we see anything resembling what we would consider "intelligent life" if we discovered it elsewhere.

I think you confuse cause and effect. We are not here only because of the 'few circumstantial events'. We adapted to what came. If the events were different we'd would be different but we still might have developed intelligence. Maybe sooner, maybe later, we'll never know.

 

[Boss]

We know planets are common and it seems likely that life is almost as common, we may not be alone even in our own solar system. Given enough time, and many suns are much older than ours, intelligence may be an accident that happens in every ecosystem eventually.

I realized after posting that the title of this thread is a bit misleading. I should have titled the thread "INTELLIGENT Alien Life? You better hope God exists." I've now read several comments which want to argue that it's very possible for some form of living organism to exist elsewhere. IF you read the OP, you will see where I admit that is a reasonable possibility. And it's even a possibility there may be other intelligent life, I just don't find it to be anything approaching reasonable in terms of basic logic unless there is a Creative force controlling cosmic events and enabling the assorted circumstances. That's the reason for the rather antagonistic thread title.

This is a philosophy thread, so you are certainly entitled to speculate on what may or may not be possible. Intelligence certainly may be an accident that happens in every ecosystem eventually, but do you have any logical evidence to support that idea?

 

[Boss]

If you think evolution has a 'direction' you don't understand it at a fundamental level.

I would say that if YOU don't understand that evolution certainly does have a direction, it is YOU who doesn't understand it at a fundamental level.

A couple of monkeys didn't just wake up one day and find they had the ability of cognitive rationalization. This was obviously a directional process which took many thousands of years to develop.

An event that has happened many times in earth's history. The only thing unique about this one is that it was the latest global extinction. It was not even the cause of the greatest extinction.

Again, that was just ONE example I presented. I presented it because it's the most irrefutable example we can all reasonably agree on. The point being, had it not been for this rare cosmic event happening precisely when it did and to precisely the degree it happened, then mammals would have never had the chance to evolve into advanced intelligent primates because they would've been dinosaur food.

I think you confuse cause and effect. We are not here only because of the 'few circumstantial events'. We adapted to what came. If the events were different we'd would be different but we still might have developed intelligence. Maybe sooner, maybe later, we'll never know.

Again, we wouldn't have ever existed! Dinosaurs dominated the planet. Any mammals that existed were very small. That's because larger mammals were a food source. Unless something happened to wipe out the dinosaurs, mammals would have never evolved into anything larger than a rabbit. Dinosaurs would have continued their dominate reign.

Earlier, the speculation was made that perhaps the dinosaurs would have developed intelligence comparable to that of the human but I find this problematic. Sharks are one of the oldest living creatures and they are extremely smart animals but they lack cognitive reasoning. Why is that the case? Well, if you believe Darwin, it's because that attribute wasn't necessary for survival in the sharks.

 

[alang1216]

Accidents alone would not have led to us but you may choose any word you prefer.

Many remarkable things happen without the necessity of an intelligence. Northern lights, the Grand Canyon, cosmic nebula, etc.

But those we can observe and/or duplicate in some way.

And we can observe that there is intelligent life on this planet while 4.5 billion years ago there was none. There were an almost infinite number of steps along the way. Which were critical and were required for intelligent life to appear and which only determined hair color? No one knows.

 

[alang1216]

This is a philosophy thread, so you are certainly entitled to speculate on what may or may not be possible. Intelligence certainly may be an accident that happens in every ecosystem eventually, but do you have any logical evidence to support that idea?

It has happened on 100% of the ecosystems we've studied.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Is there a possibility of life on other planets? I'd be willing to say yes, because there has been a meteorite discovered here on Earth that came from Mars, and it had microscopic fossils of bacteria in it.

So, yeah, if there is evidence that there was bacteria on Mars, and considering the age of other places besides Earth, I'd be willing to say that there is intelligent life out there somewhere.

And..............if I was ever fortunate to make contact with them, one of the first things I would ask them is what is their concept of a Higher Power, or do they simply believe in science and the physical world. I'm pretty sure that would be a fascinating conversation.

As far as what some poster suggested further up the thread that we should build a better space force? Well, if there are beings that are capable of interstellar travel, they would be so far ahead of us it wouldn't be funny. We would be to them like what the Native Americans would be like compared to a modern day naval battlegroup.

I mean, the farthest we've sent an object out into space is just now reaching the Oort Cloud, and that is just at the very edge of the heliosphere, not even into interstellar space yet.

Interesting question OP.

 

[alang1216]

If you think evolution has a 'direction' you don't understand it at a fundamental level.

I would say that if YOU don't understand that evolution certainly does have a direction, it is YOU who doesn't understand it at a fundamental level.

A couple of monkeys didn't just wake up one day and find they had the ability of cognitive rationalization. This was obviously a directional process which took many thousands of years to develop.

We may have a semantic disconnect but you will agree that those monkeys didn't have a goal of cognitive rationalization. At the time and place they lived greater cognition only provided for enhanced survival.

An event that has happened many times in earth's history. The only thing unique about this one is that it was the latest global extinction. It was not even the cause of the greatest extinction.

Again, that was just ONE example I presented. I presented it because it's the most irrefutable example we can all reasonably agree on. The point being, had it not been for this rare cosmic event happening precisely when it did and to precisely the degree it happened, then mammals would have never had the chance to evolve into advanced intelligent primates because they would've been dinosaur food.

Agreed but even if mammals never evolved into primates no one can say intelligence would never have evolved.

 

[ABikerSailor]

If you think evolution has a 'direction' you don't understand it at a fundamental level.

I would say that if YOU don't understand that evolution certainly does have a direction, it is YOU who doesn't understand it at a fundamental level.

A couple of monkeys didn't just wake up one day and find they had the ability of cognitive rationalization. This was obviously a directional process which took many thousands of years to develop.

We may have a semantic disconnect but you will agree that those monkeys didn't have a goal of cognitive rationalization. At the time and place they lived greater cognition only provided for enhanced survival.

An event that has happened many times in earth's history. The only thing unique about this one is that it was the latest global extinction. It was not even the cause of the greatest extinction.

Again, that was just ONE example I presented. I presented it because it's the most irrefutable example we can all reasonably agree on. The point being, had it not been for this rare cosmic event happening precisely when it did and to precisely the degree it happened, then mammals would have never had the chance to evolve into advanced intelligent primates because they would've been dinosaur food.

Agreed but even if mammals never evolved into primates no one can say intelligence would never have evolved.

Actually, I think it would have. Why? Well, they have done language studies on several different animals, elephants and dolphins being at the top of the list,and they have found that they have actual language structure in the sounds that they make that compares to the language structure of humans.

The Elephant Language

SpeakDolphin - Research Projects > Dolphin Language Analysis

 

[Boss]

This is a philosophy thread, so you are certainly entitled to speculate on what may or may not be possible. Intelligence certainly may be an accident that happens in every ecosystem eventually, but do you have any logical evidence to support that idea?

It has happened on 100% of the ecosystems we've studied.

Well... No, it hasn't, actually. We've studied the ecosystems of most of the planets in our solar system and have found no intelligent life. We find intelligent life in only 1/9th of the ecosystems we've studied... actually less, if you count the moons of Saturn and Jupiter as well as our own and others. No intelligent life so far.

And what we know of our own intelligent life is that it is the result of numerous circumstantial events and phenomenon, some of which we still don't clearly understand and can't explain.

 

[Boss]

We may have a semantic disconnect but you will agree that those monkeys didn't have a goal of cognitive rationalization. At the time and place they lived greater cognition only provided for enhanced survival.

I didn't say evolution had a goal. I said it had a direction. The semantic disconnect is because you are replacing words I said with other words. You should avoid that to avoid those disconnects.

 

[Boss]

Agreed but even if mammals never evolved into primates no one can say intelligence would never have evolved.

Well, it's impossible to prove a negative but judging by the fact that only humans have rational cognitive intelligence, I think we can assume it would've never evolved otherwise because it hasn't. Lots of species much older than humans... larger brains... smarter in a lot of ways... better senses in many cases... none have developed cognitive reasoning and rationalization like humans.

 

[G.T.]

cant wait for Thursday's announcement of kepler 11s latest news.

 

[alang1216]

This is a philosophy thread, so you are certainly entitled to speculate on what may or may not be possible. Intelligence certainly may be an accident that happens in every ecosystem eventually, but do you have any logical evidence to support that idea?

It has happened on 100% of the ecosystems we've studied.

Well... No, it hasn't, actually. We've studied the ecosystems of most of the planets in our solar system and have found no intelligent life. We find intelligent life in only 1/9th of the ecosystems we've studied... actually less, if you count the moons of Saturn and Jupiter as well as our own and others. No intelligent life so far.

And what we know of our own intelligent life is that it is the result of numerous circumstantial events and phenomenon, some of which we still don't clearly understand and can't explain.

Let me clarify: we have found intelligent life on 100% of the planets on which we have found life.

 

[Boss]

Let me clarify: we have found intelligent life on 100% of the planets on which we have found life.

Which is ONE planet with a series of extraordinary circumstantial events and phenomenon. You aren't helping your argument.

 

[G.T.]

The scoreboard is that there's sentient life that's observable in the Universe without leaving our front door....

Whereas, evidence for god is merely speculative.

 

[Votto]

Accidents alone would not have led to us but you may choose any word you prefer.

Many remarkable things happen without the necessity of an intelligence. Northern lights, the Grand Canyon, cosmic nebula, etc.

But those we can observe and/or duplicate in some way.

And we can observe that there is intelligent life on this planet while 4.5 billion years ago there was none. There were an almost infinite number of steps along the way. Which were critical and were required for intelligent life to appear and which only determined hair color? No one knows.

Wait...wut?

An infinite number of steps along the way?

An infinite number of coincidences?

This is suppose to happen somewhere else in the universe?

Do tell.

 

[Votto]

The scoreboard is that there's sentient life that's observable in the Universe without leaving our front door....

Whereas, evidence for god is merely speculative.

WTH does that mean exactly?

UFO sightings?

 

[Boss]

Whereas, evidence for god is merely speculative.

Philosophically speaking, even REALITY is speculative.

Einstein said, "Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one."

 

[Votto]

Whereas, evidence for god is merely speculative.

Philosophically speaking, even REALITY is speculative.

Einstein said, "Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one."

No, no, you have it all wrong. The illusion is that it is an illusion.

Sure fooled your naïve arse.