Aliens - Are you alone?
The constant search for other forms of life goes on. The recent robotic Mars landing and forthcoming Pluto mission, opens the debate once more and it is increasingly becoming a point of discussion with more scientific elements drawing closer to the conclusion that there is every possibility that there will be found, at the very least, some external building blocks of life, if not an actual form of life.
It was not so long ago that the answer to the question of ‘is there life elsewhere’ was a closed subject, given that the condition for life to exist were deemed to be narrow. However the deep-sea volcanic fumerals, surface volcanic pools and the life that they support, contrary to expectation, substantially increased the known parameters under which life can exist. Now it is known that life can exist under some extreme conditions hot or cold so the expectation is that the evidence of life will eventually be found on a planetary body. So the initial question of the possibility of ‘life else where’ has been largely answered but the comfort zone for the scientific and philosophical religious community still remains with the disguised interpretation of life to mean ‘intelligent’ life. For them the answer to the question is there intelligent life ‘out there’ remains fortunately largely avoidable.
There is for many, still a barrier to accept that there is likely to be other intelligent life in the universe. It implies an answer to a question that is not easy to accept; that we are not alone, yet without the proof demanded by scientific process, nothing is. This is not an unusual tack given the primitive state of discussion and the social and politically philosophical implication that an acceptance of intelligent life elsewhere will generate.
The associate questions of what intelligence is, what has it, is ignored for the same comfortable reasons. Humans nearest biological links, monkeys – dolphins etc are not regarded as comparable intelligent even though they demonstrate one of the measures of intelligence, as defined by humans, self-awareness. This leave aside the ability to learn, use tools, remember etc. Humans shrink from the concept of bestowing competing or different intelligence on any other creatures for to do so will attack many of their moral assumptions, actions and the legitimacy of their standing as supreme beings. Occasionally a measure of begrudging intelligence is matched with these creatures but the inference is that fortunately it is not like us and is limited in scope, without really understanding what intelligence is for. The unenlightened stance and continuing belief in the supreme ness of human’s position is not a useful one. It may be better to at least acknowledge the high possibility of other intelligent functioning beings to be existing some where in the galaxy and become accustomed to the idea, than to be forced to accept that human are not alone.
The perennial question - Is there intelligent life else where in the universe? Will be open to doubt for some time. There is an argument that suggest that if there were intelligent life that had the ability to travel as saps are seeking to do now, then they would have visited and made themselves know to us by now. The statement is made that, as they have not done so, they do not exist, end of discussion.
This statement makes huge leaps of assumptions and places the responsibility on other life forms to make itself known for humans to judge or bestow the title ‘intelligent’, if it meets human’s definitions.
Humans can only just comprehend the technically, physiological and psychological difficulties that have to be over come to exit off world. They assume that because of these difficulties, with the distances involved, speed required and life span; all makes it impossible for anything to surmount the difficulties, this idea is assessed with current or foreseeable technologies. With this argument, this does not actually undermine the possibility of life elsewhere, it only complexes the view, so far as saps are aware, that it may not exist and if it did, it does not space travel.
If space travellers existed, (be it time travellers or otherwise) saps assume that they would be very noticeable. This seems to use the argument that such travellers would have the same sense of curiosity that saps have and could not resist the opportunity to visit other places and interact. Ignoring the physical shapes, this presupposes that they have gone down the same or similar road of technical, psychological and social development that saps have with all that entails BUT why should this be the case.
Assume for the moment that aliens do exist and have reached a stage of development that has not been hindered by geological misshapes and that they are – say a million years in advance technically to humans. I use this figure as is seem likely that saps have lost development time as the process of maturity was stopped by mass extinctions on 5 major occasions and humanoids where near wiped out once. The difference in physical, technology, social drivers and thought will be immense, then why would alien want to visit a primate species, be seen, or interact with them? If it were the case, surely a million years of advance development would provide the means of observing or interacting without being known. The desire to interact and be in some degree of actual or psychological control is a sap power trait that has had a negative effect on their own species. A superior intelligence may have reached the conclusion that such overt interaction would create unknowable problems for the ‘backward’ culture. It is rather like a modern man going back to the dawn of humanoids and seeking to interact in some way, there could be no basis for communication or understanding for either species, nor would there be for either species recognition of compatible ‘intelligence’ as the term is restrictive, it has little meaning. Saps past treatment observed in the mixing of unequal cultures is indicative of what one group does to the other with physiological, social, cultural and psychological differences being used as the measure to justify ill-treatment, support by dubious intelligence measures.
Saps comfort themselves with the stuff of dreams by making SF films that depict imaginative aliens in different humanoid guise and with good or bad attributes on display. These caricatures play out the roles emulating or illuminating the various traits of saps as if in doing so they can be readily understood, although alien and of course they all speak american english or there is a translator to hand so the alien mind-set seems to be then comprehendible. Unfortunately this leaves out huge areas of unknowable social pathological drivers, the cultural context and the very substance of their existence. This does not appear to be good bases on which to play out the 'what ifs' of other alien life and to presume how humans would react to it. Given the way saps have dealt with their own species, should they expect superior contemplation from an actual contact?
The probability is that if there were alien life ‘out there’ it would at least be at a cellular level and benign, that it would at best be humanoid in form and intelligent, at worst unrecognisable and intelligent. However any life in any form will have to be viewed with considerable caution until saps become intelligent enough to deal with the shift in their own superiority. A general acceptance that there must be other intelligent life ‘elsewhere’ even though saps have no hard proof as yet would prepare the position for the right time. So sap are far from being ready to accept the knowledge that there is intelligent life elsewhere, little hints maybe, a bit of life perhaps but indisputable evidence, not yet.
Inferior, observe but do not touch – superior, conceal be covert – of equal standing be wary.
P. 26.1.06
It was not so long ago that the answer to the question of ‘is there life elsewhere’ was a closed subject, given that the condition for life to exist were deemed to be narrow. However the deep-sea volcanic fumerals, surface volcanic pools and the life that they support, contrary to expectation, substantially increased the known parameters under which life can exist. Now it is known that life can exist under some extreme conditions hot or cold so the expectation is that the evidence of life will eventually be found on a planetary body. So the initial question of the possibility of ‘life else where’ has been largely answered but the comfort zone for the scientific and philosophical religious community still remains with the disguised interpretation of life to mean ‘intelligent’ life. For them the answer to the question is there intelligent life ‘out there’ remains fortunately largely avoidable.
There is for many, still a barrier to accept that there is likely to be other intelligent life in the universe. It implies an answer to a question that is not easy to accept; that we are not alone, yet without the proof demanded by scientific process, nothing is. This is not an unusual tack given the primitive state of discussion and the social and politically philosophical implication that an acceptance of intelligent life elsewhere will generate.
The associate questions of what intelligence is, what has it, is ignored for the same comfortable reasons. Humans nearest biological links, monkeys – dolphins etc are not regarded as comparable intelligent even though they demonstrate one of the measures of intelligence, as defined by humans, self-awareness. This leave aside the ability to learn, use tools, remember etc. Humans shrink from the concept of bestowing competing or different intelligence on any other creatures for to do so will attack many of their moral assumptions, actions and the legitimacy of their standing as supreme beings. Occasionally a measure of begrudging intelligence is matched with these creatures but the inference is that fortunately it is not like us and is limited in scope, without really understanding what intelligence is for. The unenlightened stance and continuing belief in the supreme ness of human’s position is not a useful one. It may be better to at least acknowledge the high possibility of other intelligent functioning beings to be existing some where in the galaxy and become accustomed to the idea, than to be forced to accept that human are not alone.
The perennial question - Is there intelligent life else where in the universe? Will be open to doubt for some time. There is an argument that suggest that if there were intelligent life that had the ability to travel as saps are seeking to do now, then they would have visited and made themselves know to us by now. The statement is made that, as they have not done so, they do not exist, end of discussion.
This statement makes huge leaps of assumptions and places the responsibility on other life forms to make itself known for humans to judge or bestow the title ‘intelligent’, if it meets human’s definitions.
Humans can only just comprehend the technically, physiological and psychological difficulties that have to be over come to exit off world. They assume that because of these difficulties, with the distances involved, speed required and life span; all makes it impossible for anything to surmount the difficulties, this idea is assessed with current or foreseeable technologies. With this argument, this does not actually undermine the possibility of life elsewhere, it only complexes the view, so far as saps are aware, that it may not exist and if it did, it does not space travel.
If space travellers existed, (be it time travellers or otherwise) saps assume that they would be very noticeable. This seems to use the argument that such travellers would have the same sense of curiosity that saps have and could not resist the opportunity to visit other places and interact. Ignoring the physical shapes, this presupposes that they have gone down the same or similar road of technical, psychological and social development that saps have with all that entails BUT why should this be the case.
Assume for the moment that aliens do exist and have reached a stage of development that has not been hindered by geological misshapes and that they are – say a million years in advance technically to humans. I use this figure as is seem likely that saps have lost development time as the process of maturity was stopped by mass extinctions on 5 major occasions and humanoids where near wiped out once. The difference in physical, technology, social drivers and thought will be immense, then why would alien want to visit a primate species, be seen, or interact with them? If it were the case, surely a million years of advance development would provide the means of observing or interacting without being known. The desire to interact and be in some degree of actual or psychological control is a sap power trait that has had a negative effect on their own species. A superior intelligence may have reached the conclusion that such overt interaction would create unknowable problems for the ‘backward’ culture. It is rather like a modern man going back to the dawn of humanoids and seeking to interact in some way, there could be no basis for communication or understanding for either species, nor would there be for either species recognition of compatible ‘intelligence’ as the term is restrictive, it has little meaning. Saps past treatment observed in the mixing of unequal cultures is indicative of what one group does to the other with physiological, social, cultural and psychological differences being used as the measure to justify ill-treatment, support by dubious intelligence measures.
Saps comfort themselves with the stuff of dreams by making SF films that depict imaginative aliens in different humanoid guise and with good or bad attributes on display. These caricatures play out the roles emulating or illuminating the various traits of saps as if in doing so they can be readily understood, although alien and of course they all speak american english or there is a translator to hand so the alien mind-set seems to be then comprehendible. Unfortunately this leaves out huge areas of unknowable social pathological drivers, the cultural context and the very substance of their existence. This does not appear to be good bases on which to play out the 'what ifs' of other alien life and to presume how humans would react to it. Given the way saps have dealt with their own species, should they expect superior contemplation from an actual contact?
The probability is that if there were alien life ‘out there’ it would at least be at a cellular level and benign, that it would at best be humanoid in form and intelligent, at worst unrecognisable and intelligent. However any life in any form will have to be viewed with considerable caution until saps become intelligent enough to deal with the shift in their own superiority. A general acceptance that there must be other intelligent life ‘elsewhere’ even though saps have no hard proof as yet would prepare the position for the right time. So sap are far from being ready to accept the knowledge that there is intelligent life elsewhere, little hints maybe, a bit of life perhaps but indisputable evidence, not yet.
Inferior, observe but do not touch – superior, conceal be covert – of equal standing be wary.
P. 26.1.06
posted by Renot at 4:25 am
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