What do Martians Look Like?

NinjaBart · 08-03-2004 11:01PM

williagmrogan I'm not a psychologist but did you go to the CBS and have a hard time growing up?

Originally posted by williamgrogan
WG - I think that solid evidence for life on other planets would cause a major problem for most religions. Would Jusus die millions of times on other planets?

what line of reasoning leads you to believe that alien lifeforms are sinners in that sense?

BTW, do you watch a lot of star trek?

GuanYin · 08-03-2004 11:21PM

Ok, its gone waaaay off topic, split and moved to science where you can debate alien appearance and make up to your hearts content.

Syke

dudara · 11-03-2004 05:55PM

That was interesting reading.

Well, for my twopence worth, as a physicist and atheist, there is also the theory of panspermia, or the idea that life was "seeded" on different planets at some stage in the past. Thus, life is descended from a common source. Why couldn't an asteroid or meteor have carried the genesis of life to our planet? It's a more credible theory than "God created life", in my eyes anyway.

What I do regret, is that by the time we find intelligent/or otherwise, life anywhere else, I'll probably be long gone. I can't see why life wouldn't exist elsewhere. After all, the whole universe is subject to the laws of physics, from stars to the atoms that compose DNA. It's likely that the same paths will be followed elsewhere in the universe.

williamgrogan · 12-03-2004 09:52AM

I only posted the bible bit to show how some people think on this matter. It’s also another extremely interesting position vis a vis the potential conflict between religion and science. Life on other planers IS a big problem if God created the universe for man as the bible seems to imply. I suspect that Bush is re-directing NASA away from Science projects for religious reasons. The religious right in America would not be Hubble’s biggest supporters.

The problem with Panspermia is that it fails the Ockham’s Razor test. If life came from elsewhere it still had to originate somewhere. Why not here?

There is now no doubt that life could evolve on Mars and then be carried here on a meteorite after an impact on Mars launched it into space. But then it would still have had to “evolve” on Mars using the same mechanisms that have been proposed for its origin on Earth. While local seeding is possible, across the gaps between the stars? The nearest star to Earth is billions of times further than Mars is. Possible but far less likely.

PS

I don’t answer personal questions from people whose names I do not know. You know my name, I don’t know who NinjaBart is.

BTW do you watch a lot of cartoons?

GuanYin · 12-03-2004 10:56AM

Originally posted by williamgrogan
I only posted the bible bit to show how some people think on this matter.

If you have any query on your ban. PM me.

Originally posted by williamgrogan
It’s also another extremely interesting position vis a vis the potential conflict between religion and science. Life on other planers IS a big problem if God created the universe for man as the bible seems to imply. I suspect that Bush is re-directing NASA away from Science projects for religious reasons. The religious right in America would not be Hubble’s biggest supporters.

I'm at a loss to figure how religion entered this thread, but I will say that you reasoned out the religious aspect quite well. Perhaps you can take that approach with some of the scientific argument that people have made and you disagree with?

Originally posted by williamgrogan
The problem with Panspermia is that it fails the Ockham’s Razor test. If life came from elsewhere it still had to originate somewhere. Why not here?.

Again, does the use of a philisophical tool of reference not contradict your earlier view points on philosophy?

Originally posted by williamgrogan
There is now no doubt that life could evolve on Mars and then be carried here on a meteorite after an impact on Mars launched it into space. But then it would still have had to “evolve” on Mars using the same mechanisms that have been proposed for its origin on Earth. While local seeding is possible, across the gaps between the stars? The nearest star to Earth is billions of times further than Mars is. Possible but far less likely.

Its quite possible (but unlikely) that earth life originated on Mars or anywhere else . More than anything else the solar rays and space radiation would shread, any organism or DNA that wasn't encases in alot of shielding (admittedly a meteorite would be ideal for this, but there are alot of logistical considerations, it would be as slim a chance as the formation of DNA to begin with).

dudara · 12-03-2004 10:58AM

The problem with Panspermia is that it fails the Ockham’s Razor test. If life came from elsewhere it still had to originate somewhere.

Obviously. I'm assuming that it didn't originate on earth for the sake of argument. It would be very egotistical to assume that we are the originators of life. But that couls well be the case too, the simple point is we don't know.

simu · 14-03-2004 09:59PM

Hmm, given how strange some earth life forms that are (e.g. deep sea organisms) and that these are still related to us, I think that alien life would be very different indeed. In terms of communicating with intelligent alien life as well, I don't think we'd find it easy to relate to such life forms beyond maybe some shared scientific ideas. We're very much locked into a certain human way of reasoning and it's likely the reasoning ability of alien intelligence would again be vastly different to ours.

For example, would a human have the proper physical apparati to produce the vibrations (or whatever would be required) for an alien language and even if we did, it's extremely unlikely the alien language would fit into the same pattern of "universal grammar" common to all human languages.

GuanYin · 14-03-2004 11:07PM

Originally posted by simu
Hmm, given how strange some earth life forms that are (e.g. deep sea organisms) and that these are still related to us, I think that alien life would be very different indeed.

Seeing as you're into SF simu, you reminded me of a short SF story published in Nature - Monolith, Vol. 408, #6815, December 21, 2000 (p. 913).

The story is subscription, otherwise I'd paste it here (copyright etc

) but I'll give you a short synopsis.

The story revolves around a creature from an alien world. We learn that there is a choice of sex in this planet, they can be male, females or caretakers.

Before the decision, the creatures live in a bed of "oxyhydride slush" and then can choose to fly up to the sky where they will either find a large fat female and bind with her to mate, become female themselves and become fat and large or find a nest of eggs on the ground and care and nurture them as an asexual caretaker.

We learn that the sky of this world has a hot ceiling of volcanic rock above them and and cold slush marshes overlying icefields below. The narrator eventual becomes a caretaker and stives long and hard to become "the best caretaker in the universe", until one day it returns to find its nest destroyed by a monolith that has come poking up through the marsh where the nest had been. Other of its kind illuminate and examine and study the monolith but cannot make out what it is, or the nature of the markings that adorn it.

it looks like this

==============================================

Its a cool story looking at something we know a bit about from anothe rperspective and the creature itself mimics that of a creature we all know oursleves.

dudara · 15-03-2004 11:34AM

Simu, that's an extremely valid point. Biologically, other life might be similar, but we are human, and are very unique in that sense (Especially if you watch Star Trek where humans are always considered determined, brave and resourceful!!)

It's the mindset of alien cultures that will be the most different.

Syth · 16-03-2004 12:06PM

It's the mindset of alien cultures that will be the most different.

True. If there was an alien civilisation it probably wouldn't resemble our civilisation a lot. Human nature is increadably determined by how our species evolved, from our group size to marital monagomy. But if say, ants had evolved intellegence, the the ants civilsation would be very strange.

Orson Scott Card wrote 'Ender's Game' that involved a war between humans and 'buggers', a insect-like race. They have a hive mind, so if there are a flock of 100 buggers, only the queen is intellegent. This is the basis of the human-bugger war. The buggers don't know that all humans are sentient, so they kill any humans they find, becasue to them, they aren't killing sentient beings, they are doing nothing more than trimming toenails.

The (not as good) sequal to that book was 'Speaker for the Dead'. Again intellegent aliens are involved, this time called piggies. The piggies are infected with with a virus that recombines thier DNA with that of plants, so when they die, they spend the rest of their life living as sentient trees. The piggies don't know that humans don't have a 'third life' (as they call it), so they see no problem with killing people.

Both these books show that how a species evolved is very important to how the species acts. Makes you think...

mr_angry · 16-03-2004 12:15PM

The sooner we meet an alien civilisation though, the more likely they are to be vastly more advanced. Given that we have no means of space travel, it pretty much leaves it up to them to come and find us. If they are capable of that, then they will obviously be far superior. Lets just hope they treat other life forms with more respect than we seem to treat animals / other races.

As for the martians themselves - most likely microscopic, and fossilised beneath about 8 feet of sedimentary rock. The one thing they go to prove is that life is capable of evolving on other planets, and thus we may not be so special after all...

Capt'n Midnight · 19-03-2004 10:31PM

Originally posted by mr_angry
The sooner we meet an alien civilisation though, the more likely they are to be vastly more advanced.

Reminds me of an Asimov? story Nothing for Nothing? where a spacefaring race comes across a primitive race who are living on the threshold of extinction. So he trades them the knowledge of basic weapons - spear in excahange for a new way of viewing the universe - representational art.

What do Martians Look Like?

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