Fishteacher73 Posted January 18, 2005 Report Posted January 18, 2005 It seems to me that we have a bias toward many living things... It's ok to break up a rock w/ a hammer but don't do it to a hamster, etc(not that I am promoting the random pummeling of a hapless critter). We seem to have a soft spot for living organisms on one hand but have no problem destroying life every millisecond we exist (I'm not talking a tree-hugging-save-the-whales thing. It is a biological imperitive that the human body destroy thousands of microbes on a regular basis through our immune system. I really can not think of a group that advocates the abstinence of breathing). We really do not have an ethical system that concerns living organisms, so does it really matter what is living and what is not? Isn't this really a 19th century chemistry debate searching for the "elixier vitae", or the essence of life?In terms of pure science, aside from answering the question itself, does it really matter what life is? While we pretend to have a morality towards some organisms, many just don't get the same status. It seems to be an arbitrary trump card used for when something is cute and cuddly. We can eat plants but not animals? Are they both not living organisms?
syntax Posted January 20, 2005 Report Posted January 20, 2005 To me, the minuet one begins to discuss morals, he is discussing something that is subjective to his personal system of values.
RiverRat Posted January 24, 2005 Report Posted January 24, 2005 If one plays around with the Drake Equation, wild flucuations in value occur. A little help here... if a value of .00005 is derived for communicating life in our 'galaxy' ... then by extrapolation would the 'observable universe' have 10,000,000 communicating civilizations? In regards to the analogy of a deck of cards, from my understanding, you would never repeat the same sequence only if a card was removed from the deck thus making it impossible. Similar to saying that hydrogen is only present in our solar system thus it would be impossible for life to form elsewhere (over simplified for the sake of argument). A large set would seem to be an equalizer. One could debate endlessly if we are the only civilazation in the universe. However ... It would be logical to say that it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE (unless it is proven that the basis of life only exisits in our solar system).
pgrmdave Posted January 24, 2005 Report Posted January 24, 2005 It seems to me that we have a bias toward many living things... It's ok to break up a rock w/ a hammer but don't do it to a hamster, etc(not that I am promoting the random pummeling of a hapless critter). We seem to have a soft spot for living organisms on one hand but have no problem destroying life every millisecond we exist (I'm not talking a tree-hugging-save-the-whales thing. It is a biological imperitive that the human body destroy thousands of microbes on a regular basis through our immune system. I really can not think of a group that advocates the abstinence of breathing). We really do not have an ethical system that concerns living organisms, so does it really matter what is living and what is not? Isn't this really a 19th century chemistry debate searching for the "elixier vitae", or the essence of life?In terms of pure science, aside from answering the question itself, does it really matter what life is? While we pretend to have a morality towards some organisms, many just don't get the same status. It seems to be an arbitrary trump card used for when something is cute and cuddly. We can eat plants but not animals? Are they both not living organisms? This is a good point, why do we place more value on living things, and more value on different living things? It seems to be on order of complexity, but maybe there is more to it.
Turtle Posted January 24, 2005 Report Posted January 24, 2005 I think there IS life elswhere in the Universe. ;)
Strange Visitor Posted February 1, 2005 Report Posted February 1, 2005 The life organic or insome other form isnt defined. Well speakin of other life forms,in evolution yes there can be another organic life form my be nearly like us would exist. this is because the position of earth is also satisfied by other planets in other solar systems. this universe is so big and cant be only for us. They would might not be needin the condition of earth place, but if they are organic in nature then they would be needin some conditions(like air, oxygen & warmth.) the world could evolved from another big bang.
Queso Posted February 1, 2005 Report Posted February 1, 2005 not only do i believe there are many forms of life in this universe. i believe there are even more beyond the universe, in other universes. i don't think human beings will ever live to see what's outside of the universe, though i do believe we will find another form of life somewhere down the line.
alxfamlaw Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 I was reading through some of the threads in the various groups, and I came across EVOLUTION. The description for this thread is "Theories of how life evolved - is there life elsewhere in the Universe?". Now to be honest, I haven't read every post from every thread in this topic, so I'm hoping you guys can help me out on this question. I would like to keep this OUT of the realm of philosophy/humanities - i do NOT want to argue whether or not there is a God. I don't want to discuss specifically *how* life evolved or did not evolve on this planet. I want to specifically address the second part of the description - IS THERE LIFE ELSEWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE? I want everyone to feel free to post their personal thoughts and ideas on this topic, so i'd personally like to suspend the strict interpretation of "proof required" FOR THIS THREAD ONLY. However, please be willing and able to supply us with your honest thoughts if you present an idea that may seem off-the-wall to most of us. I don't want anyone to feel that they will be ridiculed for their thoughts in this thread, and I want some discussion!! For the sake of clarification, and for understanding, please include in your post how you are defining 'life'. This will (hopefully) not turn into a discussion of what life is or is not, but it will help others undersand what you are intending if you assert that 'there is LIFE on Venus', for example! I think that we are not alone. It would be nonsensical to say that we are. I believe that they're are other life forms that are either the same or much more evolved than us. I consider us human a virus in a perfect world, and we are making it cancerous..
TeleMad Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 the statement was in reference to units of mater, stars, gallaxies, planets, and life bearing planets. none of which are identical but conform to certain standards that discribe them as sysems of structure. so yes, as a personality, you are unique, but as a human, a life form, and a dynamic system in this universe, you are not alone. :hyper: In other words, the Universe never does anything once, except for those things the Universe does do only once.
TeleMad Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 TeleMad: IF life arising spontaneously is as highly improbable as I believe it is, then having the one instance of life we know of could be argued to make it less likely that the same low-probability event occurred a second time somewhere else. Maddog: Elsewhere you had some kind back-of-envelope calculation that in essence said probability of life arising in the universe to be zero. No I didn't. Maddog: Maybe you don't do math. Maybe you don't do English. Maddog: If really zero we wouldn't be here. Duh. And I didn't say it was 0. Duh. Maddog: So I guess your earlier probability of 10e-120 was some approximation to 0 or what. No. What's wrong, you don't do math? Do you really think that 10^-120 = 0?
TeleMad Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 Now with recent discovery of more and moreorganic compounds found in space (last years was discovered some kind of aldehyde thatis a relative to some of the amino acids in DNA). That would be enormous news, considering that there are no amino acids in DNA.
TeleMad Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 Maddog: Add to that the new relevation of anerobic life near steamvents in the ocean. New? Are you Rip Van Winkle? Did you sleep for the past 25 years or so?
TeleMad Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 It does seem that ET life is inevatable conclusion by just doing the math. Really? Then please show us the math.
TeleMad Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 What I understand life is defined as a structure that self replicate to propagate itself. Thus a virus can qualify as life. No, they wouldn't qualify as life by your definition because viruses can't self-replicate. maddog: Defining it as "ability to reproduce offspring by sharing cellular material", would imply that all asexual cell division as in mitosis of Bacteria is not life. Bacteria don't undergo mitosis.
Fishteacher73 Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 Really? Then please show us the math.Its called the Drake Equation...For someone who acts as all knowing as you seem to act I would think you would know this. N = R* X fp X ne X fl X fi X fc X L where: N is the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in our galaxy with which we might expect to be able to communicate and R* is the rate of star formation in our galaxy fp is the fraction of those stars which have planets ne is average number of planets which can potentially support life per star that has planets fl is the fraction of the above which actually go on to develop life fi is the fraction of the above which actually go on to develop intelligent life fc is the fraction of the above which are willing and able to communicate L is the expected lifetime of such a civilization For most conservative estimates (this is to calculate intelligent life ; not any life, so the probabilities would be quite a bit larger for this). Of all the species to have existed on Earth, only humans have gained intelligence (This may be argued that a few other species are reasonably intelligent, but that really would do very little to change the math). That would mean (extrapolating that our evolutionary model is reasonably accurate, which it seems to be) that only about 5.72^ -9 % of life is intelligent. The equation based on current estimates is thus: R* = 10/year, fp = 0.5, ne = 2, fl = 0.33, fi = 1×10-7, fc = 0.01, and L = 67 years N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 0.33 × 1×10-7 × 0.01 × 67 = 2.211×10-7 = 0.0000002211 For intelligent life to have evolved, non-intelligent life had to be there first. So if one multiplies the results from the Drake equation by the biodiversity on Earth you get a result of 3864 possibilities of life existing elsewhere in the universe.
pgrmdave Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 IF life arising spontaneously is as highly improbable as I believe it is, then having the one instance of life we know of could be argued to make it less likely that the same low-probability event occurred a second time somewhere else. This is akin to arguing that if I flip a coin and it turns up heads, it is more likely to turn up tails the next time.
lindagarrette Posted February 3, 2005 Report Posted February 3, 2005 This is akin to arguing that if I flip a coin and it turns up heads, it is more likely to turn up tails the next time.No, God plays dice, not flip a coin with the universe.
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