Theoretical Question About Extra Terrestrials

@failures art,

The book says that God created man in his image; he would not have created anything superior to man in any other image.

The "aliens" we are most likely to meet would be refugees from our own solar system amongst the near stars. There was a series of catastrophes several thousand years back and nobody living in our system at the time would have had any way of knowing if anything in the system would remain habitable at all; at least some would have headed outwards.

Any such that we ever encounter will look like us however. They will not look like Pancho Villa or any other sort of 'aliens'.

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

The book says that God created man in his image;

The book is a fairy tale. This thread is about extra terrestrials, not elves and fairies and gods and demons.

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@gungasnake,

How far you reckon they could get in 6000 years using Noah era tech?

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@xris,

Quote:

Ethics should keep pace with mans scientific advances.

Why ? I regard scientific advances as periods of adjustment and reinventing for ethics. Such times do not always produce a desirable outcome.

Quote:

Aliens, if they have the ability to travel great distances and possess great scientific ability, should therefor have developed their ethical reasoning...I hope.

Perhaps the natives thought that about the colonists.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

The book is a fairy tale. This thread is about extra terrestrials, not elves and fairies and gods and demons.

LOL! This is the best response ever.

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@xris,

Quote:

Ethics should keep pace with mans scientific advances. Aliens, if they have the ability to travel great distances and possess great scientific ability, should therefor have developed their ethical reasoning...I hope.

There is a problem Xris...

We, by definition, don´t have an such an advanced ethical reasoning-- how do we know what the advanced ethical reasoning that goes with interstellar travel is?

For all we know, Aliens with an advanced ethical reasoning would understand there is nothing wrong with hunting us down for food or sport. There may even be a moral imperative (that we don´t understand yet) to wipe out the human race.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

The book is a fairy tale.

You should tell the academics who study it that you have made a determination and they are all wrong.

Quote:

This thread is about extra terrestrials, not elves and fairies and gods and demons.

I for one put extra terrestrials, elves and fairies in the same basket.

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

I for one put extra terrestrials, elves and fairies in the same basket.

That makes you an idiot.

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

I for one put extra terrestrials, elves and fairies in the same basket.

A
R
This speaks more to the substantiation of the elves and fairies...

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@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

We, by definition, don´t have an such an advanced ethical reasoning-- how do we know what the advanced ethical reasoning that goes with interstellar travel is?

An excellent point. Let's start working on catching our ethics up to our technology.

ebrown p wrote:

For all we know, Aliens with an advanced ethical reasoning would understand there is nothing wrong with hunting us down for food or sport.

That ethical reasoning is the reasoning we use. The same reasoning that we I think we should challenge ourselves on, and the same reasoning you were prepared to dismiss and call the aliens "evil" because it was us that was being objectified.

ebrown p wrote:

There may even be a moral imperative (that we don´t understand yet) to wipe out the human race.

Then we better have a ethical case prepared on our behalf to defend our right to exist that excludes that we feel it acceptable for us to wipe out entire species or use them to meet our needs/desires.

A
R
T

1 Reply

@failures art,

You are missing my point Failures Art.

Any system of ethics is a human invention. Humans evolved a brain that has the tendency to hold to a system of ethics-- but there are many very different systems of ethics that humans have invented and there is no way subjective to judge that one system of ethics is better then another.

Any system of ethics is completely subjective... it depends on your culture, and your experiences and a bit of your genes. There is no reason to think that an alien would have any of the same ideas about ethics; in fact it seems fantastically unlikely.

This is why I can call aliens who want to eat me -- "evil"... I am making a subjective judgement that is only valid from my point of view (which I can probably safely say encompasses people in any modern Western culture). However, I admit that this is a subjective judgment which makes it consistent with me imagining other points of view.

I am dubious about the implication of terms like "catching our ethics up" which imply that you think there is some progression of ethical systems (where one system is "better" or "more advanced" then another).

The order in this hypothetical progression is also quite subjective; it is questionably useful in discussions of our own culture for things we think are important, such as freedom, respect for life or human rights. But applying these ideals to non-human species is completely invalid.

1 Reply

@gungasnake,

Supposedly there are three basic minerals . . . make that elements . . . that could be the basis of life. One is carbon, which we are based on. Another is silicon and I forgot the third. That was long ago and far away and maybe the science has changed since then.

Can anyone update this?

If a life form is not based on carbon, I doubt that it would look like us.

BEsides, man made god in man's own image.

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@plainoldme,

Earth, Wind, Fire and Spirit.

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@Eorl,

Quote:

How far you reckon they could get in 6000 years using Noah era tech?

You be the judge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3X5oucqQe4

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More Noah-era technology...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumapunku

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6d/Mpl61.jpg

200 ton perfectly smooth carved stones of diorite and granite are beyond OUR capabilities, much less those commonly ascribed to Alley Oop or the "ape-like common ancestor(TM)"...

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@Eorl,

You see a lot of extra terrestrials do you ? Maybe you should suicide and they will fly past and pick you up. Very Happy

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@failures art,

Do you see both at the pub ?

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@plainoldme,

The problem is finding plentiful atoms that will form a stable bond in "average" temps and will enable an easily produced "code". Carbon/Hydrogen is one such and to a lesser extent another is Silicon/Nitrogen.

Quote:

If a life form is not based on carbon, I doubt that it would look like us.

You dont need to have it not based on carbon to not look like us....Oak trees have about 60% of our DNA.

1 Reply

@Ionus,

Carbon is special because of the way it forms long chains which is important for the complex molecules that are needed for life. It is the fact that Carbon has 4 valence electrons (the number of electrons on the outer layer) that give it this special property. A carbon atom can form strong stable bonds with 4 other atoms (and there are many elements that will bond with carbon).

There are several other elements that have this property including Silicon and Germanium-- however as you get to the heavier elements, the bonds it forms are weaker.

Many scientists think that Silicon based life is possible-- this is an interesting possibility for extra-terrestrial life because Silicon is quite abundant.

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ebrown wrote:

Many scientists think that Silicon based life is possible-- this is an interesting possibility for extra-terrestrial life because Silicon is quite abundant.

Hmmm, have to check this out among the stars ( in Hollywood, CA)...

0 Replies

Theoretical Question About Extra Terrestrials

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