otseng wrote:
Imagine there's no spacemen except the ones we launch
No alien rock n' rollers to listen to Sagan's hunch
Imagine we're all stuck here and must confront ourselves
.. uh oh!
Imagine now that Star Trek is just a TV show
No cosmos full of life forms just earthlings here below
Imagine there's no 'contact' to make 'cause no one's there
... uh oh!
You may say I'm a realist but I'm not the only one
Who knows there's zero data from SETI - or anyone!
Imagine your dream's over no Yoda to soothe you
And your only choices left then boil down to two
Imagine you're unique here and must opt for love or hate
... uh oh!
You may say I'm religious but I'm not the only one to say if you seek communion
it's the heart that must be won!
From the
Rare Earth Song
In the book
Rare Earth, the authors make two main points:
- Microbial life is common in planetary systems.
- Advanced life (animals) is rare in the Universe.
The arguments they give can be found
at wikipedia.
But, in the book, they don't really explore the implications of their hypothesis.
So, what I'd like to ask is:
What are the implications if earth is the only planet with advanced life on it?
I read your article in Wikipedia. Then read the one Chad quoted. The second one explores the hypothesis as well, but not the implications.
Before we could really study the implications of Earth being the only planet with advanced life on it, we must first prove it. That is near impossible with todays technology, but future technology may be able to.
I know I a going to take slack for this position, but I don't believe that their are any other planets with advanced life on it. Now I don't have my crystal ball next to me, so I cant' say with 100% certainty, but the requirements for advanced life to survive on a planet are fairly specific. However, flip side, these requirements are limited by our known biases. Is it possible advanced life can live in a lower oxygen environment:yes: COPD patients drive to breath is based on their oxygen level as opposed to the healthy persons lungs whose drive to breath is based on CO2. The normal person has a 92-100% 02 saturation or 70-90% arterial blood gas oxygenation level. A normal CO2 level (arterial) is 35-45%. Any fluctuation in a normal person will Increase CO2 which will increase resp to help blow off CO2, but will decrease O2 d/t hyperventilation, so we give them supplemental O2 to compensate. We consider a person with COPD O2 saturation in the 82-85% range acceptable with a 60-70% arterial blood O2 acceptable and arterial CO2 45-55% acceptable so long as they have compensated metabolically to maintain an arterial blood gas PH within the 7.35-7.45 range. Now if we gave a person with COPD extra oxygen, we would disrupt this balance and could knock out the internal drive to breath. So it is possible for an atmosphere slightly different from ours to still sustain life based on the bodies adaptation to diseases such as COPD and others like it. However, these are diseases that are chronic and terminal. They will eventually kill you. Blood pH would become alkalotic or acidotic making it essentially shut down some vital internal systems such as kidneys and hypoxia would cause brain damage or CO2 retention would cause CO2 psychosis leading to brain damage. So life on any other planet with a different atmosphere would have to be drastically different to adapt to the environment. I don't think human are ever going to be found outside of earth (unless technology allows us to physically explore other planets with humans instead of robots).
I doubt even that we would find intelligent life of any form. Microbes, sure, because even on earth, with things such as bacterial and viruses constantly being bombarded with hostile conditions (antibiotics, antiviral wipes, antiretroviral drugs, immunizations) they still manage to adapt and survive. They require much less and can remain dormant for decades. So I will say that it is possible for the simplest forms of life to exist, but not complex.
My ultimate reasoning for believing this is that if intelligent life existed elsewhere, I would have to imagine they are asking the same questions as us, and are advancing either at the same pace as us or possibly faster. Why have we seen no evidence of it? We have myths of extraterrestrial visitors but those were from the days when the world was based on a concept of supernatural, so the validity of these myths are questionable. We have these "sightings" of UFO's, aliens, etc... but once again, no valid scientific proof, only theories and conspiracy theories. Now I could be wrong and intelligent life elsewhere doesn't have the inquisitive nature that we do, but if such is the case, how advanced would the be beyond the "early man" period where we lived in caves. It is our inquisitive nature that has led to our exploration and advancement as a society and race.
So what are the implications if one was to assume we were the only intelligent life? I would say that the chaos theory may be more applicable than we thought. Possibly the small changes in one area led to larger changes in another and thus the advancement of intelligent life. But that is quite a stretch. I think that if one could disprove intelligent life elsewhere and disprove that intelligent life ever existed elsewhere, then I might actually be more inclined to re-evaluate my position on a creator. Oh, who am I kidding, I still haven't made a position.
part. How is it relevant to this thread???
