General Question

sccrowell's avatar

Do believe in extraterrestrial?

Asked by sccrowell (3508points) March 17th, 2008

A form of life assumed to exist outside the Earth or its atmosphere?

Observing members: 0 Composing members: 0

10 Answers

Spargett's avatar

Most def.

I can almost promise you it won’t be remotely humanoid. i.e. Two eyes, bipedal, two hands, five fingers, two nostrils, etc.

sccrowell's avatar

What would cause you to believe that? And why would they not have two eyes, feet, hands, etc…

needleinthehay's avatar

standard response including universe being rather large, and noting that it wouldn’t look like us, have same cell structure, and could just be alien on a molecular level.

think i covered all the bases.

robmandu's avatar

No idea… but I now know what to do if captured.

cwilbur's avatar

Yes. The universe is an immense place, and it would be astounding if life only developed in one place.

Perchik's avatar

It would beyond astounding. The odds that we’re the only planet with life among the entire universe would be terribly impossible. There has to be life on other planets. Whether that means something that we we would classify as animals or sentient beings, or just bacteria, is beyond me. But I’m sure that there’s gotta be something.

iSteve's avatar

I do, and as soon as they discover that we have iPhones, we’re all gonna be in trouble!!!

brenden's avatar

I have such an irrational fear of aliens sooooo yes! :(

Spargett's avatar

@sccrowell

Humanoid traits are such a specific and random occurrence of evolution. The probability of something evolving the exact same structure that happened to work the first time on Earth for us, and therefor coded into our genome as incredibly low even if they came from a similar planet and ignorant at best. And keep in mind this is all assuming that these aliens are not in a gas or energy form, etc. The possibility or life is endless and our scope of what can potential harbor life (carbon based, H20, etc.) is extremely narrow and only able to reference what very little we know and understand about life in reference to the universe.

We’re very stupid for the most. Trying to tackle the universe and existence is like a toddler attending an MIT calculus class.

To sum it up. Earth and everything about is very unusual and unlikely. I think this beautiful video explains what I mean.

David Deutsch: What is our place in the cosmos?

P.S. To answer everyone else’s fears of aliens, I think these are the ones to be afraid of.

Hypocrisy_Central's avatar

Gadzooks, if eons ago some primordial ooze of the right proteins and enzymes got zapped with the right bolt of lightning spawning life, if it happened that way here then it could happen other places as well. If one further believe that it would be on a planet like here (since that seem to be the thought that life could not exist on a planet unlike here) they beings there would share a of resemblance to beings and creatures here. They may not have tigers and lions but big cat-like creatures, etc. If lightning can strike more than once here it could have evolution wise. If it struck more than once we might not be the 1st in that succession, we could be 10s of 1,000s of years behind other beings. They could be as advance to us as we are to those in the Dark Ages 20 times over.

From the creationist angle why would God create a great work then stop? That would be like Leonardo DeVinci painting a awesome canvas then putting his brush down never to paint again. Why would he do that when he might think he could not only do it again, but do it better?

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.

Your answer will be saved while you login or join.

Have a question? Ask Fluther!

What do you know more about?
or
Knowledge Networking @ Fluther