If there's one thing that I hope for in my life, it's that we get to straight up meet some aliens. I can't think of anything that would be cooler, whether they kill us or not. But I err on the side of they'd just take pity on us for being so stupid, so I wouldn't be that worried.
I don't know that I agree with you, @matt-a, as I believe even though people do stupid things sometimes, we are the ultimate and most perfect form of life that exists no matter where you will look :)
I cannot agree with that. If you look out your window and into the sky and think about the vast, infinite universe that is right there in front of your eyes, to think that we're the most supreme is like asking a new born baby how to speak your native tongue (impossible).
We aren't alone and we surely aren't the most intelligent.
I like your holistic thinking approach, but you are making some assumptions in your conclusions there..like assuming a newborn baby can't speak. Now I know that that sounds absurd, but please do realise that to some, so do your views on alien life. Both have never been proved so both can't be assumed without being strongly biased
Lol, what? A newborn baby cannot speak. That isn't an assumption, it's a fact.
It doesn't make me biased by saying "a newborn baby does not come out of the womb speaking a language on any level, especially not a specific one."
This is one of the most silly interactions that I've had on Steem.
Your "fact" of hoping to meet some aliens (you can't hope for something that can't ever happen so obviously you 100% think they exist) is entirely based on NOT ONE SINGLE PROVEN INSTANCE of aliens, they're existence or their intelligence. So yes, maybe to you my views are very silly, but you have no idea how silly yours sound
So, so unbelievably stupid . . .
And that's your resolve then? I am taking a holistic hypothetical example to say babies can speak, to play off of your views, but you can only try to insult. Perhaps some babies should never have learnt to speak..
Again. So, so unbelievably stupid. I can't entertain this conversation. A newborn baby being born that teaches YOU to speak YOUR native language is more probable than the existence of life outside of Earth? Are you hearing yourself?
There is no general supremacy to be had, and nothing real to measure 'perfection' against. Ultimate completely misses the mark in terms of life forms.
When it comes down to it, life is chiefly just a convolution of how the sun's light reflects off of the earth, save for some interesting exceptions who fall in the minority. Even those are driven by other equally mundane phenomena, like the rusting of iron.
When I see the night sky, I'm given to thinking that there are likely other slimy patches out there somewhere in that whole wide everything. Even if that slime stands up, like it did here, it's still just plain old slime.
Our intelligence is merely self proclaimed. In spite of all our moving mass and energy around in ways we say are clever we're nothing but plain old organisms, through and through. To use a witless pun, it's inalienable.
There's no reason aside from whim to say a human is more or less metaphysically significant than the nonhuman goop in it's gut that supports it's life or the tree it's shading itself under and trading breath with. It's arbitrary to say so.
Given the aforementioned lack of evidence, it truly might be that this is the one and only slimy film out there, and I'd admit my surprise at that revelation.
On the other hand, what we mean when we say intelligence may very well have no meaning whatsoever to whatever we would find out there.
It would be rad to meet aliens though :)
@matt-a @cngrobler
Very neutral ground you are standing on @a-non-e-moose
But I can tell you are basing all of your thought on a theory: evolution. That can be dangerous as a mental tool
Thanks for the reply @cngrobler!
A scientific theory is not so shaky as could be implied by the colloquial usage of the word 'theory'.
The common usage would be closer to 'conjecture' or perhaps 'hypothesis' which is to say a falsifiable conjecture. Cell theory, germ theory, evolutionary theory, quantum theory, and the theory of plate tectonics are all certainly neither mere conjecture nor hypothesis.
To say "...all of your thought..." might be a bit hasty, and give me too much credit for rigor. Some of what I say here isn't based on any scientific theory, but only my personal fancies such as "...I'm given to thinking that there are likely other slimy patches out there somewhere..." for instance.
In fact much of what I say here seems to me to have little to do with the theory of evolution, strictly speaking. I make no mention of heritable traits, mutation, selective pressure, or other such central concepts to evolutionary theory. I tend to speak relatively strictly however. Perhaps you are not doing so here and that's absolutely fine by me.
If 'dangerous' can be taken to mean 'uncertain' I definitely recognize the underlying uncertainty. Though if we're going to assume that there exists some objective external world to study outside of perception that acts in ways humans could apprehend, among other pills I find impossibly hard to swallow, I can stomach the comparatively slight uncertainty of evolutionary theory on top of all that.
Nonetheless, I find myself a bit puzzled as to why you would invoke evolutionary theory here and extol it's dangers. Particularly I find 'dangerous' vague in this usage. Care to elaborate?
See now, this is the type of meaningful and relevant conversation I am looking for, although yours seem a bit more elaborate and intricate than mine :)
My reference to danger you by collective reasoning understood very well, thank you for that. I do however still feel a tint of allusion has played it's part in your statement about any sort of slimy organic substance, protruding the fundamental parent of it's being: evolution. Unless I am in the dark here and there are other existential theories referring to slime as a key starting point. If that be the case, I retract my comment and wish to learn about that which I do not yet know.
You flatter me @cngrobler :) I simply lack the time management skills to realize when I've spent too long writing a rambling comment, and that twists itself into such elaboration and intricacy.
I don't really think 'slime', as I've so cursorily used here, is just the starting point per-say. Extant microorganisms have had just as long to evolve as humans for instance, and far more generations to do it in. In this way we could be tempted to say that the microorganisms are "most evolved" due to having the most generations to do their evolving, but my spine shivers at such hierarchical diction.
I must say "...protruding the fundamental parent of it's being..." did confuse me a bit. If you mean to say that what I'm talking about involves evolution in some way I agree wholeheartedly.
Evolutionary theory is intimately connected with all things biology. Recognition of it's veracity is likely the biggest factor that sheds light on the mysterious machinations and forms found in organisms. I see no way to divorce the two, evolution and biology.
As far as starting points go, and the origins of life (extraterrestrial or otherwise), I suppose I'm talking more about abiogenesis. This is the concept that life does arise from what we consider nonliving matter under certain conditions. While far from being a laid out process we are sure happens, at least when I last researched it, it seems to me a real contender for explaining the starting point of life.