Alien?

[Mr Anonymous]

Both in terms of popular culture and extensively throughout UFO Belief the concept of Extraterrestrials, Aliens if you will, paints a picture of beings humanoid in aspect, perceived as been driven by motives understandable to humans in human terms - Then there's the other side of the coin. Stanley Kubrick in the film 2001 depicts ETI as singularly undefinable - a presence only disclosing nothing whatsoever regarding its actual nature except that in being present, for want of a better word, apparently it does stuff - even though theirs no real way of understanding anything at all regarding how, what, when and how.

It's a startlingly different portrayal of what the term Alien actually means - So, if you feel prompted to ever use the term at all, what you consider terms such as Aliens, Extraterrestrials, ETI, etc to actually mean?

 

[Lil Light Foot]

Alien in the way you are using it means something from outside of the earth's ecosystem. The usual images are that of humanoid forms, as you said, but that is because we always think in terms of ourselves. I can't remember which philosopher said it, but he said "If horses had a god, it would be a horse".

 

[Mr Anonymous]

Mmmmm, indeed they do. For as it says in the First Book of Dobbin: "Nay! And it was good." But how about yourself here - how do you perceive the notion of an Alien?

 

[Gustav]

i say not of this earth as well
which very well could then be us humans that are the aliens if one considers the microbe bearing asteroid impact theory

 

[Gustav]

yet
surely an amoeba would be more alien to us than a humanoid from ngc1234

 

[duendy]

yu know, the human body is a great thing...when you think about it. it is so diverse in movement. forexample, when you see what it can do, regarding sports, and dancing. .....etc. soit would seem t me that this creative design i not just a one-off 'accidental' occurance of planet Earth or for just-us-humans, but is rathewr a creative potentia that can happen all over, and interdimensionally

ie. this is why i keep asking inquirers into this to please be aware of the water you are swimmin in ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in OUR current pradigm tis 'water' sis the materialistic philsophia which ASSUMES that our presence here on plane t Earth, Earth, solar system etc is err kinda accidental........not accomadating that reality ITSELF isss creaTIVE and most like favours versatile bodies
but also lets not forget that in certain 'dimensions' said bodies can SHAPESHIFT

 

[Gustav]

oooh
odo

 

[Ophiolite]

Alien Lifeforms

Definition: As LilLightFoot succinctly put it, lifeforms from outwith our eco-system.*

Points to Consider

1. It is probable that, as on the Earth, most lifeforms will be microscopic.
2. In consequence most alien lifeforms will be neither sapient or sentient.
3. Our ability to recognise lifeforms may be hampered by terracentrism.
4. We do not yet know enough about the origin of life to know if organic lifeforms will utilise DNA, something very close to it, or something quite different.
5. Since external form has only a passing relationship to genetic heritage we may expect some analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans.
6. Since we have only recently recognised that there are five Kingdoms of life, we should not be surprised to encounter several more.
7. The possibilities of non-organic life should not be ignored.
8. The most probable form of such life would be AIs created by earlier organic beings.


*If localised panspemia is shown to be in effect within the solar system, then we just have to modify our to include the entire system, not just the Earth.

 

[mouse]

Alien in the way you are using it means something from outside of the earth's ecosystem. The usual images are that of humanoid forms, as you said, but that is because we always think in terms of ourselves. I can't remember which philosopher said it, but he said "If horses had a god, it would be a horse".

Let's assume an alien colony of single cell bacteria makes it to Earth. The colony starts to grow in one of Earth's ecosystems. Are the newly formed bacteria still alien? They have alien ancestors, but were produced on Earth and will be submissive to its environmental pressures. And that influence will weigh stronger and stronger over time: every following generation of those bacteria will be culled by Earth's standards.

In short, their "alienness'" would fade rapidly, but where would one place the border line?

 

[Ophiolite]

Let's assume an alien colony of single cell bacteria makes it to Earth. The colony starts to grow in one of Earth's ecosystems. Are the newly formed bacteria still alien?

You are assuming they are DNA lifeforms making proteins from the same twenty amino acids Earth life does and has the same codons in its DNA. That is quite an assumption. If it is invalid, which is highly likely, then it will always be obvious that it is alien.

 

[leopold]

So, if you feel prompted to ever use the term at all, what you consider terms such as Aliens, Extraterrestrials, ETI, etc to actually mean?

alien, something foreign, not like us
god is an alien

 

[phlogistician]

You are assuming they are DNA lifeforms making proteins from the same twenty amino acids Earth life does and has the same codons in its DNA. That is quite an assumption. If it is invalid, which is highly likely, then it will always be obvious that it is alien.

Although, I presume, due to the underlying chemistry, an 'alien' will have a similar underpinning structure, to something like our DNA. A chemical degeneracy if you will. Certain reactions are favourable, the lifeform will almost certainly be carbon based, and utilise oxygen, and probably iron (although copper is used for a blood base by creatures on earth, so no reason for aliens not to use it too.).

Likewise, physically, they have the same forces to deal with as us, so may have eyes, similar to earth creatures (be they like ours, or those of crustaceans), or use sonar, so will have some familiar features.

I guess also that similar selection criteria will have applied, and that the being most likely to become space faring will be that planets Apex predator, so that means the ability to communicate, a developed brain, dexterous appendages, and good senses. I don't know if being bipedal is necessary, but not using the manipulative appendages for movement is a must I think, so they become more subtle in their range of movement.

So they could be green sonar using octopi, but it shouldn't be such a surprise to us.

Anyway, to answer the original questions,

Aliens, life form not from this planet.
Extra Terrestrial, same, but maybe with the implication that they are on earth, as earth is mentioned.
ETI, Intelligent life form, perhaps afar, contaced by some means, but not necessarily physically.

 

[Silas]

What pisses me off, is not that intelligent alien species are depicted as humanoid necessarily, it's that they are always depicted in the same way! The Gray has seemingly taken over the world of science fiction, so that in any film or tv programme - and there are a lot of them - which features humans meeting aliens for the first time, they always have the same characteristics - hairless with large black eyeballs behind tapered oval eyelids, generally pale skin, very very thin arms, legs and digits, no nose and a small mouth. When Steven Spielberg made Taken, I was looking forward to seeing what the aliens looked like, given that the Gray as we now have it first appeared in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and when he returned to Alien Visitation with E.T. it looked totally different. But no, right at the end of the first episode, there was the bog-standard Gray. When M. Night Shyamalan made Signs, I was agog to watch a return to genuine hidden-alien creepiness. But then we saw one, and, dark green or not, it was a Gray. Actually, the first one we saw (the kiddy party home video) looked like nothing more or less than a guy walking past in one of those Alien costumes you get from a fancy dress shop.

I rate CE3K very highly at being one of the very few Human/Alien Encounter movies that genuinely gave us something original and intelligent, unfortunately it also appears to have torpedoed everybody's imagination.

 

[mouse]

If it is invalid, which is highly likely

You are right. Could you agree to "an alien lifeform of the same relative complexity as a simple bacterium"?

then it will always be obvious that it is alien.

With a recognizable alien origin, true, but exposed to Earth's constrains and forced to evolve in a direction adapted to those constrains. Over time, the resulting generations may be entirely different from what would have evolved on the alien lifeform's habitat which spawned their ancestors.

I remember you as a proponent of panspermia, which, correct me if I'm wrong, hypothesizes that the seeds of life may have been brought to earth. Now, if panspermia was a kickstart for life on earth, does that then imply all of us are to be characterised as alien?

 

[mouse]

*If localised panspemia is shown to be in effect within the solar system, then we just have to modify our to include the entire system, not just the Earth.

Ah, sorry for having missed this the first time around. It answers my last question in my previous post.

 

[Ophiolite]

Yes, I am a proponent of panspermia, but was discounting it for the purposes of this discussion - since if there is universal panspermia there are no aliens.

My point on the alien bacteria like entity, is that its internal chemistry will be different - if it is not, then frankly it is not an alien. The differences are likely to be such that it is going to be very hard for it to 'make a living' on the Earth, though on the plus side it will not likely be too attractive to eat.
It occurs to me that when we land up on alien planets to colonise them we are going to require genetically engineered bacteria in our digestive tract to convert the inedible alien plant/animal/weird purple thingies to nutritious chemicals our body can handle.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

An alien life form would be one that cannot be fitted in the current 'tree of life'. That is that no connection of ancestry can be made with any lifeform on earth which are all connected.

 

[Giambattista]

oooh
odo

Well. May you persist, my dear Gustav. You alone deserve the hooplah, and so does Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach.

Both god-like personas in their own rights!

Weep about it, the rest of ye who make not the cut.

F*** ye all!

Voi ringrazio!

 

[Gustav]

As LilLightFoot succinctly put it, lifeforms from outwith our eco-system.*

you lie. that was not how he put it. he said "...something from outside of the earth's ecosystem."

1. It is probable that, as on the Earth, most lifeforms will be microscopic.
2. In consequence most alien lifeforms will be neither sapient or sentient.

an assumption that could only be made in the fog of confusion and mindless arrogance

3. Our ability to recognise lifeforms may be hampered by terracentrism.

the height of idiocy. terracentrism does not imply that we do not recognize lifeforms. it is just that we accord them a secondary or inferior status. it is the criteria that is used to define life that is in question. take away the requirement of autonomous replication and a virus could then, said to be alive

5. Since external form has only a passing relationship to genetic heritage we may expect some analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans.

garbage spouted out in a excellent example of pseudoscientific quackery. muddled verbiage that could only result from a mediocre and addled thought process aka random firings of neurons being put into words

skin color is genetic coding. the 4 limbs attached to humans is also a result of the same. "passing relationship" my ass!

now regarding the "analogs". what the fuck is being said here? we should expect that....animals are animals? insects are animals? microbes are animals? i recommend death

6. Since we have only recently recognised that there are five Kingdoms of life, we should not be surprised to encounter several more.
7. The possibilities of non-organic life should not be ignored.
8. The most probable form of such life would be AIs created by earlier organic beings.
*If localised panspemia is shown to be in effect within the solar system, then we just have to modify our to include the entire system, not just the Earth

i suppose stating the obvious is one way to pretend intellect
pathetic tho

 

[Gustav]

panspemia

is it too much of an effort to even spell correctly?