I was just watching Farscape and....

[De Leonist]

I want to meet an alien damnit all!

Seriously though what is more awe inspiring than the idea of meeting a life form from another planet. Could you imagine what they would look like ?

It would be so frikkin awesome. Yeah I know some are all like "Aliens=Conquistadors and Humans=Aztecs" maybe but I think there is some possibility of us meeting a Species that wouldn't want kill us and take our planet's resources. I mean gee maybe they want to know as much as we do that their not alone in the universe.

God I so want to meet an Alien so bad before I die. I wonder if there's an alien out there that wants to me as much as I want to meet it/he/she/?.

The universe is so massive, there has got to be at least one out there. This is why science is so awesome. If Astrophysicists and Astronomers didn't exist I wouldn't know enough to think this way.

SCIENTISTS

[Binkie The Clown]

1. I used to sit in class at school and wonder...

... if somewhere in the vastness of space there was another planet with another intelligent species with some young alien creature sitting in his classroom feeling just as bored as I was.

But seriously, there are some things that bother me:

In a competitive natural environment, the most vicious animals come out on top.

In a benign natural environment, there is no pressure to evolve, so no advanced intelligence ever evolves.

So either there are no intelligent beings out there, or if there are out there, they are aggressive and belligerent.

But if they are aggressive and belligerent, they probably killed themselves off before they got into space in any significant way. Which, of course, implies that we will probably kill ourselves off before we get into space in any significant way.

So it seems like the most probably situation is that we are in a universe filled with planets harboring intelligent life, half of which are living in primitive pre-industrial civilizations, and half of which are living in primitive post-industrial civilizations. The age of energy-intensive technological civilization probably only last 50 to 100 years before the energy is gone or the factions blow each other back to the stone age. Either way, we'll probably never get to meet the neighbors, no matter how close they are.

[Warpy]

2. Would we even recognize it as life?

We barely recognize sentience with our fellow beings on this planet and communicating with them directly is in its infancy, even when their brain sizes and structures are similar to or greater than ours---and we share a planetary and historical reference point.

We won't share that point with life elsewhere. We are nowhere near being able to confront alien life.

[longship]

3. Me, too. However...

You might expect E.T. But get this...


Or this...


Amazing that aliens have awesome technology that enables them to master interstellar travel, but they still cannot solve hunger problems, or basic reproduction, without humans.



Sadly, the distances involved will likely not oblige your wishes. (Mine, either.)

[William Seger]

4. Unfotunately, if evolution is universal...

... the "red in tooth and claw" is the kind we're most likely to encounter.

[longship]

5. Well, there is that argument.

The counter to it is that one hopes that intelligence would trump the tooth and claw thingie. Looking at the current state of modern humanity, I am skeptical and you may have a valid point.

On the other hand, it seems that certain ideologies, unrelated to actualities, are responsible for much of the sturm und drang in the world. If life can get over such things there may be hope. Some are attempting to study them under the rubric of evolutionary psychology. It is definitely a controversial subject -- how is it testable? But I give them an A for effort.

I like Daniel Dennett's arguments in Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. It is a very interesting take on these things and I don't think we can afford to throw out credible hypotheses merely because they have experimental problems. We need to understand them by studying them if there is to be hope for the future. Dennett has convinced of that, too.

My regards.

[MisterP]

6. a lot of humans would take the opportunity to be Tlaxcalans, I might add

[Panich52]

7. Plethora of assumptions in OP &replies.

First, what makes you think ET would be a 'he or she'? There are essentially asexual beings here on Earth.

One of the biggest mistakes is projecting human emotions on ETs. I suppose it's almost likely that emotions are universal (at least as long as a certain level of intelligence or consciousness/self-awareness is achieved. But even then, why assume any of their motives would coincide w/ ours?

Don't get me wrong. I'm w/ those who'd like to meet ET, but I try not to presuppose anything (and that's very difficult).

At this point, I'd just settle for a solid, confirmed WOW signal.