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This is a valid point, and I'd take it a step further. Not only are we not well suited to speculate on the nature of life "at large", we're even less suited to
by koanarc 16y ago
This is a valid point, and I'd take it a step further. Not only are we not well suited to speculate on the nature of life "at large", we're even less suited to speculate about the nature of intelligent life (whatever that even means).
On the other hand, should we encounter sentient life, it certainly is not difficult to imagine hostility or callous indifference -- from either party. Particularly if said encounter is not on our terms.
And as profoundly exciting as the prospect of meeting alien life would be, I'd much rather it occur sometime after we've grown up a bit, ourselves.
- andreyf 16y agoOn the other hand, should we encounter sentient life, it certainly is not difficult to imagine hostility or callous indifference Just because we can imagine something doesn't make it at all possible. We're speculating the probability of something having seen it occur once...
- Qz 16y agoAnd yet if you get struck by lightning, you'll probably start being afraid of storms, despite the vanishingly small chance of being struck twice.
- Psyonic 16y agoActually, after you've been struck by lightning once, your chance of getting struck by lightning again is the same as getting struck by lightning in the first place.
- koanarc 16y agoSo we should not speculate at all? That's a rather dull outlook. I certainly agree that our dataset, re: "life as we know it", is horribly limited. Likely to the point of uselessness. But hypotheses are the foundation of any science, after all, and what little we do have to go on suggests that competition/predation, rather than cooperation/symbiosis, may be a more reasonable expectation. But perhaps not. In which case, we'd be very lucky to encounter such an enlightened species.