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As I have been growing up and reading about space exploration the narrative had been same: the Earth is special because it has water which allows it to have lif

As I have been growing up and reading about space exploration the narrative had been same: the Earth is special because it has water which allows it to have life. Today it seems like the latest technologies allows us to discover that water in some form is everywhere we look. I believe that it will be the same with life. Today the only known form of life is on Earth and I can’t wait to read about all the discoveries of different forms of life on other planets...

themodelplumber 8y ago
It'll be fun to learn about shared consciousness, archetypes, etc. If any. Edit: I'm guessing downvoters are low-openness types. But this is a speculative discussion, _that's the point_. In particular this is a question of the level of universality of what we on Earth consider universally-human principles, but we see consciousness outside of humanity as well. So where does it stop?
- chc 8y ago
  All speculation isn't equal. There's a difference between informed speculation ("Based on my expertise, I think it's likely X will happen"), philosophical speculation ("What if X happened? Well, here are some obvious consequences…") and idle speculation ("Duuude, what if 'woof' is just dog-language for 'moo'?"). I think people probably didn't see anything to take away from your comment, and that's why they're downvoting, not because their minds are closed to speculation.
  - themodelplumber 8y ago
    Hmm, that's a pretty serious writeup about types of speculation for something that isn't exactly off the wall here. If people thought, "there's no takeaway here" and then downvoted, as you said, that goes against the spirit of open-minded discussion. They should simply ask more questions or go find something to upvote. If there exist other life forms with consciousness, the question of whether they share consciousness in the form of shared archetype is not a question with no takeaways. It's important stuff to consider! The implication could be that a life form found on Earth is in some way multi-planetary, for example, and part of a wider consciousness-granting bio-system.
    - maze-le 8y ago
      I didn't downvote you, but you had me at "shared consciousness". Since no neuroscientist or philosopher can definitly tell what consciousness is or how it constitutes, speculations about a "shared consciousness" is idle at best, more probably than not its just plain wrong. Since I don't want to spend time with idle speculation about concepts that are not explained by physical reality[0], I categorized this posting as: "esoteric" and went on. I can only tell you about my reasons not to take this posting serious, but I think others might have similiar reasons. [0]: A "shared consciousness" must communicate in some way; no signals (in the form of either electromagnetic, gravitic, strong or weak nuclear force) have been detected that could accomplish this.
      - themodelplumber 8y ago
        Thanks for your comment. I think I understand, but I guess I look at shared consciousness as a continuum from "obviously exists" to "highly speculative". In its more obvious form, you and I probably have some sensing hardware in common (not 100% sure since I don't know you, but maybe we both have eyes, for example) so we may share light-consciousness, sun-consciousness, etc. Through one very simple lens humanity can be seen as a mesh sensor network that shares the "consciousness" product. In this way I would expect that any form of life with e.g. a nervous system and means of communication (or even just reaction which leads to chain reaction) can at least in basic ways share its consciousness. On the speculative end perhaps you'd have phenomena like shared intuitions or visions; however that's still a gradient; in some fields like Jungian psychology these are seen as products of a long and convoluted physical sensing processes, not as magic, for example.
noiv 8y ago
If we only had a good definition of what life is. The border between organic and inorganic gets kinda blurry with time.
roywiggins 8y ago
The special thing about water on Earth is that it's liquid and has been for a very long time.
- posterboy 8y ago
  and on the surface
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    That might not be that important? It was most of a billion years between when life arose on Earth and when life figured out photosynthesis so you can get a long way with just chemosynthesis.
    - John_KZ 8y ago
      Sunlight, gas exchange, weather and lighting might be very important, but it's hard to know. There are many theories regarding which types of abiogenesis are possible so the required circumstances are unknown.
- AlanSE 8y ago
  Just wait until detailed data on Earth-sized exoplanets comes in. That might not be very special at all. We just don't know yet.
zokier 8y ago
The distinction between (liquid) water and ice is pretty significant for astrobiology. I feel more like we are very quickly reaching the point where we have established that our solar system is barren of any (macroscopic) life[1]. And while we might be able to detect existence of life on other systems (by some chemical signatures), I very much doubt that we are going to see any more direct discoveries of extraterrestrial life during our lifetime simply due the vast interstellar distances involved. [1] Sure, even micro-organisms would be a major discovery, but ultimately imho of limited interest and impact.
- codeulike 8y ago
  The difference between nothing and micro-organisms is much greater than the difference between micro-organisms and macro-organisms. The discovery of non-terrestrial-origin micro-organisms in our solar system would be massively significant.
  - sfvisser 8y ago
    Going from no life to simple life might actually be much easier than going from simple life to complex life. According to Nick Lane in The Vital Question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vital_Question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vital_Question
    - reubenswartz 8y ago
      Really enjoyed that book, and tend to agree, but it would still be pretty amazing to find microbes somewhere else....
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        > it would still be pretty amazing to find microbes somewhere else.... We already know two things with certainty: - a very small amount of material transits between Earth and Mars. - all material on Earth contains microbes. It would seem we also know that there are microbes on Mars, though at insignificant levels and likely not flourishing.
fipple 8y ago
I don’t think we’ll ever hear about other life forms nor will they hear about us. It looks like the time between a society building advanced technology and it self-destructing from overuse of that technology may be only a very small window. I don’t think humans will go extinct, but there will certainly be a mass wipeout where only the most “primitive” aboriginals remain.
- airstrike 8y ago
  Either that or we reach the Singularity, and if that's the case in most civilizations, then maybe we should be searching for AIs
greggarious 8y ago
>As I have been growing up and reading about space exploration the narrative had been same: the Earth is special because it has water which allows it to have life. My pet theory is that microscopic life is relatively common but complex life, let alone intelligent life, is exceedingly rare.

themodelplumber 8y ago

It'll be fun to learn about shared consciousness, archetypes, etc. If any. Edit: I'm guessing downvoters are low-openness types. But this is a speculative discussion, _that's the point_. In particular this is a question of the level of universality of what we on Earth consider universally-human principles, but we see consciousness outside of humanity as well. So where does it stop?

chc 8y ago
All speculation isn't equal. There's a difference between informed speculation ("Based on my expertise, I think it's likely X will happen"), philosophical speculation ("What if X happened? Well, here are some obvious consequences…") and idle speculation ("Duuude, what if 'woof' is just dog-language for 'moo'?"). I think people probably didn't see anything to take away from your comment, and that's why they're downvoting, not because their minds are closed to speculation.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Hmm, that's a pretty serious writeup about types of speculation for something that isn't exactly off the wall here. If people thought, "there's no takeaway here" and then downvoted, as you said, that goes against the spirit of open-minded discussion. They should simply ask more questions or go find something to upvote. If there exist other life forms with consciousness, the question of whether they share consciousness in the form of shared archetype is not a question with no takeaways. It's important stuff to consider! The implication could be that a life form found on Earth is in some way multi-planetary, for example, and part of a wider consciousness-granting bio-system.
  - maze-le 8y ago
    I didn't downvote you, but you had me at "shared consciousness". Since no neuroscientist or philosopher can definitly tell what consciousness is or how it constitutes, speculations about a "shared consciousness" is idle at best, more probably than not its just plain wrong. Since I don't want to spend time with idle speculation about concepts that are not explained by physical reality[0], I categorized this posting as: "esoteric" and went on. I can only tell you about my reasons not to take this posting serious, but I think others might have similiar reasons. [0]: A "shared consciousness" must communicate in some way; no signals (in the form of either electromagnetic, gravitic, strong or weak nuclear force) have been detected that could accomplish this.
    - themodelplumber 8y ago
      Thanks for your comment. I think I understand, but I guess I look at shared consciousness as a continuum from "obviously exists" to "highly speculative". In its more obvious form, you and I probably have some sensing hardware in common (not 100% sure since I don't know you, but maybe we both have eyes, for example) so we may share light-consciousness, sun-consciousness, etc. Through one very simple lens humanity can be seen as a mesh sensor network that shares the "consciousness" product. In this way I would expect that any form of life with e.g. a nervous system and means of communication (or even just reaction which leads to chain reaction) can at least in basic ways share its consciousness. On the speculative end perhaps you'd have phenomena like shared intuitions or visions; however that's still a gradient; in some fields like Jungian psychology these are seen as products of a long and convoluted physical sensing processes, not as magic, for example.

noiv 8y ago

If we only had a good definition of what life is. The border between organic and inorganic gets kinda blurry with time.

roywiggins 8y ago

The special thing about water on Earth is that it's liquid and has been for a very long time.

posterboy 8y ago
and on the surface
- Symmetry 8y ago
  That might not be that important? It was most of a billion years between when life arose on Earth and when life figured out photosynthesis so you can get a long way with just chemosynthesis.
  - John_KZ 8y ago
    Sunlight, gas exchange, weather and lighting might be very important, but it's hard to know. There are many theories regarding which types of abiogenesis are possible so the required circumstances are unknown.
AlanSE 8y ago
Just wait until detailed data on Earth-sized exoplanets comes in. That might not be very special at all. We just don't know yet.

zokier 8y ago

The distinction between (liquid) water and ice is pretty significant for astrobiology. I feel more like we are very quickly reaching the point where we have established that our solar system is barren of any (macroscopic) life[1]. And while we might be able to detect existence of life on other systems (by some chemical signatures), I very much doubt that we are going to see any more direct discoveries of extraterrestrial life during our lifetime simply due the vast interstellar distances involved. [1] Sure, even micro-organisms would be a major discovery, but ultimately imho of limited interest and impact.

codeulike 8y ago
The difference between nothing and micro-organisms is much greater than the difference between micro-organisms and macro-organisms. The discovery of non-terrestrial-origin micro-organisms in our solar system would be massively significant.
- sfvisser 8y ago
  Going from no life to simple life might actually be much easier than going from simple life to complex life. According to Nick Lane in The Vital Question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vital_Question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vital_Question
  - reubenswartz 8y ago
    Really enjoyed that book, and tend to agree, but it would still be pretty amazing to find microbes somewhere else....
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      > it would still be pretty amazing to find microbes somewhere else.... We already know two things with certainty: - a very small amount of material transits between Earth and Mars. - all material on Earth contains microbes. It would seem we also know that there are microbes on Mars, though at insignificant levels and likely not flourishing.

fipple 8y ago

I don’t think we’ll ever hear about other life forms nor will they hear about us. It looks like the time between a society building advanced technology and it self-destructing from overuse of that technology may be only a very small window. I don’t think humans will go extinct, but there will certainly be a mass wipeout where only the most “primitive” aboriginals remain.

airstrike 8y ago
Either that or we reach the Singularity, and if that's the case in most civilizations, then maybe we should be searching for AIs

greggarious 8y ago

>As I have been growing up and reading about space exploration the narrative had been same: the Earth is special because it has water which allows it to have life. My pet theory is that microscopic life is relatively common but complex life, let alone intelligent life, is exceedingly rare.