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The point the poster above was making is that we have already seen how society changes when we believe we've found basic proof of life, because we really believ

The point the poster above was making is that we have already seen how society changes when we believe we've found basic proof of life, because we really believed we did a few times in the past: nothing changes. Sure, finding actual living organisms would create new opportunities for study in xeno-biology, but it likely wouldn't change anything significant in our lives unless it is contact with complex multi-cellular and preferably intelligent beings. Even for science, the most likely possibility (life on Europa, if it exists, would use the same basic chemistry, but not the exact same things as life on Earth) would not have any major impacts in reality: it would end various kinds of speculation, it would give us some new avenues for looking for extra-solar life, and it would create new carriers in studying this new branch of biology. But it would likely not change anything major in existing fields, it wouldn't give us some new perspective on life on Earth, and it would not change much about how we study biology. Just like finding out that not all protozoa are bacteria (some are archaea), or before that finding that fungi are a completely separate kingdom of life from plants and animals, didn't fundamentally change anything even in the day to day lives and study of even the vast majority of biologists.

bluGill 2y ago
The only way life changes anything on earth (a few crack pots worshiping this new life as god doesn't count even if they get following) is if the life is intelligent enough to change something. Life on the level of bacteria is interesting, but as you say still uses our chemistry. We put something in a text book and move on. Maybe a few study it and science learns a lot but nothing that affects our life. If the life is intelligent though they may have solved some problems we have. Maybe they have a quantum theory of gravity that we don't (my understanding of physics is we think this should exist but we don't have one - but I'm not a physicist). Of course the life may be intelligent but at a level equivalent to us 3000 years ago - just learning the basics of geometry. There is now the moral issue of how much should we tell them that we know.
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mxkopy 2y ago
I think the general vibe most people have would change if aliens were actually real This is like saying the normal people in the Marvel Universe are basically no different than people in ours, which I guess is true but only in the most superficial anti-imaginative way
- simiones 2y ago
  If we knew for a fact there was an alien society living lives similar to ours on some planet, sure, I agree. But if we found out that there are bacteria-like micro-organisms on Europa, or even "fish" in the oceans there, I don't agree that this would change anything in the outlook of the vast majority of people on Earth, even subtly.

bluGill 2y ago

The only way life changes anything on earth (a few crack pots worshiping this new life as god doesn't count even if they get following) is if the life is intelligent enough to change something. Life on the level of bacteria is interesting, but as you say still uses our chemistry. We put something in a text book and move on. Maybe a few study it and science learns a lot but nothing that affects our life. If the life is intelligent though they may have solved some problems we have. Maybe they have a quantum theory of gravity that we don't (my understanding of physics is we think this should exist but we don't have one - but I'm not a physicist). Of course the life may be intelligent but at a level equivalent to us 3000 years ago - just learning the basics of geometry. There is now the moral issue of how much should we tell them that we know.

deleted 2y ago

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mxkopy 2y ago

I think the general vibe most people have would change if aliens were actually real This is like saying the normal people in the Marvel Universe are basically no different than people in ours, which I guess is true but only in the most superficial anti-imaginative way

simiones 2y ago
If we knew for a fact there was an alien society living lives similar to ours on some planet, sure, I agree. But if we found out that there are bacteria-like micro-organisms on Europa, or even "fish" in the oceans there, I don't agree that this would change anything in the outlook of the vast majority of people on Earth, even subtly.