The Nature of Aliens

[wildWolverine]

Did some research. The book was written by Stephen Baxter, and was indeed titled Manifold Space (sequel to Manifold Time, hence my confusion). The aliens were called the Gaijin.

 

[Tsukemono5]

Interesting name, considering Gaijin is a derogatory Japanese word for a foreigner.
Curt, of course worshipping a non-existant fabrication is not a sign of intelligence. Worshipping an existant fabrication, now that takes skill . And the best solution is to worship an existant God.

 

[CurtSibling]

@Tsukemono5: I can't wait for you to meet aliens!

 

[wildWolverine]

Originally posted by Tsukemono5
Interesting name, considering Gaijin is a derogatory Japanese word for a foreigner.
Curt, of course worshipping a non-existant fabrication is not a sign of intelligence. Worshipping an existant fabrication, now that takes skill . And the best solution is to worship an existant God.

The Japanese played an important role in the first part of the book, and made first contact (if I recall correctly) w/ the strange aliens, hence the Gaijin name.

 

[wildWolverine]

@Curt: let's not let this get into a debate about the existence of a God(gods) and/or the merits of worshipping him/her/them. This is a nice peaceful alien thread -- there are far too many religion threads active right now already.

 

[Mojotronica]

Originally posted by wildWolverine
@Curt: let's not let this get into a debate about the existence of a God(gods) and/or the merits of worshipping him/her/them. This is a nice peaceful alien thread -- there are far too many religion threads active right now already.

Well, whatever they look like, they are probably Socialist...

 

[wildWolverine]

...

 

[thestonesfan]

Socialist? Depends on how advanced they are. If they are able to make contact with us, I'm sure they've advanced beyond the socialist stage.

Stile and Wildwolvie - Yes, that book was Sphere. Great book. What the ship had found was an object that "enabled" anyone who entered it to manifest a thought into what we perceive as reality. Crichton never went into much depth about it, though. The movie was kind of lame, I thought. I don't remember much of it.

Anyway, I don't think they would be ANYTHING like us, unless we had a common ancestor, a possibility I can't really fathom. Think about life on this earth - about every little thing that must have led to humans. What if the dinosaurs hadn't died out? What if fish never grew lungs? So many variables. I don't see evolution as a plodding, never-ending journey to betterment. I see it as a series of "fortunate" accidents, any number of which probably hinged on a miniscule moment in time.

Also, we really have no idea of the miraculousness of our intellect. I think the odds of life elsewhere is pretty good, but the odds of intelligent life is very rare. Okay, take all the humans off this world. There are millions of creatures physically very similar to us. Even squids - they are symmetrical, sensory, limbed, carbon-based lifeforms. But in terms of mental capacity, there is no creature remotely comparable to humans.

Could the incredible circumstances that led to humanity happen twice? Of course. But the odds must be astronomical. How incredible were the circumstances that led to basic life? We don't even know the beginnings of life as WE know it.

Thinking about this makes me want to be able to live 1000 years.

 

[gael]

I think your question is will they be close to human, and the answer is no.
But as much as lizards and fish are different from us, they are similar enough for us to recognise what makes them tick fundamentaly.

If aliens came from an envoriment that was similiar to ours, we could maybe understand some part of what drives them.

How they would look or think would be completly 'alien' to us.

 

[samildanach]

I don't care if they are intelligent or socialists just so long as they are edible. And I would prefer it if they did not taste like chicken and are not GM aliens. As far as looks go -I don't care so long as they can be fitted on a bun- I'm easy.

 

[Sims2789]

if you know all of the facts, you would have to be insane to not believe in aloens. there are 100 times more stars in the universe than there are humans currently on this planet. tosay that only 1 of those stars has a planet with life on it is insane. i believe there are flying saucers(most UFO's can be explained, but what about a cigar-shaped white thingthat flew over the American Southwest in 1917 and 1995 and was seen by an airliner in 1999?). Roswell was a crashed weather baloon, in my opinion.

 

[Stile]

An interesting article I read today with some other life form implication.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 — A microbe that thrives in boiling water and “breathes” iron has stretched the limits of where scientists believed life could exist, according to a report published on Thursday.

Microbe makes hell its home

 

[thestonesfan]

Originally posted by sims2789
if you know all of the facts, you would have to be insane to not believe in aloens. there are 100 times more stars in the universe than there are humans currently on this planet. tosay that only 1 of those stars has a planet with life on it is insane. i believe there are flying saucers(most UFO's can be explained, but what about a cigar-shaped white thingthat flew over the American Southwest in 1917 and 1995 and was seen by an airliner in 1999?). Roswell was a crashed weather baloon, in my opinion.

Life is one thing. Intelliegnt life is quite another. Look how long earth had life before it was smart enough to start a fire or make an axe.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Also... take a look at this article... Life can be extremely resiliant (perhaps making panspermia a worthwhile theory...)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2003/08/15/newly_found_microbe_can_take_a_lot_of_heat