Aliens!

"Representative Trantis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

Quoted message said:

What else would be the same/ is almost as close as you can get speaking from an evolution point of
view, to inevitable for sucessfull development?

The eye has evolved many times However there is no reason to suppose that aliens would be
multi-cellular. From about 4 billion years ago to about 600 million years ago there weren't
any multi-cellular organisms on Earth. So for about 7/8th of the period life has been
exclusivelt single-celled.

<< A bit of an extension on my previous "Is Gender Inevitable" post. If life were discovered
elsewhere in the universe it's highly unlikely they would look anything like humans. Many popular
science fiction movies and television programmes show the aliens as human or human with one or two
minor feature differences. Perhaps the most popular sci-fi of all time, Star Trek, has pointed ears,
or wrinkled noses as the only visible difference between some alien races and humans. >>

They may not look like humans but they will look like earthlings. See this essay:
musea.digitalchainsaw.com122Musea1.htmlOpen ↗

For life you need an earthlike sized planet with an earthlike atmosphere and earthlike gravity at a
specific distance from its heat source to keep water liquid (0-100C) etc. And once you have water -
you have a water swimming form, air - air swimming form, ground = ground borrowing form etc. The
rules for life are much much more restrictive than most imagine IMO.

Interesting question. Star Trek and similar *usually* represent higher life
froms (they're more interesting for story lines), and of course the answer
must be totally speculative. I'd say you're assuming far too much to say
reproduction would be similar. Unless panspermia or other form of seeding
is correct, I'd say there's no way to speculate on either appearance or
mechanism except in the broadest terms for "general life". For "higher"
forms, with a civilization anaolgous to ours (articicial objects, like
dwellings, travel devices, etc.), I'd say they'd need:
- either a reasonably-sized cognititive centre (like our brain) or a connected distributed function
(as per neural networks) of lesser "brains", plus
- a method of manipulating objects physically - including themselves - not *necessarily* hands,
legs, etc., but possibly even use of enslaved creatures with these attributes or through something
similar to telekinesis.

By definition, I *think* that'd be multi-cellular, though even the concept of cells (or similar)
might be assuming too much. Any more than this and you're assuming. Non-carbon, non-DNA-based
intelligent life (at least as perceived by us as intelligent) could look like anything, especially
with a distributed "brain". Reproduction would not necessarily involve more than one creature (agree
that >2 seems less likely), although I would *expect* some form of integrated and physical
manipulation (like hands). My $.02 (and yeah, even that's a stretch). Regards, Brett.

"Representative Trantis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

A bit of an extension on my previous "Is Gender Inevitable" post. If life were discovered
elsewhere in the universe it's highly unlikely they would look anything like humans. Many popular
science fiction movies and television programmes show the aliens as human or human with one or two
minor feature differences. Perhaps the most popular sci-fi of all time, Star Trek, has pointed
ears, or wrinkled noses as the only visible difference between some alien races and humans.

However, what would be the same or very similar? It's highly likely

Quoted message said:

organisms be the dominant method of reproduction, as it is on our planet, and two orgranisms seems
the optimal for finding a mate and reproducing, three or four would just complicate matters, so
therefore our methods of reproduction would be similar. Perhaps, given two required for
reproduction, geners would develop, (See other post).

What else would be the same/ is almost as close as you can get speaking from an evolution point of
view, to inevitable for sucessfull devleopment? Thoughts?

I had two dreams last night which made me think of "aliens". In one dream I was chasing women with a
camcorder and when I zoomed in on their faces one of their eyes was completely gone and I could see
the pink tissue of their empty eye orbits which I found exciting. The other dream I was with several
men and women guests eating a fine dinner and sampling three bottles of wine. One of the things we
ate was a mutated fish creature whose numerous deformities and anomalies made it horrible for me to
look at. At the end of the night I looked at the three empty wine bottles and one had a murky
residue in it which looked like it came from the creature my fellow guests had ate.

Dreams are interesting. What purpose do they serve? Are they just physiological noise, a way for the
brain to "sort" things out...a filtering mechanism of sorts? Are they "subconsious" workings of
daily conscious conflicts being worked out?

It seems to me dreaming is a physiological activity but it incorporates memories (short term and
long term) in weaving its often bizarre and strangely captivating dreams.

Representative T you're argument is anthropomorphic. There is no reason for there not being other
life in the universe which isn't based on

gravity and matter? We don't even know how life started on earth! We don't know how inanimate matter
turns itself into animate matter.

Michael Ragland

______________________________________

A bit of an extension on my previous "Is Gender Inevitable" post. If life were discovered elsewhere
in the universe it's highly unlikely they would look anything like humans. Many popular science
fiction movies and television programmes show the aliens as human or human with one or two minor
feature differences. Perhaps the most popular sci-fi of all time, Star Trek, has pointed ears, or
wrinkled noses as the only visible difference between some alien races and humans.

However, what would be the same or very similar? It's highly likely that

would be the dominant method of reproduction, as it is on our planet, and two orgranisms seems the
optimal for finding a mate and reproducing, three or four would just complicate matters, so
therefore our methods of reproduction would be similar.

Perhaps, given two required for reproduction, geners would develop, (See other post). What else
would be the same/ is almost as close as you can get speaking from an evolution point of view, to
inevitable for sucessfull devleopment? Thoughts?

Tom Hendricks said:

See this essay: musea.digitalchainsaw.com122Musea1.htmlOpen ↗

This essay seems (to be kind) rather limited and in places just wrong. It mentions things like
the moon-forming impact giving the Earth seasons (planetary obliquity can be driven up or down by
many things - including impacts, but certainly not limited to moon-forming ones), removing
atmosphere (and thus saving us from a Venus like atmosphere... completely ignoring the carbonate-
silicate cycle, and the isotopic evidence for atmospheric escape), and then concludes this
section by mentioning how "rare" such a moon-forming impact must be (ignoring Pluto/Charon, for
instance, or the fact that Venus *could* have had such a Moon (it would have de-orbited by tides
by the current epoch), or that other objects have recorded impacts on nearly this scale). This is
just one example - in the physical sciences, this person needs to do a lot more research.
Biologically, well,... yes, for certain enviroments, certain body plans are highly advantages,
and likely to be hit on. But looking at the number of senses life has developed on Earth alone
(pressure/temperature/IR/visible light/sonar/hearing/taste-smell/electric fields/etc), and the
amazing variety of basic body plans during the Cambrian explosion... i'm guessing the universe
*could* have a few surprises. For this type of question, you might try rec.arts.sf.science

--
Brian Davis

A more interesting question is why sleep? It's mostly mammals and other warm blooded creatures so it
may be a trade off for the high energy consumption during the day. It may also be some type of quiet
time to help in digestion. The body increases in temp up to sleep, then is lower on awakening. The
REM sleep seems to be a light sleep. It's the deep sleep that covers the first few hours, and then
alternates with the REM that is most interesting to me.