January 23, 2013

• Alien Life

  I just watched a news video online saying that due to the amount of potential Earth-like planets which have been discovered and the rate at which they are being discovered, the question of whether or not there is alien life might change to when, meaning that it is only a matter of time until we encounter alien life.

  I just wanted to take a minute to reflect on that and what it means.  First of all, I think that given the distance between our solar system and our nearest neighbor it is impossible to get a good reading on any alien planets. By that I mean that I am unconvinced that it is an exact science. They cannot know what amount of heat and radiation the star gives off, and I very much doubt that they can accurately measure the distance the planet is from it’s star.

  That being said, a planet need not be Earth-like in order to have life on it.  The only limit on what form intelligence can come in is the laws of physics. Life need not be carbon based, and it could be that alien life might exist close to us and we would be incapable of recognizing as life because the form would be so alien. 

   

   

  A good example of what I am talking about comes from the episode “Savage Curtain” of Star Trek TOS. The Enterprise encounters a molten planet which SHOULD, by their understanding, be uninhabitable, but it turns out that it is actually home to a complex civilization which is so alien and far from the conventional definition of life that they were unable to detect or recognize it until the aliens chose to reveal themselves.

  But let’s say there is alien life that follows a similar pattern to humanity, or enough so that it fits our conventional definitions of life.  There is a possibility that they could be better than humans, but there is also a possibility that they could be just as bad.  Without encountering them we literally have no way of knowing.

  The Bible tells us that Satan is here on Earth, and that the way Earth is, is not the way it was intended to be.  Hitler, Stalin, Ghengis Khan, Muhammad/Islam, Attila the Hun, Nero, disease, war, famine, death, and evil in general all exist because of the original sin where Satan tempted the first humans to disobey God.  Without that one event we would not have evil, suffering, and death.  So it may be that an alien world is a literal paradise, free of death and suffering.  However, Satan is not limited by distance.  So it could be he has visited alien worlds and similarly contaminated them.  If so, then the alien civilization will be similar to humanity in many ways.

  Now, if the alien civilization is not perfect and pure, the finding or contacting them could be a very bad thing for many reasons.  The first reason to consider is plagues.  On Earth we have seen that when populations which have been historically isolated have often fallen prey to sicknesses on a mass scale when they were exposed to other civilizations.  If aliens ever come to Earth or we go there, then we will be exposing our planet to a whole new plethora of previously unknown diseases.

  Second, if the aliens are more advanced than humanity then we can expect to receive little mercy or understanding from them.  We can learn from the history of Earth what happens when more advanced race encounters a less advanced race (technologically).  What follows is political and cultural domination of the less advanced society by the more advanced, and often that involves slavery and rape.  The Spanish were quite brutal to the natives of Central and South America because their original assumption was that the natives were not human, and therefore not entitled to be treated as such.  The Catholic Church had to officially declare that the natives were human before the colonizers recognized them as such, and even after that they still treated them as inferiors.

   

  So when I have to wonder, when we are talking about contacting aliens are we hoping to meet aliens like the Spanish or the English? Because either way it would go badly for us.  If they are like the Huns, Mongols, or Turks then things would go even worse.  Under the best of circumstances they might be like the Persians, in which case we would still be conquered but the alien rule would be benign.

  That being said, there is no reason to assume that such life would be more advanced or space-going.  If that is the case and we were to come upon their planet first then we would be the colonizers.  However, I don’t really believe that we are going to advance to the point of viable interstellar travel.  Not without outside help.  Our government is not even in a position to send our astronauts to the space station which we built without foreign help anymore (thanks to Obungle).  US civilization is done for.  If anyone comes up with interstellar travel it’s going to be China (and possibly Russia, although that is less likely), and if that happens I pity any less advanced civilization they might encounter.  Any such beings can expect to be treated worse than the people of Tibet, Manchuria, and other ethnic minorities which exist in China.  China treats it’s ethnic minorities so bad that people are going to India to get away from China.   

  Anyways, that is just my position on alien life.  I don’t KNOW what is actually out there.  I do know that Stephen Hawking has said some of the same thing I have said regarding the potential dangers of alien life, but unlike Stephen Hawking I do not expect the search efforts to produce any results.  That is not to say that I would not be interested in the results, but if we do somehow encounter alien life then I stick by the possible scenarios I have given for how it might be.

  • 2:35 am
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