re: Alright, space cadets what do you think about this: alien life discovered by NASA?

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I'm not sure that bringing back evidence of life from other plants is a good idea. 

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if they look like this I'd be ok with it

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Ya, with higher intellect I would expect a great chance of a peaceful species but what do I know.

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High intellect and a peaceful nature are not necessarily convergent, of course. Our own species represents a viable union of intelligence and extreme violence, for example. Even though we kill other members of our own species on a massive scale, we have come to dominate earth like no species before us. Under the rule of survival of the fittest, we are a raging success story.

Could a peaceful species accomplish what we have? Because we're the only surviving Homo species, the logical answer is no. From the very first intra-species human conflict, we have used technological innovation to vanquish groups within our own species. We probably drove the other human species to extinction because they couldn't match our ferocity. It may be that war is necessary for the advancement of technology, at least to a certain level.

Our use of technology has helped us conquer every challenge we've faced. Every war has produced new inventions that have led to even more innovations. The price is steep, of course, with hundreds of millions of human deaths over the millennia.

Now our warring species is on the brink of spreading into the Universe. I contend that this advance into space can only be done via machine intelligence. We, of course, will design it. Will we include our warring nature, whether intentionally or by default? Hard to say at this point.

Idk, I've watched Alien and I would consider those to be intelligent life forms. Unless they are a planet of Amazon women, pass.

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Because we have zero knowledge of any aliens. We have absolutely nothing to go off of.

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More precisely, we have zero direct evidence of aliens. We also have zero direct evidence of gravity, dark matter and dark energy. We theorize that the latter exist, however, because of indirect evidence. This is a logical process in scientific exploration.

Gravity keeps us bound to earth but we don't know how. Dark matter explains the amount of gravitational effect we see in space but we have no clue what it is. And The dark force tells us why the Universe is expanding at an increasing rate but, again, we know nothing else about it.

Similarly, we exist as indirect evidence of the presence of other civilizations. Using our example, we know that other intelligent species are possible. The process of discovery is advancing with our detection of many earth-like planets. Next year we'll begin to analyze those planets with the James Webb Space Telescope which will look for atmospheric signatures of life and, more germane to this topic, technology.

So we do have a lot to go off of. Even regarding biology we can project that aliens will be symmetrical in shape, mobile by some form of ambulation and have appendages with which they can manipulate their environment.

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"For example, we know that life will permeate every niche within a broad range of temperatures and environmental conditions."

We don't know that. We assume that.

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We know that life is a chemical process, a chain reaction. This process will be extant in any environment into which it has been introduced and is favorable to its continuation. Adaptability is a hallmark characteristic of life. Our biosphere shows more than ample proof of this. We can expect, rather than assume, that life elsewhere in the Universe shares this characteristic with our own example. We might even say that it's universal.

Hardly anyone challenges the notion that the laws of physics are the same everywhere. The "laws of life" (emphasizing the chemical chain reaction angle) can be expected to be the same everywhere as well.

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You all aren't considering the fact that a more advanced alien race could have a more tangible relationship with our creator and therefore be less hostile.

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Are you saying that we can expect aliens to be religious?

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A more paternal attitude toward the lesser species of earth could be one of the things we are taught when our violence is put to heal.

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I think of violence as being more intra-species rather then inter-species. Sport killing certainly adds to a definition of violence but, generally speaking it's exceedingly rare for a non-human species to kill members of its own kind on a massive scale.

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You all aren't considering the fact that a more advanced alien race could have a more tangible relationship with our creator and therefore be less hostile.


Are you saying that we can expect aliens to be religious?

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While I'm not gonna bother getting into the religious aspect, the possibility for less hostility is there. Is it possible that a less hostile lifeform has indeed already identified us and has deemed us too hostile to warrant contact?

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Are you saying that we can expect aliens to be religious? 

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"more tangible relationship with god"

It's an interesting thought. If there is a creator there's got to be a point where he puts his hand on yours when you get so far into manipulating existence. Either to help you understand his process or to stop you from destroying yourselves (his creation). We're taught to "strive" to be god's equal, or something to that affect.

If we were brought under the umbrella of a far more advanced race it wouldn't surprise me at all if we adopted there religous beliefs. The concept would have to be pretty damn foreign for me not to ingest it.

This would be more fun to talk about if I wasn't so tired but I think I got my point across.

I guess the biggest initial purpose of religion was to try to answer the age old question "why are we here?" Some are willing to concede that we may be the beneficiaries of some sort of cosmic lottery and got real lucky with the results. Others would like to believe that our lives here serve a greater purpose. Whether its religion or something else, the desire to feel connected to something greater than yourself is imo an innate human experience.

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I guess the biggest initial purpose of religion was to try to answer the age old question "why are we here?" Some are willing to concede that we may be the beneficiaries of some sort of cosmic lottery and got real lucky with the results. Others would like to believe that our lives here serve a greater purpose. Whether its religion or something else, the desire to feel connected to something greater than yourself is imo an innate human experience.

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I'm a devout reductionist so it's easy for me to dismiss the idea that we have a purpose. When I see rain drops hitting a dry patch of dirt I see a chemical reaction taking place. Mud is being created. It is without purpose. It just happens as a result of vapor in the air condensing into liquid water that falls onto the dry ground.

I see life through a similar lack of filters. In the beginning there was just a dark plasma from which light photons and other particles self assembled as the Universe expanded and became cool enough for subatomic particles to associate. Then came atoms of hydrogen, primarily, and helium. Gravity forced these atoms together and the other elements were formed. The elements then begat molecules which begat amino acids and they begat proteins.

The next step seems magical to most humans because proteins begat what we call life. I suppose it seems magical because of the self-replication associated with life that we call biology. To me, this isn't special because this begat process doesn't end with life. Surely there are more begats to come. What will life begat? Artificial Intelligence? And what will that begat?

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Artificial Intelligence? And what will that begat?

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The matrix obviously