Aliens, or, Is there anybody out there
I always find these kinds of statements strange:
“I tend to think that life in the universe is more the rule than the exception, “
Why? We have found no life at all, anywhere, but Earth, nor do we have the slightest evidence of life existing anywhere else.
As [Mr. A] said, (though I would go further) we simply don’t have the data to meaningfully speak about life elsewhere
(we have no data at all, or rather the only data we have is data about the absence of life).
Such talk is usually predicated on such assumptions as:
1. The universe is vast (700 billion galaxies),
2. Life arose on earth (through the evolutionary process, or whatever scientistic explanation is being offered at the moment);
3. Earth is mediocre (nothing special about Earth would act to allow life to “arise” there and not elsewhere, given conditions elsewhere otherwise conducive to it arising)
4. Therefore life has to have arisen many times elsewhere
And as they say, Where is everybody?
(The Fermi-Hart Paradox)
So, is the problem with
1. Our data – poor communications, limited observation time, the aliens all hiding from us because they are so “wise” they would rather not be bothered by our supposedly primitive/dangerous/unclean species, etc.
or
2. Our theory – the universe is so big, over enough time all of those particles swirling around would have had to have turned non-life into life countless times
We have no way of knowing any of this, but I do think it’s odd to assume the answers have to be a certain way in the total absence of any data supporting such conclusions, because we would either like them to be that way, or think they have to be (the theories we’ve come up with in the last century or two supposedly mandate such a result).
I read a truly sad article on H+ a week or two ago in which the singularitarian actually claimed that no God could exist because if a God existed it would have had to have evolved into being, and thus would not be a God.
Our theories are just theories, they are not immutable, proven laws of the universe, they do not
explain all possibilities. You can’t assume something cannot exist because it doesn’t fit your theory, or that something has to exist because it does.
We don’t know what life is or how it came into being, we don’t know that it exists anywhere else, and we certainly don’t know that it would be friendly or “wise” if it did.
Some singularitarians seem to have been lately taken with the idea that morality (as defined Right Now, not as defined even 20 years ago) is a function of Intelligence, thus
the smarter any creature is (more “advanced” the civilization) the more Moral /”wise” it will be.. Of course the Morality that Higher Intelligences would necessarily share
or moral precepts they in their “wisdom” would take to even more Profound conclusions, well, that’s always the same Morality/Set of Moral Precepts that such people
proclaim themselves…
So when they talk about higher intelligences being “wiser” or more “intelligent” they mean higher intelligences will be more like them (and they say, by definition!). which
is to say they themselves are simply incomplete representations of what even “higher” developed consciousnesses would (have to) be like.
It’s just a way of saying that they are better than everyone else while simultaneously sneering at those who have not reached their supposed level of development.
And it’s nonsense.
Aliens could come along in big spaceships and decide to torture all of us to death for fun. I don’t care how “advanced” or “intelligent” or whatever they are.
I wonder, in that event, how many of the H+ types would be on the side of the aliens (because, you know, the whole idea is that “forward” is better than “backward” and more advanced better
than retrograde, and such things always move in a line, all together, technology, science, morality, all better and better, {rather like Whig history, if any of you remember that},
just as I wonder how many would side with the machines if the rapture (err singularity) were to really happen and the machines decide they’d rather not have us around (Progress! Evolution!
Higher and Higher we go! Whatever it takes!)
If we had any sense we would be thankful nobody’s shown up yet, just as we’d be thankful we don’t know how to make the machines come alive.
Planet Ulrich 
I’m amazed, I must say. Rarely do I come across a blog that’s equally educative and amusing, and let me tell you, you have hit the nail on the
head. The issue is something which too few men and women are
speaking intelligently about. I am very happy that I found this during my search for something relating to this.
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