When looking for other intelligent life elsewhere, why do have to think of it as life as we know it?

Question

Maybe they're made of other stuff than just gas, solid and liquid. Maybe they're not organic at all but still living in a sense we don't know yet. I'm guessing we -as in mankind- are not even aware to what "Life" means to a full extend. So maybe do you think other pyshical conditions are possible in this universe, or maybe in another one?

Answer 1

We dont, alternative life may be anything.

Answer 2

Well first off, when searching for other life we first look for a planet that could be a habitat for any life. So far we have only find other life on Mars when a fossil of a tiny worm bacteria was found. A few years ago there was a planet discovered that was very rocky and had a vast amount of water. It was smaller than earth and it had so much water that the pressure of all the water caused the water to become almost ice like without a temperature change. The molecules of the H20 were being forced so hard down that any life could not have existed. The planet was ruled out. So we dont look for intelligent life, thats for skeptics at the moment. We search for an life or any planets that could be a safe environment.

Answer 3

We only have one example of life to work with: ours. And it seems very likely that carbon based life is the only type likely to evolve since by its very nature cabron, with its wonderful capability of forming complex molecules, is really the only candidate. Silicon can form some molecules, but nothing at all like carbon. And carbon is common in the universe. Forget silicon. Carbon is the ONLY choice.
Life is not going to form as a gas or a liquid. That just wouldn't happen. Life is a chemical process that becomes infinitely more complex over time due to evolution. But it still has to conform to chemical and physical laws.
If there is other life out there it almost certainly wont look anything like us, but it still has to play by the same rules.

Answer 4

First man knows that all the things that support life as we know it are right here on earth,, But I have read otjher articles over the last few months about science taking a look at the possibility of different kinds of life, Sorry the names of that type does not come to me right now but they actually are looking in different spectrums for life,, I do believe that there are other types of life out there that do live upon a whole different platform of possibilitys

Answer 5

Yes --------- some scientists have already suggested that we may not recognize "life" when we actually find it. Sort of like the silicon creature on an OLD star trek TV show.

Or the energy pattern life forms on other sci fi shows. The universe is actually stranger than anything in a movie!

Answer 6

When searching for life outside of Earth, we have to look for "life as we know it". This is because it is what we are familiar with, what we can test for and measure, and look at the results as definitive. For instance, how would we recognize a silicon-based equivalent to a tree? It would just look like a rock to us, and I doubt that any remote sensing system could distinguish it from one. An Earth-like, organic tree could easily be identified as alive, both visually and from other tests.

Answer 7

all of us understand that what we evaluate intelligence are the effect of a neural community. there are a number of strategies wherein a community can exist, the frost on a pane of glass varieties a community, the mycelium of fungus form a community, the roots of a tree form a community, the interactions of pollens and smells between flora form a community, micro organism communicate with one yet another and that's a community. All that's necessary is for some way the community can react to that is environment that ensure the continuation and replication of that community over different variations that don't behave beneficially.

Answer 8

Absolutely there may be life unlike anything we know.The universe is huge though,and our resources to locate life are small.Priorities is really the issue.When looking for life in the vast universe,it will be hard enough to find life AS WE KNOW IT,at this point,we cannot squander precious resources looking for life as we DON'T KNOW IT.That is really the issue.No one claims life throughout the universe MUST be carbon based,or rely on liquid water,we simply don't have the resources to look for other types of life.We have barely the funding to look for water,and thus life as we know it

Answer 9

Hell, gas, liquid and solid, that's quite an old information you have. People had been fantasizing about plasma based life living on the surface of sun, and quarkonium based life (which is not molecule based at all) which is based of sub-atomic particles.

I personally are doing experiments with data based life, which are basically computer programs capable of multiplying, which life on the computer's computing cycle. Research in about data based life are really million dollar business.

Some people didn't consider them alive, but I do consider them alive. How about you ?

Answer 10

Those who search for extra-terrestial intelligence can only recognise signs with which they are familiar, radio transmissions, for example, what else can they do?

Of course there may well be alien life forms of which we have no conception. They might even be here, disguised as Americans. Any rational European can well imagine so when they see what Americans accept and apparently enjoy on TV.

Answer 11

A recent article in Scientific American suggests that we may even find 'alien' microbes on earth. All forms of known life on earth comes from the same genetic origin. Could another form for microscopic life co-exist right now? It could happen. But we don't know how to look for it. See:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=are-aliens-among-us