Talk:Extraterrestrial
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Can greys/grays be redirected to here (as the term is common enough). {{unsigned|82.198.250.2}} | Can greys/grays be redirected to here (as the term is common enough). {{unsigned|82.198.250.2}} | ||
:Well they ''can''.--[[User:Bob_M|Bob]][[User_Talk:Bob_M|<sup>Spring is sprung!</sup>]] 19:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC) | :Well they ''can''.--[[User:Bob_M|Bob]][[User_Talk:Bob_M|<sup>Spring is sprung!</sup>]] 19:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC) | ||
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| + | Have their equivalent of Wikipedia and Rationalwiki, in which there is discussion of "humans". [[Special:Contributions/212.85.6.26|212.85.6.26]] ([[User talk:212.85.6.26|talk]]) 18:02, 5 July 2011 (UTC) | ||
Revision as of 18:02, 5 July 2011
Why don't we merge the history of this page and its improperly-spelled brother, extraterrestial? The other one has been transformed into a redirect, and it seems a shame to strand the article history there.
Radioactive Misanthrope 16:01, 2 September 2008 (EDT)
Contents |
Reverted edit
I reverted this edit. Don't get it. If aliens existed, we would definitely know about it by now? Why? It contradicts the tone of the rest of the article - i.e. that we have no firm evidence either way. Wėąṣėḷőįď
Methinks it is a Weasel 17:59, 8 April 2009 (EDT)
- I'm not understanding many of the recent additions. I can't tell when they are snark, when they are just poorly constructed arguments, or when they are misunderstandings. This is about the 5th major edit today I've said "whatth'" to. --
En attendant Godot"Such is life." 18:03, 8 April 2009 (EDT)
... (criticism)
I just had a very bright idea to do something useful and write something smart and true about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Not unexpectedly, I found that the reference models of rationality have turned this article into simple mockery that I could read from Uncyclopedia as well, and as usual, it contains almost nothing factual or useful. (Comparison with Santa does not count).--Earthland (talk) 17:37, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- The possibility that aliens walk amongst us would seem to be about on par with Santa delivering gifts at Christmas. But if you want to write something sensible (and within the mission statements) about the possibility of extraterrestrial life living somewhere else why not go ahead?--BobNot Jim 18:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- I think the point Earthland is trying to make is that, by making that joke, we allow ourselves to think we have done a fine job of debunking the subject—which we haven't—, and we guffaw at our brilliance and forget to do anything substantial.
Radioactive Misanthrope 18:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- EC) Stop whining & start editing Earthy. This is a Wiki, anyone can edit it, even you. RA: this is Earthy's m.o. he whinges at us without doing anything to rectify the situation. I am eating
& honeychat 18:10, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- Oh.
Radioactive Misanthrope 18:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- ("Earthy"?) I think you can't make difference between ufology ("aliens") and and extraterrestrial life. The article should at least mention SETI, Drake equation and the Fermi paradox. Cynicism masks a failure to cope - who brought the Santa in?
- Oh.
- EC) Stop whining & start editing Earthy. This is a Wiki, anyone can edit it, even you. RA: this is Earthy's m.o. he whinges at us without doing anything to rectify the situation. I am eating
- I think the point Earthland is trying to make is that, by making that joke, we allow ourselves to think we have done a fine job of debunking the subject—which we haven't—, and we guffaw at our brilliance and forget to do anything substantial.
- Why am I whining here? I should delete the entire article to make it at least seem rational.--Earthland (talk) 18:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- As I suggested in my earlier comment. You can make the article better by considering the mission objectives and adding these points if they further the objectives. RA can as well.--BobNot Jim 18:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- PS - it is better to add than delete.--BobNot Jim 18:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- BS. This article is fine. We have exobiology to deal with the reality of the possibilities which pretty much has everything discussed above but could still do with a clean up, however.
gnostic 18:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- BS. This article is fine. We have exobiology to deal with the reality of the possibilities which pretty much has everything discussed above but could still do with a clean up, however.
- PS - it is better to add than delete.--BobNot Jim 18:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- As I suggested in my earlier comment. You can make the article better by considering the mission objectives and adding these points if they further the objectives. RA can as well.--BobNot Jim 18:33, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
- Why am I whining here? I should delete the entire article to make it at least seem rational.--Earthland (talk) 18:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Alien forms
Why do all the extraterrestials posited by the 'encounterists etc' look vaguely humanoid?
The assumption that 'if sentient lifeforms evolved once they will evolve elsewhere in the universe' is plausible (what is 'the theory about the general sameness/resemblance of different parts of the universe' called) - but not centipedes, plant creatures, swarm/hive creatures, mice etc? Science fiction is somewhat more creative (Daleks, Triffids, Jabba the Slug etc, etc). Nor should they be able to tolerate our atmosphere, climate, gravity etc without any modification, breathing masks etc
Anyone care to develop 'what aliens should look like' further? Jackiespeel (talk) 23:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
- Even in War of the Worlds, it was simply being on Earth that killed the aliens in the end. ħuman
01:50, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
And why is it little green #men#? Apart from WotW and 'Daleks and stairs' how often do 'Environmentally inconvenienced' aliens appear in science fiction? Jackiespeel (talk) 12:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
- I think the thing is that aliens most likely to tolerate earth-like conditions are the ones most likely to visit earth. They are also the ones we are most likely to encounter on other earth-like planets. --BobBring back the hat! 13:21, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
We-as-humans have to wear protective clothing for certain environments - and 'those living at sea level' have problems where 'those living up mountains' do not. Adaptations to differences in atmospheric composition, gravity etc are likely to cause problems at least initially with a new environment - and why shouldn't sentient centipedes visit Earth? Jackiespeel (talk) 21:52, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- I think they'd be more likely just to run a scoop-by mission to grab some methane from Jupiter. If they came here it would be to tank-up on oxygen or, much less likely, water. ħuman
22:53, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- If you ever get the chance, go have a peek at Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. It's a classic, borne of the artist's frustration at not getting a look at the author's description before doing book covers, and wanting to do it the right way. Fabulous stuff. --Kels (talk) 23:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- (EC)Regarding "what aliens look like" I think the book to read is called Evolving the Alien (though I think it goes by different names in the US and Europe), by the same guys who wrote Science of Discworld I think. I've been meaning to get it for a while as it sounds interesting - but of course, this is almost realistic so would (as mentioned above) be required for the exobiology article. What abductees see aliens as and sci-fi films use tends to be very cultural, hence you see Greys in the US, Nordics in Europe and so on. "Cigar shaped" UFOs were more popular than disks until the "first" encounter in the 40s/50s (can't recall exactly off the top of my head) when "flying saucer" was coined; and even then, the actual description of those craft were triangular dart-like objects, so the flying disc meme really only came from a newspaper headline, rather than an actual description. Obviously, humanoid ("forehead aliens") figures are popular because they're easy to interact with, you have some familiarity to work with - although there is the prospect of convergent evolution too.
gnostic 23:07, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- I often/sometimes amuse myself by trying to come up with "features" we might expect to encounter in ETs/intelligent ETs, simply because they would be very likely to evolve. The first one I usually come up with bilateral (or multilateral) symmetry, because it is so easy to "program" and provides so many benefits (mobility, redundancy, etc.). Then I usually can't think of the second one, although the whole CO2/hydrocarbon/oxygen thing we got going here on Earth does seem likely to occur in some fashion elsewhere, due to the ubiquity of light energy to harness (assuming the life is on a planet orbiting a star), and the concurrent usefulness of using oxygen for metabolic processes once its available. And, oh yeah, the whole carbon chemistry thing. Amusingly, this line of "thought" leads to the realization that there might be many, many places in the universe that could support life alien to them, except that native "food" would likely not be available. ħuman
23:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- The chemical aspects of the whole basis of life have a certain inevitability to them. You're going to be looking at some very similar chemistry with aliens. It most certainly will be "carbon based" (anything else being just a pipe dream of sci-fi nerds) as you really can't get the structural complexity required to have anything else do it. For similar reasons, it will probably also be based on consuming oxygen - although there's an odd chance that they may evolve in a reducing atmosphere rather than an oxidising atmosphere, the reactions to get energy this way are usually far less efficicent and I'm not convinced it'd be a stable system or be able to evolve very far. You'd probably also get protein like material, although the exact form of the indiviudal components may differ, they probably won't be amazingly different, these are very small molecules and there's only so many viable combinations (most of which we've already seen here on Earth). Larger chemical units may differ, I'm not sure we'd see the steroid backbone replicated, for example, but polycyclic carbon molecules may well appear often, they're just stable that way. After that, you can go as crazy as you like. The mechanism for information transfer I think will be the most interesting, will it be a system as complex as our DNA, or less complex (binary, perhaps?) or more complex (using full proteins as was the theory before DNA was noticed).
gnostic 23:57, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
- The chemical aspects of the whole basis of life have a certain inevitability to them. You're going to be looking at some very similar chemistry with aliens. It most certainly will be "carbon based" (anything else being just a pipe dream of sci-fi nerds) as you really can't get the structural complexity required to have anything else do it. For similar reasons, it will probably also be based on consuming oxygen - although there's an odd chance that they may evolve in a reducing atmosphere rather than an oxidising atmosphere, the reactions to get energy this way are usually far less efficicent and I'm not convinced it'd be a stable system or be able to evolve very far. You'd probably also get protein like material, although the exact form of the indiviudal components may differ, they probably won't be amazingly different, these are very small molecules and there's only so many viable combinations (most of which we've already seen here on Earth). Larger chemical units may differ, I'm not sure we'd see the steroid backbone replicated, for example, but polycyclic carbon molecules may well appear often, they're just stable that way. After that, you can go as crazy as you like. The mechanism for information transfer I think will be the most interesting, will it be a system as complex as our DNA, or less complex (binary, perhaps?) or more complex (using full proteins as was the theory before DNA was noticed).
- I often/sometimes amuse myself by trying to come up with "features" we might expect to encounter in ETs/intelligent ETs, simply because they would be very likely to evolve. The first one I usually come up with bilateral (or multilateral) symmetry, because it is so easy to "program" and provides so many benefits (mobility, redundancy, etc.). Then I usually can't think of the second one, although the whole CO2/hydrocarbon/oxygen thing we got going here on Earth does seem likely to occur in some fashion elsewhere, due to the ubiquity of light energy to harness (assuming the life is on a planet orbiting a star), and the concurrent usefulness of using oxygen for metabolic processes once its available. And, oh yeah, the whole carbon chemistry thing. Amusingly, this line of "thought" leads to the realization that there might be many, many places in the universe that could support life alien to them, except that native "food" would likely not be available. ħuman
- (EC)Regarding "what aliens look like" I think the book to read is called Evolving the Alien (though I think it goes by different names in the US and Europe), by the same guys who wrote Science of Discworld I think. I've been meaning to get it for a while as it sounds interesting - but of course, this is almost realistic so would (as mentioned above) be required for the exobiology article. What abductees see aliens as and sci-fi films use tends to be very cultural, hence you see Greys in the US, Nordics in Europe and so on. "Cigar shaped" UFOs were more popular than disks until the "first" encounter in the 40s/50s (can't recall exactly off the top of my head) when "flying saucer" was coined; and even then, the actual description of those craft were triangular dart-like objects, so the flying disc meme really only came from a newspaper headline, rather than an actual description. Obviously, humanoid ("forehead aliens") figures are popular because they're easy to interact with, you have some familiarity to work with - although there is the prospect of convergent evolution too.
- If you ever get the chance, go have a peek at Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. It's a classic, borne of the artist's frustration at not getting a look at the author's description before doing book covers, and wanting to do it the right way. Fabulous stuff. --Kels (talk) 23:00, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
I was referring more to the externalities - for example some means of manipulating the external environment would be required (hands, centipede-limbs etc) and a degree of 'adaptability to food sources' (though 'use of substances sprinkled on local foods and vitamin tablet equivalents etc to provide essential nutrients' would get round some little local difficulties) and there are likely to be certain other limitations - excessive complexity (15 genders are unlikely: the equivalent of caterpillars and butterflies possible) Jackiespeel (talk) 21:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
dont be as biased as conservapedia
sure most of you guy dont believe in alien and stuff.
but at least dont disrespect those who do. this is not conservapedia.
i believe that we cant be alone in this big universe.War on stupidityTalk February 16, 2010
- While this is not CONservapedia, we do maintain an snarky point of view on topics such as aliens anf flying saucers. Lord of the Goons The official spikey-haired skeptical punk 07:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
dude i didn't talk about visit.
but about the fact that we CANT be alone in the universe.War on stupidityTalk
- Read the first line of the article FAFUXAKE. yummy
& honey(or marmalade) 08:44, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- The introduction says: Many people would argue that the possibility is remote that we are the only form of life in the universe and that some form of life is likely to exist on other planets. also read our Exobiology article.--BobIt's cold! 08:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
- As Ace said, most people here would certainly be open to alien life. But visits and conspiracies, governments being in cahoots with them, aliens building the pyramids and so on, ver, very unlikely. Well, perhaps they have visited, but I doubt we would have actually noticed at all.
gnostic 15:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- As Ace said, most people here would certainly be open to alien life. But visits and conspiracies, governments being in cahoots with them, aliens building the pyramids and so on, ver, very unlikely. Well, perhaps they have visited, but I doubt we would have actually noticed at all.
- The introduction says: Many people would argue that the possibility is remote that we are the only form of life in the universe and that some form of life is likely to exist on other planets. also read our Exobiology article.--BobIt's cold! 08:59, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
hollow earth and extra-dimensional entities ?
should this page link into Hollow earth (where advanced civilizations run the UFOs) or Extra-dimensional entities (those who poof into our plane of existance from elsewhere) ? Hamster (talk) 16:10, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- Of course! Those both sound like great sections... ħuman
19:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, both have been put forward as explanations, so both are quite relevant.
gnostic 20:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, both have been put forward as explanations, so both are quite relevant.
Shermer and the Drake equation
An interesting blog post at Aardvarcheology about why Shermer's estimate is wrong: http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2008/08/shermer_and_the_drake_equation.php (Fun fact: I came up with this section's title before I dug up the link from my bookmarks. :)) --ZooGuard (talk) 10:40, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
- Well, no, his estimate isn't wrong; you can't really make a wrong choice in the Drake Equation. It's just that his reasoning is a bit iffy (which is what I was thinking when reading it, but I think it's an interesting contrast to Drake's own original estimate) but I can see where he's coming from. It's all about civilisations that can be contacted (and at range, you're not going to detect a farming settlement from 100 lightyears away), he just makes a model where you get a civilisation (like a country or Empire) that's capable of contact and based on the average length of time such Empires last, it will disappear after 420 years. Thus, contact is only possible for the duration of ca. 400 years. That's making some pretty wild assumptions, of course, such as one that says a replacement civilisation won't arrive afterwards or overlap it that can also be capable of contact. However, current thinking is that this figure isn't limited by civilisations ending or destroying themselves, but by going silent due to switching transmission mediums to something more efficient. By that reckoning, we're looking at transmitting for only 100 years at most.
gnostic 21:45, 12 June 2010 (UTC)
"Justified" belief in aliens
One can sympathise with the chap whose house has been hit six times by meteorites who believes the "aliens are agin him." — Unsigned, by: 212.85.6.26 / talk / contribs
- I will always sympathise with harmless people like him. I hope he gets helps soon.--Brendiggg (talk) 16:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
- here's a link to the story. Hands up those who find it difficult to believe. (hand)--BobSpring is sprung! 20:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Redirect request
Can greys/grays be redirected to here (as the term is common enough). — Unsigned, by: 82.198.250.2 / talk / contribs
- Well they can.--BobSpring is sprung! 19:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
Aliens
Have their equivalent of Wikipedia and Rationalwiki, in which there is discussion of "humans". 212.85.6.26 (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2011 (UTC)