Do you beleive in life on other planets?

[cherokee]

Extremely mind-boggling, Tashah, but more so for me than you. Afterall, isn't this your field of study? I don't even understand gravity. I also don't understand time, but only time as we know it. Don't get me started.

Read or watch Cosmos my sweet.....

 

[cherokee]

Korimyr the Rat]Been doing it for a couple centuries. There have even been a few rumored successes-- but unfortunately they died and their corpses were unrecoverable long before genetic testing could have confirmed them.

There've been several clinical attempts, in countries whose governments were less concerned with human rights, but the distasteful nature of the experiments keeps them from gaining much political support and the locals usually destroy the evidence whenever they get the chance.

Can't really blame them myself, because as curious as I am about the possibility of hybridization, I'd have serious problems with the ethical issues presented by success.

Not to mention, any real clinical trial would also have to include chimp sperm and human women to compare the differences between the two hybrids. Ligers and tigons are almost wholly separate animals because of which traits are contributed by the male and female of the lion and tiger species.

[/QUOTE]


I'm still searching for the paper but first and foremost is tissue rejection.

“When transplanting organs, the body recognizes that the newly transplanted cells are different than its own, and therefore the immune system tries to attack the "invading" cells. Doctors administer drugs to prevent the body from rejecting the new cells. Chimp blood cells are sufficiently different that it would require lots of anti-rejection drugs to keep them from being attacked.”

“The human immune system—a complex network of defenses against disease organisms and other foreign substances that evolved over millions of years—fiercely resists even human-to-human transplants. When confronted with an organ from an animal as evolutionarily distant as, say, a pig, the human immune system reacts violently. In a response known as hyper acute rejection, antibodies that seem pre-primed to attack tissues from another species summon into action the so-called complement cascade, an array of proteins in the blood that attacks the internal walls of the transplant’s blood vessels, rejecting the organ within hours or even minutes.
Even if hyper acute rejection can be tamped down, the human body mounts a more vigorous long-term attack on animal organs than it does against transplants of human organs.”
Even with today’s medicine you cant use chimp blood in humans nor can you use human blood in chimps this would show that if you implanted a fertilized egg into a human it would be rejected immediately and vise versa into a chip.
and since the blood is non-compatible how could an embryo survive?

As for the Liger the two cat species are not all that different. It would be like breading a Doberman pincher with a German Shepard.
Check out them size of this one…900 lbs!
http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/liger.html

 

[talloulou]

That still doesn't convince me the behaviour was anything to do with a sense of
mortality. It is extremely difficult to know what is going on in animals' brains. I
wonder what the response would have been if the message had been "food
lost"; I suspect it may have been similar.

I am reminded about "Clever Hans", a horse whose reaction to non-verbal clues
made it appear to have mathematical ability.

Haven't you ever dealth with a guilty dog. My dog knows when she's done something bad and her whole body language betrays her. Doesn't the fact that my dog knows right from wrong mean my dog has morals?

 

[Thinker]

Haven't you ever dealth with a guilty dog. My dog knows when she's done something bad and her whole body language betrays her. Doesn't the fact that my dog knows right from wrong mean my dog has morals?

We were talking about an ape having a concept of mortality, not morality.

Many animals have a sense of doing "wrong" - that is, doing something that
displeases the leader of the pack. In the case of your dog, that's you. There's
nothing moral about it in my mind.

 

[justone]

Extremely mind-boggling,... I don't even understand gravity. I also don't understand time, but only time as we know it.

Nobody does. Newton didn't. Einstein didn't. So, join the company.

 

[talloulou]

We were talking about an ape having a concept of mortality, not morality.

Many animals have a sense of doing "wrong" - that is, doing something that
displeases the leader of the pack. In the case of your dog, that's you. There's
nothing moral about it in my mind.

Oh a sense of MORTALITY. Sorry.

But that seems even easier to prove! Chimps warn each other of danger. Dogs bark when they sense danger. Many animals have been shown to mourn the loss of other pets, their owners, or members of their group. Why would you think they don't understand mortality?

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

Haven't you ever dealth with a guilty dog. My dog knows when she's done something bad and her whole body language betrays her. Doesn't the fact that my dog knows right from wrong mean my dog has morals?

Your dog doesn't know right from wrong. He merely remembers the last time you got pissed at him for digging a crater in the flower bed.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

That still doesn't convince me the behaviour was anything to do with a sense of mortality. It is extremely difficult to know what is going on in animals' brains.

And it isn't difficult to know what's going on in human minds? Nearly everything we know about human psychology is based on what one human tells another he is experiencing, through the medium of language.

Once we teach language to apes, they start telling us about their own experiences.

I am reminded about "Clever Hans", a horse whose reaction to non-verbal clues made it appear to have mathematical ability.

American Sign Language is considerably more complex than tapping a hoof.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

... this would show that if you implanted a fertilized egg into a human it would be rejected immediately and vise versa into a chip. and since the blood is non-compatible how could an embryo survive?

You yourself point it out: transplants, whether of blood or organs, between two different humans will trigger similar immune response.

Unrelated human beings-- with different genetics and different blood type-- reproduce successfully all the time, regardless of the fact that they'd be incompatible for transplants. In fact, being a first-order blood relative isn't even enough to guarantee that a transplant or a transfusion would be successful.

I'm not arguing that it's possible, but your argument doesn't really strongly suggest that it isn't.

 

[americanwoman]

I love to mess aorund with my dog and would love to know what she thinks of me. Like when I take her front paws and dance around with her or just talk to her all funny. She gives me the wierdest looks like, girl you are crazy.
I also know for a fact that she has bad morals- she likes to hump stuffed animals then rip them apart with her teeth.





btw-- Tashah are those your real colored eyes? They are one of prettiest set of eyes I've ever seen!

 

[cherokee]

You yourself point it out: transplants, whether of blood or organs, between two different humans will trigger similar immune response.

Unrelated human beings-- with different genetics and different blood type-- reproduce successfully all the time, regardless of the fact that they'd be incompatible for transplants. In fact, being a first-order blood relative isn't even enough to guarantee that a transplant or a transfusion would be successful.

I'm not arguing that it's possible, but your argument doesn't really strongly suggest that it isn't.

I hope this can explain it better.

Believe it or not they (dr’s) really looked into having what they
called “blood farms”
It was thought they could harvest blood from several hundred of chimps.
The idea sounded great but they soon discovered chimpanzee red blood cells differed to much from human blood cells…


http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=224394&pageindex=1#page

 

[Thinker]

And it isn't difficult to know what's going on in human minds? Nearly everything we know about human psychology is based on what one human tells another he is experiencing, through the medium of language.

Once we teach language to apes, they start telling us about their own experiences.

This has been going on for over 30 years, and, at best, the jury is out
on apes being able to do much more than string a few words together.

http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.chimp.html

Note the point in the article where it talks about chimps "contorting their
hands into all kinds of configurations" from which researchers extracted the
meanings they hoped for. I suspect this is the sort of thing that is going on
when owners claim emotions, morals, and the like for their pets.

It would be wonderful if we could learn what apes or other animals are really
thinking, if anything, but it's not looking hopeful.

 

[americanwoman]

This has been going on for over 30 years, and, at best, the jury is out
on apes being able to do much more than string a few words together.

http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.chimp.html

Note the point in the article where it talks about chimps "contorting their
hands into all kinds of configurations" from which researchers extracted the
meanings they hoped for. I suspect this is the sort of thing that is going on
when owners claim emotions, morals, and the like for their pets.

It would be wonderful if we could learn what apes or other animals are really
thinking, if anything, but it's not looking hopeful.

Interesting article. very hard to say what they really understand though. I know what it's like though for months teaching an animal a trick then when they do it just right you feel like they really understand what you want them to do but they just really remember that if they do it right they will get rewarded.

One animal I want to read more about is Dolphins. I have heard they are very intelligent and can communicate with each other.

 

[Heraclitus]

I would have to believe that the time itself is the main problem with discovering intelligent life on other planets. You have to assume that such life would not live indefinately. All intelligent life must either find a way to escape their home planet before it becomes unlivable or they will perish. Assuming that the technology for discovering each other comes close to the end of that cycle and given the vast expanse of time and space it is unlikely for more than a few species to exist in the universe during a certain time frame.

 

[Kandahar]

I would have to believe that the time itself is the main problem with discovering intelligent life on other planets. You have to assume that such life would not live indefinately. All intelligent life must either find a way to escape their home planet before it becomes unlivable or they will perish. Assuming that the technology for discovering each other comes close to the end of that cycle and given the vast expanse of time and space it is unlikely for more than a few species to exist in the universe during a certain time frame.

I don't see why we should be assuming either of those things, nor do I see how your conclusion follows from your premise.

We should not assume that such life would not live indefinitely; I'm studying biology, specifically concentrating on aging. All the evidence points to the conclusion that the human race is, at most, a few decades away from arresting/reversing the aging process, thus giving us indefinite lifespans. Therefore, a species much more advanced than us would certainly have discovered similar things.

We should not assume that the technology for discovering other species comes close to the time when they leave their home solar system, because that's an arbitrary moment in their history that has nothing to do with the other.

Also, why would this mean that only a few civilizations could exist at any given time? Maybe they HAVE found each other and there's a bustling galactic community. Maybe they've all decided it's in their best interests to remain undetected by lesser civilizations.

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

We should not assume that such life would not live indefinitely; I'm studying biology, specifically concentrating on aging. All the evidence points to the conclusion that the human race is, at most, a few decades away from arresting/reversing the aging process, thus giving us indefinite lifespans. Therefore, a species much more advanced than us would certainly have discovered similar things.

As a general rule, species run for three million years, or so before evolving enough traits to become new distinct species, and the parent species typically goes extinct. Yah, there's exceptions, I know, and I also know that we can't extrapolate from our single-datum point limited terrestrial experience. But I do believe that Heraclitus meant "species" and not "individual".

We should not assume that the technology for discovering other species comes close to the time when they leave their home solar system, because that's an arbitrary moment in their history that has nothing to do with the other.

Oh, I don't know. Any species capable of exploiting interstellar space would be doing a lot of exploitation at it's home star, too. There'd be a huge lot of E-M spectrum non-random noise from any such star, I would imagine. But our ability to detect it depends on the inverse square law and distance. It's actually reasonably difficult to get and measure the light output from an entire star, catching electro-magnetic signals many orders of magnitude weaker is a technical challenge we're not up to yet.

Look up Freeman Dyson's Type I, Type II, and Type III classifications of technological civilizations.

Also, why would this mean that only a few civilizations could exist at any given time? Maybe they HAVE found each other and there's a bustling galactic community. Maybe they've all decided it's in their best interests to remain undetected by lesser civilizations.

Because civilizations don't usually outlast the species that made them. A robotic society could have machines that carry on after the parent race is dead, shades of Saberhagen's Berserkers, for example.

Any civilization is detectable by the radiations they emit, if our detectors are good enough. Right now we're facing two possibilities:

1) They're out there, and our instruments simply aren't sensitive enough yet. Eminently possible.

2) They're not out there. Also eminently possible.

 

[Captain America]

I don't have time to read this whole thread but I would imagine that no one has declared that life exists no where else but here. I know we have our village idiots here at our cybor home but none that I know of are that stupid. (Well, maybe one or two come to think of it....:roll: )

 

[cherokee]

As a general rule, species run for three million years, or so before evolving enough traits to become new distinct species, and the parent species typically goes extinct. Yah, there's exceptions, I know, and I also know that we can't extrapolate from our single-datum point limited terrestrial experience. But I do believe that Heraclitus meant "species" and not "individual".



Oh, I don't know. Any species capable of exploiting interstellar space would be doing a lot of exploitation at it's home star, too. There'd be a huge lot of E-M spectrum non-random noise from any such star, I would imagine. But our ability to detect it depends on the inverse square law and distance. It's actually reasonably difficult to get and measure the light output from an entire star, catching electro-magnetic signals many orders of magnitude weaker is a technical challenge we're not up to yet.

Look up Freeman Dyson's Type I, Type II, and Type III classifications of technological civilizations.



Because civilizations don't usually outlast the species that made them. A robotic society could have machines that carry on after the parent race is dead, shades of Saberhagen's Berserkers, for example.

Any civilization is detectable by the radiations they emit, if our detectors are good enough. Right now we're facing two possibilities:

1) They're out there, and our instruments simply aren't sensitive enough yet. Eminently possible.

2) They're not out there. Also eminently possible.

And

3) The distances are so great it takes time.....

 

[steen]

I'm alluding to the fact that there may be more than just the milky way.

Which is one of many millions of galaxies, yes.

 

[Kandahar]

As a general rule, species run for three million years, or so before evolving enough traits to become new distinct species, and the parent species typically goes extinct. Yah, there's exceptions, I know, and I also know that we can't extrapolate from our single-datum point limited terrestrial experience. But I do believe that Heraclitus meant "species" and not "individual".

I think that once a species develops technology, evolution goes into turbo-mode and the three million year rule no longer applies. In addition to genetics and biotechnology, the human species will be able to "evolve" much faster through technology that changes the very meaning of what it is to be human.

It seems likely that other species would go the same route.

Oh, I don't know. Any species capable of exploiting interstellar space would be doing a lot of exploitation at it's home star, too. There'd be a huge lot of E-M spectrum non-random noise from any such star, I would imagine. But our ability to detect it depends on the inverse square law and distance. It's actually reasonably difficult to get and measure the light output from an entire star, catching electro-magnetic signals many orders of magnitude weaker is a technical challenge we're not up to yet.

Look up Freeman Dyson's Type I, Type II, and Type III classifications of technological civilizations.

I don't disagree that such a civilization would be more likely to be capable of detecting other civilizations, but there's no reason that this is some kind of "cut-off point." It's still an arbitrary point in the civilization's history.

Because civilizations don't usually outlast the species that made them.

We don't have any examples of this either way.

A robotic society could have machines that carry on after the parent race is dead, shades of Saberhagen's Berserkers, for example.

I agree, that is definitely a strong possibility.

Any civilization is detectable by the radiations they emit, if our detectors are good enough. Right now we're facing two possibilities:

1) They're out there, and our instruments simply aren't sensitive enough yet. Eminently possible.

2) They're not out there. Also eminently possible.

3) They've found another way of communicating that doesn't involve emitting radiation, or they've found a way to deliberately confound our primitive detection systems.

 

[Heraclitus]

I think that once a species develops technology, evolution goes into turbo-mode and the three million year rule no longer applies. In addition to genetics and biotechnology, the human species will be able to "evolve" much faster through technology that changes the very meaning of what it is to be human.

Purely a question: What percentage of intelligent species would kill themselves off, either by war, other predators, or assuming they reach a technical state...nuclear distruction or environmental problems, before they advanced to your turbo-mode? Or who is to say that their technology would evolve in the same way that ours has?

 

[Kandahar]

Purely a question: What percentage of intelligent species would kill themselves off, either by war, other predators, or assuming they reach a technical state...nuclear distruction or environmental problems, before they advanced to your turbo-mode? Or who is to say that their technology would evolve in the same way that ours has?

It's really hard to say with no other examples, especially since it's not at all determined whether humans will survive to that point (although we'll have our answer before the century is over). The best estimate I can offer is "probably more than 0% and less than 100%." However, there's a few observations we can make about evolution on earth that very likely hold true in other environments. Their relative importance in determining whether a civilization will survive its technological adolescence, of course, is open to wide interpretation.

1. Species that develop technology will most likely be more aggressive and warlike than a random species on that planet. Since predators are generally smarter than prey, it is overwhelmingly likely that intelligent species will be predators or be evolved from predators.

2. Species that develop technology will most likely have some degree of altruism toward members of their own species, or at least members of their group/clan/tribe. Species that are loners, or work in small units, are unlikely to ever retain the knowledge necessary to build technology for more than a couple generations.

3. Species that develop technology will most likely be reasonably logical and rational, because their technology simply won't work if they aren't.

 

[Scarecrow Akhbar]

3) They've found another way of communicating that doesn't involve emitting radiation, or they've found a way to deliberately confound our primitive detection systems.

While such may not be ruled out as an impossibility, there's no credible evidence for any such forces at this time.

Basically, aliens are like god. There's no evidence for them, so there's no point in pretending they exist. The only departure is that it's logical to assume that because we exist, other intelligent species could also exist, since the natural forces that formed us aren't known to be unique to this planet.

 

[Heraclitus]

2. Species that develop technology will most likely have some degree of altruism toward members of their own species, or at least members of their group/clan/tribe. Species that are loners, or work in small units, are unlikely to ever retain the knowledge necessary to build technology for more than a couple generations.

While that is one side of it, try looking at it this way. Technology is mostly to benefit war, say here on earth that the Romans would have succeeded in taking over the entire world, would then technology not have stopped, or at least slowed to a barely perceptable amount, at that point...Drawing on a novel written by Harry Turtledove...there is no need for great technological advances once one group takes control. On such planets that have less land or a more centralized land mass it would be much more likely for one group to dominate. With the Roman example, we would never have need of rockets, because the sword would be enough to keep down revolution, and thus space travel could not be possible.

 

[Kandahar]

While it's hard to say if other species would be the same as humans, I don't think that necessarily holds true for humans. Most technology isn't developed in the public sector, it's developed by individuals and groups who are interested primarily in personal gain, secondly in the gain to human life as a whole, and only lastly in the gain to their country.

Besides, as soon as one group gained control of the entire world, people would no longer identify themselves with that group since everyone else would be a member. For example, if Rome controlled the world, it'd be meaningless to say "I'm a Roman" because everyone else is a Roman too. So people would still identify more with their local group and these groups would compete with one another.

Technology is mostly to benefit war

I don't think that's true at all.