The tantalizing, lonely search for alien life

https://newrepublic.com/article/172104/tantalizing-lonely-search-alien-life-jaime-green-book-review

by Petiver • 3 years ago

49 63 3 years ago

submeta• 3 years ago

(Haven’t read the article.)

Our perception of alien life may be profoundly constrained by the human lens through which we examine the cosmos.

We must acknowledge that all our scientific knowledge, including our conception of life, is a product of human cognition. This cognition has evolved under Earth's specific conditions, thereby deeply influencing our understanding of what life is. We've come to associate life with cells, DNA, and carbon-based compounds, simply because these are the frameworks we're most familiar with.

Yet, life elsewhere in the universe may defy these constructs. It could hinge on principles entirely alien to our comprehension, making it "life" in the truest sense of the word. Consequently, our current definitions might fail to recognize or comprehend such forms of existence.

This brings us to the philosophical and cognitive underpinnings of this idea. It echoes solipsistic notions, where only one's mind is certain to exist, and the brain-in-a-vat theory, which asserts our inability to differentiate between real experiences and those simulated by our brains. These philosophies question the authenticity of our perceived reality and force us to reconsider our mental models.

Such introspection is crucial when we think about potential alien life. For instance, we associate green vegetation with life because of Earth-based chlorophyll. But should we find green plants on another planet, can we instinctively conclude that they indicate life as we know it? Probably not, as such assumptions hinge on our Earth-centric model of life.

To overcome this limitation, we might need to redefine life in a more universal context. We may have to accept that some entities might exist beyond our grasp of understanding and should develop novel tools that seek not only life as we know it, but any form of organized complexity that could denote a radically different kind of life.

Such a perspective fundamentally changes the narrative of our search for alien life. It indicates a need to drastically reshape our understanding to truly appreciate the universe's potential diversity and complexity. It's a humbling reminder of how much we don't know, as well as a hopeful prompt of the extraordinary discoveries that could await us.

pyinstallwoes2• 3 years ago

Radical idea: anything that emits a signal is a life sign.

zokier2• 3 years ago

That's what SETI has been looking for, but it also sets very high bar; microbes are not exactly known for sending signals to space.

zokier2• 3 years ago

"weird life" is pretty basic idea in astrobiology. The scientists in the field are very much aware of the concept. From the article

plenty of other experts suggest that life elsewhere might be so different, so fundamentally alien, as to be unrecognizable to us as life. Surprisingly, a pretty big question amongst scientists searching for life on other planets is what life even means. Would we know it when we saw it?

---

We may have to accept that some entities might exist beyond our grasp of understanding and should develop novel tools that seek not only life as we know it, but any form of organized complexity that could denote a radically different kind of life.

Maybe at some point, but right now we haven't even scrathed the surface in the search, and with limited resources it makes sense to start first by looking for earth-like life, and eventually expand the search for weirder things.

Such a perspective fundamentally changes the narrative of our search for alien life.

I don't really find that to be the case. If anything, the weird life narrative might be overemphasized in the popsci/scifi communities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_chauvinism

svachalek• 3 years ago

Totally. This comes up every time the Fermi paradox is discussed but it's a distraction. It's not like we are running out of places to look for carbon/water biology, we haven't even begun. And if we're going to start looking, it totally makes sense to start looking for what obviously works and only requires some simple conditions that are easily found throughout the galaxy.

bluGill• 3 years ago

Not as much as you would think. Carbon and water are common and have some interesting chemical properties that are not common overall. While other organizations are possible, between the other elements being less common, and how much more difficult the chemistry is the odds of it are low.

mellosouls• 3 years ago

(Haven’t read the article.)

Its not paywalled.

Our perception of alien life may be profoundly constrained by the human lens through which we examine the cosmos.

Here's the subtitle:

Scientists disagree about what life on other planets even means. Would we know it when we saw it?

NoMoreNicksLeft4• 3 years ago

Yet, life elsewhere in the universe may defy these constructs. It could hinge on principles entirely alien to our comprehension, making it "life" in the truest sense of the word. Consequently, our current definitions might fail to recognize or comprehend such forms of existence.

This is a cop-out. It might make for a good episode (or a bad one) of Star Trek, but in the real world, life's going to be made out of particles. Likely even out of atoms/molecules.

It will be recognizable, in that it is self-sustaining... it creates itself. It will, for lack of a better term, "do things".

The chemistry might be weird (hell, we almost expect that). The effects might be subtle (at minimum, we imagine we'll need microscopes, but it gets more difficult from there).

But none of these things are incomprehensible. "Incomprehensible" is probably nearly non-overlapping with "life", if not outright incompatible.

But should we find green plants on another planet, can we instinctively conclude that they indicate life as we know it? Probably not, as such assumptions hinge on our Earth-centric model of life.

This is incoherent. I don't even know how to parse it.

"We found photosynthetic organisms on another planet, but are they life?"

Like, seriously? Are you saying that plants aren't really alive here on Earth, or that plants are only alive if on Earth? If I take a potted plant to Mars, "is it really life as we know it"?

We may have to accept that some entities might exist beyond our grasp of understanding and should develop novel tools that seek not only life as we know it,

I think that some people learn to think like this because their mouth-breathing public school system teachers gave them B+s for this bullshit in 7th grade. It's bizarrely bad. Have you never listened to yourself?

Such a perspective fundamentally changes the narrative of our search for alien life.

Yes. It hobbles the search in any number of ways. Entire generations of children grow up thinking this poorly. Influencers and politicians start thinking such is somehow clever or insightful, and money/effort is wasted on it.

harshalizee• 3 years ago

Why can't you fathom that something cannot be incomprehensible to the human mind?

Imagine an ant sitting on your arm. Do you believe it's cognizant and aware of your existence? Now imagine humanity being the ant to a higher intelligence.

yadingus2• 3 years ago

The mathematics of black holes and quantum mechanics would be incomprehensible to a mind before written language because you'd be missing a lot of levels of abstraction and imagination.

To assume that things must look significantly similar to how they've looked before, ignores that we can be in the dark about what constitutes life in the same way we've been in the past.

This is incoherent. I don't even know how to parse it.

I can parse what he said easily. People used to look at the sun and think it was actual fire, because they only had fire on earth to compare it to. You might see something on another planet that looks like a plant so you assume it has the same biological characteristics as a plant, but that's just an assumption.

wkat4242• 3 years ago

Such introspection is crucial when we think about potential alien life. For instance, we associate green vegetation with life because of Earth-based chlorophyll. But should we find green plants on another planet, can we instinctively conclude that they indicate life as we know it? Probably not, as such assumptions hinge on our Earth-centric model of life.

Not really. We have many plants that aren't green even here.

If we find an alien plant, we'll consider it alive because it's a plant. That assessment already implies life.

Even if life takes other shapes on the planets we can reach, we will find it because of the structures and organisation it generates. So far we've found nothing but basic chemistry.

gfodor5• 3 years ago

Weird to have these kinds of articles coming out at the same time the US government appears to be lining up an entire set of institutional infrastructure and laws to disclose to the public that we have evidence of non-human intelligence.

Also I really hope to god we are alone, if we are not then it seems far more likely we are in some kind of zoo or are going to be boxed out from advancement.

flarg• 3 years ago

I doubt the US govt is doing any such thing. There is no advantage for them in doing so even if extraterrestrial intelligence does exist. Space is too vast to allow for visitation or effective communication between planets never mind solar systems.

qawwads• 3 years ago

I'd expect that information to come first from arXiv or Nature. Or even maybe The Daily Mirror. Why would a governments be involved?

gfodor5• 3 years ago

They are. Google the UAP act. Things are apparently about to get very weird.

yreg3• 3 years ago

the US government appears to be lining up an entire set of institutional infrastructure and laws to disclose to the public that we have evidence of non-human intelligence.

Could you please expand on this?

astronads2• 3 years ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/senators-move-require-relea...

https://thedebrief.org/the-uap-disclosure-act-of-2023-what-w...

There will be a public congressional hearing on this aired within the next two weeks.

dmvdoug• 3 years ago

Haha, I hadn’t really thought of it in those terms before. “ I really hope we are alone because if we’re not, it’s gonna be so embarrassing for us.” :D

echelon3• 3 years ago

If we have detected aliens, I'll be so incredibly disappointed if they're biological. That would violate my assumptions about the universe, and probably my hopes for it too. Biology seems as though it's a stepping stone to pure compute.

Detecting alien "techno signatures" should imagine industrialization in support of compute and nothing more. A lot of the stuff we currently manufacture and need would go away if we didn't have to support metabolisms, agriculture, and the long-distance transportation of bodies.

gfodor5• 3 years ago

It sounds like we have dead alien bodies. No, I never thought this was likely.

austinjp3• 3 years ago

What are "we" if we're not biological? What is there to separate from the biological substrate into "pure compute" substrate?

pmarreck5• 3 years ago

Articles like this won't age well if it turns out they've been here for decades already, which we may imminently find out.

Instead of a reasonable position given a lack of physical evidence, it will look like a gross mistrust of a mass quantity of qualified eyewitness testimony

netsharc• 3 years ago

An announcement of the existence of alien life (even alien life on this planet) doesn't equal confirmation that UFO sightings (objects in the sky that couldn't be identified) are actually sightings of extra-terrestrial crafts...

pmarreck5• 3 years ago

Strictly correct, but also improbably correct, given the claimed performance envelopes and behavior of these craft (I'm talking the ones pinging on radar, not just the visual reports)

NoMoreNicksLeft4• 3 years ago

Why would they be here?

I'm just physically incapable of the superhuman levels of narcissism that are required to think that if intelligent aliens were aware of us that they'd spend the effort to bother to come here.

Either that effort is itself measured at godlike superhuman levels, or it's effortless for them (or any point along that spectrum). As if becomes less effort for them, we become less interesting. As it becomes more effort.

There isn't even any happy medium for this. If there is some middle ground that would have them visit other civilizations... then why ours? Someone's closer to them. Someone looks like they might be worth meeting. We're the ugly guy on Galactic Tindr, and by virtue of their ability to do interstellar travel, they're the hot 9.8s. They're not going to swipe right on us, they'll pick someone else.

Maybe some flying saucer stopped by because it was along the way and they like doing quick surveys... but we've been more or less the same level of interesting for the last 4 billion years. That it just happened during the 20th century instead of 400 million years ago seems improbable.

Superhumanly narcissistic.

revscat2• 3 years ago

What strikes me as narcissistic is the presumption that you know what is narcissistic. It’s possible that the reasons for their presence is simply a mystery that we have not figured out yet.

Teever• 3 years ago

Aliens may send probes to every single star system and these automated sentinel probes may sit and watch for interesting/threatening things and relay that information back to the aliens.

pmarreck5• 3 years ago

Suppose there were 500 known intelligent civilizations in the universe. I'm just throwing that number out there to prove a point.

With just 500 intelligent known civilizations, the frequency across time of each one achieving interstellar space travel for the first time is likely incredibly rare. Like, I'd figure every few hundred to few thousand years, assuming they're spread out in space and time a bit. That would make us VERY interesting, indeed... because on galactic timescales, I think we're quite close to that

YeGoblynQueenne• 3 years ago

> Pop culture is certainly full of films and novels and TV series that gleefully break this rule, but some of the best aliens are the ones we only catch glimpses of, who exist only partially, only in darkness, only in fleeting, frightening peeks.

And then there's the Alien xenomorph, whom we do get to see. Oh yes, sir-ee.

citizenpaul• 3 years ago

I'm a firm believer that we will never meet alien life beyond a microbe.

Also I'm on the side that we are likely the only life active in the universe. As it is said by many scholars life should be common. If life is common. If indeed it is possible for life to spread across space it should overrun the galaxies by now. Even at sub-light speeds. However it clearly has not. The in the face obvious conclusion is that these speculative theories are wrong and life is not actually common and life does not spread easily. I'm not sure why so many other people are dedicated to believing the opposite of this with no actual evidence beyond theory.

Yeah dark forest theory. Yeah forerunner theory. I've heard them. Maybe...

IggleSniggle2• 3 years ago

Also possible that life requires a certain amount of universal "cook" time, and that while it's extremely common, and extremely local, we will never see if because we are stuck in our temporal frame, and the only thing that will observe the out-radiation out lightforms are black holes or the heat death of the universe. The universe is extremely empty, but it may also be extremely cluttered / noisy for the ability to observe other life.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that life naturally comes to the conclusion that it doesn't make sense to try to extend beyond its gravity well, or have a quiet death by trying "too hard," expending the resources available trying to propagate beyond.

ChatGTP• 3 years ago

What about Kurzewei's take that it's our duty to "colonize the universe with intelligence"?

Take that universe.

lubujackson• 3 years ago

What I would like to know is how good is our ability to actually detect life from afar? For instance, we only discovered water on local planets and moons within the last decade or two. How loud do aliens need to be for us to notice them?

If we were near Alpha Centauri, would we be able to detect life on Earth? Would a SETI scan of Earth detect our radio waves or other signatures of life?

friend_and_foe• 3 years ago

So there are a few things to this. We don't even know what life is fundamentally, beyond a continuing entropy generating process. By that logic the storms on Jupiter are alive.

Then there's consciousness. What even is it? Who knows.

There is Wolfram's principle of computational equivalence, which implies that we wouldn't even know life if we were looking right at it if it didn't evolve with us.

And beyond that, do you think a beetle on a leaf knows you're looking down at it, does it recognize that you have a face, is it even capable of comprehending your motivations or knowing you have them at all? When an ant is walking on your arm, do you think it knows it's on a living creature and not a wall? Can you tell me what bacteria are floating in front of your eyes right now and their natures?

That's a thought experiment to drive home a point: we could be surrounded in the universe by agents, consciousnesses, life, big and small, up to all kinds of things interesting and uninteresting, we could even look right at them and still have no idea what we are seeing or that they're even there.

In the end I come back to where you are, but from a different angle. I don't think we will find life because I don't think it even matters to us, because we won't even be able to recognize or comprehend it if we did see it. It could be everywhere or it could not be there at all and I don't think we could ever hope to tell the difference.

rhn_mk1• 3 years ago

By the same logic, we could be looking at a computer system turn into an agent, and we wouldn't notice it.

anon291• 3 years ago

life is not an entropy generating process. All processes generate entropy. Life locally reduces entropy (but of course globally generates it, like all other changes).

As for this,

In the end I come back to where you are, but from a different angle. I don't think we will find life because I don't think it even matters to us, because we won't even be able to recognize or comprehend it if we did see it. It could be everywhere or it could not be there at all and I don't think we could ever hope to tell the difference.

I kind of agree with you. A lot of the 'alien' stories I read about seem to have stories eerily similary to movies and books that preceded it. For example, some on reddit are convinced that aliens want to save us from climate change. The unanswered question is why would aliens care? or nuclear proliferation? Again... that's the plot of a movie.

mnky9800n• 3 years ago

your argument could also be used to reject most of earth science. we will likely never, at least in our lifetimes, go to some other planet that is in any way like earth. Therefore all of earth science is simply observations of what is in front of our faces when the universe is likely different.

belugacat• 3 years ago

If we’re going full speculation -

Microbial life is probably not too uncommon, almost certainly present in our own solar system beyond Earth (and then the big question - does it always originate on its planet, or is cross planetary contamination a thing?)

Complex life that can build tools to send itself to orbit is probably a whole deal less common, but we’re not the only ones nor the first ones in the universe.

It’s just that the scales (time, distance, energy) involved are so wild that the odds of any 2 forms of life encountering each other is practically 0.

Well, if cross contamination between planets is a thing, the most likely way for 2 such complex life forms to interact would be for them to have developed in parallel in the same solar system, and then one discovering the other.

mouzogu• 3 years ago

the great filter theory makes most sense to me.

humans have been on earth for a short time. having technology for even shorter time.

life is like a flash. it comes and goes. part of the cycle.

local_crmdgeon• 3 years ago

I agree with CitizenPaul - I think we're alone in sapience/technology, and that possibility is so terrifying that it's never discussed. It's a much smaller burden if there's tens of millions of other civilizations flying around, but we have 0 evidence after 2 centuries of searching.

I think there's some step that's very rare - either bones, or more likely evolving on a planet with wood. It's an easy building material that is also a fuel, and abundant. If we had to make due with rocks when we were just kind of smart apes, we wouldn't have gotten very far.

nonameiguess• 3 years ago

Putting aside the more exotic possible configurations of matter that might be capable of self-replicating, computing, and having qualitative experience, but that we likely would not recognize as life, limiting the possibilities just to recognizable organic matter that depends upon carbon and water, I still expect life to be all over the place. If it's possible at all, which we clearly demonstrate by our existence, then it's inevitable, given enough space and enough time and enough chances.

I don't see any paradox in the Fermi paradox, though. The universe is just a very big place. Estimates currently seem to place the number of galaxies in the observable universe roughly within the same order of magnitude as stars in the Milky Way. Most of these are far enough away that we only see them as they were billions of years ago. Organic life can only develop in second-generation stars, because carbon and oxygen won't exist until then, not to mention all of the elements making up rock necessary to form terrestrial planets. So the chances of seeing organic life that far away is close to nil.

So that leaves other galaxies in the local supercluster, but life detectable from a distance would still have needed to develop tens to hundreds of millions of years earlier than us to be detectable now. Certainly not impossible, but constrained, and even if they colonized their own galaxy, if that's a different galaxy, that doesn't mean we'd see it.

So what about the Milky Way itself? Well, what if organic life that develops intelligence, civilization, and technology is simply rare enough that you maybe get one or two per galaxy. That would still be incredibly common across the entire universe, but low enough density to be entirely reasonable that you'd be very likely to never see it. Why would it be that rare? I think we underestimate a bit how lucky we got. Many systems similar to ours have a hot Jupiter, which makes it impossible for the inner planets because they effectively experience a permanent late heavy bombardment. On the other hand, the fact we had a late heavy bombardment at all may be a reason we have as much water as we have, but we needed Saturn to be in the position it is in to stop and reverse the inflow of Jupiter's orbit to eventually calm things down.

Then we got life, but for a very long time, it only progressed in the direction of the red queen race of the dinosaurs becoming ever bigger and stronger and more heavily armored. In some cases, also more intelligent, but it's unlikely the competitive constraints they faced would ever have allowed for a dinosaur civilization to emerge. Some paleontologists have speculated Troodon may have had a chance, but it's hard to say. I think we can say with some confidence that live birth and maternal nursing played a large role in the development of strong social behaviors and persistent communities seen in mammals but largely not seen in other animals. How likely was this specific adaptation to occur? Is it inevitable that it occurs first in smaller, nocturnal, underground creatures that raise their young in dens with minimal resource requirements? If so, then you also need something like a K-Pg extinction event that eliminates the brutes but leaves behind the little guys living underground to come out and take over.

All in all, maybe this is the case, maybe this isn't, but all it takes is a few tiny adjustments to parameters to the Drake equation and you get a very low density of life, but as long as that density isn't zero, the universe overall would still have lots of life, but nonetheless lots of life we're very unlikely to ever see. We don't even know the actual bounds of the universe. Outside of past light cone, it may be twice what we can see, it may be hundreds of billions of times what we can see, it may be infinite. Space and worlds we will never see no matter how long we exist and what technology we develop, but even if it's only one civilization per 14 billion year light cone, that may still be a very large or even infinite number.

The tantalizing, lonely search for alien life

Related Stories