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Date Posted: 04:54:25 09/01/25 Mon
Author: Mike
Subject: Are we alone?
In reply to: JeffsFort 's message, "IMAGINE Magazine Question for 10/15 - " ALIENS!?!"" on 00:52:54 09/01/25 Mon

What do I believe? Yes, and no. I grew up being fascinated by aliens. My first introduction to the idea of aliens was by the movie E.T when I was just a little kid.

I think it will be the coolest discovery ever, if we discover life on other worlds (and some scientists believe they found big hints of just a thing earlier this year).

But when we think of alien life, are we thinking about microbes? Goo? plant life? Mammal like species? Humanoid, technologically advanced civilizations?

I've also been interested in our own biology, and all the bottlenecks that life on earth had to pass through, and all the flukes that determined the path we've taken as a technology-driven species.

The rare elements on earth that may not exist elsewhere. The invention of writing, to be able to store and widely disperse knowledge, combustion to power machinery, (relatively easy on earth, but not necessarily elsewhere), complex maths, digital computers, as well as our curiosity to explore and colonize. Our species being land dwelling, rather than ocean dwelling, our opposable thumbs, which help us design and use tools. In fact, most of our history was spent as small roaming tribes of people, so tens of thousands of years, we didn't settle down, build communities, governments, academic research, towns, cities, nations and economic models. What if we never decided to take up agriculture?

There's so many small factors that lead to where we are, and the future is also on a knife-edge. It's also a relatively peaceful time, astronomically and environmentally on earth (no ice ages, fewer asteroids hitting earth than there used to be). So when I think about alien life out there, I think about all the things that have to happen for something remotely similar enough to us, to matter, to be able to communicate with and share knowledge and experiences, and I think the odds are small, which would be a shame.

I think there are billions of planets with species like dolphins, rodents, insects, birds and maybe even monkeys and ape-like creatures. But for something like us? Probably not. We've only popped up once on earth, unlike, say, bats, moles, squirrels and wolves, etc, which have popped up in more than one place, independently. in fact, all apes came from one ancestor. So they appear to develop less frequently than other types of animals. At least on Earth.

Whatever the answer is though, is mind blowing. Either we're not alone, or in the vast expanse of space and time (trillions of planets, billions of years) life has only developed on one relatively tiny rock.

All that aside, I hope I'm wrong, and the universe is teeming with intelligent (benevolent) life. :P

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