extraterrestrial collective consciousness sex

[atlashead]

One day we the living will find another extra-terrestrial species.  A species that travels through the cosmos is by definition peaceful.  But to find one that has not yet escaped compulsion demands action.  We will need every bit of right action (think,judge,act,feel) to save the good ones.  Which leads me to my point: there is god and devil on earth.  Some devil is having sex with others who have sex with others until it stops when the prime movers say “NO.”  I AM A PRIME MOVER AND I RECOGNIZE OTHER SUCH EQUALS.  I WILL NOT HAVE SEX WITH SECOND-HANDERS.  I AM A MAN AND HERE ARE MY NEW RULES: I can touch a second-handers body but they cannot touch mine.  Not in the selfdefense term but sexual.  The collective consciousness on earth take shape!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Eugenics?

Michael

[Peter]

Atlas, you are speculating with too little (to no evidence) of earthlings intermingling with aliens. Yet I “think” I agree with you. What if the aliens don’t look like human movie stars, but instead look like other movie characters such as ET or The Blob? Even with years of association as with the Star Trek’s characters who become lovers, Deanna Troi and Worf, I do not think aliens will ever want to be with humans sexually and vice versa. It is probably a “conceit” to think species also evolving on an earthlike planet will resemble humans or look enticing to us. This is not intolerance or prejudice, but instead, simple anthropology. What do humans find enticing in the opposite sex? It isn’t mandibles, claws, or antennas. The characteristics we most admire point to species continuance. So a healthy, smart and productive man and a woman with an hour glass shape which denotes better offspring, and the ability to care for the baby, is what evidence most humans use to link up. Peter   

Notes. * Rare Earth Debate Part 2: Alien Proximity This five-part debate will cover a variety of topics prompted by the hypothesis of "Rare Earth," a book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee that suggests complex life may be unique to Earth. On Monday, Part 1 wrangled with the question of whether life could originate and exist anywhere except on Earth. The general consensus was that simple (microbial) life, at least, may be common in the universe. The focus on microbial life continues today in Part 2 as the moderator asks where we can expect to find life in our solar system and beyond. The moderator is Michael Meyer, the NASA senior scientist for astrobiology.

Michael Meyer: If there is life out there -- either microbial or complex -- where can we expect to find it?

ABOUT THE SERIES This 5-part debate on the Rare Earth hypothesis will run each Monday and Wednesday through July 29. It is produced in cooperation with Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program. TODAY'S PARTICIPANTS 

Michael Meyer, the senior scientist for astrobiology at NASA and program scientist on the Mars Odyssey Mission. Peter Ward, co-author of "Rare Earth," and professor of geological sciences at the University of Washington. David Grinspoon, principal scientist in the Department of Space Studies, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and author of the forthcoming book "Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life" Frank Drake, chairman of the board of trustees of the SETI Institute, and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Donald Brownlee, co-author of "Rare Earth," and professor of astronomy of the University of Washington. JOIN THE DEBATE Share your views on Rare Earth with other SPACE.com readers in our Uplink section.

Peter Ward: Life might have originated on Mars and Europa early in the solar system’s history (and may live there still). Many of us think that, at best, we’ll find evidence that life once existed on Mars and may or may not have started on Europa. My guess is that the Earth is the only place in the solar system where there is existent life -- but we might expect to find a rich fossil record of extinct life on Mars. Of all planets beyond the Earth, Mars is by far the best known. It has been poked, prodded, examined and measured by a variety of Earth- and space-borne instruments, including those many that have successfully and unsuccessfully either landed or crashed on the surface of the red planet. An enormous amount of information now suggests that early in its history, while our Earth was still a chaotic and uninhabitable world of magma oceans and unceasing asteroidal impacts, Mars may have been a benign world, of equable temperatures and almost planet-spanning oceans. It may, as well, have been a world with an atmosphere that included oxygen.

All of these factors lead to an inescapable conclusion – that the early Martian conditions would have been favorable for the development of life. Some scientists have even suggested that life arose on Mars, and then was transported to Earth. For several hundred million years or more these benign conditions may have lasted, and in that time span evolution could have worked wonders. Perhaps the first geologists sampling Martian sedimentary rocks older than 4 billion years in age will find not only the fossil remains of bacteria, but also the remains of more complex organisms. Perhaps the fossils of animals will be found. What would that scene be like: the swing of a rock hammer against a Martian outcrop, splitting a piece of ancient Martian shale, and the heart-stopping joy of finding a mollusk look-alike or the bones of a fish-equivalent? Yet even if life did attain such a rapid rise in complexity on Mars, it did not last, for Mars as an environment for life died early. Even as bacteria on Earth were readying for the rush to higher grades of life, Mars was dying or was already long dead – assuming that life originated there at all. On Mars, the oceans seeped back into the planet or were lost to space, the oxygen in the atmosphere bound itself to rocks, and life died out.

David Grinspoon: I agree with the belief that Mars is currently lifeless. My impression that Mars today is dead is derived from the stale atmosphere (no signs of biological disequilibrium yet discerned) and the lack of internally driven geological activity. I think that to support a biosphere over billions of years, a planet needs more than isolated pockets of water.  Don't get me wrong -- I am a big proponent of Mars exploration. No matter what we find there, we will learn a lot. And if Mars is lifeless, this gets us off the hook because there won’t be any difficult ethical choices about human activities there. But all opinions about life elsewhere are just that. We need to go and look.

Donald Brownlee: If no evidence for life is found on Mars, then the formation of life probably is neither easy nor common in the solar system. We already have seriously negative results from asteroidal meteorites. There are now over 30,000 asteroidal meteorites in captivity, and none of them show compelling evidence of alien life. Many of these rocks came from bodies that were much richer in water, carbon, and nitrogen than Earth, and many had warm and wet interiors that lasted for millions of years. Life apparently did not form in the asteroids. Presumably this is because asteroids did not have the right environments even though they did have the right building materials. Creation of life apparently needs a richer diversity of disequilibria than can be found inside wet organic-rich interiors of asteroids. Probably what is needed is something akin to environments that occurred on early Earth and hopefully other planets as well.

David Grinspoon: We need to keep an open mind for possible bio-signs in unexpected places as we explore the entire solar system and beyond. If we relax our (understandable) attachment to "life as we know it," other intriguing possibilities become worthy of our consideration. For a planet to foster the origin of life and maintain the necessary conditions, I believe that the most important requirement is a planet with continuous and vigorous geological activity over billions of years. Watery conditions are needed for our kind of life, but any chemical environment where complexity can flourish might do, and we don't know enough about planets and about chemical evolution to place good limits on these environments. Although my hunch is that currently Mars is lifeless, I am still holding out for Venus: nice conditions in the clouds, energetic flows, strange UV absorbing pigments, unexplained particle populations, etc., if you don't mind a little acid. Europa, and possibly Titan or Io, also may harbor life. [Titan is a moon of Saturn; Io is moon of Jupiter.]

Frank Drake: In places like Io and Titan, we may find the first evidence of other biochemistries that are beyond our powers of prediction. I am a little on the pessimistic side with regards to Io -- it has no substantial atmosphere. But Titan! Wow! A prodigious organic chemical factory, some kind of solvent, even an atmosphere. It sounds better than primitive Earth. Sure, it is very cold there, but chemistry still happens easily if more slowly at Titanian temperatures. Could it be that one creature's arctic clime is another creature's balmy tropical island?

Don Brownlee: My prediction is that the nearest alien neighbors live in feces and food scrap left on the Moon by the six Apollo missions. Even though it’s been three decades, there is a good chance that hearty bacteria live and can reproduce inside encapsulated small damp places and survive the monthly cycles of heat and cold as well as the effects of solar flares, ultraviolet light, and hard vacuum. If born-on-the-Moon organisms are not living in food scraps (and worse) there are probably dormant terrestrial organisms trapped inside vast numbers of components -- wire harnesses and tape interfaces that are parts of the lunar lander, back packs, surface experiments, rover, etc. Somewhere out there is Allan Shepard’s unsterilized golf ball, which is likely to carry a small zoo of terrestrial microorganisms. Beyond our Moon, my great hope is that microbial life or at least fossil evidence for its prior existence will be found on Mars, Europa, or some other solar system body. If support the idea that formation of life is easy and commonplace, given the right environmental conditions. we find life elsewhere in our solar system, and show that it is not a distant cousin of terrestrial life, this will greatly . . . . 

[william.scherk]

11 hours ago, Peter said:

Rare Earth Debate Part 2: Alien Proximity This five-part debate will cover a variety of topics prompted by the hypothesis of "Rare Earth," a book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee that suggests complex life may be unique to Earth.

http://fraynelson.com/biblioteca/ciencia_y_tecnologia/rare_earth_debate.htm#_Toc16176088

[Peter]

I can’t seem to get the background colors from some of my quotes to disappear but maybe when I cut and paste, they will go away. From slime to civilization. Thanks William. I only saved a couple of parts of the discussion from 2002. Have we come a long way since then? Not really. Also from Williams link.

Simon Conway Morris: The problem in my view is, why did complex life take so long to evolve on Earth? Evidence from oxygen data is frankly equivocal. Maybe the redox state of the Earth's mantle was peculiar in comparison with other similar planets. Alternatively, ocean chemistry may have put the lid on things. There could be other dimensions that could explain why there was such a brake on the evolution of complex life -- why there were no Meso-Proterozoic dry martinis, but on the other hand, once microbes, then NASA. end quote

Damn but that is a good problem to solve. Did intelligent life evolve on earth BEFORE humans and then die off? Are archeologists looking at the right data? See below for that. I think evidence of human existence will be available for millions of years, from outgoing signals and old, collapsed buildings and any competent archeologist coming after us will find ample evidence. I don’t know if our presence will be observable in billions of years because of plate tectonics, lava coverage, etc. What will it take to exterminate humans?

So many Scifi scenarios as in the book and movie, “On The Beach” starring Gregory Peck.” After a global nuclear war, the residents of Australia must come to terms with the fact that all life will be destroyed in a matter of months.” end quote

I don’t think that is the case. Some would survive nuclear war, but are there more devastating weapons on the way to enable self-extermination? Who knows. Could a comet do us in as in “Deep Impact?” Perhaps, a flood of biblical proportions where only hillbillies survive? Joke.   

Also from Williams link . . . . Frank Drake: The Earth’s fossil record is quite clear in showing that the complexity of the central nervous system -- particularly the capabilities of the brain -- has steadily increased in the course of evolution. Even the mass extinctions did not set back this steady increase in brain size. It can be argued that extinction events expedite the development of cognitive abilities, since those creatures with superior brains are better able to save themselves from the sudden change in their environment.

Thus smarter creatures are selected, and the growth of intelligence accelerates.

We see this effect in all varieties of animals -- it is not a fluke that it has occurred in some small sub-set of animal life. This picture suggests strongly that, given enough time, a biota can evolve not just one intelligent species, but many. So complex life should occur abundantly.

There is a claim that "among the millions of species which have developed on Earth, only one became intelligent, so intelligence must be a very, very rare event." This is a textbook example of a wrong logical conclusion. All planets in time may produce one or more intelligent species, but they will not appear simultaneously. One will be first. It will look around and find it is the only intelligent species. Should it be surprised? No! Of course the first one will be alone. Its uniqueness -- in principal temporary -- says nothing about the ability of the biota to produce one or more intelligent species.

If we assume that Earths are common, and that usually there is enough time to evolve an intelligent species before nature tramples on the biota, then the optimistic view is that new systems of intelligent, technology-using creatures appear about once per year. Based on an extrapolation of our own experience, let's make a guess that a civilization's technology is detectable after 10,000 years. In that case, there are at least 10,000 detectable civilizations out there.

This is a heady result, and very encouraging to SETI people. On the other hand, taking into account the number and distribution of stars in space, it implies that the nearest detectable civilizations are about 1,000 light-years away, and only one in ten million stars may have a detectable civilization. These last numbers create a daunting challenge to those who construct instruments and projects to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. No actual observing program carried out so far has come anywhere close to meeting the requirement of detecting reasonable signals from a distance of 1,000 light years, or of studying 10 million stars with high sensitivity.

[william.scherk]

Peter, you might be interested in a recent special issue of Scientific American:

[Peter]

Thanks WS, I will read that later. 

I suppose if a civilization wanted to announce its presence cheaply and easily it could send a simple, reoccurring light and radio signal, that is obviously created by an intelligent species. Maybe direct it towards different areas of the galaxy. Of course our current TV and radio transmissions are doing just that but they are aimed for an audience perhaps a few miles or a few hundred miles away at the most. There used to be strong radio signals coming from transmitters in Tijuana (spelling? Why do I pronounce it Tee-a-wana?) And as the globe rotates those signals are automatically sent out in different directions. Peter   

[Peter]

I have always liked monster movies going to back to “The Blob with Steve McQueen” and “Tarantula” with Leo G. Carrol. edit. I think the "Go ahead. Make my day," guy was a fighter pilot in "Tarantula." Talk about ET’s, millennia, human survival, etc., got me to thinking, “It is Time for a plug.” From my son in law, Mitch Lovell’s blog, “The Video Vacuum:” Go check it out. Peter

From The Video Vacuum. The creator of Flipper, Ivan Tors teamed up with the director of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Herbert L. Strock for this sporadically amusing 3-D Sci-Fi horror thriller.  Scientists working to cryogenically freeze monkeys for a top-secret space project become victims of their own work when the machine malfunctions and freezes them to death.  Richard Egan (from Love Me Tender) is sent to the underground facility to investigate the accident.  More scientists die in freak accidents and it’s up to Egan to figure out if it’s the work of saboteurs, or if the facility’s resident super-intelligent robots, Gog and Magog have obtained a murderous mind of their own. Gog is slow to start.  Egan kind of makes for a dull lead, and the fact that most of the dialogue is filled with a lot of scientific gobbledygook doesn’t help either.  The mawkish romance scenes between Egan and Constance Dowling is stuffy too.  At least Herbert (The Fly) Marshall lends the flick some gravitas as the head of the project. Once the robots get loose, the movie picks up in a hurry and becomes a lot of fun.  There’s also a great sequence that plays like a precursor to Moonraker’s G-Force simulator scene.  What makes the scene a blast is that the “high-tech” machine looks like a piece of kid’s playground equipment.  I will say the robots themselves don’t have much personality to them.  (They look like silver parking cones with a lot of flailing arms.)  Fortunately, the carnage they create in the last reel is memorable. The 3-D is utilized well enough.  There’s plenty of separation between the actors and the background, so you always know you’re watching a real 3-D movie, and not haphazardly thrown together rush job.  That said, not a lot comes out at the screen.  The first shot is of a needle going into the audience’s eyeballs, which is always a good sign.  However, the use of in-your-face effects are only intermittent as the film goes on.  Luckily, the 3-D gags featured in the climax are simply awesome.  It almost makes sitting through an hour and change of science jargon worth it.  

Here’s a complete rundown of the 3-D effects: 3-D Hypodermic Needle 3-D Flames 3-D Tuning Forks 3-D Gog 3-D Magog 3-D Antenna 3-D Gun 3-D Flamethrower (multiple) 3-D Magog (again)

[Brant Gaede]

Complex life is a one-celled organism. I believe that goes back about 2 billion years of the 4 billion years life of this planet.

Complex life as we generally think of it goes back maybe a billion years. The age of the trilobites.

Intelligent life is animal life, which includes the fishies.

Human life is the life of conceptual intelligence, a queer offshoot of mammalian life.

--Brant

[Peter]

Brant wrote: Human life is the life of conceptual intelligence, a queer offshoot of mammalian life. end quote

You just wait until we find ruined and fossilized buildings built by the dinosaurs. That’ll show you. Our best scientific bet to find other intelligent life would be for humans to “create,” through cloning or genetic manipulation, intelligent beings. Imagine walking by a pet shop and in the window is a monkey like creature that holds up a sign she just finished painting with a brush that says, “Hi. I’m Janice Wookie. If you take me home I can tell your children bedtime stories. I eat very little and I am already toilet trained.”

[Brant Gaede]

We don't have to create what we already are.

--Brant

[Peter]

So, you don’t expect to see “created intelligent beings?” There are rumors that the Chinese are going ahead with experiments with that outcome in mind. Dolly the smart chimp will soon be walking upright, down Beijing streets.  

Spoiler alert. Don’t read if you will watch “Madam Secretary” reruns. Last night on “Madam Secretary” which should now be called “Madam President” the big deal was autonomous weapons. One obstacle to be overcome was avoidance of hacking. America autonomous weapons cannot have a redirect to another target capability or a destroy yourself button that humans can access. And for President McCord the other big obstacle was the morality of it. And the other quirky plot twist was that America already had the capability but China and Russia did not. So she had to convince them to stop research on autonomous weapons if we destroyed our preexisting weapons.

I have heard that we already have large insect looking surveillance tools but the hard part is increasing the battery life. In fact there was an article in Popular Science about them some years ago. In the meantime we have semi-autonomous rovers and drones with no morality questions involved. Peter

[Brant Gaede]

It won't take much to raise the average human IQ by 20 points through biology. That means 120 would reset to 100. The problem is using the smarts humans already have. That's a lot of work and humans tend to be mentally lazy.

Another problem is material progress means less work needed for the same results --in fact, better results. Or, what to do with leisure time?

We are on the cusp of self generated evolvement in the overall collective sense.

--Brant

[Peter]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

It won't take much to raise the average human IQ by 20 points through biology. That means 120 would reset to 100. The problem is using the smarts humans already have. That's a lot of work and humans tend to be mentally lazy.

Another problem is material progress means less work needed for the same results --in fact, better results. Or, what to do with leisure time?

We are on the cusp of self generated evolvement in the overall collective sense.

--Brant

I agree. We already select mates for "the good life and healthy kids" but when gene editing is perfected, who won't want there kids to be smarter and healthier? The reset to a base IQ of 120 becoming normal is that those who are still the old average will feel like old fogies. Yet, I am amazed and happy at the brains my granddaughter exhibits and the excellence's she earns in school. So. For those of us left behind, what is to become of us? Imagine switching from regular classes or a regular school to a school for the elite in intelligence? I remember it was a bit odd having a very intelligent Jewish friend when I was around 19 and meeting her family and Jewish friends. Sometimes I did not get their jokes or conversations. Peter       edit. I think European Jews have an average IQ of around 120. Average. Think about it. You might be smarter than the average but what if all of them are above average?

[Peter]

I like to think about old concepts that are now considered “bosh.” Remember wizardly forecasters and “forsee-ing?” I was just doing a NY Times Sunday puzzle and the answer was “foresee.” And does anyone still think your palm will tell your future? Heck no. And where is that scifi supercomputer that could forecast the stock market? War games that predict outcomes but the first day of a conflict and the prediction turns out to be wrong?   Peter

[Jules Troy]

I think it’s foolish to broadcast “hey here we are!” Into outer space.  It might not be friendly...

[Peter]

Jules wrote: I think it’s foolish to broadcast “hey here we are!” Into outer space.  It might not be friendly... end quote

If we receive a “RING, RING?” How will it affect Planet Earth? What if we learn these aliens, perhaps  light years away, have some really desirable technology? What if they say they are coming to visit? What if they tell Earth how to hear all their broadcasts from their home world and they are receiving our TV and Radio broadcasts too? Will that change television forever? We (and they) might think the other is snooping. Is there a possible upside to learning of the others' existence? Peter  

Notes.  September 12, 2016 FEATURE ARTICLE Futurism TV Nine Ways Star Trek Anticipated and Celebrated the Future  by Robert Tracinski. In the field of future technology, life has a tendency to imitate art. The creators of science fiction are often able to imagine something before science fact makes it possible. The real technology then catches up when somebody sees it in fiction and asks: how could we actually do that? This is true of Star Trek perhaps more than any other science fiction franchise. It's no coincidence, because the show's creators consulted with scientists and technology experts about what was possible or might be possible. They took the future seriously and wanted to know what things might look like when we got there. In a lot of ways, they got it right. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first episode of the original series, let's look at nine ways Star Trek anticipated the future, helping us to imagine the next wave of innovation and to think about how we will live with it . . . . end quote 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 11/1/2019 at 9:58 AM, Jules Troy said:

I think it’s foolish to broadcast “hey here we are!” Into outer space.  It might not be friendly...

Jules,

This is nature. Without little birdies tweeting to the great out there, you would not be able to take those beautiful photographs you take.

Predators love those tweets, but so do talented photographers.

Let's just hope aliens love taking pictures more than eating humans...

 

Michael

[Jules Troy]

They may like our water more than observing us too...

[Peter]

4 hours ago, Jules Troy said:

They may like our water more than observing us too...

Ice is water without so many bacteria and bugs, so they might harvest that out in space. 

[Jules Troy]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_8472

Just sayinnnnnnnn...

[Peter]

10 minutes ago, Jules Troy said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_8472

Just sayinnnnnnnn...

Excellent redirect. Those episodes were superior. Perhaps, we should evolve as a species for another thousand years before we make contact or respond to what may be passing us by or going over our heads right now, in space or hyperspace.

[Jules Troy]

Haha warp drive would definitely come in handy! ...and photon torpedoes..and and and..Romulan cloaking...awe hell just gimme the holo deck!

[Peter]

10 hours ago, Jules Troy said:

Haha warp drive would definitely come in handy! ...and photon torpedoes..and and and..Romulan cloaking...awe hell just gimme the holo deck!

Pervert. joke. 

[Jules Troy]

12 hours ago, Peter said:

Pervert. joke. 

7 of 9...is coming back in 2020!