
If we met new life, would we know it when we saw it? - Hooke
http://mosaicscience.com/story/what-life
======
stevep98
There is plenty of life on this planet, yet we are still alone, in that we
can't have any meaningful communication with a single other species.

What is it going to feel like when we find little cockroaches on Mars, or fish
in the oceans of Europa? It's going to be profound in that we're not the only
place where life has developed. It will be scientifically interesting because
we will want to know how life developed differently, is there an alternative
to DNA, for example. Is it non-water based, non carbon-based?

But many many people are going to have a 'meh' reaction. We have plenty of
life surrounding us that we can't talk to. What's the big deal.

What if life developed on the remote planet that is 99% as sophisticated as
us, like chimps for examples, but didn't make the final step to civilization
because they didn't have opposable thumbs or something. They won't be able to
comprehend us, or what we are.

There's a recent Onion article covering this topic:

"Nation Demands NASA Stop Holding Press Conferences Until They Discover Some
Little Alien Guys"

[http://www.theonion.com/article/nation-demands-nasa-stop-
hol...](http://www.theonion.com/article/nation-demands-nasa-stop-holding-
press-conferences-51412)

~~~
danharaj
> in that we can't have any meaningful communication with a single other
> species.

I don't think so. I think anyone with a pet would disagree. There is more to
meaning than abstract concepts. There is more to communication than mutually
understood symbols.

~~~
coldtea
Then again there's more to "meaningful communication" than a dog who adores
its owner...

~~~
StavrosK
Let me guess: You've never had a dog.

~~~
coldtea
We had 3 dogs growing up as a kid (2 spaniel brittons and a german shephard).

Myself, I have 2 cats (persian + siamese).

But it's not the kind of meaningful communication the parent refers to,
obviously.

------
icanhackit
Starting with the postulate that nature abhors a vacuum of any kind, I think
it wouldn't be too far-fetched to posit that higher orders of life can exist
across computer systems, their mandibles invisible tendrils interconnecting
billions of organic beings interfaced via an optical-aural-touch I/O system.
Its metabolism at the low-level a complex reciprocal action composed of
dopamine response from its base food-source transmogrified into encoded
information via physical input excreted from the cerebrum of a human.

Dang, I just fed the beast.

------
lisa_henderson
It's also important to think about the implications of articles such as
"What's 96 Percent of the Universe Made Of? Astronomers Don't Know"

[http://www.space.com/11642-dark-matter-dark-
energy-4-percent...](http://www.space.com/11642-dark-matter-dark-
energy-4-percent-universe-panek.html)

If 96% of the universe consists of dark matter, we should start with the
assumption that 96% of life is built of dark matter. Disproving that becomes
the work of exploration, but that is the obvious default starting assumption.

~~~
cperciva
Dark matter is estimated at 23% of the universe, not 96%. The other 73% is
dark _energy_.

And I'd argue that it's reasonable to presume that life would be "normal"
matter, simply because life requires structure, which requires both attractive
and repulsive forces over nontrivial distances. Dark matter, by definition,
does not interact electromagnetically; the strong and weak nuclear forces are
too short-range to give rise to meaningful structures; and gravity provides
only attractive force, not repulsive force.

~~~
jerf
More generally, a certain amount of humility and skepticism about these issues
is good, but I have almost a pet peeve sort of relationship with people who
think we must profess total ignorance. We really don't. If they live in this
universe, they play by the same rules we do, and that will shape them every
bit as much as it does them. While I have no reason to believe that in the
style of pulp sci-fi we will stroll out into the universe to find a universe
of interbreedable humanoids, there's really no reason to believe that we will
understand _nothing_ about the aliens.

In fact it's sort of a violation of the general Copernican principle... we are
not so special that we will be uniquely unable to understand anybody else. We
are, probably, fairly normal.

------
d_welsman
How do we know 'life' can't evolve in some other way? I find it interesting
how scientists are always looking for 'earth' like planets... then again it is
a good place to start.

