Would finding life on another planet change life on earth?

[danny la rouge]

The premise of a sci fi epic I'm slowly working on is that a planet is discovered with intelligent frogs. One of the things they do is try to teach frogs and frog-like species across the galaxy how to read and write - with erm mixed results.

Sounds riveting.

Rivet? No? Tough crowd.

 

[newme]

Sounds riveting.

Rivet? No? Tough crowd.

Ship building crowd. Titanic reception tho.

 

[Orang Utan]

I like the idea of space travel being facilitated by technology inspired by the physics of the movement of a frog’s tongue when unleashed upon a fly on another lily pad. Except the fly is the space vehicle. And the pad another planet.

 

[newme]

I like the idea of space travel being facilitated by technology inspired by the physics of the movement of a frog’s tongue when unleashed upon a fly on another lily pad. Except the fly is the space vehicle. And the pad another planet.

Space bolas seems the most sensible. We just need a load of shit we haven't invented yet and a giant area to host the base. Plus preferably a wizard

 

[WouldBe]

The premise of a sci fi epic I'm slowly working on is that a planet is discovered with intelligent frogs. One of the things they do is try to teach frogs and frog-like species across the galaxy how to read and write - with erm mixed results.

They could get around by hopping from one planet to another.

 

[frogwoman]

They could get around by hopping from one planet to another.

Yeah building design for apartment blocks is interesting.

 

[PTK]

The land area of the USSR was said to be equal to about one sixth of the total land area of the Earth. If Extraterrestrial Intelligences (ETIs) were going to arrive on land, then there would be a one in six chance that they would come down on territory that was once part of the USSR. If they had no preference for land or sea, then, given that two thirds of the surface of Earth is sea, there would a two in three chance of them dropping from space onto the surface of the sea. There might be good reasons for preferring to land on the sea.

It is not going to happen, though. No ETI for us today or tomorrow.

By the way, the very readable “Learning the World” by Ken MacLeod has an intelligent bird-like species on another planet that Earth people are intending to colonise. I recommend it.

 

[newme]

The land area of the USSR was said to be equal to about one sixth of the total land area of the Earth. If Extraterrestrial Intelligences (ETIs) were going to arrive on land, then there would be a one in six chance that they would come down on territory that was once part of the USSR. If they had no preference for land or sea, then, given that two thirds of the surface of Earth is sea, there would a two in three chance of them dropping from space onto the surface of the sea. There might be good reasons for preferring to land on the sea.

It is not going to happen, though. No ETI for us today or tomorrow.

By the way, the very readable “Learning the World” by Ken MacLeod has an intelligent bird-like species on another planet that Earth people are intending to colonise. I recommend it.

Learning to fly was right there as a title.

 

[Orang Utan]

Speaking of space animals, there are space bears in Paul McAuley’s Beyond The Burn Line. (Well, they’re actually evolved earth bears far in the future, but Earth is also in space, so I’m sticking with Spacebears)

 

[Serge Forward]

By the way, the very readable “Learning the World” by Ken MacLeod has an intelligent bird-like species on another planet that Earth people are intending to colonise. I recommend it.

It's actually intelligent bat-people. It was MacLeod's little in-joke for all us science fiction nerds.

Great book though

 

[kabbes]

The space frogs’ mortal enemies could be the space toads. Then they both team up to repel the attack of the space snakes.

 

[Yossarian]

The space frogs’ mortal enemies could be the space toads. Then they both team up to repel the attack of the space snakes.

I'd like to see some background on the beginning of the frog space program - if their planet has a moon, I hope the first frog on it said "That's one small leap for a frog, one giant leap for frogkind"

 

[krtek a houby]

Havent got time just now to read all 5 pages, but it would be a massive change & a real challenge to various faiths.

To find out that other life developed independently of the god or gods you worship, where would that belief system go? Would some advanced alien life forms be eventually worshipped themselves?

Seeing as the universe is so vast and impossible (for now) to traverse, its unlikely that we will be hooking up with other cosmic folks anytime soon.

 

[King Biscuit Time]

What's the current thinking on whether incredibly complex self sustaining patterns (i.e. life) could emerge in media and at scales different to the atomic level that our life is built on?

Could life emerge in the plasma within a star? At the scale of a galaxy?

 

[King Biscuit Time]

And seeing as this thread seems to have become the 'recommend a book about aliens based on super intelligent versions of earth animals' - quick shout out for 'Children of Time' by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Although they aren't aliens, a good third of a the book (although split up and interlaced with the main story) is given over to describing what happens when some spiders and some kind of evolution accelerator are left on an earth like planet for centuries. You go through the full history of the spider race in all its various stages until by the time they are out exploring space and building computers out of ants you're totally bought in.

 

[DotCommunist]

its inevitable that some sort of contact would be attempted imo, distances are immensely unthinkably vast but whether its a generation starship, cold storage, little robot powered by a sail they keep shining a laser at till it gets really fast.

The premise of a sci fi epic I'm slowly working on is that a planet is discovered with intelligent frogs. One of the things they do is try to teach frogs and frog-like species across the galaxy how to read and write - with erm mixed results.

Slann

 

[PTK]

Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward is a science fiction novel about intelligent life that evolved on a neutron star.

Then there is The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle, in which there is an intelligent cloud of interstellar gas.

It seems to me that life in an interstellar cloud would move at such a slow rate that we would not be able to detect it as life. I don’t see how there could be processes that acted on such a large-scale and on such a long-time scale that could be defined as life. The same considerations would apply to a galaxy.

The intelligent beings on the neutron star in Dragon’s Egg think a million times faster than humans. I am not sure that we would be able to interact with such beings, even if such beings were possible, which is more than a little unlikely.

It seems to me that some people have a prejudice towards thinking that the development of intelligent life is some sort of imperative for the cosmos. The cosmos does not favour intelligent life. There is no inevitably about the development of intelligence. The development of intelligence is an accident.

However, simple life, at the level of microbes, may be relatively common.

I think that we need to be able to define life. Is the Earth alive? The atmosphere and the oceans of the Earth, and some of its geological processes, interact with living organisms. That is an ecosystem, but overall I don’t think that we can say that the ecosystem is alive.

It is interesting that there would not be free oxygen in the atmosphere were it not for biological processes. If we detected a large proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star, then that would indicate that there was life there.

 

[krtek a houby]

None I know of; Catholic don't believe this.
Maybe some fundamentalist Protestants; Cromwellians and such...

What if the aliens reveal to us that they created life on earth?

 

[krtek a houby]

Why do we think they would want to talk to us though?

To tell us off?

 

[A380]

I'd like to see some background on the beginning of the frog space program - if their planet has a moon, I hope the first frog on it said "That's one small leap for a frog, one giant leap for frogkind"

I'd be more interested what they said whilst on the launch pad....



I'm so very very sorry.

 

[A380]

And seeing as this thread seems to have become the 'recommend a book about aliens based on super intelligent versions of earth animals' - quick shout out for 'Children of Time' by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Although they aren't aliens, a good third of a the book (although split up and interlaced with the main story) is given over to describing what happens when some spiders and some kind of evolution accelerator are left on an earth like planet for centuries. You go through the full history of the spider race in all its various stages until by the time they are out exploring space and building computers out of ants you're totally bought in.

This ^^^ Half way through the (first) sequel now.

 

[A380]

Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward is a science fiction novel about intelligent life that evolved on a neutron star.

Then there is The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle, in which there is an intelligent cloud of interstellar gas.

It seems to me that life in an interstellar cloud would move at such a slow rate that we would not be able to detect it as life. I don’t see how there could be processes that acted on such a large-scale and on such a long-time scale that could be defined as life. The same considerations would apply to a galaxy.

The intelligent beings on the neutron star in Dragon’s Egg think a million times faster than humans. I am not sure that we would be able to interact with such beings, even if such beings were possible, which is more than a little unlikely.

It seems to me that some people have a prejudice towards thinking that the development of intelligent life is some sort of imperative for the cosmos. The cosmos does not favour intelligent life. There is no inevitably about the development of intelligence. The development of intelligence is an accident.

However, simple life, at the level of microbes, may be relatively common.

I think that we need to be able to define life. Is the Earth alive? The atmosphere and the oceans of the Earth, and some of its geological processes, interact with living organisms. That is an ecosystem, but overall I don’t think that we can say that the ecosystem is alive.

It is interesting that there would not be free oxygen in the atmosphere were it not for biological processes. If we detected a large proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star, then that would indicate that there was life there.

Rocky and Astrophage. Two of the best aliens ever and in the same book. (project hail Mary)

 

[Silas Loom]

Sounds riveting.

Rivet? No? Tough crowd.

Try Reddit.

 

[Chz]

Speaking of space animals, there are space bears in Paul McAuley’s Beyond The Burn Line. (Well, they’re actually evolved earth bears far in the future, but Earth is also in space, so I’m sticking with Spacebears)

The space spiders in both A Deepness in the Sky and Children of Time creep the hell out of me. Which I suspect was the point of them.