Alien Life

[991woot119]

I thought this up before I saw a documentary (more about this later) but didnt think it needed to be shared until after watching it. First the requirements for intelligent alien life able to thrive and rule over their planet:
1.A decent IQ.
2.Apposable thumbs/Sticky hands.
3.A way to move around.
4.Be able to survive on the surface of the planet.
5.Be of a decent size
You may be wondering why these are required so here are my answers to why I chose these:
1.Quite obvious. Without this we wouldnt be able to advance much beyond survival and might not even go into enjoyment (dolphins have about 10 times the human IQ and create bubbles when they're bored/approach humans). Also required to be able to come up with ideas.
2.Needed to make tools because tools require hands and to have grip and thumbs give nice enough grip and also required to be able to work faster and in turn be able to advance faster. Not having them would make guns impossible and anything that requires 2 fingers atleast (eg scissors) would have to be done with two hands and even tentacles would find it near impossible to fire. Though if they had a high enough IQ after a while they could get passed that.
3.Without being able to move around the species wont be able to find food or mate so as soon as it cant move without some other life form they wont be able to survive.
4.Needed since being in water you cant make tools since most tools require heat so we cant even invent fire so the species wont be able to rule over the planet. Maybe the sea but they wont be able to hop off the planet.
5.Think about it. if you where micro animals it would be pretty hard to be able to research. Even to get to other continents. Since most big discoveries are made by big machines. You cant make big machines if you where that small. Well maybe but again this is a huge delay.

The reason that I made this topic (besides what is needed) is also to disprove some of the things stated in the documentary.

The people in the documentary where searching for aliens signalls. Think about it for a second. We are searching for their signals while sending out none of our own. What do you think they're doing? I think they'd be searching for us aswell. If you lose a pet you wouldnt find it by just looking. You would need to call out to it and with me if I do that my dog comes back very quickly instead of just standing there waiting for it to come back.

Well I really hope that scientists read this and get their act back together.

[nerd1]

i would not say that is necessary, as there are probably some alien organs/limbs that do the same thing, in fact, the only things that we can be reasonably sure about alien life is that at least some of it can photosynthesize, they are carbon based, and they will probably have oxygen based respiration for at least some of them, but other than that, we have no idea, as we only have one line of evolution to make guesses of of.

[991woot119]

thinking about it its only a matter of decent IQ and being able to build stuff and spread on the surface really because you cant launch a rocket ship from underwater

[tyranim]

i would say life on other planets (as inteligent as human or not... or more) is VERY possible and VERY likely imo. idk if there are any, but i do believe it is VERY possible

[TheCrazyMango]

Having "hands" or "thumbs" is very unlikely, if there is life elsewere, chances are its NOTHING like us

[nerd1]

Having "hands" or "thumbs" is very unlikely, if there is life elsewhere, chances are its NOTHING like us

having hands or thumbs is, in fact, unlikely, but intelligent alien life would probably share some characteristics with us. they would probably
1. be carbon based, as carbon is a common element, so the chances of them being carbon based are high.
2. have some form of oxygen respiration, as oxygen respiration is a good source of energy.
3. have some way of sensing light, as that way they would be able to sense things out of their reach.
4. have some way of sensing sound/vibrations, for the same reason as #3
5. have some method of communication between the members, as you can't form a civilization without that.
6. This one is kind of a throwout, but i believe that there is a good chance that they would bee able to perform internal homeostasis, so they could moor easily colonize other parts of their world.
more things coming later, have to leave for now.

[tyranim]

Having "hands" or "thumbs" is very unlikely, if there is life elsewhere, chances are its NOTHING like us

having hands or thumbs is, in fact, unlikely, but intelligent alien life would probably share some characteristics with us. they would probably
1. be carbon based, as carbon is a common element, so the chances of them being carbon based are high.
2. have some form of oxygen respiration, as oxygen respiration is a good source of energy.
3. have some way of sensing light, as that way they would be able to sense things out of their reach.
4. have some way of sensing sound/vibrations, for the same reason as #3
5. have some method of communication between the members, as you can't form a civilization without that.
6. This one is kind of a throwout, but i believe that there is a good chance that they would bee able to perform internal homeostasis, so they could moor easily colonize other parts of their world.
more things coming later, have to leave for now.

in our planet, these are true, but in other galaxies/planets, it might not be true. if i remember correctly, there are animals on earth that thrive off of sulferic gasses rather than oxygen

[Flayne]

i would say life on other planets (as inteligent as human or not... or more) is VERY possible and VERY likely imo. idk if there are any, but i do believe it is VERY possible

lol, you just repeated yourself 3 times. 


on topic:

first off, are we talking advanced life forms? or simply life forms?

well, advanced life forms would certainly need some for of intelligence to be able to survive, however Intelligence as we know is mostly applied to the resources we have had as humans, such as opposable thumbs, so logically we could use these opposable thumbs and our fingers to have a firm grip on things, that is logic on our own type of resources.

Other life forms may not necesarily have those resources but different ones and according to their intelligence
in the form of logic + physical ability, use those resources to survive initially and thrive.

What I think is mostly necesary for a "race" of life forms to survive and thrive to rule a planet initially is a form of reproduction, whether it be asexual, sexual or other reproductive strategies the race may have.
this is the first key to survival and multiplies to create a race of aliens to actually be able to become advanced.
A single life form is not enough to manage an entire area, it needs help and team effort to be able to survive.

Take wolves for example, they usually hunt in packs in order to grab a meal, take their share and survive their daily lives.

However, it is scientifically proven that cells need some sort of breeding ground to develop, that breeding ground is usually water or other liquid compounds that other cells need to survive which exist in the universe.
If there is none of that on a planet, cells cannot reproduce and let alone evolve.

[nerd1]

Having "hands" or "thumbs" is very unlikely, if there is life elsewhere, chances are its NOTHING like us

having hands or thumbs is, in fact, unlikely, but intelligent alien life would probably share some characteristics with us. they would probably
1. be carbon based, as carbon is a common element, so the chances of them being carbon based are high.
2. have some form of oxygen respiration, as oxygen respiration is a good source of energy.
3. have some way of sensing light, as that way they would be able to sense things out of their reach.
4. have some way of sensing sound/vibrations, for the same reason as #3
5. have some method of communication between the members, as you can't form a civilization without that.
6. This one is kind of a throwout, but i believe that there is a good chance that they would bee able to perform internal homeostasis, so they could moor easily colonize other parts of their world.
more things coming later, have to leave for now.

in our planet, these are true, but in other galaxies/planets, it might not be true. if i remember correctly, there are animals on earth that thrive off of sulferic gasses rather than oxygen

yes, but if the organism were carbon based, which is likely, then it wouldn't be too much of a jump to be able to have oxygen reactions, and while sulferic gases may be an acceptable source of energy, oxygen is slightly better, but it would all depend on how their planet was laid out.

[the_unknown]

what im about to say is pretty off topic but this topic is pretty MLG!

[nerd1]

just noticed how nerdy this discussion way.

[Nepycros]

If aliens ever contacted us, we'd probably die right off. Not because of hostilities between us... we'll just die. My proof: When Europeans first interacted with Native Americans. So many diseases, so many viruses and other means that killed off so many Native Americans... that's what's going to happen. Eventually, if an alien race contacts us, we'll contract whatever sort of disease they've either grown immune to, or were never harmed by. Unless they have a higher immune system than ours, they'll probably be under the same issues, unless our physical makeup is so completely apart, that microscopic organisms don't rely on parasiting from their hosts... in which case, we'd just kill the aliens off... or the aliens are simply so different from us, that their immunity system works essentially in total opposition to ours...

Basically, unless aliens have a system that is so foreign to us that there is no possibility of comparison, either their species, or our species will contract a disease and die off. That's assuming aliens exist, and will contact us.

Isn't that a fun idea?