Do Aliens Exist?

[marvelangga]

The expanded form of the title is this: Is there a possibility in the future that we would discover an alien life form? Or do you believe that Earth, out of the innumerable other planets hosted by innumerable stars in the universe, is the only planet that has life in it?

For me, given the discovery of potentially habitable planets found just within our galaxy, there must be another life far out there, hidden in plain sight.

[Eris]

Look. There are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the observable universe. The notion that life would only evolve on one single planet around one of those stars is just patently ridiculous.

The problem is that the universe is unfathomably large. We will never be able to explore more than an infinitesimal part of it. In fact, I doubt humanity will ever explore more than a fraction of our galaxy. And that makes the prospect of actually finding life a lot more questionable.

[Saeriel]

I think there are giant insects, watching us, always watching, biding their time o.o

The chances that we are the only advanced life forms in existence are ridiculous...

[SuXrys]

What Eris just said + yes to your question.

[darkrider21]

i do think so. now the onley q is are they peacfull or do they want to catch us and use us as slaves

[Random User]

XENU

Yeah, given the size of this plane of existence, it's ridiculous to think that Earth is the only planet with species of life form on it. Whether we ever meet them or not I guess we'll have to see.

[Datenshi]

I lack the technical understanding to make an educated guess on the subject, but if alien life exists, I like to fantasize that it will be in a form so radically different and strange from our own to be literally unrecognizable.

It's tempting to imagine alien lifeforms as at least remotely resembling what we have here on Earth (or rather, it's impossible to imagine them as anything else) because we lack any other standard of comparison, but it's much more possible that what's out there isn't "life" as we know it, but rather "bife", or "vife"; something vaguely similar yet totally different.

Tezuka Osamu once had a short segment in his perennial Bird of Fire series where human astronauts land on another planet and encounter "life" in the form of animate slabs of stone endlessly piling themselves over one another and then toppling themselves over, only to repeat the same thing over again, for no apparent reason. If there is anything like life as we know it on another planet, that's how I imagine it would be like.

[RescueCat]

Alien = Foreigner. So yes, ALIENS exist.

Do other planetary aliens exist? Quite probably.

[Cutiekins]

See what I wonder is if other aliens in outer space are looking for other signs of life just like us. Or even what they look like, I mean we stereotype aliens as green people with huge black eyes but hmm I wonder.

[Eris]

I lack the technical understanding to make an educated guess on the subject, but if alien life exists, I like to fantasize that it will be in a form so radically different and strange from our own to be literally unrecognizable.

It's tempting to imagine alien lifeforms as at least remotely resembling what we have here on Earth (or rather, it's impossible to imagine them as anything else) because we lack any other standard of comparison, but it's much more possible that what's out there isn't "life" as we know it, but rather "bife", or "vife"; something vaguely similar yet totally different.

Tezuka Osamu once had a short segment in his perennial Bird of Fire series where human astronauts land on another planet and encounter "life" in the form of animate slabs of stone endlessly piling themselves over one another and then toppling themselves over, only to repeat the same thing over again, for no apparent reason. If there is anything like life as we know it on another planet, that's how I imagine it would be like.

Yeah. It's a mistake to think aliens will be even remotely similar to anything we have here on earth. Evolution is a very random process. Consider the dinosaurs, the reason they went extinct isn't because they were less suitable than mammals, but because small mammals (as well as small dinosaurs, who evolved into birds) had an easier time with a freak natural disaster. And in a sense, that's a microcosm of just how random evolution is.

If there is an optimal lifeform for a given circumstance, evolution will probably never arrive at it. That is a shortcoming it shares with most greedy algorithms. And even minute variations in circumstances will perturb the results it gives significantly as time goes by.

[animeyay]

I am very inclined to believe that aliens exist. I just wonder if I'll ever hear the news of their discovery within my life time lol.

of course my Christian parents would disapprove this notion of mine, but oh well, they can't force their religious views onto me

[Matty]

See what I wonder is if other aliens in outer space are looking for other signs of life just like us. Or even what they look like, I mean we stereotype aliens as green people with huge black eyes but hmm I wonder.

I always wondered this myself. The fact that life in this universe can be lonely for one species alone could only result in the search of another intelligent lifeform... but who knows, maybe they already found us and deemed our civilization as "dangerous", lol.

But yes; I firmly believe that life is out there somewhere; we may find it in our lifetime, or maybe not.
I'm quite a spiritual person, and often think of Earth as a testing ground. Spiritual, not religious I should point out.

[marvelangga]

Evolution is a very random process. Consider the dinosaurs, the reason they went extinct isn't because they were less suitable than mammals, but because small mammals (as well as small dinosaurs, who evolved into birds) had an easier time with a freak natural disaster. And in a sense, that's a microcosm of just how random evolution is.

Hmm... I would understand if it was the bacteria that survived the disaster, but why the bigger and the supposedly tougher animals like dinosaurs were the ones eliminated in history and not the smaller mammals/dinosaurs? I'm thinking that it wasn't a one-time global disaster that caused their extinction, but a gradual change in climate/surrounding condition. Isn't this the basis for the theory of evolution? Organisms that continue to adapt the environment will survive, else they'll be extinct. I don't think "random" would best describe what evolution is, since evolution is like a function of environment.

With regards to whether aliens would look like anything found in Earth, I believe that these aliens should at least have DNA/RNA as basis for their structure, since all known living things on Earth have these.

[AnimeFrost]

Hmm Maybe since the universe is so BIG theres a 50/50 chance but i hope they don't and plus all of you are scaring me lol

[Xian Jaguar]

simply yes

[Volta]

[SuXrys]

Hmm Maybe since the universe is so BIG theres a 50/50 chance but i hope they don't and plus all of you are scaring me lol

I think that the procent of aliens exist is far more then 50%, but that's just me.

This link is very interesting http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347 <-----


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Some videos.

[SakuraKiss13]

I dunno. But I believe..

ALIENS = 0

Wherein Aliens are not described foreigners but beings in the outer space.

[SuXrys]

I dunno. But I believe..

ALIENS = 0

Wherein Aliens are not described foreigners but beings in the outer space.

So you don't think that they can exist? Even considering how large and vaste the Universe is?

[Eris]

Hmm... I would understand if it was the bacteria that survived the disaster, but why the bigger and the supposedly tougher animals like dinosaurs were the ones eliminated in history and not the smaller mammals/dinosaurs? I'm thinking that it wasn't a one-time global disaster that caused their extinction, but a gradual change in climate/surrounding condition.

There are many reasons why smaller animals are more resilient to radical climate shifts like the meteor impact 65 million years ago. For one, they have shorter reproductive cycles, which means they evolve faster, and they have larger surface-to-mass ratios, which means they're less vulnerable to shifts in external temperature.

Isn't this the basis for the theory of evolution?

Evolution is driven by the environment. But the environment is both unpredictable, and in part constituted by the very creatures evolution produces. The latter quality makes evolution a dynamic system. And one of their distinguishing qualities is even tiny changes in the past can lead to wildly unpredictable outcomes in the future. This is what makes evolution random.

My point is that even fairly small changes in the earth's past would drastically change how all living creatures look today.

Organisms that continue to adapt the environment will survive, else they'll be extinct. I don't think "random" would best describe what evolution is, since evolution is like a function of environment.

Ok, here's an example. Let's consider two species, A and B, and change the climate a bit.

The temperature rises by 5 degrees over a few thousand years. Species A is not able to cope, and goes extinct. Species B manages to cope by lowering it's metabolism.
Now the temperature drops 10 degrees because there's an ice age. Species B goes extinct because it's metabolism was too low. If species A was still around, it would have been ok.

This is pretty much how evolution works. It doesn't objectively improve creatures. It just makes them better at surviving in the environment they're currently at. Just because a species has gone extinct does not mean it's less suitable for the current environment than the species that are still around. This is largely how it is with dinosaurs and mammals.

[Robin Sena]

Sure, why not? The possibilites could be worth looking into.

[darkrider21]

to me its not a matter of do they exzist its the matter of what they look like. some people report aliens to be littel gray people with big black eyes

[Aulos]

The chances of there not being alien life forms of some sort is probably pretty unlikely. The conditions of Earth are rare, but the universe is gigantic. We've already spotted several (not sure how many, several may be underestimating) solid planets that are in the range of their solar systems that we are in.

I do have to wonder how exactly life came about. I'd like to know that answer, but no matter what it is, I'm sure with the gigantic span of the universe it has to have happened on at least one other planet.

I don't buy into the theories that aliens have come to Earth, though. That's a bit too outlandish for me.

[TheWired]

I am an alien.

[TadashiED]

Well, yeah lol. Of course as many of you already stated, there is almost no way that we are the only planet harboring life. The universe is just way to big. Sometimes, I wonder...what if aliens and all that crazy stuff is something that us humans, cannot even comprehend. Like, it could be actually impossible for our minds and body to comprehend "aliens" but yeah, just a thought :P