Some of the consequences of atheism..alien life forms

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...Being able to predict changes to your environment and to remember important locations/events and to modify ones behaviour accordingly gives any animal a distinct evolutionary advantage - we are just the (so far) most advanced example of that process.

I think it's a bit early to say whether our current level of intelligence gives us (in the long term) an evolutionary advantage.

Judging by the fact that sometime in the alarmingly near future our population looks set to exceed the level the Earth has the means to support, it could be (as some have predicted), that reaching a certain level of intelligence massively increases your risk of extinction.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

...Being able to predict changes to your environment and to remember important locations/events and to modify ones behaviour accordingly gives any animal a distinct evolutionary advantage - we are just the (so far) most advanced example of that process.

I think it's a bit early to say whether our current level of intelligence gives us (in the long term) an evolutionary advantage.

Judging by the fact that sometime in the alarmingly near future our population looks set to exceed the level the Earth has the means to support, it could be (as some have predicted), that reaching a certain level of intelligence massively increases your risk of extinction.

(my emph.)

Evolution does not act in the long term! Read Climbing mount Improbable if you haven't already.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...Being able to predict changes to your environment and to remember important locations/events and to modify ones behaviour accordingly gives any animal a distinct evolutionary advantage - we are just the (so far) most advanced example of that process.

I think it's a bit early to say whether our current level of intelligence gives us (in the long term) an evolutionary advantage.

Judging by the fact that sometime in the alarmingly near future our population looks set to exceed the level the Earth has the means to support, it could be (as some have predicted), that reaching a certain level of intelligence massively increases your risk of extinction.

(my emph.)

Evolution does not act in the long term! Read Climbing mount Improbable if you haven't already.

I have. But part of your rationale for why intelligence would receive it's (short term) advantage appeared to be that it (unlike the blind evolutionary process that produced it) can confer a more long-term view of things.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

...Being able to predict changes to your environment and to remember important locations/events and to modify ones behaviour accordingly gives any animal a distinct evolutionary advantage - we are just the (so far) most advanced example of that process.

I think it's a bit early to say whether our current level of intelligence gives us (in the long term) an evolutionary advantage.

Judging by the fact that sometime in the alarmingly near future our population looks set to exceed the level the Earth has the means to support, it could be (as some have predicted), that reaching a certain level of intelligence massively increases your risk of extinction.

(my emph.)

Evolution does not act in the long term! Read Climbing mount Improbable if you haven't already.

I have. But part of your rationale for why intelligence would receive it's (short term) advantage appeared to be that it (unlike the blind evolutionary process that produced it) can confer a more long-term view of things.

Woah! No I did not!

I said that intelligence grants individuals of a species the ability to predict advantageous situations and hence modify their behaviour to take advantage of them. I said nothing about long term benefits for the species. Be careful of those strawmen, they bite!!

[Pappa]

...Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before we find something.

Oh, I'm sure we'll find life. I'm cautiously optimistic we'll conform the existence of life beyond our planet within my lifetime. I really don't buy the idea of abiogenisis as a rare, freakish event. I think there was a process at work, and that it is a process that will be seen to occur inevitably wherever conditions are right.


But intelligent life is a whole other ballgame.

Indeed. I agree there.

Much +1-ness

I suspect abiogenisis is something that has occured billions of times independently, but if life on earth is any yardstick, intelligent life (or even complex multicelular life) is freakishly unlikely to occur.

[Red Katie]

Silicon just doesn't form the huge amount of polymer compounds that carbon does. It doesn't easily form the single and double bonds, along with the intermediate bonding such as is found in the benzene ring. I think that any life has to be carbon based and remarkably similar to our own biochemically.

For example, can you conceive of a silicon equivalent to photosynthesis? That would require gaseous SiO2 - vaporised sand FFS!

Nope. Life = carbon as far as I am concerned.

I'm probably too ignorant to comment here, but doesn't that depend on ambient temperature? I seem to recall Asimov speculating that in high-temperature environments, silicon could form the long molecule chains that are necessary to life.