No Aliens in the Serenity Universe by Windwalker

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
What I don't like is Joss statement of "We are the only beings in the universe." Maybe we won't make first contact in five hundred years or so, but that doesn't mean we'll be the only inhabitants of an entire freaking universe.

I side with Carl Sagan when he says that if we are the only beings in the universe, then it would be an awful waste of space. I just think it's incredibly egotistical and pig headed to think that we're the only inhabitants of a galactic spiral thats sixty thousand trillion miles wide, which itself is just a minute part of infinity.

Egotistical and pig-headed? How do you figure?

And the mere fact that there's lots of space in the universe doesn't entail that there're other forms of intelligent life out there (i.e. you're going to need more premises).

Also, not to pick nits, but the universe isn't infinite.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 5:51 AM

CYBERSNARK

Actually, we could debate universal infinity until the cow-people invade. The universe (in cosmic terms) may well be infinite.

The issue is that the 'Verse (in terms of what the people of Firefly know) is finite. One solar system, no FTL.

Personally, I believe in aliens, and rely heavily on them in my own SF writing, not just because I love freaky-looking creatures and wierdoes, but because of my own fears and hopes.

See, what Joss does by not including aliens is to make space Empty. Remember the (pre-Serenity) explanation for Reavers? People could go out to the "edge of space" (i.e., the edge of civilized space) and find absolute nothingness. They are completely and utterly alone --which is terrifying. Horrible enough to drive men insane.

Joss is a nihilist, but I think on some level he's also a nihilophobe. He seems to be a fairly egregious chap, does well in groups, always interacting with people. Complete and utter alone-ness is probably as as terrifying to him as it is to the characters he writes. By making space empty, and humanity totally alone, makes the setting scary, which sets up the tension that underlies Firefly.

Personally, though, I love being alone. No one to distract me from my thoughts, no one to intrude into my personal space, or demand explanations every time I try to do something, or throw their collective dren into my life. An empty universe would be easy: like Mal says: as long as the Alliance's reach gets, we'll move just a bit further out.

It'd also mean that everyone you're likely to meet can be understood in some way. Everyone, from Niska, to the Operative, to Mal, to Jubal Early all have the same basic sets of desires, capabilities, and weaknesses. Even the Reavers can be reasonably well-understood and predicted.

For me, a universe teeming with life is profoundly unsettling. It means that there is no safe alone-ness. You can't expand indefinitely without meeting the neighbours, who will be unlike anything that you have any experience with.

For me, aliens means dealing with people who are completely and utterly unlike you. People who may be reasonable and articulate, but with no more concern for self-preservation than Reavers. People who switch from "ignore" to "KILL/RAPE/EAT!!!" with absolutely no visible warning. People who make River look completely normal, or who all think and act like Zoe (or, God help us, Jayne).

Also, I consider it a challenge to come up with the most bizarre, inhuman, and incomprehensible characters I can. While you can do a lot with humans, there are limits (humans are short-lived, and limited to seven senses at most, with only two sexes).

(FWIW, my sci-fi universe has humans utterly convinced that humanity is alone well into the 2500s [solar system's colonized, very Firefly-esque divide between the "haves" on Earth and Mars and the "have-nots" on the moon colonies, dwarf planets, and space stations]. Then a young, mentally-unbalanced supergenius girl [sound familiar?] develops Earth's first FTL. When the crew returns, they bring incontrovertible knowledge of sapient non-human life. Within a single generation, that knowledge rips society apart. Human civilization-as-we-know-it just ends.)

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 6:47 AM

SPACEMANSPIFF76

for the firefly world: the no-aliens policy is a nice break. its one of the things i enjoy about the show. for the real world: i know there are space aliens. the mathematical law of averages pretty much proves that something besides ourselves exists on an equal level with ourselves. also, abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. just because we havent been contacted yet doesnt mean theres no one there. i bet they think that we're not worth dealing with as they are just now watching war reports on hitler. how long will it take for the broadcasts of firefly to reach an inhabited world and be seen by them? maybe by then we will be worth dealing with and the premise of our show will be as new to them as it was to us. you just gotta learn to unhurry.

Wash> but thats like science fiction
Zoe> you live on a spaceship, dear

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Friday, January 26, 2007 7:03 AM

MEGMAC

I LOVE the no-aliens rule in Firefly. Aliens are lazy and can be distracting.

One of the main reasons I love Firefly so much is the fact that it's a show about real people, not pristine, morally unambiguous starship captains. I love it because if the 'verse were real, my family would be the border-moon types that Joss wrote about, it's real, you can imagine it happening. If we used up the Earth's resources we would go and take any other planet we can find (which of course would belong to Earth anyway!)that's what human beings have always done.

------------------------------------------------
Mal: Wheel never stops turning, Badger.
Badger: That only matters to the people on the rim.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 7:43 AM

NOSADSEVEN

Quote:
Originally posted by reginaroadie:
While I like the "no aliens" policy, I can't help but feel that maybe they missed out on an intersting metaphor. Hear me out.

The show is supposed to be a sci-fi western, right? And there are supposed to be parallels between this verse and the Old West. Well, one big aspect of the Old West was the Native American population and the culture clash between the settlers and cowboys and the Natives. I just think that there could have been an opportunity for some great metaphors and analogies.

I think the Reavers fulfilled that metaphor. Granted, due to their nature, the metaphor only covered the threat aspect - the ever present danger of the misunderstood Other - but then, that's as far as the metaphor went in most westerns. Firefly wasn't channeling Dances With Wolves, as much as Stagecoach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ain't. We. Just.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 8:16 AM

CYBERSNARK

Quote:
Originally posted by SpacemanSpiff76:
how long will it take for the broadcasts of firefly to reach an inhabited world and be seen by them? maybe by then we will be worth dealing with and the premise of our show will be as new to them as it was to us.

I'm kinda hoping the aliens invade soon and demand that Fox reinstate production on Firefly, or they'll nuke our planet's capital cities.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 8:49 AM

DECAF

Quote:
Originally posted by SpacemanSpiff76:
for the firefly world: the no-aliens policy is a nice break. its one of the things i enjoy about the show. for the real world: i know there are space aliens. the mathematical law of averages pretty much proves that something besides ourselves exists on an equal level with ourselves. also, abscence of evidence is not evidence of abscence. just because we havent been contacted yet doesnt mean theres no one there. i bet they think that we're not worth dealing with as they are just now watching war reports on hitler. how long will it take for the broadcasts of firefly to reach an inhabited world and be seen by them? maybe by then we will be worth dealing with and the premise of our show will be as new to them as it was to us. you just gotta learn to unhurry.

Wash> but thats like science fiction
Zoe> you live on a spaceship, dear

"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." ~Albert Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity

I'm not sayin' that extraterrestrial life is not an option... but for all we know there may be a flying spaghetti monster out there too.

I was thrilled to hear of a serious sci-fi production without aliens, and even more thrilled when I finally saw it. In my opinion aliens act as a crutch. They allow us to step past our prejudices, but without the epiphany of realizing the character. It allows us to create a world that seems "good" (humans don't have to do evil if aliens take up the slack). Unfortunately when aliens start taking on human-like characteristics it becomes necessary to remove those same traits from the human characters to allow for contrast. Humans become even less relatable because you can't have a man who acts like a Vulcan, or a Ferengi. It would undermine some of the imposed exoticness of the setting.

As far as I'm concerned, we could use a few less Klingons.

_________________________________
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
- Abraham Lincoln

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Friday, January 26, 2007 10:05 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
Egotistical and pig-headed? How do you figure?

And the mere fact that there's lots of space in the universe doesn't entail that there are other forms of intelligent life out there (i.e. you're going to need more premises).

Also, not to pick nits, but the universe isn't infinite.

Given the extremes of environment where life can exist on Earth it seems ridiculous to believe that there is not non-terran life, indeed some theories put forth that Earth's life origins were bought here on a comet. I'm fairly confident that if we push out into the Solar system and later the galaxy at large we'll find it teeming with non-terran microbial life.

When talking about Aliens though people tend to mean the complex intelligent kind. For complex life at least I'd say it is certain that such will evolve as long as microscopic early life appears as it did on the Earth around 4.6 Billion years ago assuming. That is too say if you get a planet with an environment that can support complex life, that has early life on it and doesn't suffer heavy radiation baths from Gamma Ray Burster's and isn't constantly bombarded with natural disasters such as super-volcanoes and meteorite strikes you will eventually get complex life forms.

Add to this that given reasonable estimates (half way between minimum and maximum) for various factors (the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, how many of those will have planets, how many of those planets will be suitable for complex life) you get a somewhat large number, roughly 23 Billion systems in our galaxy alone. Given fairly conservative estimates for how many may end up seeing life develop you are still left with 2 Billion systems.

It took 4.6 Billion years from the first recorded life to give rise to intelligent life (and Humans

) on Earth. Since we've only got the Earth as a model it seems reasonable to accept this figure as a rough average for how much time it takes intelligent life to evolve. That's along time. If life has just started on some planet somewhere, that means it won't be transmitting until long after we're either extinct or beyond the point where such unsophisticated attempts at communication are understandable, I experienced this exact same situation myself when trying to talk to a Rail worker yesterday.

There are still more factors, for instance gamma ray burster activity has only reduced to a point that allows intelligent life to evolve, and concentrations of Carbon have only reached a point relatively recently where systems forming would have enough Carbon for complex Carbon based life. Although its true there are other elements and arrangements that could make life a possibility (ranging from Silicone to Boron and Nitrogen) all these seem somewhat less suitable than Carbon. There's even suggested possibilities where water can be replaced as the solvent by substances such as Liquid Ammonia. But nonetheless we only know for a fact that Carbon based life can exist. So these factors build up to the very real possibility that although intelligent life may exist elsewhere the Human species may be it's oldest example. Perhaps while we're cooking with microwaves the next oldest intelligent species may have just discovered how to create fire.

There's actually an equation, the Drake Equation, which attempts to estimate how many communicating intelligent life forms there are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Now frankly I think it was a smart move to remove aliens from the FireFly equation. They tend to add little too TV shows, since they tend to be caricatures of Human aspects, mainly used to expose the Human condition. Think of Klingons, Romulans, Bajorans or any number of other species in just about every show. Respectively in the above cases caricatures of Aggression, Suspicion and Spirituality, giving nothing but a distinctly Human and not Alien but still very two dimensional species.

It'll be very difficult to produce a convincing Alien species, because they'll be so Alien we may not even recognise them as an intelligence, so how would you faithfully portray that? Further more FireFly isn't a Sci-Fi story, it's a story told in a Sci-Fi environment, and Aliens could and would only detract from that.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 11:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
...indeed some theories put forth that Earth's life origins were bought here on a comet.

I always wonder about the necessity of these theories, though. I don't deny that it's theoretically possible (based on what I've heard; I'm not a biochemist) for primitive life to be created on comets, but I don't see the need to say "Earth's life origins may have come from comets". If it's possible for life to be created on comets, why shouldn't it be possible for it to be created on Earth? Even the early Earth had a much wider range of environments than comets can offer, so I think that it's far more likely for life to be created on Earth instead of being a foreign import.

If one finds an ancient vase in China, does an archeologist assume it came from Italy? The more likely explanation would be that it was made in China.

Where life came from can't ever be proven anyway, but I wish headline-seeking scientists would just veer away from these exotic explanations that ignore the simplest answer.

Since I'm in a bitching mood today, I also object to the use of the term 'theories' (not by you, Citizen, by people who come up with and/or actively promote these things). They are NOT theories. They are hypotheses. And rather bad ones at that, since they're based on wishful, "wouldn't it be cool"-type thinking and not on facts. In science, a theory is the highest logical construct, based on a hypothesis that has been verified over and over again. Life-giving comets are not a theory, they're a hypothesis, an educated guess that's been thrown out there to be tested using the scientific process, something that this problem conveniently can't be subjected to.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 1:07 PM

The point is to find out what really happened. It wasn't merely a whim someone had someday, the idea that life or at least it's building blocks may have come from space on a comet came from finding Amino-Acids on meteorite fragments. The idea is that life here could have been started with organic chemicals from up there.

To run with your analogy it's like finding a Vase in china that has some similar decorations to ones in Italy and wondering if maybe it was imported.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 1:33 PM

At the risk of hijacking the thread and boring everybody else (sorry everybody else):

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
The point is to find out what really happened. It wasn't merely a whim someone had someday, the idea that life or at least it's building blocks may have come from space on a comet came from finding Amino-Acids on meteorite fragments. The idea is that life here could have been started with organic chemicals from up there.

I don't think we'll ever be able to find out what happened, but one can make reasonable guesses and to me building blocks coming from comets is just unnecessary. I'm not saying it's most definitely impossible, of course it's possible, but I am saying one should stick to the more likely answer, even if it's "standard". As I said, I have no objection to the possibility of the basic building blocks, or even primitive life itself, forming on comets, but why should this mean that life came from comets and wasn't independently formed on Earth? Leaving aside the chances of surviving burn-up in the atmosphere, which I won't claim is zero but will claim that it must be fairly small (but I guess it only needs to happen once), out of the option of having terrestial life form on Earth and it coming from a comet, I don't see why the comet should be the more likely option, let alone preferred option.

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
To run with your analogy it's like finding a Vase in china that has some similar decorations to ones in Italy and wondering if maybe it was imported.

Well, decorations would be added thrills, we're just talking about the basics here (amino acids = plain, old, undecorated vase). Besides, if we were to include decorations, having a "foreign" decoration (i.e. an Italian one) would definitely indicate that it came from elsewhere, but there's nothing in life's blueprint on Earth to definitely indicate that life came from somewhere else. So I don't think the decoration bit of the analogy really works.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 1:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
out of the option of having terrestial life form on Earth and it coming from a comet, I don't see why the comet should be the more likely option, let alone preferred option.

Who said anything about preffered? Yet it is an option, and no more or less supported by the evidence than any of the others.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 2:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Who said anything about preffered?

The people who came up with the hypotheses and/or actively propagate them, and laypeople who, in a discussion about abiogenesis, mention something along the lines of "You know, some scientists believe that life came from comets" and make it sound all exciting and on-the-cutting-edge, thereby propagating the impression that it's the up-and-coming theory regarding the creation of life. Being a layperson when it comes to this topic myself, and having so far only discussed it at length with other laypeople, I've seen it happen many times already. A surprising number think it's really the preferred theory, or mention it as something that should be seriously considered.

Quote:
no more or less supported by the evidence than any of the others.

I agree, but I'm talking about likelihood and the necessity of the assumption. My point was that people, especially scientists, should go with what's simpler and more likely when explaining something.

I'm a big believer in the reductionist approach to scientific theory (i.e. the principle of Occam's razor). If you have a number of different sets of events that lead to the same result, go with the one that makes the fewest assumptions. In this case, we can use the razor to "shave off" the assumption of comets.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 2:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
Egotistical and pig-headed? How do you figure?

And the mere fact that there's lots of space in the universe doesn't entail that there are other forms of intelligent life out there (i.e. you're going to need more premises).

Also, not to pick nits, but the universe isn't infinite.

Given the extremes of environment where life can exist on Earth it seems ridiculous to believe that there is not non-terran life, indeed some theories put forth that Earth's life origins...
[ lots of smart stuff ]
...the Drake Equation, which attempts to estimate how many communicating intelligent life forms there are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Premises added. Nicely done.

For the record, Citz, I was actually just trying to keep Regina honest. She said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That means that not having evidence of something's existence does not entail that thing's non-existence (logically speaking), which is absolutely correct (interestingly, this is not just true of aliens; it's also true when someone says "There's no evidence of a god"). Then she said (something to the effect of) "If there's no other life, it's an awful waste of space." Now, just like a lack of evidence does not entail non-existence, the bigness of the universe does not entail the existence of non-terran life. So really, this is all just me playing with logic, and not really agreeing or disagreeing with anybody.

Better be careful--people will start to think that you and I enjoy intellectual interchange!

________________________________________________________________________
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I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 2:27 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
She said, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That means that not having evidence of something's existence does not entail that thing's non-existence (logically speaking), which is absolutely correct (interestingly, this is not just true of aliens; it's also true when someone says "There's no evidence of a god").

Not a direct response to you, Causal, more of a tangent I'm going off on that was inspired by what you wrote:

Lack of evidence for existence doesn't preclude existence, but does lack of evidence against existence entitle belief in existence? If there's no evidence that aliens don't exist, should one assume that they do exist, since, after all, the universe is so big? There's no evidence that God doesn't exist, so should one therefore assume that he does exist, since, after all, the universe is so complex?

While I regard the probability of primitive alien life as almost certain, the question of the existence of intelligent alien life in essence has religious undertones, more up to the individual's willingness to have faith that we're not the only intelligent beings, as opposed to a "rational" pro/contra argument.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 2:48 PM

CYBERSNARK

If there's no evidence either way, I like to think that people should be encouraged to support either point of view (as opposed to being proselytized to accept either view ex cathedra). That way, whether right or wrong, the they have made a choice and accept responsibility for their own beliefs. I'm a great advocate of faith.

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
It took 4.6 Billion years from the first recorded life to give rise to intelligent life (and Humans ) on Earth. Since we've only got the Earth as a model it seems reasonable to accept this figure as a rough average for how much time it takes intelligent life to evolve.

Actually it could be much shorter.

Remember that cognitive evolution (as opposed to physical evolution) kinda plateaued during the age of dinosaurs (according to the Official histories, anyway) and only started advancing again after the KT event, when mammals started advancing and hominids evolved.

After that, civilization developed in a remarkably short time, just an eyeblink. Not even a full eyeblink. More like a flinch.

It's certainly possible that another planet might have reached our current level of development centuries or even millennia ago. Think of the Reptilian Age as a "handicap" or a head start. Another world on which life initially evolved at the exact same time might not have had that multi-billion year delay, and could've progressed rapidly from crawling ashore to tool-using to language to abstract thought to civilization to the Zero Point and finally to spaceflight.

Hell, for all we know, everyone else in this galaxy thinks of us as the retarded cousin that they don't like to talk about.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 3:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
For the record, Citz, I was actually just trying to keep Regina honest.

Oh I got it, I've just been researching this topic again recently because it's come up on two other boards I frequent. It's a topic that has interested me anyway, and gave me excuse to refresh myself on old material. There seemed to be a question in a subject I have interest in so I aswered it to the best of my abillity.

Quote:
Better be careful--people will start to think that you and I enjoy intellectual interchange!

I wouldn't think so for a minute

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Friday, January 26, 2007 3:18 PM

WHIPLASH4EVER

Quote:
Originally posted by Windwalker:
I noticed that there are no "real" Extraterrestrial beings in the Serenity Universe. The closest to "alien" creatures are the "Reavers"
but they too are human in origin changed by PAX
Kind of a more realistic look at the future of space travel and existence on "other" worlds.
Anyone else notice this and have input?
I like it as a different slant to all the SCIFI stuff out there.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

In the Firefly/Serenity world, I can see where there wouldn't be any. The human race has moved on from Mother Earth due to a lack of room (if this isn't right, please correct me). Even though there have been numerous sightings of aliens here, there has never been any proof that they exist, so why would that change? As I understand it, the system they found and terra formed consists of several planets and moons, but all with in the same system, so it's less than likely that an alien life form would stumble across them. If the story had been such that the Earth refuges had dispersed throughout the entirety of space, it would be inevitable that they run into other species, but being for the most part, localized in one system, I can buy into the no alien world.

Whip

____________________________________________
Of course, that's just my opinion... I could be wrong

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Friday, January 26, 2007 3:28 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
Lack of evidence for existence doesn't preclude existence, but does lack of evidence against existence entitle belief in existence? If there's no evidence that aliens don't exist, should one assume that they do exist, since, after all, the universe is so big? There's no evidence that God doesn't exist, so should one therefore assume that he does exist, since, after all, the universe is so complex?

In a word, no. What we're dealing with is an informal logical fallacy called Argument to Ignorance. It can take one of two forms:

1) There is no evidence against [ fill in the blank ], therefore [ fill in the blank ] must be the case.
2) There is no evidence for [ fill in the blank ], therefore [ fill in the blank ] must not be the case.

Either argument is equally fallacious.

The long answer is that sometimes there are cases in which this type of reasoning is good. For instance, if the bus schedule does not list a stop at location X, it must be the case that there is no stop at X. But this only works because of a implied premise: bus schedules contain an exhaustive list of stop locations. Sometimes we have an obligation to accept #2--as in the American justice system where there is (in theory) the presumption of innocence.

Of course, as with any informal fallacy, this one seems reasonable, on the face of it. Consider the following: "There is absolutely no evidence that Elvis is still alive, so it's unreasonable to believe that he is." This appears reasonable, but when you stop and think about it, it's not unreasonable to believe that Elvis is not alive in virtue of a dearth of evidence, but in virtue of other facts (like the average human lifespan, for instance).

Quote:
While I regard the probability of primitive alien life as almost certain, the question of the existence of intelligent alien life in essence has religious undertones, more up to the individual's willingness to have faith that we're not the only intelligent beings, as opposed to a "rational" pro/contra argument.

Other people regard the probability of God's existence as almost certain, and like your belief in intelligent alien life, they have faith that he's up there. But they, like you, can't be rationally justified in their belief unless they offer more than a lack of evidence against. What they, like you, need to do is offer arguments for their position such that their belief is justified (in the sense that there are rational arguments for it).

________________________________________________________________________
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I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 3:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
Other people regard the probability of God's existence as almost certain, and like your belief in intelligent alien life, they have faith that he's up there. But they, like you, can't be rationally justified in their belief unless they offer more than a lack of evidence against. What they, like you, need to do is offer arguments for their position such that their belief is justified (in the sense that there are rational arguments for it).

I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. I said I view the existence of primitive life as certain. The existence of intelligent alien life I see as only slightly greater than the chance of the existence of god, which is zero imo (i.e. I think the chance of intelligent alien life existing is remote, but it's not impossible). Basically, I'll believe in intelligent aliens only once they abduct me and probe the hell out of my ass.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 4:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Actually it could be much shorter.

Remember that cognitive evolution (as opposed to physical evolution) kinda plateaued during the age of dinosaurs (according to the Official histories, anyway) and only started advancing again after the KT event, when mammals started advancing and hominids evolved.

I took that into account, but the time frame isn't as great as you may think. The Dinosaurs evolved during the Triassic, about 228 Million years ago, and became extinct about 68 Million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous period. Dinosaurs in their various forms walked the Earth for about 160 Million Years, though a great span of time in comparison to Humans and the time it takes for higher intelligence to give rise to advanced civilisation, but not long in the overall figure of 4.6 Billion years for which we have evidence of the earliest life. Remember the first life would probably not have been cellular, but more complex chemicals that could replicate with nutrients from the environment, like simplified disembodied DNA. It's likely we'll never know how far back life evolved, maybe it began even before the Earth had finished coalescing. But the unknown length of time would probably wipe out any 'gain' from removing the dinosaurs from the equation. The Dinosaurs don't really effect the overall figure greatly.

I think taking 4.6 Billion years as a rough figure is reasonable, remember there is nothing that makes intelligence a goal in evolution, and indeed during its emergence it's not at all a major bonus. In fact I'm fairly certain that intelligence is a by product of some other more immediately useful traits. Not least of these I would put social activity, I can not think of an intelligent animal that isn't social, or evolved from social animals (only example here is Octopi, which are solitary but evolved from squid which tend to live in schools, many species of which show levels of communication). It takes a lot of brain power to deal with cooperative social groupings, the larger the group, the bigger the brain. Though I'll also add that it appears to be in predators, prey often group together, but these aren't really social groupings as there is little, if any, social interaction between individuals. With predators they tend to socialise with other group members because this aids in the hunt.

What you might find is that intelligence acts like other factors in evolution, that of a sort of natural arms race. I'm reminded of Australia, a continent with many of the worlds most deadly poisonous animals. Everything seems to have got in on the toxic act there. I can imagine one or two animals developing toxic glands, and in an evolutionary race the animals with the strongest poison survive, so they end up becoming deadlier and deadlier. Same with intelligence, a few species develop it and it shows itself to be a remarkable advantage, so evolution begins to favour intelligence so it ramps up. I.e. once socialising advanced intelligence (that is having a brain that isn't concerned entirely with running the body) appears in a species it is destined to increase.

Quote:
It's certainly possible that another planet might have reached our current level of development centuries or even millennia ago. Think of the Reptilian Age as a "handicap" or a head start. Another world on which life initially evolved at the exact same time might not have had that multi-billion year delay, and could've progressed rapidly from crawling ashore to tool-using to language to abstract thought to civilization to the Zero Point and finally to spaceflight.

It's also just as possible that every other planet in the galaxy with complex life is currently experiencing their own 'handicap', or they've had two, three, four, or they'll never develop appreciable intelligent life (like France). Maybe somewhere there has never been a 'handicap' period but random chance has simply taken longer than usual. There's lots of possibilities, but to assume that the Human race may be the oldest intelligent species, or at least the oldest intelligent species that hasn't been wiped out by a natural disaster. Who knows there could be the rotting remains of a pre-nuclear industrial society that was wiped out a million years ago by a passing comet.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Friday, January 26, 2007 8:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Khyron:
Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
Other people regard the probability of God's existence as almost certain, and like your belief in intelligent alien life, they have faith that he's up there. But they, like you, can't be rationally justified in their belief unless they offer more than a lack of evidence against. What they, like you, need to do is offer arguments for their position such that their belief is justified (in the sense that there are rational arguments for it).

I'm sorry, I wasn't very clear. I said I view the existence of primitive life as certain. The existence of intelligent alien life I see as only slightly greater than the chance of the existence of god, which is zero imo (i.e. I think the chance of intelligent alien life existing is remote, but it's not impossible).

Just curious, but why do you regard God's non-existence as a zero possibility?

________________________________________________________________________
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I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

Vote Firefly! http://www.richlabonte.net/tvvote/index.html

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Friday, January 26, 2007 9:35 PM

DECAF

I find it more likely that if there were intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe older than mankind, that they would have simply blown themselves up long before they developed the technology to explore other solar systems. Consider what kind of advancements would be necessary to carry a human to another solar system, and the relative advancements to allow any number of 'accidents' to destroy all life on Earth.

But again, its all a flying spaghetti monster ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster) anyway. I just hope I'm not around when [insert biological agent, nuclear weapon or amoral scientific experiment] kills everyone.

Go Firefly!

_________________________________
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
- Abraham Lincoln

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 12:50 AM

Hey there was an alien in the eps "The Message",wait a minute. That was a cow fetus.

Z

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 1:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
Just curious, but why do you regard God's non-existence as a zero possibility?

I regret the way I said that, since I didn't want to turn this into a religious debate (even though, as I said before, the existence of intelligent life is a debate that has some religious undertones to it).

Short answer: My reason for rejecting the possibility of God is because of Occam's razor, so basically it's based on logical reductionism.

Also a short answer: The existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnipotent being just plain doesn't make sense.

In contrast, the existence of intelligent alien life does make sense. I think the probability is extremely small, but if we one day find out that there are clever aliens somewhere, we have a good idea of how it came about. The same cannot be said of God, because the existence of God would just pose many more questions than answers.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 4:10 AM

TDBROWN

I remember watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos many years ago, and one concept that stood out to me was the Christmas Tree Analogy.

Imagine that our Universe is a Christmas Tree with a string of flashing Lights on it. Each flash of light represents the presence of an Intelligent Cicilization coming into and out of existence. Some lights would flash much longer than others, but they would all tend to randomly flash at different times. The fact of two or more lights existing at the same time and close to each other would be relatively rare. It would depend on the number of lights/civilizations, and how long the average light/civilization would last.

My personal feeling is that For all practical purposes we are alone. If we ever do come across an intelligent life form, it will be archeaology that tells us about them, Not "Universal Translators".

So Joss' approach makes perfect sense.

"Might have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." -Mal

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:00 AM

LAWGSKRAK

I bet if the show had gone on for 5 or 6 seasons, we would have seen aliens eventually. Probably an invasion of some kind with only one alien species represented, but alien nonetheless.

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:19 AM

We may have seen aliens but it would have been a hoax (make a good story plot). That or maybe some terrible space monkees.

Z

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:24 AM

DONCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by LawgSkrak:
I bet if the show had gone on for 5 or 6 seasons, we would have seen aliens eventually. Probably an invasion of some kind with only one alien species represented, but alien nonetheless.

I don't think you're right about that. If it happened, I would probably consider it the point where Firefly "jumped the shark".

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I'm pointin' right at it!

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:25 AM

DONCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by zzetta13:
We may have seen aliens but it would have been a hoax (make a good story plot). That or maybe some terrible space monkees.

Mike, Mickey, Peter, or Davy?

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I'm pointin' right at it!

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 5:42 AM

"Hey Hey we're the space monkees...You never know where we'll be found..."

DANGIT DON!! Now I'll be having that in my head all night

and btw it would likely be Mickey to join Serenity's crew as the comic relief after Washs passing. Peter would have joined in with the Alliance after becoming very, very wealthy from his mom inventing "White-out". He's been hired to go to his labs an invent "Reaver-out".

Z

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 6:49 AM

DONCOAT

Quote:
Originally posted by zzetta13:
it would likely be Mickey to join Serenity's crew as the comic relief after Washs passing. Peter would have joined in with the Alliance after becoming very, very wealthy from his mom inventing "White-out". He's been hired to go to his labs an invent "Reaver-out".

All true, all true. But Mike could come aboard as a wry troubador/bard, and Davy -- well, he makes all the teenage girls swoon. Love interest for River?

Firefly/Monkees... that's gotta be the weirdest. Crossover. Ever.
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I'm pointin' right at it!

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Saturday, January 27, 2007 7:19 AM