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Astronomer: If Earth Is Average, We Should Find Alien Life Within 60 Light-Years
(www.sciencealert.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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Futurology
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Sometimes I wonder if the reason we've not found any life might be because we just don't recognise it as such. It might be too alien; maybe it's such a large system that we don't fully comprehend it, or perhaps it moves at a timescale that we just cannot grasp.
We created gods in our image to explain existence. Anthropocentric as we are, we assumed that humanity was somehow special, distinguished from all other life on Earth. Now we're doing the same with the very definition of life. Life looks a certain way on Earth, so obviously it needs to look the same everywhere.
It makes sense as an outset though, you can only look for what we know to look for.
If you think about it, looking for life that's very similar to us is the exact opposite of presuming we are special. It's presuming we are average.
That's certainly one perspective! I'm a pessimist by nature, which I suppose is reflected in my view on humanity as a whole.
We humans are made out of most basic atoms of the universe, so it does make some sense to assume most life to be carbon based. There could be more advanced silicon based life forms, but it would be much more complex.
Of course it might be that more advanced life forms would consider us as same level as we consider ants. How many conversations have you had with ants lately.