Historical Arguments and Debates

[heydaralon]

I think odds that the alien life we find is DNA-based are much, much higher than otherwise.

Personally, I place the odds that life just happens naturally so fucking low that it almost never happens. Any intelligent species is far better off suspecting they were seeded somehow than life just happened from nothing on their planet.

Well, then how do you think the super advanced atmosphere seeding life came about?

[Hastur]

I think odds that the alien life we find is DNA-based are much, much higher than otherwise.

Personally, I place the odds that life just happens naturally so fucking low that it almost never happens. Any intelligent species is far better off suspecting they were seeded somehow than life just happened from nothing on their planet.

That's what I figure as well. I also think that the seeding probably was made by automated probes rather than manned missions. Much more likely to succeed by sending out probes that don't have any time constraints. A seedpod probe could drift around in space investigating star systems one by one. At each stop, it would be awakened by the gravity sensors and start analyzing the system. Most of the time it wouldn't find any suitable planet and would then somehow refuel from the resources found and launch towards the next system. Perhaps it would leave behind some kind of beacon to tell other probes it was there and where it had been so far and where it would be going next. It would be a massive scale project but somehow I find it more realistic than other theories. The last wave of probes, equipped with artificial wombs, would be the last ditch attempt to preserve a race stuck on a dying world. Life will find a way.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think odds that the alien life we find is DNA-based are much, much higher than otherwise.

Personally, I place the odds that life just happens naturally so fucking low that it almost never happens. Any intelligent species is far better off suspecting they were seeded somehow than life just happened from nothing on their planet.

Well, then how do you think the super advanced atmosphere seeding life came about?

I think, if life is not traveling around on comets and asteroids, that habitable worlds were seeded by self-replicating machines. A machine arrives in a star system carrying a payload of engineered biotics. The machine takes samples of the various biotics to seed the planets in the habitable zone. It then proceeds to make a copy of itself by mining materials from asteroids and gathering whatever else it needs from planets. Then it divides it's remaining payload in half to share with the copy. They gather fuel and whatever organic materials they need to feed the biotics from comets. Maybe they seed some comets too for good measure, and adjust their orbits to hopefully strike the planets in periods to reboot the infant biosphere if it didn't take.

Something like that would hit every star in a galaxy in relatively short order.

I suspect there is one here now in our star system. It would be the one that seeded us.

[heydaralon]

I think odds that the alien life we find is DNA-based are much, much higher than otherwise.

Personally, I place the odds that life just happens naturally so fucking low that it almost never happens. Any intelligent species is far better off suspecting they were seeded somehow than life just happened from nothing on their planet.

Well, then how do you think the super advanced atmosphere seeding life came about?

I think, if life is not traveling around on comets and asteroids, that habitable worlds were seeded by self-replicating machines. A machine arrives in a star system carrying a payload of engineered biotics. The machine takes samples of the various biotics to seed the planets in the habitable zone. It then proceeds to make a copy of itself by mining materials from asteroids and gathering whatever else it needs from planets. Then it divides it's remaining payload in half to share with the copy. They gather fuel and whatever organic materials they need to feed the biotics from comets. Maybe they seed some comets too for good measure, and adjust their orbits to hopefully strike the planets in periods to reboot the infant biosphere if it didn't take.

What created the sophisticated self replicating machines that are capable of creating sophisticated biospheres is what I mean. Where do you think they originated from?

[C-Mag]

I think, if life is not traveling around on comets and asteroids, that habitable worlds were seeded by self-replicating machines. A machine arrives in a star system carrying a payload of engineered biotics. The machine takes samples of the various biotics to seed the planets in the habitable zone. It then proceeds to make a copy of itself by mining materials from asteroids and gathering whatever else it needs from planets. Then it divides it's remaining payload in half to share with the copy. They gather fuel and whatever organic materials they need to feed the biotics from comets. Maybe they seed some comets too for good measure, and adjust their orbits to hopefully strike the planets in periods to reboot the infant biosphere if it didn't take.

Something like that would hit every star in a galaxy in relatively short order.

Interesting.
So, if that is the case, when we get to asteroid mining we should be looking for organic potential on the asteroids as well.

[Speaker to Animals]

Well, then how do you think the super advanced atmosphere seeding life came about?

I think, if life is not traveling around on comets and asteroids, that habitable worlds were seeded by self-replicating machines. A machine arrives in a star system carrying a payload of engineered biotics. The machine takes samples of the various biotics to seed the planets in the habitable zone. It then proceeds to make a copy of itself by mining materials from asteroids and gathering whatever else it needs from planets. Then it divides it's remaining payload in half to share with the copy. They gather fuel and whatever organic materials they need to feed the biotics from comets. Maybe they seed some comets too for good measure, and adjust their orbits to hopefully strike the planets in periods to reboot the infant biosphere if it didn't take.

What created the sophisticated self replicating machines that are capable of creating sophisticated biospheres is what I mean. Where do you think they originated from?

At some point, there is the original world where life just happened. Maybe that's here. I don't know. But I mathematically I think it's highly unlikely.

[Montegriffo]

Well, then how do you think the super advanced atmosphere seeding life came about?

I think, if life is not traveling around on comets and asteroids, that habitable worlds were seeded by self-replicating machines. A machine arrives in a star system carrying a payload of engineered biotics. The machine takes samples of the various biotics to seed the planets in the habitable zone. It then proceeds to make a copy of itself by mining materials from asteroids and gathering whatever else it needs from planets. Then it divides it's remaining payload in half to share with the copy. They gather fuel and whatever organic materials they need to feed the biotics from comets. Maybe they seed some comets too for good measure, and adjust their orbits to hopefully strike the planets in periods to reboot the infant biosphere if it didn't take.

What created the sophisticated self replicating machines that are capable of creating sophisticated biospheres is what I mean. Where do you think they originated from?

What if there was some all powerful, all knowing and all seeing entity who created the whole universe with his supernatural abilities?
God knows where the entity came from though.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think, if life is not traveling around on comets and asteroids, that habitable worlds were seeded by self-replicating machines. A machine arrives in a star system carrying a payload of engineered biotics. The machine takes samples of the various biotics to seed the planets in the habitable zone. It then proceeds to make a copy of itself by mining materials from asteroids and gathering whatever else it needs from planets. Then it divides it's remaining payload in half to share with the copy. They gather fuel and whatever organic materials they need to feed the biotics from comets. Maybe they seed some comets too for good measure, and adjust their orbits to hopefully strike the planets in periods to reboot the infant biosphere if it didn't take.

Something like that would hit every star in a galaxy in relatively short order.

Interesting.
So, if that is the case, when we get to asteroid mining we should be looking for organic potential on the asteroids as well.

Yes. I suspect every habitable planet (by DNA) was seeded, as well as some comets and possibly asteroids.

But I would rather look for the probe that did it. It would be most efficient if one stays behind to guide the process. It could be dormant for long periods of time.

In fact, if I were an SF author, one story I would consider writing is what happens when that thing wakes up, sees we are here, decodes our communication encodings, and starts talking to us.

[brewster]

In fact, if I were an SF author, one story I would consider writing is what happens when that thing wakes up, sees we are here, decodes our communication encodings, and starts talking to us.

More or less the plot of Clarke's The Sentinel/2001 Also Brin's Uplift series addresses the same Progenitor issues, postulating that if intelligence is always the result of previous intelligence, who started it? One of the things I love about his universe is that most species are just trying to get by and keep their heads down in a universe where a minority of religious zealot species wreak havoc. Sounds familiar.

Heydaralon, You could take him out and let him run around the room, and when he got cold he would climb your leg and get warm sitting on your lap. If he was hungry he would stare at you, then at his plate, and repeat. Google them, there's lots of stories. Don't get a big rep, they're sexy but a PITA, as StA said. A garter can be kept in a 10gal tank, and the beardie only needed a 30gal breeder tank.

You're in FL? Go for a hike and catch one of the local "blue" garters, they're gorgeous! Or buy one at a reptile show from a breeder, that's where I got my lizard.
http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/vie ... =2&t=20802

[heydaralon]

What created the sophisticated self replicating machines that are capable of creating sophisticated biospheres is what I mean. Where do you think they originated from?

What if there was some all powerful, all knowing and all seeing entity who created the whole universe with his supernatural abilities?
God knows where the entity came from though.

There are no satisfying answers to these questions. It really sucks because that question of how this whole thing started is one of the most interesting ones of all. I've never heard a proposed answer that I could fully come to terms with. They all seem like crazy mindfucks that couldn't possibly be true.