Are Aliens What We Think? Rare Earth Debate
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Summary
Aspiring Robloxians of Knowledge (ARK) hosts a deep thread debating whether extraterrestrial life exists and if it matches our definitions. The announcement defends the Rare Earth hypothesis, questions what constitutes life, discusses exoplanet habitability and self-replicating molecules, and invites community conversation on these core astrobiology ideas.
We will absolutely never know for sure if there are actually any aliens, but I still believe that there is a possibility that life (as we know it) might be only exclusive and epidemic to the planet of Earth, and I am here to defend that claim. (Rare Earth hypothesis)
Do you actually believe that aliens exist
Why
I wanna have a deep conversation
So the only thing backing up the concept of aliens is that the universe is cosmologically big
We can't even collectively decide what life objectively is, let alone think that aliens would closely resemble our familiar definition of life
How can we know it exist and yet it doesn't have a definition
Also, I mean life as in living things and not a "do what you want because it's your life" thing
This assumes it exists but life definitely exists
Was Frosch Henry there
The Yggdrasil Nihilist
What makes them alien and alive
We were talking to some guy in Yggdrasil while having a conversaiton with Frosch Henry
What is an alien in the first place
I am not defining life as an experience of an individual, but the concept itself
What is that outsider and how do you know it is alive
Martian rocks are outsiders
So an alien isn't alive
Alive in what sense in the first place
For all you know, it could be moaning self-replicating rocks
The same thing backing up the idea of the aliens as I have explained
There can be 2 billion planets with no life as we know it
And these exoplanets are the most crappiest places to live in as a living being (as we know of)
For all I know, life started with self-replicating molecules, and I don't think these exoplanets are too friendly when it comes to such molecules
Alright, does this "one" refer to living things because I have a question
How do you define life (not the experience of an individual but the concept itself) and a living being
How do you define these two
Go ahead
I am patient
I can wait
Sustain in what sense, because I know that planets can sustain themselves with whatever is composed of them
Does that equate to planets being alive?
Earth sustains itself by protecting itself from sun's very deadly radiation (I forgot the term) and it has these things such as the greenhouse effect sustaining itself to have life
I am curious
I mean, I am curious about your answer
How do you know that a thing is alive
So this is basically a living thing as defined
Does a thing have to follow these three in order to be classified as a living being
I DO have a question
Would you think that aliens would follow the categories by which you have mentioned: it grows, sustains, reproduces, and responds to stimuli?
Because if it doesn't, how do you know it is alive in the first place
Yes
How can you guarantee that aliens will follow the same evolutionary path of having to grow and sustain, and respond to stimuli in order to live
Would you call a self-replicating molecule that could divide itself as alive
A self-replicating molecules with no flagellum and isn't a bacteria nor an archaea
I am not asking for these and you are repeating yourself
I shouldn't have said it but ignore that
My question is left unanswered: How can you guarantee that aliens will follow the same evolutionary path of having to grow and sustain, and respond to stimuli in order to live
For all we know, it could be naked self-replicating molecules that does not respond to stimuli NOR even mutate, it just replicates
Of course we haven't seen any
It could be
I never said that it is guaranteed
Right about what
You never answered my question but I agree with the 4 categories you have stated
You are right because this basically defines life as it we know it on Earth
However, I don't find it probable to think that it would be the same for other alien organisms
What do you mean by grow
Grow in physical size?
Why would it be the case that molecules have to grow in physical size
Also, how can a molecule grow in physical size
This freaking debate is going nowhere
I am left confused so let's organize this
So, I'll respond first and you will try to rebut my argument
Is that good?
Screw it, I give up
I haven't slept for 20 hours and I am mentally wrecked and tired to debate
I can debate you if I want but I literally can't
You expect a guy who haven't slept for 20 hours to think straight somehow
How
It would be concluded as a victory if the opponent gives up not because of physical exhaustion but because it has ran out of points to defend itself
This is a draw
I am not asking you to pity me; it IS OBJECTIVELY true that I am not in the right state of mind to debate and therefore I am backing out of this debate
Temporarily atleast
No, I am not giving up
Go on with whatever you are saying
Man is really celebrating after "winning" from a sleep-deprivated person
Thank you Kana for defending me.
Guys
Just create a forum about alien stage
I will sound biased but the most unbiased person ever in ARS (second is probably Nexus) is Arsh
Yes
I do have a question
Is the opponent claiming victory part of why I won and the opponent losing
Oh, relieving
Literally
I will sleep
Probably because your brain is used to it at this point
The body, I mean
How is this even possible
My brain gives up after 6 AM hits
A huge edit
What
Economics
How
I never stated she won but I think she was having the lead
I was like "That is a deep statement which reflects today's civilizations" and it doesn't matter whether you need evidence for it for me to think it that way
How
Burdern of proof fakklacy
For me to think it that way in a sense that the latter is a meaningful sentence
I never conluded it to be logically true
I never said she was in the lead objectively
Do you mean up for discussion
I would make it clear enough when it was up for discussion
Even if there were aliens there wouldnโt exactly be any point to them. (Weโre currently talking about the present.) We canโt go at the speed of light, or even close to it meaning we can never truly be fast enough to reach that level of extraterrestrial travel.
Also, simply because light is kinda a bum and slow asl our literal knowledge about the universe is limited. In fact, for all we know the sun could have exploded but we wouldnโt know until a few minutes because light is slow.
Speaking practically, their existence does not matter because itโs unlikely weโll discover life on other planets not because life doesnโt exist but just because of the constraints physics imposes on us.
Although I do think I heard about life existing on mars before, but due to solar wind marsโ atmosphere was totaled making life vulnerable on it. They found certain materials that could have triggered abiogenesis so yeah, but even if the life wasnโt even as advanced as we are.
Even on earth, there is no species like the human. So if weโre being real, itโs better not to get our hopes up
Holy yap
We spitting facts gang
People quarrel themselves with the idea of extraterrestrial life outside the solar system, but have they asked if extraterrestrial life actually still exists/did exist next door (cosmogically speaking) in the solar system? I have heard there might be life in Europa beneath the ground
There was also a very very hard evidence for microbial life in Mars and it seemed very similar to Earthian life. How surprising is it that the evidence was found where lakes were present?
Though I think abiogenesis is however simple self-replicating molecules adapt for their given environment. If some very simple microbial life lives in the clouds somewhere in the universe, then it's still life
I don't get the last paragraph. Aren't there a species for humans though
I am such a loser
I am glad I stopped debating like this
Only there for the win
Wdym by that? I meant to say there used to be some form of life on mars, but it was killed off due to solar wind. So my point was the life isnโt how fiction depicts alien life, itโs less advanced. They were merely bacteria if anything.
It was just molecules that were necessary for life in the past, but I donโt know much about Europa. But even if, the life doesnโt involve a wide variety of species just small bacteriaโso itโs not exactly what most people would define as โaliensโ, but yes itโs a possibility.
Yeah
What this guy said
If extraterrestrial life does indeed exist, then it wouldn't be bacteria or archaea, it would be have its own microbial domain. 3 billion years ago after billions of trial and error of filtering out which molecules happened to self-replicate and mutate while doing so while stable came the FUCA, the hypothetical first ever organisms on Earth. FUCA highly likely gave birth to more than one evolutionary lineage, but only one lineage survived called the LUCA (neither bacteria nor an archaea), both the common ancestor of bacteria and archaea, our distant ancestors. This is only one lineage by the way, two domains of microbes in one lineage that survived. Wouldn't you also then think that microbial life isn't limited to two domains? Bacteria and archaea must be evolutionary unique from the domains of other lineages -- that's not how evolution works where bacteria/archaea is not limited to one lineage and can in fact appear everywhere even terrestrial.
Even in the definition of life we can't collectively agree. Are viruses alive? After all, they follow by Darwinian notion and they even have genetic material, some viruses contain DNA and some RNA. How could possibly a non-living matter as dead as a piece of clothing with its own genetic material replicate, and while doing so, mutate? Is it the inability to self-replicate on their own independent of any external host that makes them non-alive? What about, then, the parasitic obligate intracellular bacteria that needs a host for it to replicate and survive?
Aliens exist I think
I am curious, how do you guys define life? Life as in it gives space for all extraterrestrial life in the entire universe to be categorized as life
An earth-centric definition of life doesn't really align with extraterrestrial life, not unless I am wrong and every life would start the same, replicate the same, do the same