Are Aliens What We Think? Rare Earth Debate

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.

Original Post

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)

Reply
Reply

Do you actually believe that aliens exist

Reply

Why

Reply

I wanna have a deep conversation

Reply

So the only thing backing up the concept of aliens is that the universe is cosmologically big

Reply

We can't even collectively decide what life objectively is, let alone think that aliens would closely resemble our familiar definition of life

Reply

How can we know it exist and yet it doesn't have a definition

Reply

Also, I mean life as in living things and not a "do what you want because it's your life" thing

Reply

This assumes it exists but life definitely exists

Reply

Was Frosch Henry there

Reply

The Yggdrasil Nihilist

Reply

What makes them alien and alive

Reply

We were talking to some guy in Yggdrasil while having a conversaiton with Frosch Henry

Reply

What is an alien in the first place

Reply
Reply

I am not defining life as an experience of an individual, but the concept itself

Reply

What is that outsider and how do you know it is alive

Reply

Martian rocks are outsiders

Reply

So an alien isn't alive

Reply

Alive in what sense in the first place

Reply

For all you know, it could be moaning self-replicating rocks

Reply

The same thing backing up the idea of the aliens as I have explained

Reply

There can be 2 billion planets with no life as we know it

Reply

And these exoplanets are the most crappiest places to live in as a living being (as we know of)

Reply

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

Reply

Alright, does this "one" refer to living things because I have a question

Reply

How do you define life (not the experience of an individual but the concept itself) and a living being

Reply

How do you define these two

Reply

Go ahead

Reply

I am patient

Reply

I can wait

Reply

Sustain in what sense, because I know that planets can sustain themselves with whatever is composed of them

Reply

Does that equate to planets being alive?

Reply

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

Reply

I am curious

Reply

I mean, I am curious about your answer

Reply

How do you know that a thing is alive

Reply

So this is basically a living thing as defined

Reply

Does a thing have to follow these three in order to be classified as a living being

Reply

I DO have a question

Reply

Would you think that aliens would follow the categories by which you have mentioned: it grows, sustains, reproduces, and responds to stimuli?

Reply

Because if it doesn't, how do you know it is alive in the first place

Reply
Reply

Yes

Reply

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

Reply

Would you call a self-replicating molecule that could divide itself as alive

Reply

A self-replicating molecules with no flagellum and isn't a bacteria nor an archaea

Reply

I am not asking for these and you are repeating yourself

Reply

I shouldn't have said it but ignore that

Reply

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

Reply

For all we know, it could be naked self-replicating molecules that does not respond to stimuli NOR even mutate, it just replicates

Reply

Of course we haven't seen any

Reply

It could be

Reply

I never said that it is guaranteed

Reply

Right about what

Reply

You never answered my question but I agree with the 4 categories you have stated

Reply

You are right because this basically defines life as it we know it on Earth

Reply

However, I don't find it probable to think that it would be the same for other alien organisms

Reply

What do you mean by grow

Reply

Grow in physical size?

Reply

Why would it be the case that molecules have to grow in physical size

Reply

Also, how can a molecule grow in physical size

Reply

This freaking debate is going nowhere

Reply

I am left confused so let's organize this

Reply

So, I'll respond first and you will try to rebut my argument

Reply

Is that good?

Reply

Screw it, I give up

Reply

I haven't slept for 20 hours and I am mentally wrecked and tired to debate

Reply

I can debate you if I want but I literally can't

Reply

You expect a guy who haven't slept for 20 hours to think straight somehow

Reply

How

Reply

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

Reply

This is a draw

Reply

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

Reply

Temporarily atleast

Reply

No, I am not giving up

Reply

Go on with whatever you are saying

Reply

Man is really celebrating after "winning" from a sleep-deprivated person

Reply

Thank you Kana for defending me.

Reply

Guys

Reply

Just create a forum about alien stage

Reply

I will sound biased but the most unbiased person ever in ARS (second is probably Nexus) is Arsh

Reply

Yes

Reply

I do have a question

Reply

Is the opponent claiming victory part of why I won and the opponent losing

Reply

Oh, relieving

Reply

Literally

Reply

I will sleep

Reply

Probably because your brain is used to it at this point

Reply

The body, I mean

Reply

How is this even possible

Reply

My brain gives up after 6 AM hits

Reply

A huge edit

Reply

What

Reply

Economics

Reply

How

Reply

I never stated she won but I think she was having the lead

Reply

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

Reply

How

Reply

Burdern of proof fakklacy

Reply

For me to think it that way in a sense that the latter is a meaningful sentence

Reply

I never conluded it to be logically true

Reply

I never said she was in the lead objectively

Reply

Do you mean up for discussion

Reply

I would make it clear enough when it was up for discussion

Reply

Even if there were aliens there wouldnโ€™t exactly be any point to them. (Weโ€™re currently talking about the present.) We canโ€™t 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 wouldnโ€™t know until a few minutes because light is slow.

Speaking practically, their existence does not matter because itโ€™s unlikely weโ€™ll discover life on other planets not because life doesnโ€™t 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 wasnโ€™t even as advanced as we are.

Even on earth, there is no species like the human. So if weโ€™re being real, itโ€™s better not to get our hopes up

Reply

Holy yap

Reply

We spitting facts gang

Reply

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

Reply

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?

Reply

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

Reply

I don't get the last paragraph. Aren't there a species for humans though

Reply

I am such a loser

Reply

I am glad I stopped debating like this

Reply

Only there for the win

Reply

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 isnโ€™t how fiction depicts alien life, itโ€™s less advanced. They were merely bacteria if anything.

Reply

It was just molecules that were necessary for life in the past, but I donโ€™t know much about Europa. But even if, the life doesnโ€™t involve a wide variety of species just small bacteriaโ€”so itโ€™s not exactly what most people would define as โ€˜aliensโ€™, but yes itโ€™s a possibility.

Reply

Yeah

Reply

What this guy said

Reply

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.

Reply

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?

Reply

Aliens exist I think

Reply

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

Reply

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

The latest from Aspiring Robloxians of Knowledge (ARK)

Contingency Argument for Theism

Explore the contingency argument: why existence may point to a necessary being and how chance differs from dependence.