#64
Concerning Aliens or "E.T.s"
by Nate A. Lindell
Created 13 May 2012

As a prison philosophy, my bored mind is always searching for something to obsess over. It may seem strange to you, but aliens have never been this something. I'm more concerned about getting a pair of pants that won't fall off on shower days and getting a letter at mail pass than little green men trying to probe me. But the subject of aliens came up recently when I was talking with my unit's shrink, one of the few staff members with something worth saying. Here's what I came up with.

As impressive as organic life is, it's not that impressive in theory. It could even, I think, be created by humans in the near future. We can already create mechanical life, machines that replicate themselves, computer that learn and can program and replicate themselves. Organic life is just an organic version of life, complex combinations of biochemicals that are organized, replicate, and are genetically programmed to pursue their own interests/needs.

Aside from the fact that I may have just promoted/justified hard determinism, you ought to be able to see how a more technologically advanced society could, in theory, create organic life as our society has created computer and machine life. And if, say, a more technologically advanced society than ours wanted to create life on a watery planet like Earth, for whatever reason (e.g. curiosity, boredom, experiment, hunger :(), it'd make sense to create life that's organic. Look how resilient organic life has shown itself to be, lasting millions of years, and continually refining itself through natural selection.

As the shrink told me recently, and I have to believe her, scientists found the fossil of a virus on a meteorite that inspired the belief that such a virus might have been the seed to all life on Earth (organic life, I mean).

Well, we make spaceships and send probes and such to other celestial bodies. One should expect other societies to do the same, if they have a will to survive and thrive, as they must to go on living against the natural tendency for complex things to fall apart. Organic life is a very complex thing and I don't see how natural forces would tolerate passive life forms or societies, unless they were at least protected by a more vigorous life form, as we protect sheep.

Well, wouldn't a comet or a meteor be a much more efficient spaceship than the flimsy ones we use? In theory, a more advanced society or life form than ours would be pretty wise to use a comet or meteor to transfer the seed of life to Earth. Maybe this is exactly what happened. At least it's plausible.

But before you get all happy and fantasize about some future reunion with a great space father and family, consider this fact. When the technologically advanced European society encountered less advanced ones, it was not a happy reunion. Genocide and conquest occurred.

Hey, I'm not promoting White guilt, just saying! Sucks to have a spear when the other guy's got a cannon.

If life on Earth is the product of some alien society/life, then that alien society/life is more advanced than ours, or at least was. Because natural selection must have shaped that alien society/life, it must have been and probably still is aggressive, selfish, and predatory, like us. Thus, if that alien came a callin', I doubt it'd be democratic with us, but would probably look at us as our scientists look at Dolly the sheep and stem cells harvested from fetuses, theirs to do as they wish with. And, if they're advanced, they probably won't be so stupid as to come a callin' with inferior "tools" to "protect" themselves from our little beehive; they'll probably bring some DDT, as we did when we explored the Americans and do when we explore wildernesses.

Point blank, if there are aliens and they visit us, they will be technologically superior, whether or not they made us, and we'll probably get more than just probed. It'd be a good idea to prepare, although I doubt we'd be able to prevail against what might be our creator or gods.

Hmm, maybe there's something to that story in Revelation where all the nations of the world fight against Christ and his heavenly kingdom. It predicts they lose.

Happy Trails to You,

Prometheus!