A Sceptical I

Is there any body out there?

January 25, 2010

Posted in: Uncategorized

Yes, I’m still around. This blog has been on something of an unofficial hiatus lately thanks to work progressing with gusto on my first novel (details here). But I’m going to do my best to keep A Sceptical I plodding ever onward, to keep my mind on the topics that interest me, if nothing else.

The news, for instance, that astronomers are hopeful of detecting extraterrestrial life interests me greatly. Not just because aliens are always interesting, but that it involves not only very cool science, but also some fascinating philosophy. This is the money quote in that regard:

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms that we can’t conceive”

Of course, aliens are unlikely to conform to our typical imaginings of them, no matter how zany those might be. There is a very good reason for this, that might not be obvious – until you think about it.

It’s easy to see, with aliens such as Greys, where the ideas have come from – usually just basic modifications of a human, by which I mean they are similar in form but with certain parts bigger or smaller or different colours. Occasionally they’ll have extra or fewer parts, but the parts themselves will still be familiar to us – even if they are taken from animals. This sort of hybrid has been around for millennia – think of the animal-headed gods of Egypt, or the Minotaur of Crete.

Then there’s the level of aliens who are somehow more alien, such as the eponymous creature of the Alien films. These are the product of a somewhat more sophisticated imaginative process, and they truly start to “feel” alien. Yet they are nevertheless still rooted firmly in our world, composed as they are of a multitude of parts of Earthbound creatures. A lot of these will come from the weirder parts of nature, such as pharyngeal jaws or even the “Tongue-eating louse”.

It is inevitable that even the weirdest, most outlandish aliens of which we could conceive are still nevertheless a Terran construct. This is because, even if you are not aware of it, your imagination can only work with the raw materials of one’s own experience. So, even if your imagination is far and away the most creative ever possessed by a human mind, its creations will be based only on things you have seen, or heard about, or smelled, or felt.

This being said, theoretically I think I’m right in saying that any “Goldilocks planet” will bear significant similarities to Earth that it is possible that we would indeed recognise some of the forms that the indigenous life takes. There are only so many efficient ways to breathe, see, and smell (so far as we know), and while we would certainly encounter completely new approaches to survival, we should also not be surprised to see these repeated on Earthlike planets.

Whatever happens, when we finally start discovering those planets (as we will do soon, if current indications bear out), it’s certain to be an amazing and revolutionary moment. Maybe, one day, our imaginations will be able to work with brand new, fresh raw materials from a completely different world.

Mission Statement

I started this blog at the beginning of 2008, as an outlet for my sceptical musings on various topics, inspired by the examples of the Skeptoid and The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe podcasts, and Skepchick.org among many others. This is me doing my part to get the message out to as many people as possible that rationality is vitally important - especially given the increasingly vocal nature of the competition. Though the main focus of this blog will be sceptical musings about my own areas of interest, such as philosophy, science fiction, politics and ecology, I expect virtually every conceivable topic will come up at one point or another, including abstract thoughts about the value of scepticism itself. So come and join the debate.

Is there any body out there?

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