Monday's 'Comment of the Day': Michio Kaku on Extraterrestrial Life

 

          

"Dr. Kaku uses a critical term, 'chances…' in his thesis about what ET might be like and I appreciate and understand his pulling punches about characterizing the ET we have not yet met. I tend to go along with Dr Kaku that predation is a likely early stage of resource competition in an ET evolutionary path from primitive micro-organism to space travel, but I feel, as other commentators here do, that actual predation is left behind as it is learned/experienced that a consequence of having the predator trait can be species self-destruction as weaponry advances. 

"Thus 'chances are’ the ET we meet will view us with interest and self-awareness from their own root beginnings. This might result in ET being unafraid of us or very leery or ..., creating a matrix of ET decisions whether to make themselves known to us or stay away. 

"But Kaku’s thought about predation also makes one think about other ET characteristics of the so-far-undetected-or-unrevealed-contact. For instance, what might be the ‘universals’ of any life form we encounter? Certainly predation seems to be good candidate to being a universal (maybe one is being too anthro-centered here). 

"But what about the notion of ‘evolution’ itself, is evolution a universal? The answer to this seems a simple enough, ‘yes, but'. And what other universals might there be: energy cycles, carbon-based biochem, bio-information mechanisms (is DNA universal, indirectly I believe NASA seems to think so), development of a brain, temperature-pressure environment (I believe that dependent on the bio-chemistries involved life has a much wider temperature-pressure window than NASA’s “Goldilocks” optimum), individualization (as opposed to group inter-linking), bilateralism as opposed to radial, bi-sexualism e.g., male and female and…, etc. 

"There is a lot more thinking to be done along these lines. But, thanks again, Dr. Kaku."

Resonanz

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Comments

[Abercrombie outlet]

But Kaku’s thought about predation also makes one think about other ET characteristics of the so-far-undetected-or-unrevealed-contact

[Lupus]

I very much like your comment Resonanz. I think the research on what can or cannot be a 'universal' should predate over the search for life in the Universe. We cannot be sure as to what to look for yet. Every decade we find new life-forms in our own planet in circumstances and ecologies, we would never have imagined possible. If this is how we stumble upon life in our own miniscule planet with relatively infinetesimal range of living conditions possible - from volcanoes to ice, from atmosphere to Mariana Trench and everything in between, what chances do we have of detecting life in an Universe for which we don't even know the full range of conditions available. Does life need a planet or a moon to survive? Seems likely, but are you sure? All the search for life is based entirely on the kind of life we know on Earth (taking that as universal) which I think is close-minded at best. So how do we look for life? I don't know and that's precisely the point. We don't know what to look for and where to look for life. We don't even know if we have found it. We also don't know if they have found us (Abercrombie's comment above)! If we are looking for a place where we can go and live in the future then the present search parameters are great. But is that the immediate plan? A hell lot of money is being spent on SETI. I think that funding should be used instead for Space Telescopes (JWST) and Kepler and interplanetary travel. Sorry for going a bit off track but I guess this still counts.