With a title like that you may expect a sci-fi novella or a chapter from a William Kotzwinkle book, but I actually want to discuss a hypothetical scenario.
Today I was listening to some podcasts from NPR. My favorite program (as I'm sure you *all* know) is Science Friday. Thee program usually has one or two pods on some astro subject (NASA,SETI,CERN,Mars Rover...) This last Friday there was a pod about the (recent) discovery of exoplanets. These are actual planets that are solitary and without (supposedly) a star or solar system to orbit. To me this is cool, albeit nerdy. Anyways, the way the two professionals being interviewed (who were working on the exoplanet project together) explained that these occurred most likely in one of two ways:
first way: that enough debris was in their localized space to coalesce into a planet. Makes sense to me.
Second way: that at one point they did belong to a solar system, and have since been ejected for one reason or another. How this theory works is that most solar systems only have enough gravitational force to bind no more than 2-7 planets in an orbit. Once it has reached that limit and for one reason or another a new planet enters into the solar system, it creates a gravitational shock that knocks another planet(s) out of that orbit. Eventually these planets come to rest somewhere outside their solar system, free of their star's gravity well.
So here is my purely unscientific, speculative hypothesis:in the case of looking for other potential intelligent,biological beings, wouldn't make more sense to start looking at solar systems with larger numbers of planets in orbit?
My rationality:
Every biological system has niches that can to be filled, and only so far as said system can spend. Such as: not evey fish in the ocean can be the size of a whale. The food chain and size of the ocean cannot permit such a thing. Herbivorous aquatics would devour whole forests of plants in days. Not to mention the carnivorous fish would have a ridiculous time killing and eating. One fish would be able to ferd them for a week, but would rot far sooner than that, and with no smaller fish to scavenge the remains, it would just pollute the water. So there are every size and variation of aquatic life-to fill in every "job"of the ecological system. Bottom feeders, scavngers, hunters, grazers, fighters, defenders, giants, shrimps...
So now to bring this in to something relevant. The simple reason (i believe) that there is only one sentient species on Earth (not getting philisophical here) I.e humans, is because that is all one mass ecological system can afford. Think about it-we cultivate the land, animal populations, atmospheric events, ocean levels... whether these events are intentional or not, we cause them. So in essence, we have become the caretakers and cultivators of this mass ecology. (we don't control it indefinitely, there are several smaller eco-systems that we don't meticulously cultivate for they are of little consequence to us). I will say it is possible that an aquatic being of the deep oceans may become sentient, but only because we have minimal impact on it's development.
Now, understanding that it is innate for all biological beings to survive and reproduce, humans having escalated to such an encompassing eco-niche, has to think if preserving more than just themselves, but all the other aspects that allow them to thrive and prosper (animals, plants, soil, land,dikes, reservoirs, lakes, dams , rivers,...). So ut is a logical conclusion that if we grew beyond the borders if our planet and began to inhabit other planets, we would be inclined to force planets to stay put lest they be ejected and greatly alter the sun's gravity well. So if there were to be a new planet trying to muscle its way in, we would try to allow the planet in (since I doubt we will ever have a force capable of destroying or flat out moving it) without letting any of the other planets go, to preserve the biological balancing act we have grown into. My idea for this comes from one of the scientists explanation using a full coffee cup that may have had to overflow to be perfectly full. This analogy likening gravity to a liquid made me think if the borealis (correction?)effect in cups with too much liquid-that the top can overextend the lip of the cup. And since gravity and weak valence bonds have so much in common...
Since we can only work with what we know, we can only assume any potential intelligent life we can fathom will have more likely filed the same, or similar, ecological niche as ourselves. So therefore it would make sense that if they had the ability to move across the stars and planets, they would attempt to preserve their local solar systems too.
I understand there are a lot of fallicies and assumptions in this, but hey, this is what crossed my mind when I heard this 5min podcast. Aliens are just alien to us and any real assumption on what conditions to look for or logical assumptions that "aliens must have this to exist" are just silly, but hey, it's an exciting thing to think about!
Today I was listening to some podcasts from NPR. My favorite program (as I'm sure you *all* know) is Science Friday. Thee program usually has one or two pods on some astro subject (NASA,SETI,CERN,Mars Rover...) This last Friday there was a pod about the (recent) discovery of exoplanets. These are actual planets that are solitary and without (supposedly) a star or solar system to orbit. To me this is cool, albeit nerdy. Anyways, the way the two professionals being interviewed (who were working on the exoplanet project together) explained that these occurred most likely in one of two ways:
first way: that enough debris was in their localized space to coalesce into a planet. Makes sense to me.
Second way: that at one point they did belong to a solar system, and have since been ejected for one reason or another. How this theory works is that most solar systems only have enough gravitational force to bind no more than 2-7 planets in an orbit. Once it has reached that limit and for one reason or another a new planet enters into the solar system, it creates a gravitational shock that knocks another planet(s) out of that orbit. Eventually these planets come to rest somewhere outside their solar system, free of their star's gravity well.
So here is my purely unscientific, speculative hypothesis:in the case of looking for other potential intelligent,biological beings, wouldn't make more sense to start looking at solar systems with larger numbers of planets in orbit?
My rationality:
Every biological system has niches that can to be filled, and only so far as said system can spend. Such as: not evey fish in the ocean can be the size of a whale. The food chain and size of the ocean cannot permit such a thing. Herbivorous aquatics would devour whole forests of plants in days. Not to mention the carnivorous fish would have a ridiculous time killing and eating. One fish would be able to ferd them for a week, but would rot far sooner than that, and with no smaller fish to scavenge the remains, it would just pollute the water. So there are every size and variation of aquatic life-to fill in every "job"of the ecological system. Bottom feeders, scavngers, hunters, grazers, fighters, defenders, giants, shrimps...
So now to bring this in to something relevant. The simple reason (i believe) that there is only one sentient species on Earth (not getting philisophical here) I.e humans, is because that is all one mass ecological system can afford. Think about it-we cultivate the land, animal populations, atmospheric events, ocean levels... whether these events are intentional or not, we cause them. So in essence, we have become the caretakers and cultivators of this mass ecology. (we don't control it indefinitely, there are several smaller eco-systems that we don't meticulously cultivate for they are of little consequence to us). I will say it is possible that an aquatic being of the deep oceans may become sentient, but only because we have minimal impact on it's development.
Now, understanding that it is innate for all biological beings to survive and reproduce, humans having escalated to such an encompassing eco-niche, has to think if preserving more than just themselves, but all the other aspects that allow them to thrive and prosper (animals, plants, soil, land,dikes, reservoirs, lakes, dams , rivers,...). So ut is a logical conclusion that if we grew beyond the borders if our planet and began to inhabit other planets, we would be inclined to force planets to stay put lest they be ejected and greatly alter the sun's gravity well. So if there were to be a new planet trying to muscle its way in, we would try to allow the planet in (since I doubt we will ever have a force capable of destroying or flat out moving it) without letting any of the other planets go, to preserve the biological balancing act we have grown into. My idea for this comes from one of the scientists explanation using a full coffee cup that may have had to overflow to be perfectly full. This analogy likening gravity to a liquid made me think if the borealis (correction?)effect in cups with too much liquid-that the top can overextend the lip of the cup. And since gravity and weak valence bonds have so much in common...
Since we can only work with what we know, we can only assume any potential intelligent life we can fathom will have more likely filed the same, or similar, ecological niche as ourselves. So therefore it would make sense that if they had the ability to move across the stars and planets, they would attempt to preserve their local solar systems too.
I understand there are a lot of fallicies and assumptions in this, but hey, this is what crossed my mind when I heard this 5min podcast. Aliens are just alien to us and any real assumption on what conditions to look for or logical assumptions that "aliens must have this to exist" are just silly, but hey, it's an exciting thing to think about!
posted from Bloggeroid
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