Debate over sending messages to ETs heats up

[Wolfman]

There are some who argue that vegetarianism is evidence of a 'higher' moral/ethical plane, while others think that is nonsense, since we evolved as omnivores to eat both meat and plants.

Just wanted to add...what if the aliens were entirely carnivorous? Or entirely herbivorous? Wouldn't that in and of itself affect how they'd see us? If entirely carnivorous, not only would they obviously have no qualms about killing and eating animals, but might see those who eat plants as inferior, as 'cattle' (we see this even within human cultures, where cultures that focus on hunting tend to look down on those who focus on farming, seeing the latter as inferior and deserving of subjugation). If entirely herbivorous, they might see us as blood-thirsty, primitive savages, no better than flesh-eating animals on their own planet.

There are just so many ways in which basic biological/genetic differences, combined with evolution, can have a huge impact on culture, and on morality, which in turn would have a huge impact on how those aliens would view us.

 

[rjh01]

Paint with a broad brush much?

What basis is there for this? (And if you bring up historical stuff then historical stuff is fair game for other nationalities).

No need for historical stuff. This is what I was thinking about when I wrote that. http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21620252-troubling-rise-xenophobic-vitriol-spin-and-substance . By the way I googled the article only after I read your post. I had heard of this issue via the news.

Now imagine an alien race who live peacefully with each other. They then discover that they have the ability to travel to other stars and they visit Earth. The issue is that they might view us in the same (or far worse) way as the Japanese do to the Koreans.

 

[rjh01]

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rjh, you seem to equate "living peacefully" with "treating everyone equally". The two are not in any way synonymous. I can easily envisage numerous different kinds of cultures that 'live peacefully', but do not treat everyone equally. Just within human cultures, Tibetan history had long periods of peace, yet a greatly stratified culture that placed significant value of some people's lives over the lives of others.

Now, expand that to a culture with entirely different evolutionary pressures, all of which have gone towards developing their own moral and ethical values. I think it is rather ludicrous to assume that those values would align with our own. Heck, we can't even agree as humans. Animal testing -- is it right or wrong? If wrong, is it always wrong, or only in some instances? Or eating animal flesh -- is it right or wrong? There are some who argue that vegetarianism is evidence of a 'higher' moral/ethical plane, while others think that is nonsense, since we evolved as omnivores to eat both meat and plants.

It is easy to envisage numerous scenarios where aliens would see us as having less value than them, being inferior to them (especially given that in order to get here, they would be definition be far more technologically advanced), etc. They could be a culture that had achieved complete harmony and peace on their own planet...and yet had no qualms about subjugating or eliminating us in order to maintain that peace in their settlement of our planet.

After the first couple of sentences I have no issues with what you are saying. In fact it is another way of saying what I said in the post I just made. My post you are responding to had two points neither which had another to do with each other. Point 1 was that having several different types of people with significantly different abilities was flexibility. Point 2 was how peaceful an advanced civilization would need to be to invent space travel. A third point I made was a qualification on the second point.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I enjoy my years in Japan. I wasn't afraid to get out and about.

 

[Wolfman]

No need for historical stuff. This is what I was thinking about when I wrote that. http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21620252-troubling-rise-xenophobic-vitriol-spin-and-substance . By the way I googled the article only after I read your post. I had heard of this issue via the news.

Now imagine an alien race who live peacefully with each other. They then discover that they have the ability to travel to other stars and they visit Earth. The issue is that they might view us in the same (or far worse) way as the Japanese do to the Koreans.

Wow. That's your justification for a sweeping claim that, "The Japanese, for example, treat other nationalities very badly"? Surely even you can see just how weak an argument this is. But just to illustrate:

1) This article talks about Japanese attitudes towards one nationality, the Koreans; not all nationalities. And as reprehensible as it is, there are definite historical and political reasons for it, particularly in regards to N. Korea, who are known to have kidnapped Japanese people. It should be pointed out that some Koreans have similar attitudes towards Japanese, due their treatment of Koreans during WW II (including forcing Korean women to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers).

Not that I'm saying those attitudes are justified, but it's a far, far cry from a claim that Japanese treat many/most/all other nationalities badly.

2) This article does not, anywhere that I can see, give anything in terms of numbers or percentages -- that is, just how many people are actually doing this? It says only that it has increased. Let's say that it was once 2% of the population, and is now 4%...one could honestly write an article that claimed "Racist attitudes towards Koreans have doubled", but that wouldn't be reflective of the reality that 96% of Japanese don't feel that way. I'm not saying that the numbers are 4%...I'm saying that there's nothing whatsoever in this article to give any context at all about what the numbers are, and it is therefore ludicrous to try to draw a conclusion as to what proportion of Japanese people this describes. It most certainly doesn't justify a conclusion that seeks to claim (or infer) that it's a common or majority opinion.

3) The article also states that many Japanese have held protests and rallies to oppose such attitudes. Again, the article fails to give any numbers, so we don't know which group is greater in number...the ones saying they hate Koreans, or the ones opposing that hatred. But my own personal experience (granted it's not extensive, but Puppycow and Gawdzilla would be in a better position to comment more authoritatively) is that the latter group outnumbers the former.

4) I could point to pretty much any country on the planet and find racist groups that have increased in number/popularity in recent years. I might as well say that British are well known for hating Muslims, because the number of Brits who oppose Muslim immigrants has increased in recent years; or any other such (equally ridiculous) argument.

So you made a sweeping statement, and then did a google search afterwards to try to find something that supported your claim...yet the article you've offered doesn't even come close to providing anything substantial to support it, and arguably has information that would contradict it.

 

[Puppycow]

There is a small group of hardcore xenophobes here but you can find that in any country.

I am a non-Japanese who lives in Japan and works for a Japanese company by the way. My Japanese neighbors, friends and colleagues treat me just fine. I am aware of the existence of xenophobic ultra-right wing groups but I'm pretty sure you could name any country and I could find some xenophobic groups that exist there.

Here's an article about Britain for example:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/british_xenophobia_on_the_rise/
Recently there was also an article about some racist English soccer fans in France:
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-chelsea-soccer-racism-20150218-story.html

And Greece:
http://news.yahoo.com/greek-neo-nazi-lawmaker-punched-female-mp-acquitted-222725372.html

The Southern Poverty Law Center says there are 939 active hate groups in the United States:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map


So the article doesn't demonstrate anything unique to Japan or the Japanese.

 

[rjh01]

There is a small group of hardcore xenophobes here but you can find that in any country.

I am a non-Japanese who lives in Japan and works for a Japanese company by the way. My Japanese neighbors, friends and colleagues treat me just fine. I am aware of the existence of xenophobic ultra-right wing groups but I'm pretty sure you could name any country and I could find some xenophobic groups that exist there.

Here's an article about Britain for example:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/british_xenophobia_on_the_rise/
Recently there was also an article about some racist English soccer fans in France:
http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-chelsea-soccer-racism-20150218-story.html

And Greece:
http://news.yahoo.com/greek-neo-nazi-lawmaker-punched-female-mp-acquitted-222725372.html

The Southern Poverty Law Center says there are 939 active hate groups in the United States:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map


So the article doesn't demonstrate anything unique to Japan or the Japanese.

I think you are on to something here. Imagine aliens having the attitude of these hardcore xenophobes. Sure they are a peaceful race. They work well together and do everything else right. So they discover how to go to another star system. Eventually find us, an inferior race. I do not think I need say any more.

 

[rjh01]

Changing the topic, communications could be difficult. We could start by counting, but that may not be as simple as you might think. This video goes into the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4bmZ1gRqCc

If you meet an alien and you need to indicate the alien the number 8, how do you do it? Hold 8 fingers out? They may not understand. That blow my mind. The explanation starts here http://youtu.be/l4bmZ1gRqCc?t=6m20s

Remember this guy is talking about humans. Aliens would be even more weird.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Changing the topic, communications could be difficult. We could start by counting, but that may not be as simple as you might think. This video goes into the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4bmZ1gRqCc

If you meet an alien and you need to indicate the alien the number 8, how do you do it? Hold 8 fingers out? They may not understand. That blow my mind. The explanation starts here http://youtu.be/l4bmZ1gRqCc?t=6m20s

Remember this guy is talking about humans. Aliens would be even more weird.

I've been to places where if you held up one finger they'd bring you four beers. It was the folded fingers, a deliberate act, that counted.

 

[MG1962]

Changing the topic, communications could be difficult. We could start by counting, but that may not be as simple as you might think. This video goes into the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4bmZ1gRqCc

If you meet an alien and you need to indicate the alien the number 8, how do you do it? Hold 8 fingers out? They may not understand. That blow my mind. The explanation starts here http://youtu.be/l4bmZ1gRqCc?t=6m20s

Remember this guy is talking about humans. Aliens would be even more weird.

Oddly enough this has been discussed at length in science fiction and the science community in general. The general feel is that you would base a communal counting system on a universal constant.

For example a hydrogen atom has one electron. A helium atom 2 and so on and so forth. Pi should be a universal constant, there are many other such examples that two divergent cultures could find common mathematical ground.

 

[MontagK505]

Well the question is, if ET wants to invade us, whats in it for ET. There is absolutely nothing on Earth that can not be gained in vast quantities in space, without messing with gravity wells, orbital mechanics and pesky rootin tootin humans in the way

Figuring out the motivations of ET is almost pointless. However, imagine that you are dealing with aliens who have had technical civilization for a million years or longer, they might have learned from their own history that allowing newcomers on the scene creates problems for them within 100K years of discovery. So, it's less effort to squash them as soon as they are discovered.

 

[Wolfman]

Figuring out the motivations of ET is almost pointless. However, imagine that you are dealing with aliens who have had technical civilization for a million years or longer, they might have learned from their own history that allowing newcomers on the scene creates problems for them within 100K years of discovery. So, it's less effort to squash them as soon as they are discovered.

Also, safe living space is not so readily available out in space. I think it's fairly easy to conclude that even for a technologically advanced race, living on a viable planet would be far easier and safer than living in space. They would see us as competitors for resources on the planet, and if they were truly looking to colonize, the easiest way to do so would be to eliminate us, or reduce us drastically in number.

Then there's the very distinct possibility of even a well-meaning alien species overwhelming us. Consider how many of even our more philanthropic and politically-correct humans react to 'primitive' cultures...going in to 'help' them with the assumption that because they are more educated and technologically advanced, that they know best how to help those people. When, in fact, they end up doing tremendous damage, albeit inadvertently.

I could easily see an alien race that was far advanced over us having a similarly patronizing attitude towards us...wanting to help us, but making decisions and setting priorities based on their culture and understanding. This could result variously in making us entirely dependent on them, or causing massive wars, or introduction of technology that we then use to destroy ourselves.

 

[MontagK505]

Also, safe living space is not so readily available out in space. I think it's fairly easy to conclude that even for a technologically advanced race, living on a viable planet would be far easier and safer than living in space. They would see us as competitors for resources on the planet, and if they were truly looking to colonize, the easiest way to do so would be to eliminate us, or reduce us drastically in number.

Then there's the very distinct possibility of even a well-meaning alien species overwhelming us. Consider how many of even our more philanthropic and politically-correct humans react to 'primitive' cultures...going in to 'help' them with the assumption that because they are more educated and technologically advanced, that they know best how to help those people. When, in fact, they end up doing tremendous damage, albeit inadvertently.

I could easily see an alien race that was far advanced over us having a similarly patronizing attitude towards us...wanting to help us, but making decisions and setting priorities based on their culture and understanding. This could result variously in making us entirely dependent on them, or causing massive wars, or introduction of technology that we then use to destroy ourselves.

Greg Bear's latest Sci-Fi novel, shows another motivation.
Aliens arrive undetected, and infiltrate our data networks, creating financial entities that they use to recruit human agents. When their presence is finally known, they present an array of technological fixes for almost all of humanity's problems, industrial, biological, environmental, you name it, they have a solution. Their method of dealing with us is through positive re-enforcement.
Then the other shoe drops and as Greg put's it, "It's covered with dog poo". The title of the novel is "War Dogs" which gives you a strong hint as to what the aliens want with us.

 

[MG1962]

The title of the novel is "War Dogs" which gives you a strong hint as to what the aliens want with us.

Damn cats I knew they were up to no good lol

 

[Mudcat]

Why is it a necessity to occupy the whole galaxy?

No reason that I can think of.

Our local stellar group consists of fifty some-odd star systems and is some thirty light years across. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that each and every single one of those star systems has at least one earth like planet capable of supporting life as we know it, is amiable toward human life, and no indigenous civilizations to worry about. Let us further assume that there is no beating or matching the speed of light.

Those fifty-plus planets are more than enough to suit us for the foreseeable future and maybe until the human race eventually goes extinct, and we'd probably never occupy or fully explore all of them. You couldn't send so much as a single message from one end of the stellar group to the other in a timely manner, never mind a ship.

Even if were to assume a more realistic three to four inhabitable planets in this stellar group and possible access to FTL technology, a galactic wide occupation would still be impractical if not impossible and only suitable for science-fiction fantasy. The whole idea of an advanced alien coming to earth to conquer it for any reason is beyond laughable.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

They are by definition close enough if they have had billions of years to occupy the whole galaxy. But they haven't. Also, not necessarily come here. The paradox arises if we could detect their presence but we don't, eg by overhearing their signals. No trace of that either.

This what I was referring to. The assumptions are that a race would last billions of years and that it would feel a need to occupy the whole galaxy. They could be happy and snug in a Dyson sphere somewhere thousands of light years away.

 

[Mudcat]

They could be happy and snug in a Dyson sphere somewhere thousands of light years away.

I tried to calculate the surface area of the inner surface of a Dyson sphere once.

My calculator melted away.

 

[marplots]

Oddly enough this has been discussed at length in science fiction and the science community in general. The general feel is that you would base a communal counting system on a universal constant.

For example a hydrogen atom has one electron. A helium atom 2 and so on and so forth. Pi should be a universal constant, there are many other such examples that two divergent cultures could find common mathematical ground.

You still have to communicate the idea of a hydrogen atom or a circle. It's almost like you have to have a basis for communication before you can have a basis for communication. Up by our own bootstraps kind of thing.

 

[portlandatheist]

This what I was referring to. The assumptions are that a race would last billions of years and that it would feel a need to occupy the whole galaxy. They could be happy and snug in a Dyson sphere somewhere thousands of light years away.

True but what about other species in the galaxy? If just one of them developed space travel and a desire to explore the galaxy, it wouldn't take very long at all to colonize the entire galaxy even at a max speed of 1% the speed of light. Send out two ships at 1% the speed of light to the nearest hospitable places. Set up shop for 10 thousand years or so and then repeat. In an instant, less than 10 million years, the entire galaxy would be explored but it seems like this has never happened, not once and the question is why not? There could be many explanations. It also doesn't need to be a biological species. Consider the scenario of a communications network, with radio repeaters made in situ by machines and then rockets to go to the next destination also built in situ and so on just for the purpose of long distance communication and exploration with space probes.

 

[rjh01]

There are several major problem with slower than light speed travel between stars.
- To go to a star system 10 light years away at 10% of the speed of light takes 100 years. Trying to build something that is still working after all that time including energy output would be very hard.
- Radiation. There is a lot of it between the stars and shielding might be difficult. Any shielding adds mass and increases the energy required to move the craft
- Dust. Even the smallest peace of dust would do major damage to the craft.
- Energy requirements would be huge. A craft taking 100 humans would have a mass of 1,000s of tonnes (or more).

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

True but what about other species in the galaxy? If just one of them developed space travel and a desire to explore the galaxy, it wouldn't take very long at all to colonize the entire galaxy even at a max speed of 1% the speed of light. Send out two ships at 1% the speed of light to the nearest hospitable places. Set up shop for 10 thousand years or so and then repeat. In an instant, less than 10 million years, the entire galaxy would be explored but it seems like this has never happened, not once and the question is why not? There could be many explanations. It also doesn't need to be a biological species. Consider the scenario of a communications network, with radio repeaters made in situ by machines and then rockets to go to the next destination also built in situ and so on just for the purpose of long distance communication and exploration with space probes.

Why would there be another intelligent species in this galaxy?

 

[epepke]

I had a dream once. Some aliens who looked like brown oil drums intercepted video of "I Love Lucy" and decided therefore that the human race needed to be exterminated. Fortunately, they were destroyed by a fighter, which crash landed on a nearby planet. The survivor, who looked like a big grasshopper with legs hinging backward, met a human astronaut. The human astronaut had a huge supply of frozen broccoli, which the alien really liked. Maybe it was choline-deficient. Anyway, a gift of broccoli cemented human/alien relationships.

So it'll be OK.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I had a dream once. Some aliens who looked like brown oil drums intercepted video of "I Love Lucy" and decided therefore that the human race needed to be exterminated. Fortunately, they were destroyed by a fighter, which crash landed on a nearby planet. The survivor, who looked like a big grasshopper with legs hinging backward, met a human astronaut. The human astronaut had a huge supply of frozen broccoli, which the alien really liked. Maybe it was choline-deficient. Anyway, a gift of broccoli cemented human/alien relationships.

So it'll be OK.

People around the world will sleep soundly tonight.

 

[portlandatheist]

Why would there be another intelligent species in this galaxy?

Drakes equation. I think a reasonable argument could be made for either side of this equation. How unlikely is it for life to exist at all in a galaxy? Common given the billions of planets? How likely that they(or we) ever become space travelers? Probably impossible because if it was ever possible, we wouldn't have Fermi's Paradox at all...or then again....humans may be end up being the first ever.

 

[marplots]

Why would there be another intelligent species in this galaxy?

Why would there be one?

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

What I wanna know is if any emperical data has been collected on the integrity of non-directed EM signals collected at even intra-solar system distances. As far as I understand the signals we generate merge together into a homogeneous moosh of noise.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Drakes equation. I think a reasonable argument could be made for either side of this equation. How unlikely is it for life to exist at all in a galaxy? Common given the billions of planets? How likely that they(or we) ever become space travelers? Probably impossible because if it was ever possible, we wouldn't have Fermi's Paradox at all...or then again....humans may be end up being the first ever.

I think "intelligent life" is a whole level above "life". It may be common, but that would be a great surprise I think.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Why would there be one?

We know there's one in this galaxy. Well, sort of intelligent.

Uh, never mind, "none" works.

 

[dasmiller]

What I wanna know is if any emperical data has been collected on the integrity of non-directed EM signals collected at even intra-solar system distances. As far as I understand the signals we generate merge together into a homogeneous moosh of noise.

I don't know that anyone's ever intentionally collected data on such a thing, but it would be fairly straightforward to model it. There'd certainly be a lot of 'mooshing' at, for example, 2.4 GHz (where there are literally millions of wireless routers), and I imagine it would be difficult for someone to eavesdrop on one particular signal in that sort of environment, but the mooshing wouldn't make it any more difficult to detect the energy.

BTW, in the case of those millions of wireless routers, the total transmitted power still isn't all that great, and a lot of that power is absorbed by walls and ceilings before it gets too far.

It would actually be an interesting* exercise to estimate how much energy is being put out by the various common emitters and estimate how far away an alien could detect them. Would the vast numbers of cell phone towers be more detectable than the fewer-but-more-powerful TV transmitters? And what about all those airport radars?

*Not interesting enough to motivate me to actually do it

 

[portlandatheist]

Why would there be another intelligent species in this galaxy?

Something about our particular solar system, our particular planet, our particular place in the galaxy, our particular temporal place in the evolution of the universe or some other variable means that we are special and life and intelligence like ours isn't just rare, but impossible except in this one specific and unique circumstance. We are special and unique beyond any possible measure. But what is that variable? Our solar system? Life? Intelligent life? Space traveling life? I'd guess space traveling life and that there tons of species similar to ours that will never be able to go beyond their solar system.

 

[Nihilianth]

Who says that other intelligent alien life is more advanced than ours? Perhaps humans are the most advanced technologically. Perhaps the most intelligent.

Perhaps not. Perhaps an alien life has figured out a way to move between the stars. Perhaps an alien life that has figured out a way to move between the stars, still isn't actually as technologically advanced as us in some areas. Maybe an intelligent space-faring civilization has never developed, nor had the need to develop, weapons. Perhaps intelligent life evolved on gas giants and only care about Jupiter.

Personally, I would seriously bet there is a physical limitation of technology and colonization of space, regardless of how intelligent or practical a species can be. Accelerating to the speed of light would take an incredibly long time in order not to utterly crush its occupants, assuming one could find an engine with enough fuel that is powerful enough to accelerate at a constant speed. A warp drive require a tremendous amount of energy; probably more energy than is present in our entire solar solar system. Self-sustaining colony ships would take an extremely long time to get to the next closest star, assuming it isn't actively moving AWAY from the home star system.

True but what about other species in the galaxy? If just one of them developed space travel and a desire to explore the galaxy, it wouldn't take very long at all to colonize the entire galaxy even at a max speed of 1% the speed of light. Send out two ships at 1% the speed of light to the nearest hospitable places. Set up shop for 10 thousand years or so and then repeat. In an instant, less than 10 million years, the entire galaxy would be explored but it seems like this has never happened, not once and the question is why not? There could be many explanations. It also doesn't need to be a biological species. Consider the scenario of a communications network, with radio repeaters made in situ by machines and then rockets to go to the next destination also built in situ and so on just for the purpose of long distance communication and exploration with space probes.

What is that called? Order of magnitude.

No, you are being way too fair, here. The galaxy was already billions of years old by the time our sun was formed. Scientists have fairly recently found out that it took a few million years for life to first form. But the first forms of life on a planet would necessarily take hundreds of millions of years just to become complex, multi-cellular "creatures." Most likely wouldn't be "creatures" at all, but just algae-type stuff. By the time you get to intelligent life, it would take billions of years for evolution to work up to that point. And in those intervening years, you cannot have events that are so catastrophic as to completely wipe out all life that has formed. And even if intelligent life forms, that doesn't mean they would have the physical ability to truly manipulate the environment around them. Think: Dolphins and whales. And even if intelligent life does have the physical ability to manipulate stuff around them, like humans with our extremely useful hands, that doesn't mean they will have the proper resources to build even an internal combustion engine after hundreds of thousands of years of slow technological development.

We happened to be very lucky to have an iron-rich star, and the life that formed is made of carbon, and there was so much life in the past, as to allow huge deposits of fossil fuels and other combustible gases for energy. Intelligent life is probably extremely rare. Intelligent life that is able to lift objects off the surface of their planet even rarer. There is also the possibility that if we do share the same galaxy with an advanced space-faring civilization, they may just simply completely ignore us altogether. Like how some fish completely ignore other fish.

 

[Nihilianth]

what about the possibility of life on a dead star? Someone mentioned shielding from radiation. Perhaps an intelligent life that evolved on the surface of a dead star would have more tolerance for higher radiation levels than us. Their ships would be a hell of a lot more efficient than ours ever possibly could, no matter how technologically advanced we become. Because they wouldn't have to worry about shielding, and therefore, would have lower mass.

What about intelligent life that is microscopic in comparison to us? What about intelligent life that is larger than the largest dinosaur?

I would imagine that the smaller intelligent life is, the better chance they probably have of creating starships that can hold enough fuel and be fuel-efficient enough to accelerate at a constant rate, and eventually get to a decent cruising speed. Even more so, if they are resistant to radiation due to growing up on a dead star! Not only that, but they would only really be interested in other dead stars. Maybe they would think that our solar system couldn't possibly have the ability to sustain any life at all.

 

[Puppycow]

Life evolving on the surface of a dead star sounds impossible to me. Certainly not life "as we know it".

The main problem is that formation of complex molecules would be impossible (I'm no physicist, but that is my guess).

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Something about our particular solar system, our particular planet, our particular place in the galaxy, our particular temporal place in the evolution of the universe or some other variable means that we are special and life and intelligence like ours isn't just rare, but impossible except in this one specific and unique circumstance. We are special and unique beyond any possible measure.

Is that your position or one you're ascribing to another poster?

 

[Mudcat]

How likely that they(or we) ever become space travelers?

Ultimately unknowable, as it would naturally depend on a number of variables.

I imagine there are currently probably hundreds of intelligent species in the galaxy that probably never make it to the stars for one reason or another despite having the knowledge to do it. Races that evolved on worlds like Ganymade, for example, wouldn't have the resources to achieve space flight. They probably wouldn't even get out of the Iron Age, for that matter.

 

[Nihilianth]

Life evolving on the surface of a dead star sounds impossible to me. Certainly not life "as we know it".

The main problem is that formation of complex molecules would be impossible (I'm no physicist, but that is my guess).

Why would it be impossible? If it has had enough time to cool off and lose most of it's atmosphere, while still generating enough heat to keep the surface warm. The only problem I see with it, is that intelligent life can take billions of years to evolve.

 

[Puppycow]

Could you clarify what you mean by a "dead star"?

I thought you meant a white dwarf but maybe you mean something else I don't know about.

 

[Nihilianth]

Could you clarify what you mean by a "dead star"?

I thought you meant a white dwarf but maybe you mean something else I don't know about.

Sorry I was thinking of a video I once saw where it showed a star, much like our sun, going through it's various life cycle stages. From main-sequence yellow star, to red giant, to white dwarf, to brown dwarf, and eventually to a hypothetical black dwarf, where temperatures at the surface could be a comfortable earth-like 70 degrees F. But that would take trillions of years (far, far longer than the existence of the universe thus far.)

 

[Puppycow]

Yeah, I just don't know, even given trillions of years. A brown dwarf is different though. A white dwarf will eventually become a black dwarf given enough time but a brown dwarf is like a very large gas giant bigger than Jupiter but smaller than a red dwarf star. A white dwarf (or a black dwarf) has a huge mass and is very compact, so the gravity on the surface is incredibly strong.

 

[Nihilianth]

Yeah, I just don't know, even given trillions of years. A brown dwarf is different though. A white dwarf will eventually become a black dwarf given enough time but a brown dwarf is like a very large gas giant bigger than Jupiter but smaller than a red dwarf star. A white dwarf (or a black dwarf) has a huge mass and is very compact, so the gravity on the surface is incredibly strong.

There are hypothetical creatures that COULD develop and live in the atmosphere of a gas giant like Jupiter. But a Brown Dwarf is probably even more massive, turbulent, and violent than a gas giant planet.

But, theoretically speaking, if a brown dwarf, after trillions upon trillions of years, wouldn't it be possible for life to form on the surface? I mean, after all of that time, even a brown dwarf would burn away a lot of it's mass. So maybe the surface of a black dwarf wouldn't have as strong a gravity as it did when it was even a brown dwarf.