Minds that think alike...(re: Aliens)

[Robo Sapien]

In order to master interstellar travel, one would think that would require a mastery of natural process, specifically transmutation of elements. In that regard, if there is one resource that we have in abundance on earth it is information, in the form of DNA. The earth is a massive library of genetic code containing the knowledge of every chemical reaction that has ever taken place. So, since we're speculating here, I would think any ET's visiting us would likely want to harvest as much data as possible, which could potentially be bad news for humans.

 

[McHrozni]

In order to master interstellar travel, one would think that would require a mastery of natural process, specifically transmutation of elements. In that regard, if there is one resource that we have in abundance on earth it is information, in the form of DNA. The earth is a massive library of genetic code containing the knowledge of every chemical reaction that has ever taken place.

Em. Transmutation of elements is not a chemical reaction. DNA also does not encode chemical reactions. It contains information that eventually encodes some chemical reactions, but far from all of them.

Other than that, your point is valid.

McHrozni

 

[23_Tauri]

The earth is a massive library of genetic code containing the knowledge of every chemical reaction that has ever taken place. So, since we're speculating here, I would think any ET's visiting us would likely want to harvest as much data as possible, which could potentially be bad news for humans.

Does that explain cattle and cat mutilations then?

 

[Rramjet]

By products of DNA you mean, what? Animals, Bacteria, Viruses and plants?
If these beings have evolved someplace other than Earth, then I fail to see why they would need or want the products of Earth DNA at all. (except maybe as biological curiosities or zoological specimens).

No... I mean antibiotics, drugs, enzymes, herbicides, growth promoters, etc.

Which makes the following point from you redundant...

Potential Aliens would have evolved on other planets and they are unlikely to have the same four amino acid bases in whatever analogue of DNA natural selection provided them with from their environment. So, if they even rely on a similar system of genetic variation as Earth life does, it seems very unlikely to me that our Earthling DNA would be any good for them.

But this point...

I also assume that if they are technologically advanced enough to fly all the way out here at faster than lightspeed, synthesising any type of organic molecule or process they wanted would be a piece of cake.

...indicates that you definitely need to understand something about organic chemistry and the overwhelmingly enormous number of molecular combinations just a few basic elements can produce... (and similarly with DNA and the products just 4 basic elements in combination have the ability to manufacture...)

Lets just think about the problem rationally for a minute. What is the unique thing about earth that cannot be obtained anywhere else in the universe? Of course it is DNA (or more specifically, the chemical products of DNA as expressed currently via the various lifeforms - microbes, algae, plants, frogs... but once you have found it, then you can potentially synthesise it sans microbe, algae, plant, frog, etc. But you must find it first and then determine if it is useful or not. That is a staggering undertaking and would take an enormous amount of time). Everything else can be had somewhere else.

Robo Sapien sees the potential.

 

[Robo Sapien]

Em. Transmutation of elements is not a chemical reaction. DNA also does not encode chemical reactions. It contains information that eventually encodes some chemical reactions, but far from all of them.

Other than that, your point is valid.

Sorry I didn't mean to imply ALL of them, but most of the ones that have occurred here, which is substantial. It is really no different than how we seek to study potential biologies within our own solar system, we'll probably find something new. Within our own genetic code is a detailed set of instructions on how to turn carbon and other raw materials into the thousands of different chemicals that make us work. This information is certainly proving valuable to us as we discover it, I can't see why it wouldn't be of value to another intelligence.

 

[Brainache]

No... I mean antibiotics, drugs, enzymes, herbicides, growth promoters, etc.

...

OK, I admit that I don't know anything about organic chemistry, but wouldn't the products you mention only be useful to these aliens if they also had the same DNA as Earth creatures?

If they had the same type of DNA plus a highly advanced Technology (think millions of years ahead of us) wouldn't we be a bit backward in comparison? It seems to me like we would be cavemen worried that an American wanted to steal our beautiful flint fire-starting rocks.

If they didn't share our DNA, products based on Earth DNA couldn't be metabolised by them at all. We might be able to provide them with effective laxatives or stink-bombs, but I don't see how enzymes or "growth promoters" could work for anything other than Earth DNA.

 

[Rramjet]

OK, I admit that I don't know anything about organic chemistry, but wouldn't the products you mention only be useful to these aliens if they also had the same DNA as Earth creatures?

If they had the same type of DNA plus a highly advanced Technology (think millions of years ahead of us) wouldn't we be a bit backward in comparison? It seems to me like we would be cavemen worried that an American wanted to steal our beautiful flint fire-starting rocks.

If they didn't share our DNA, products based on Earth DNA couldn't be metabolised by them at all. We might be able to provide them with effective laxatives or stink-bombs, but I don't see how enzymes or "growth promoters" could work for anything other than Earth DNA.

Lets take a particular example from current technology. The fossil fuel industry is currently manipulating the DNA of algae so that it produces crude oil. They have achieved the result they want (oil production), it is now a matter of "scaling up" the production... This particular brand of insanity demonstrates that DNA (via the algae) can produce chemicals that we might otherwise consider toxic to life (also think of "poisons" from snakes and frogs and plants etc for example).

I am therefore taking about the chemical products of DNA that could be useful in many ways other than as "metabolites" for aliens. With crude oil you can make plastic for example - a very useful product - and you can take the means of production wherever you go (a VERY useful thing)! The wider potential chemical production is practically limitless and as yet only just beginning to be explored by humankind.

 

[Brainache]

Lets take a particular example from current technology. The fossil fuel industry is currently manipulating the DNA of algae so that it produces crude oil. They have achieved the result they want (oil production), it is now a matter of "scaling up" the production... This particular brand of insanity demonstrates that DNA (via the algae) can produce chemicals that we might otherwise consider toxic to life (also think of "poisons" from snakes and frogs and plants etc for example).

I am therefore taking about the chemical products of DNA that could be useful in many ways other than as "metabolites" for aliens. With crude oil you can make plastic for example - a very useful product - and you can take the means of production wherever you go (a VERY useful thing)! The wider potential chemical production is practically limitless and as yet only just beginning to be explored by humankind.

OK. But I am imagining Aliens who are advanced a long way beyond our level of technology. They must be, otherwise they wouldn't be able to get here. I am also assuming that they would have their own biological processes which they would have been developing for thousands of years, unlike us primitive Earth-bound Humans who are only just beginning to explore this avenue of chemical exploitation.

Assuming that these highly advanced Aliens would want to come and take our specific DNA still sounds to me like a gross underestimation of what they might be able to do already.

How could they be unaware of chemical reactions like you describe. Or be unable to synthesize such things as they need from raw materials, if they posses the technology to travel lightyears in giant spaceships?

You still sound to me like the Neanderthal worried that David Attenborough is going to try to steal his magic Mammoth bone technology...

 

[Rramjet]

OK. But I am imagining Aliens who are advanced a long way beyond our level of technology. They must be, otherwise they wouldn't be able to get here. I am also assuming that they would have their own biological processes which they would have been developing for thousands of years, unlike us primitive Earth-bound Humans who are only just beginning to explore this avenue of chemical exploitation.

Assuming that these highly advanced Aliens would want to come and take our specific DNA still sounds to me like a gross underestimation of what they might be able to do already.

How could they be unaware of chemical reactions like you describe. Or be unable to synthesize such things as they need from raw materials, if they posses the technology to travel lightyears in giant spaceships?

You still sound to me like the Neanderthal worried that David Attenborough is going to try to steal his magic Mammoth bone technology...

You are merely assuming aliens to be omniscient when it comes to the production of chemicals - and I doubt that very much.

Besides, you make some rather sweeping unfounded assertions concerning what aliens are and what they can achieve. It would seem to me that making assumptions about what aliens can or cannot do (or what they do or do not know) is rather presumptuous.

 

[Brainache]

You are merely assuming aliens to be omniscient when it comes to the production of chemicals - and I doubt that very much.

Besides, you make some rather sweeping unfounded assertions concerning what aliens are and what they can achieve. It would seem to me that making assumptions about what aliens can or cannot do (or what they do or do not know) is rather presumptuous.

It's hypothetical. Based on what Hawking said in the article in the OP, I'm assuming that these Aliens are thousands of years in advance of Humanity, not omniscient.

You are assuming that Aliens capable of travelling lightyears to Earth would need or desire our Earth DNA for the purposes of making things that they couldn't otherwise.

Why are these interstellar travellers of yours so inept at biochemistry, yet so advanced in physics and engineering?

Are you now going to claim that these Aliens aren't interstellar travellers far more advanced than humans?

 

[McHrozni]

Sorry I didn't mean to imply ALL of them, but most of the ones that have occurred here, which is substantial. It is really no different than how we seek to study potential biologies within our own solar system, we'll probably find something new. Within our own genetic code is a detailed set of instructions on how to turn carbon and other raw materials into the thousands of different chemicals that make us work. This information is certainly proving valuable to us as we discover it, I can't see why it wouldn't be of value to another intelligence.

Well, not really. Chemical reactions not taking place in the living organism aren't encoded in any DNA. Furthermore, DNA only encodes formations of some molecules, who can then catalyze certain other reactions. Many important processes are taken for granted by the organism, so to speak.

Still, your point is valid - information encoded in DNA could be a valuable resource. You just formulated it in a wrong way

McHrozni

 

[Cuddles]

If they found the way to cross such distance, the only reason for them to come into a gravity well, is either to communicate (we are not alone) and exchange info or make sure they stay the dominant specie (let us kill the potential concurrence while it is still stuck in a gravity well).

Unless I am missing obvious other reason, it is a true dichotomy .

Yep, you're missing obvious reasons. The most obvious would simply be study. Before deciding whether to contact or invade, you'd certainly want to spend some time just studying, preferably without anyone knowing you're there. If you happen to be scientifically inclined, or know that there is life all over the place, that may well be all you want to do.

I'm sure there are plenty of other possible reasons as well, but whatever the case it's certainly not a dichotomy.

This particular brand of insanity demonstrates that DNA (via the algae) can produce chemicals that we might otherwise consider toxic to life

Because who would have thought oil could be produced by living things.

You are merely assuming aliens to be omniscient when it comes to the production of chemicals - and I doubt that very much.

No, you are assuming that they know virtually nothing about production of chemicals, that they originated someone that doesn't have anywhere near the biodiversity of Earth, and that the products of Earth biology would be more useful than the products of their own. The assumption that incredibly advanced aliens might know a bit more about chemistry than us is really rather a minor one in comparison.

 

[Hellbound]

Just an FYI on algea and oil:

They have not, nor are they trying, to make algea that produce petroleum oil.

What they have done, and are working on, is making algea that produces an abundance of it's own oils, which can be converted into biodiesel and/or ethanol, at a much lower cost and higher efficiency than current methods using corn and other food crops.

It helps to get the facts in a discussion.

 

[Michael Redman]

Maybe they won't be looking for an industrial application like creating oil. Maybe they'll just want a new spice, or a new perfume, or a new type of leather to make codpieces out of.

Assuming that a very advanced civilization would have discovered every possible organic compound is rather absurd. Likewise, every possible form of life. There isn't any doubt that there is information to be found on Earth that an alien civilization would not obtain but from Earth.

Hell, maybe they'll be looking for a plot for a movie they haven't seen a million times before.

 

[Robo Sapien]

Just an FYI on algea and oil:

They have not, nor are they trying, to make algea that produce petroleum oil.

What they have done, and are working on, is making algea that produces an abundance of it's own oils, which can be converted into biodiesel and/or ethanol, at a much lower cost and higher efficiency than current methods using corn and other food crops.

It helps to get the facts in a discussion.

There was a sidebar in an issue of Popular Science last year about studies of insect digestive systems and from that learning how to produce energy from biological material, very interesting stuff. I'll see if I can't dig up the article later and post some more info.

 

[quarky]

There might be aliens on the bottom of the ocean, or at least a probe. If a craft of some sort was ever sent here, to send data, odds are good that it landed in deep water.

Speaking of which, some of the species being discovered at various ocean bottom vents have really stretched our prior presumptions about biology.
Suppose the aliens came from a planet with no light and extreme pressure:
The niche they were seeking might be one similar to the deep ocean bottom.

They could be down there now, minding there own business, and essentially unable to come up here and introduce themselves.

 

[Belgian thought]

There might be aliens on the bottom of the ocean, or at least a probe. If a craft of some sort was ever sent here, to send data, odds are good that it landed in deep water.

Speaking of which, some of the species being discovered at various ocean bottom vents have really stretched our prior presumptions about biology.
Suppose the aliens came from a planet with no light and extreme pressure:
The niche they were seeking might be one similar to the deep ocean bottom.

They could be down there now, minding there own business, and essentially unable to come up here and introduce themselves.

In all cases, aliens would have been able to pin point a suitable planet for their intended visit, and I doubt very much they used a super large focal telescope with the stated aim of - "Find a blue planet, does not matter where, how big, just make sure it's blue" and then proceeded to fly to it. Pity the mission that landed on Uranus – anal probe jokes are not applicable here.

It is more than likely that they would use some form of chemical analysis, as we are doing, using spectroscopy or its future development. Therefore, they would have to have knowledge of chemistry and thus would more than likely to be well aware of their own chemical make up.

As for carrying out the same said research from underwater, I can’t even conceive of this.

 

[Marduk]

I say it was Roller Derby that caused the regression.

Way too recent, I say it was the colonisation of the U.S.

 

[Robo Sapien]

Way too recent, I say it was the colonisation of the U.S.

Or maybe it was the tyranny of the English that followed the colonization..

 

[Hellbound]

Way too recent, I say it was the colonisation of the U.S.

Or maybe it was the tyranny of the English that followed the colonization..

It all started going downhill with fire.