Is it possible that mankind is alone in the universe, or that other life is so different from ourselves that they have no interest in us?

Question

Here's something I picked up from another forum that I found to be quite thought provoking. Interested in your views both religious and secular.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."
A little while later:

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

Answer 1

It's essentially a statistical impossibility for life not to exist somewhere else in the universe. The diversity of it just here on Earth shows that life isn't a rare thing, so if we were truly the only life in the universe that would be more than astounding. I do think it would be so different as to not even recognize us, though. The conditions on the planet at the time of life forming and how the planet changes whilst life evolves does all the shaping of how it will look in millions of years. So the chances of finding bipedal ape-like creatures akin to us on another world are probably pretty low.

Answer 2

We don't know if there is life outside of the earth. It's conceivable.

Answer 3

Sea algae has been found thriving on the outside of the International space station in a vacuum proving life can exist in space!



Organic compounds containing carbon and hydrogen form the building blocks of all life on Earth.



This material occurs within tiny spheres of carbonate minerals in both the Martian and Earth rocks and is closely associated with the iron oxide mineral magnetite.



The organic material formed in the rocks when volcanoes erupted under freezing conditions. During cooling, magnetite acted as a catalyst to form organic compounds from fluids rich in carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). This event occurred under conditions where no forms of life existed.



A molecule closely related to an amino acid: amino acetonitrile has been found in the constellation Sagittarius. Acetonitrile (NH2CH2CN), is thought to be a direct precursor of glycine.



Naphthalene cation a very complex molecules discovered in the interstellar medium contains a large number of the key components in prebiotic terrestrial chemistry. When subjected to ultraviolet radiation and combined with water and ammonium, both very abundant in the interstellar medium, it reacts and is capable of producing a wide variety of aminoacids and naphthaloquinones, precursor molecules to vitamins.



All these molecules play a fundamental role in the development of life as we know it on Earth. In fact, naphthalene has been found in meteorites that continue to fall to the surface of the Earth, and which fell with much greater intensity in epochs preceding the appearance of life.



Other complex interstellar molecules have been found which include ethyl alcohol, formaldehyde, formic acid, acetic acid, glycol aldehyde (a basic sugar), and ethylene glycol.



A cloud of very heavy ions has been found 1000km above Titan’s surface.



They are complex organic molecules formed from methane and nitrogen when exposed to intense sunlight, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH’s) and similar compounds containing nitrogen. They gradually form more and more complex molecules – reaching masses of 8,000 times that of a single hydrogen atom.



These molecules sink towards the surface, forming a group of compounds named ‘tholins’. Tholins were first observed in a 1953 experiment that demonstrated that organic molecules could be formed from inorganic precursors. As such, they may provide the building blocks from which life forms.



Molecules of methanimine and hydrogen cyanide, two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids have been detected in a galaxy some 250 million light years away. When combined with water, the molecules form glycene, the simplest amino acid and a building block of life on Earth.



Another important component of early genetic material has been found in meteorite fragments. The molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases. Between 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago large numbers of these meteorites rained down on Earth.



surprisingly short segments of DNA, life's molecular carrier of genetic information, could assemble into several distinct liquid crystal phases that "self-orient" parallel to one another and stack into columns when placed in a water solution. Life is widely believed to have emerged as segments of DNA- or RNA-like molecules in a prebiotic "soup" solution of ancient organic molecules.

Answer 4

We don't know. Until we do, such speculations are fictional.

Answer 5

Maybe when we quit killing each other.