Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, Welcome to Forward Thinking about
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says we have
Speaker 1: just discovered an important note from space. The Martians plan
Speaker 1: to throw a dance for all the human race. I'm
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren, and I'm Joe McCormick. And today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about aliens. It is time to
Speaker 1: talk about aliens on this podcast. You know, it has
Speaker 1: been a long time coming. We we talked about the
Speaker 1: future and obviously the future involves aliens. Well, the day
Speaker 1: were probably the day, the day we are recording this
Speaker 1: is the same day that NASA announced that the Voyager
Speaker 1: one spacecraft has officially entered interstellar space. Not like the
Speaker 1: last time that the Internet said that this time, yeah,
Speaker 1: because again, our our our benchmark for what marks the
Speaker 1: end of our solar system and the beginning of interstellar
Speaker 1: space has changed frequently over the last ten years or so. Yeah. Essentially,
Speaker 1: we're talking about plasma and the presence of interstellar plasma
Speaker 1: over solar plasma in the in the environment that the
Speaker 1: Voyager one is traveling through, and that now it's all
Speaker 1: the Interstellar spaces Plasma's party time soonified Interstellar Plasma. By
Speaker 1: the way, it sounds an awful lot like Demon sam
Speaker 1: Neil is coming for our souls. It actually to me,
Speaker 1: I'm very concerned. To me, it sounds like what the
Speaker 1: fox says, not like what the music video does, but
Speaker 1: what a fox actually says. Okay, because it sounds like
Speaker 1: it sounds like screaming. Um. But yeah, it's uh yeah,
Speaker 1: because what NaSTA did was they they translated the plasma
Speaker 1: frequencies into audible frequencies for us to hear, and they
Speaker 1: played it on their live stream and it was pretty creepy. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so anyway, we're we're out there now, We're we're putting
Speaker 1: our our hat on the table for inner interstellar space.
Speaker 1: Yeah well, not an intergalactic note sorry, that was totally
Speaker 1: the wrong word. Interstellar interstellar. Yeah. Well, and it even
Speaker 1: has an album on board that has information about Earth,
Speaker 1: essentially things like greetings as music. It has pictures of
Speaker 1: Earth on it. Yes it is too. Both have gold
Speaker 1: disk designed by Carl saying. Well, okay, so that is
Speaker 1: designed to talk to aliens and um. One interesting thing
Speaker 1: about that disc is imagine you are commissioned to make it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm Carl Sagan. Yeah. How do you design something
Speaker 1: that would be comprehensible to an alien? It's a really
Speaker 1: right in English. You have to you have to make
Speaker 1: some serious assumptions about what an alien is going to
Speaker 1: find comprehensible exactly and what And the way you would
Speaker 1: do that is by imagining what an alien my be like. Right,
Speaker 1: But we don't know what an alien might be like,
Speaker 1: and that's what we're about to speculate. In fact, we're
Speaker 1: going to speculate wildly and with no evidence whatsoever. Oh No,
Speaker 1: there's evidence, not in terms of direct evidence of what
Speaker 1: there is, but evidence maybe suggesting what there might more
Speaker 1: or less likely be based upon a sample size of
Speaker 1: one planet that has life on it. So keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that if you're looking at this from a scientific perspective,
Speaker 1: as far as sample size goes, we have a sample
Speaker 1: size of one so that which means experiment well, right,
Speaker 1: but so we can say that the chance of aliens
Speaker 1: being transformers is fairly low. Yeah, but I still hold
Speaker 1: out hope. I mean statistically statistically chances of transformers Lauren
Speaker 1: um oh, like an Earth truck. Hey, hey, hey, he
Speaker 1: was able to take the form of an earth truck
Speaker 1: after landing on Earth. It's not like that was his
Speaker 1: actual form back there. And I cannot think of a
Speaker 1: number close enough to zero that's pronounceable within the confines
Speaker 1: of our podcast time. You're breaking my heart freight. Oh okay, So,
Speaker 1: so I think we should start with the place where
Speaker 1: we would usually go to get images of what aliens
Speaker 1: might look like. We got to start with science fiction,
Speaker 1: because that's what we got to work with, right right, Um,
Speaker 1: lots of aliens from science fiction you might notice have
Speaker 1: something in common, and I'm not going to say what
Speaker 1: it is yet, but I'm going to start with After Transformers,
Speaker 1: there's of course my favorite sci fi aliens, the cone heads. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty that's kind of hard sci fi. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's right there with Yeah, it's pretty classic Rusumov
Speaker 1: Highland cone heads. Yeah, they come from France. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I can easily imagine you as a cone head. But
Speaker 1: it does not take a lot of imagining. It really
Speaker 1: just takes a little bit of, yeah, stretching and that's it. So,
Speaker 1: but you take cone heads and then you shrink down
Speaker 1: the head and add some hair and make them very handsome.
Speaker 1: And then you have Kryptonians like Superman. You put some
Speaker 1: some some ridges along their forehead and now you've got
Speaker 1: clingons yeah, or you point ee up their ears and
Speaker 1: then you've got Vulcans or romulans. Yeah yeah, okay. Um.
Speaker 1: One thing all these really seem to have in common
Speaker 1: to me is that they all look basically like humans. Well,
Speaker 1: and I almost as though a human actor we're put
Speaker 1: into some kind of makeup process. That's fair. Um. In fact,
Speaker 1: lots of aliens and science fiction just straight up our humans.
Speaker 1: I know, we've all seen Plan nine from outer Space yea,
Speaker 1: the aliens, and that are humans wearing like medieval night costumes,
Speaker 1: got like a like a shield emblem on their two Well,
Speaker 1: and then there's things like Balstar Galactica, the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight version, obviously the superior one, where it's revealed that
Speaker 1: essentially the people aboard the Ballestar Galactica they're searching for
Speaker 1: Earth because they've heard that that's where humans are are
Speaker 1: dwelling and that they themselves are humans. So apparently the
Speaker 1: human race in that sense is distributed across the galaxy.
Speaker 1: Or in Star Wars, which took place as we all know,
Speaker 1: a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
Speaker 1: Well and and Star Wars actually has some interesting aliens
Speaker 1: that are not human looking but are still human anoid
Speaker 1: meaning that they still have you know, they still tend
Speaker 1: to be bipedal. They have you know, a torso, arms, legs,
Speaker 1: and a head, and then they might look a little funky,
Speaker 1: but basically human, basically bilateral symmetry exactly. A lot of
Speaker 1: aliens also fit into that category. Think for example, like
Speaker 1: of predators, the Predator from the Predator movies. These are
Speaker 1: basically like they're like alien ted nugents and they they
Speaker 1: just go from planet to planet killing wildlife. I was
Speaker 1: wondering where you're going with that, but now I got you.
Speaker 1: I'm caught up. Yeah, but they're they're so human when
Speaker 1: you look at them, except they've got a weird kind
Speaker 1: of bug face. But even or something from Doctor Who,
Speaker 1: Yeah right, even the xenomorphs from Alien you know, they
Speaker 1: tend to move. Most of them are basically bipole and bilaterally. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they might move on all fours at times, but they
Speaker 1: still like when they stand up, they are essentially the
Speaker 1: human form. I think the aliens actually are a little
Speaker 1: more interesting than that because they're not purely anthropomorphic. They
Speaker 1: also incorporate um insect hive behavior, I think in a
Speaker 1: in an interesting way, and I think we can come
Speaker 1: back to that when we talk about some of the
Speaker 1: more plausible theories of what advanced alien life might look like. Well. Also, also,
Speaker 1: they're not squishy the way that say a Klingon is
Speaker 1: or something like that. They never tried to hug agin on,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how squishy they can. They've they've
Speaker 1: got an exoskeleton, their blood is is acid. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: floors lava. So there's also the the tendency that aliens
Speaker 1: will sometimes have multiple organs. For example, Uh, time lords
Speaker 1: have two hearts. Uh, I think cleanlands do to. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure Cleanon's have two hearts. Don't quote me
Speaker 1: on that. That's me just referencing my yeah, my memory
Speaker 1: of Star Trek. But there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: variations of that where you find out, you know, like
Speaker 1: I think, um, you find out Dr Zoidberg and Futurama
Speaker 1: has several different copies of organs in his body. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you think are the stupidest sci fi anatomy? Alright?
Speaker 1: So alien anatomy one are the dumbest um I think. Well,
Speaker 1: going back to the xenomorph, seeing the mouth within the
Speaker 1: mouth was a little weird. I like it. I mean
Speaker 1: it's a cool it's a cool effect. I just don't
Speaker 1: know about the actual evolutionary pathway that that would happen.
Speaker 1: But then again, you look at some insects and they
Speaker 1: have some pretty pretty weird proboscis types seem all that.
Speaker 1: It seems a little weird to me. The acid blood
Speaker 1: also seems a little weird to me. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I can see it here. Here's what I would go.
Speaker 1: I would go with basically all the ones that are
Speaker 1: exactly humans that speak English, of course. But then also
Speaker 1: that was always like a babel fish or something like that,
Speaker 1: right right, uh. I hate to say it because he's
Speaker 1: so wonderful, but but eat doesn't make any sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: et has the problem of the Okay, so we're just
Speaker 1: sort of like uncritically going basically humanoid. It's it's bipedal
Speaker 1: with with a face like ours and the same shape
Speaker 1: and all that, except he's like melted and he has
Speaker 1: magic powers. He can he can magic powers. Part that
Speaker 1: really sets you off yeah, well Superman is the same
Speaker 1: way though, you know, actually, yeah, the entire concept that
Speaker 1: the radiation from our son could could cause superpowers in
Speaker 1: an alien, particularly flight, there's no mechanism there. What do
Speaker 1: you think is the stupidest? Lauren Um, I I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't. Actually, I'm gonna go with Kryptonians. Really, we're
Speaker 1: going to be honest. I want to go crazy ones
Speaker 1: because yeah, human ones I just dismiss out of hand,
Speaker 1: because you know, I mean that's I think triples are
Speaker 1: totally plausible. I'm not going with triples. Okay, those are stupid. Well,
Speaker 1: trying to think of one that I'd really go with.
Speaker 1: Hold onto that thought, because maybe it's time for us
Speaker 1: to transition to talking about the actual science behind this
Speaker 1: and and what are some things that might actually be
Speaker 1: more plausible than other things according to some thinkers, because
Speaker 1: a lot of thought has been put into this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I mean, even just when we're trying to
Speaker 1: classify life on Earth, we start really having to hit
Speaker 1: up some hard definitions like whether or not a virus
Speaker 1: is alive and stuff like. Yeah, and to be fair,
Speaker 1: if we're going to talk about intelligent life, there are
Speaker 1: some who argue. I mean, there's some some scientists who
Speaker 1: argue that the bipedal humanoid form is possibly what will encounter. Now,
Speaker 1: there are others who argue very much against that. But
Speaker 1: one of the proponents is Cambridge University paleontologist Simon Conway Morris,
Speaker 1: who sort of has expressed uh an argument that the
Speaker 1: bipedal form is almost like an evolutionary inevitability, like that
Speaker 1: is just a it is a basic form that evolution
Speaker 1: pushes towards. Well, I'm paraphrasing to be fair, but but
Speaker 1: also he feels that if we were to find alien
Speaker 1: intelligent alien life, he would not be surprised if that
Speaker 1: alien intelligent life appeared as a bipedal humanoid kind of figure. Now,
Speaker 1: there are others who say that this is this is
Speaker 1: an example of protagoras is bias. Protagoras was a Greek
Speaker 1: philosopher predecessor to uh So crates Um, and Protagoras said
Speaker 1: that man is the measure of all things, so essentially
Speaker 1: measuring everything against mankind and that that and other people
Speaker 1: have pointed out to think saying that's really a logical fallacy,
Speaker 1: you know, to sit there and just a centric well,
Speaker 1: I mean, at that point in time, we did think
Speaker 1: that the entire universe literally revolved around the planet Earth.
Speaker 1: Well so most of us did. Uh I was not
Speaker 1: really that vocal back in that day. But um, so
Speaker 1: there are some considerations I think that that we could
Speaker 1: give to this the idea, well, what if they do
Speaker 1: look like bipedal humanoids in our sample size of one
Speaker 1: that did happen only so we know that it's we
Speaker 1: know that it's plausible, whereas we don't know that other
Speaker 1: advanced intelligent body forms are plausible. Sure, however we do
Speaker 1: I mean the the emotional and intellectual maturity of some
Speaker 1: other non eipeedle animals on on Earth, like like cuttle fisher, octopus,
Speaker 1: or dolphins or um whales. Lawyers, lawyers, that was mean, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: Um you know, are like like to the point where
Speaker 1: there's certainly as as intelligent as our young before their
Speaker 1: brains developed past put essence well. And also a lot
Speaker 1: of the critics that that Morris has and others like
Speaker 1: Morris not just more of something. Morris is one person
Speaker 1: who has this this belief, but a lot of the
Speaker 1: critics say that, like Michael Schermer, for example, says that
Speaker 1: it's almost an impossibility that intelligent alien species would resemble
Speaker 1: a bipetal primate, because in Earth's own history only one
Speaker 1: species ever developed into that bipetle mode. We don't see
Speaker 1: examples of this, like a reptile version or a fish version,
Speaker 1: which you wouldn't expect anyway, just because the Ironmen. But
Speaker 1: at any rate, we don't see anything other than this
Speaker 1: one branch having developed that particular that particular model. And therefore,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about a planet where that's only ever
Speaker 1: happened once, then the possibility of that happening somewhere else
Speaker 1: maybe even lower. So who knows, maybe the intelligent life
Speaker 1: on another planet, particularly say let's say it's one that
Speaker 1: has mostly covered in water, would not look anything like
Speaker 1: a bipedal humanoid. Uh. Carl Sagan made that same argument.
Speaker 1: In fact, he said that uh. Intelligence species may live
Speaker 1: on the land or in the sea or the air.
Speaker 1: They may have unimaginable chemistries, shapes, sizes, colors, appendages, and opinions.
Speaker 1: We are not requiring that they follow the particular route
Speaker 1: that led the evolution led to the evolution of humans.
Speaker 1: There may be many different evolutionary pathways, each unlikely, but
Speaker 1: the sum of the number of pathways to intelligence may
Speaker 1: nevertheless be quite substantial. I think those are good points.
Speaker 1: I do want to stick up for one sort of
Speaker 1: strange take on bipedalism, which is that I think I
Speaker 1: would favor bipedalism, or say quadrupedalism over tripedalism if you see, like,
Speaker 1: well that not the organisms themselves in war the worlds,
Speaker 1: but the sort of the rovers they use are legged things.
Speaker 1: But I just realized this is really interesting. According to
Speaker 1: a two thousand eleven paper, Um, they're about eight point
Speaker 1: seven million distinct eukaryotic species on Earth. That was their estimate.
Speaker 1: Not one of these species. And this isn't from the paper.
Speaker 1: This is just that was for that number, not one
Speaker 1: of those eight point seven million species that we know about.
Speaker 1: It's tripedal No three legged organisms. There's like, there's like
Speaker 1: a fish that sometimes props itself up on two fins
Speaker 1: and a tail, you know, it's something like that, But
Speaker 1: there's nothing with three legs. Well, life as we know
Speaker 1: it on on Earth evolved from hypothetically a common ancestor
Speaker 1: or maybe a few common ancestors independently across the globe,
Speaker 1: depending on which theory you want to prescribe to, but
Speaker 1: it would only follow that all life on our planet
Speaker 1: would follow the same basic design. Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there is certainly convergent evolution, which is this idea
Speaker 1: that you get to the same basic kind of of
Speaker 1: body types and even behavioral types in different parts of
Speaker 1: the world, even when the species that are concerned have
Speaker 1: no actual contact genetic link until you get back to
Speaker 1: that ancient, ancient, ancient ancient ancestor, right, And I think
Speaker 1: so there's there's two sides to this story. Also, I
Speaker 1: think convergent evolution is interesting in that it shows that
Speaker 1: different animals in different environments can involve the same characteristics,
Speaker 1: which is one thing that might give us a reason
Speaker 1: to think, well, okay, maybe aliens could look like humans.
Speaker 1: But also they're starting with the same biochemistry. And here
Speaker 1: this leads us into another interesting question, um about what
Speaker 1: this alien life could look like. Should we expect that
Speaker 1: it's basically going to have the same chemical basis as
Speaker 1: life on Earth? And I've heard good arguments on both
Speaker 1: sides of this um that that basically, if there's going
Speaker 1: to be something as organized and complex as as life
Speaker 1: as we know it, it needs to be carbon based. Well,
Speaker 1: and that argument is hard to make, right because we
Speaker 1: live on a carbon rich planet. So if you were
Speaker 1: if we were from some other planet that was silicon
Speaker 1: rich and we were silicon based, we would be making
Speaker 1: that same argument. Perhaps we may be saying, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: any intelligent life out there would be silicon based, because
Speaker 1: look at us and look at how these things developed. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's because we don't have anything we can point
Speaker 1: to right now. It's very I I would not go
Speaker 1: so far as to say it's likely that whatever life
Speaker 1: we do encounter, assuming that we one day encounter it,
Speaker 1: and I imagine that one day we will if we
Speaker 1: haven't wiped ourselves out, then I'm pretty sure it will happen. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then you know, I don't know if how likely it
Speaker 1: is one way or versus the other. I think it
Speaker 1: all depends upon well, it depends upon many things. Depends
Speaker 1: upon the the actual physical properties of the planet that
Speaker 1: life was originally from, or asteroid or whatever it happens
Speaker 1: to be that supports that life, the moon whatever, that
Speaker 1: not our moon, but a moon. I don't expect us
Speaker 1: to find any life on our moon. But uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just I think it's gonna be one of those
Speaker 1: things where the circumstances will really dictate it. And what
Speaker 1: what also is interesting is not just what you know,
Speaker 1: what how chemically they are are based, like whether it's
Speaker 1: carbon based, silicon based, or something else, but also how
Speaker 1: they pass on information. When the way we understand life
Speaker 1: is that it's this process where we have this. Even
Speaker 1: this gets a little tricky because we talk about things
Speaker 1: like viruses, but you know, basic life, we talk about
Speaker 1: cells passing on information and that's the process of life
Speaker 1: we have. If the cells did not pass on information,
Speaker 1: you would not have any sort of cohesion or evolution.
Speaker 1: You have to have this progression for cells to pass
Speaker 1: information along so that descendants will continue to develop beyond
Speaker 1: their ancestors. In humans, that's proteins amino acids that are
Speaker 1: that are storing and transmitting this this data. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily need to be what would do that? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it is according to us. Yeah, we think
Speaker 1: of it as DNA because that's pretty much how almost
Speaker 1: all everything we call life passes on information. Viruses are
Speaker 1: a little bit different. Uh, And again there's an argument
Speaker 1: about whether or not viruses count as being alive or not.
Speaker 1: It all depends upon whom you ask. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of debate for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and in fact there's still debate about is this the
Speaker 1: only way that cells as we understand them could pass
Speaker 1: along information. What's interesting is that there's work by a
Speaker 1: fellow by the name of Philip Hollager of the MRC
Speaker 1: Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. That's
Speaker 1: why I said laboratory, because you know, respective or friends
Speaker 1: across the pond um and he experimented with molecules to
Speaker 1: see if it was possible to create a mechanism for
Speaker 1: passing genetic information from one cell to another, but not
Speaker 1: use DNA or RNA. To create something new, and he
Speaker 1: actually started to experiment with x in A, which stands
Speaker 1: for zeno nucleic acids, using different sugars than the ones
Speaker 1: you would actually find a DNA or RNA, and discovered
Speaker 1: that you could actually create a mechanism for passing along
Speaker 1: information from one cell to another using this completely separate mechanism.
Speaker 1: I mean it it worked on a similar principle as
Speaker 1: DNA and RNA, but a totally different structure. And so
Speaker 1: now there's an interesting debate about, well, now that we
Speaker 1: understand that there are other ways of having this happened,
Speaker 1: why did DNA and RNA become the way that it
Speaker 1: happens with life on Earth? Does that mean that it
Speaker 1: is the best way of passing this information? Was there
Speaker 1: perhaps at some time life on Earth that used this
Speaker 1: other method and in fact that just die out because
Speaker 1: it was not advantageous to have that and survive. Or
Speaker 1: was it just a thing about what sugars happened to
Speaker 1: be available at the same time that life itself was forming.
Speaker 1: So these are questions that are are fascinating and we
Speaker 1: do not have answers for them, but people are working
Speaker 1: very hard to study it now because now there are
Speaker 1: these other possibilities out there, where before we didn't even
Speaker 1: know these possibilities existed. It's also interesting because it points
Speaker 1: out the fact that there is the possibility that that
Speaker 1: some alien race has a different methodology for passing along
Speaker 1: information at whatever basic level uh they would require for
Speaker 1: their kind of life. And really what gets interesting is
Speaker 1: when we start looking at the possibility that life in
Speaker 1: an alien world would look so different to us than
Speaker 1: the way we consider life here that we wouldn't even
Speaker 1: recognize it as life. Yeah, all of the options we've
Speaker 1: talked about so far and that we'll probably continue to
Speaker 1: talk about are are basically corporeal in a way. We
Speaker 1: recognize that they it's basically a body with some kind
Speaker 1: of brain type organ that exists in the three dimensions
Speaker 1: as we understand them. Oh, you bring up dimensions. So
Speaker 1: I've got a really question a question about this. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm a big fan of Buck Ruban's Eye and
Speaker 1: the alien ionized that. I'm okay. Now, the aliens in
Speaker 1: uh from the movie that Peter Weller movie, the Buck
Speaker 1: Rubansi movie, John Lithgo movie, Yeah exactly. Um alas Areadi
Speaker 1: was the best character, the best Yeah. Um so the
Speaker 1: aliens like Dr Lizardo and uh and John Smallberries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they claim to be not from another planet but from
Speaker 1: another dimension. Right, I've actually heard about this in all
Speaker 1: kinds of old sci fi. This is there aliens from
Speaker 1: another dimension. But what I'm wondering is is this concept
Speaker 1: even coherent? Does this make sense? Could there actually be
Speaker 1: aliens from another dimension? Or is that just some kind
Speaker 1: of like babble that they put into sci fi? Whether
Speaker 1: or not the concept is coherent, I think you could
Speaker 1: argue that the movie certainly isn't it amazing? I love it?
Speaker 1: But coherent that movie aside for a second, Lauren, do
Speaker 1: anything about extra dimensional aliens? All right? So so the
Speaker 1: thing the thing with us is that futurists like like
Speaker 1: Michokku have pointed out that our existence is very much
Speaker 1: like um, like carp swimming in a pond, and what
Speaker 1: we see around us, the world as we can perceive
Speaker 1: it is limited by our our senses and and how
Speaker 1: we how we use them, you know, like evolutionarily speaking,
Speaker 1: it was worthwhile for us to develop site because tigers
Speaker 1: could could run at us, you um, but tigers can't
Speaker 1: move through time. Aside from that, you know, basic linear
Speaker 1: way that we all do. So learning to to visualize
Speaker 1: something like the fourth dimension was never it was never
Speaker 1: an evolutionary a good thing, right, yes? Um? So if
Speaker 1: we're all carps and ponds, right and in a single pond, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's say, and all we know is the water and
Speaker 1: the lilies, and anything beyond the lilies, you know, we
Speaker 1: can't even conceive of. Yeah, as carp scientists were looking,
Speaker 1: we're looking at that ceiling and going like that is
Speaker 1: the edge of our universe. If a hand reaches down
Speaker 1: in to that pond and plucks a carp out, what's
Speaker 1: that carp going to think about that? It's going to
Speaker 1: think this is a god, this is an incredible interdimensional
Speaker 1: experience that I'm having, And rapidly thereafter I can't breathe,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's kind of similar to the
Speaker 1: to the flat land example, Oh yeah, right right, and
Speaker 1: which which basically says that if that, if if there
Speaker 1: was a two dimensional creature that we could we could
Speaker 1: look in on and reach down to. And I imagine
Speaker 1: you're a square, not a cube, a square, and and
Speaker 1: and a human hand reaches into your square universe and
Speaker 1: starts poking around on your insides because we as humans
Speaker 1: can see in three dimensions and recognize that this outline
Speaker 1: of the square is not a skin, but but rather
Speaker 1: an outline. How does that square cope with with something
Speaker 1: that has three dimensions? It can't, It doesn't understand them.
Speaker 1: So this is where we lead into with a weird
Speaker 1: fiction as well, So not just science, but weird fiction
Speaker 1: has looked into this sort of stuff like Lovecraft and
Speaker 1: the non Euclidean geometry and the idea that even to
Speaker 1: look upon these other dimensional beings would be to invite
Speaker 1: insanity because our brains cannot process that kind of information.
Speaker 1: He was a big fan of people going mad, wouldn't
Speaker 1: He kind of was that was sort of a that
Speaker 1: was a yeah yah kind of thing. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: but things like like string theory predict that the universe
Speaker 1: does in fact have more dimensions beyond the four that
Speaker 1: we know how to perceive, Um ten or eleven or
Speaker 1: some other. It all depends upon which one. It's usually
Speaker 1: eleven is the one I hear the most frequently. That's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite lines from a certain television show,
Speaker 1: which is that at least in my universe, I don't
Speaker 1: need eleven dimensions to make the math come out right.
Speaker 1: And and you know, and and futurists and theoretical physicists
Speaker 1: I think would argue about the string theory that you know,
Speaker 1: that the math does work. The math that we know,
Speaker 1: you know, like like Einstein's gravity equations or Maxwell's eight
Speaker 1: electromagnetic equations can in fact predict the existence of these
Speaker 1: other dimensions, and just that we are literally incapable of
Speaker 1: conceiving of a being that exists across them because we
Speaker 1: can't even detect them other than using math to say, well,
Speaker 1: if they exist, then this math makes sense. Right, So
Speaker 1: there's no way that we can physically observe them or
Speaker 1: measure them in any way. We can only uh I
Speaker 1: even hesitate to say theorize it's more like a hypothesis
Speaker 1: because there's no way of testing it. There's no way
Speaker 1: to observe it. So and we're gonna we have string
Speaker 1: theory as a potential topic that we'll talk about in
Speaker 1: the future where we're really going to dive into this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, that's that's the real difficult thing
Speaker 1: when we're talking about these, uh, this concept of extra
Speaker 1: dimensional beings, because uh, we are limited in our perception.
Speaker 1: We do not have the capability of perceiving things. If
Speaker 1: these dimensions do in fact exist, we don't know how
Speaker 1: we would ever see them unless they presented themselves to
Speaker 1: us like the que continuum doing in Star Trek, the
Speaker 1: Next Generation and and and future series. Other than that
Speaker 1: where wherein you know, these are basically at least four
Speaker 1: or five dimensional creatures who happen to sometimes show up
Speaker 1: looking like a person. In order to not break our brains,
Speaker 1: they can appear as if they were of our dimension
Speaker 1: and look like John de Lancy, specifically like John de Lancy. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm getting it. So basically it is a coherent concept.
Speaker 1: It is maybe possible, but we just don't know. We
Speaker 1: we by definition do not know. We cannot know, at
Speaker 1: least not right now. Maybe one day we can know.
Speaker 1: We can. We may not be able to ever observe
Speaker 1: it directly, but it'll be like something that's outside our
Speaker 1: visual spectrum, where we can design something that can interpret
Speaker 1: that and then translate it into something we can see. Okay,
Speaker 1: So imagine that the aliens that we encounter somewhere out
Speaker 1: there in the galaxy are um, they're basically like us physically,
Speaker 1: you know, not that they are shaped like us, but
Speaker 1: they're three dimensional, have corporeal bodies. Um, I guess that's
Speaker 1: a redundancy. They are corporeal. They're not like some sort
Speaker 1: of mist or energy that is otherwise something that would
Speaker 1: be difficult for us to interact with electro magnetic waves.
Speaker 1: What are some ways that they might look Oh, that's
Speaker 1: a good question. Well, well again, and heavily I think
Speaker 1: would depend upon the environment that came from. Right. So,
Speaker 1: one thing that I think is really interesting is to
Speaker 1: think about because everything we tend to think about animals
Speaker 1: as water based and land based. And we can talk
Speaker 1: about those options in a minute if you want, But
Speaker 1: I think one really interesting option is the idea of
Speaker 1: a creature that evolves to live on within the atmosphere
Speaker 1: of a gas planet. Got you okay? If you imagine it,
Speaker 1: so like a creature that um that never needs to
Speaker 1: set foot or I don't know, tentacle whatever on a
Speaker 1: on a tense environment, so like the water or ground,
Speaker 1: but exists in flotation. Sure. I mean keeping in mind
Speaker 1: that planets come in all shapes, sizes, densities, right. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got and a lot of the planets out there
Speaker 1: obviously going to be gas planets, right sure, And there's
Speaker 1: there's gonna be plants out there. They will have incredibly
Speaker 1: dense atmospheres. So when we think of an atmosphere, of course,
Speaker 1: we're thinking about Earth's atmosphere. And even if you've done
Speaker 1: something like you know, gone mountain climbing, and you've felt
Speaker 1: the experience of being in a thinner atmosphere, it's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine being someplace where you have a really, really
Speaker 1: thick atmosphere to the point where you could imagine a
Speaker 1: being that could support itself through that atmosphere, because you know,
Speaker 1: atmosphere essentially is a fluid right where it's gas moves,
Speaker 1: has fluid properties. It's obviously not a liquid, but it
Speaker 1: does move like it is. It has fluid I movement,
Speaker 1: So dynamics are basically yeah, exactly, fault. It'll fill up
Speaker 1: a container and assume the shape of the container. That
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, So you I can imagine a
Speaker 1: being that could exist in such a place, assuming of course,
Speaker 1: that the the atmosphere is thick enough to support such
Speaker 1: a thing. I mean, it's an interesting question to wonder
Speaker 1: about how complex such a life form could become, and
Speaker 1: depending again upon the density of the atmosphere. I don't
Speaker 1: know that there's necessarily an upper limit to that. I
Speaker 1: could picture something kind of amba, like on a on
Speaker 1: a larger scale, existing in an atmosphere like that, yeah,
Speaker 1: or I mean, you could potentially imagine a creature that
Speaker 1: that suspends itself by ballooning sure by like taking in
Speaker 1: and really in gases um that may be survived by
Speaker 1: photosynthesis or chemosynthesis of the atmosphere. Um. I think it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because there as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: there's really no reason a creature like that shouldn't exist. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: especially when you start looking at some of the really
Speaker 1: odd creatures on Earth that we've discovered in extreme environments,
Speaker 1: like in the fissures in the Earth underwater, where you
Speaker 1: would imagine normally that no life could exist there due
Speaker 1: to extreme temperatures and very lack of sunlight, lack of sunlight,
Speaker 1: extreme toxic toxicity of certain chemicals. But turns out that
Speaker 1: there are life forms that can exist and thrive in
Speaker 1: those environments, right, sure, Well, I mean they're they're bacteria
Speaker 1: that can that can split hydrogen sulfide from the water
Speaker 1: to feed themselves, which then feed giant mutant tube worms,
Speaker 1: which then feed all kinds of other who needs the sun.
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because you know, go to heck. But
Speaker 1: if you go back, but if you go back a
Speaker 1: few decades, you would have reached you would have taught
Speaker 1: to a biologist, and biologists would say that ultimately all
Speaker 1: life comes from the sun. And if you were to
Speaker 1: point at these, uh, these examples, you know, bring that
Speaker 1: biologist into the modern era and show those examples to him. Right,
Speaker 1: these are all discoveries from the past thirty years, forty years,
Speaker 1: so you have to go back, you know, a few decades.
Speaker 1: But once you did that and you brought them forward,
Speaker 1: they probably run from the room screaming. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: oh no, no no, no, I was gonna add one of
Speaker 1: my other favorite bacteria, because I have favorite bacteria. Can
Speaker 1: can can exist in uh in springs where the temperature
Speaker 1: exceeds the point of boiling water. And those springs would
Speaker 1: be hot springs, yes, not the technical technical term is ouch.
Speaker 1: Those springs are exceedingly hot. Uh well, and you know
Speaker 1: there was all go ahead. I'm sorry, Well, I'm just saying, yeah.
Speaker 1: The bacteria like these are what we would call extremophiles,
Speaker 1: survive in extreme environments. And typically these days, if you
Speaker 1: talk to an astrobiologist, what a lot of them will
Speaker 1: say as well, when we're looking at what alien life
Speaker 1: might look like, a good place to start is looking
Speaker 1: at extremophiles, because they can survive in environments that are
Speaker 1: uh far more hostile. Yeah. Um, so you imagine like
Speaker 1: a very cold or a very hot planet, or something
Speaker 1: with you know, a corrosive chemical environment, or or even
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: that the development of life as we know it in
Speaker 1: a situation like that would be certainly difficult. But if
Speaker 1: you look at one of one of my other favorite
Speaker 1: bacteria is um via. Lauren's favorite bacteria is a clstradian Baculinum.
Speaker 1: That's what causes batuli um and and and and this
Speaker 1: is one of many bacteria that is intolerant of oxygen,
Speaker 1: which there is quite a lot of um really on
Speaker 1: the planet Earth, but um. But when it is in
Speaker 1: an oxygen rich environment, it creates this kind of spore
Speaker 1: around itself that lets it hibernate until it gets into say,
Speaker 1: your gut and uh and and and lacks that oxygen
Speaker 1: and can breed again. And it's you know, life, life
Speaker 1: is impressive. It does weird stuff. I was also going
Speaker 1: to mention the fact that you know, on Earth we
Speaker 1: have we have a few luxuries on Earth that really
Speaker 1: make life possible, at least life as we know it. Um.
Speaker 1: The oxygen in our atmosphere is one of them. The
Speaker 1: distance we have from our sun is another. That goldilocks
Speaker 1: sound No, it's funny, just to point out real quickly
Speaker 1: we adapted to oxygen because the Earth wasn't always an
Speaker 1: oxygen rich environment. That was created by the by the
Speaker 1: explosion of plant life. So originally oxygen was a it's
Speaker 1: a corrosive element, you know, and it's natural state, it
Speaker 1: can be sort of poisonous and not great for complex molecules.
Speaker 1: So but but but as life as we know it,
Speaker 1: for the kind of life forms that we evolved into. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's certain things about Earth that make it that make
Speaker 1: it what it is, makes it. Yeah, it gives us that.
Speaker 1: And another one is the magnetosphere. So the magnetosphere is
Speaker 1: the magnetic field around the Earth. Uh, and it ends
Speaker 1: up protecting us from being bombarded by tiny, little subatomic particles. Essentially,
Speaker 1: we're talking about radiation here, but in this case, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the radiation of particles, not necessarily energy beams
Speaker 1: or or raise or anything like that. If you go
Speaker 1: to a planet without a magnetosphere, you're probably going to
Speaker 1: be a hurt. And guess that's where the kaiju come from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, okay, So anyway, so ionized radiation, So we
Speaker 1: got these ionized these ions, these particles, subotomic particles that
Speaker 1: are very high energy that can collide with stuff, and
Speaker 1: if it collides with something like a person, then it
Speaker 1: has the potential chold to do some damage on at
Speaker 1: least on the cellular level. If it's intense enough, it
Speaker 1: can do some serious damage. But even a mild exposure
Speaker 1: to this kind of stuff can lead to things like
Speaker 1: developing cancer because it can mutate the cells even through
Speaker 1: the magnetosphere. We we, I mean, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: recommended that you wear some sun block kids. You know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty powerful. Of course, ultra violet radiation is an
Speaker 1: electro magnetic radiation, not the particles, but but same sort
Speaker 1: of idea. So the magnetosphere it repels these particles. It
Speaker 1: protects the atmosphere and the magneto sphere together protect us
Speaker 1: a lot from radiation, like you said, Lauren, not all radiation,
Speaker 1: because some of the does get through, but it protects
Speaker 1: us from a lot of it, which is why life, Yeah,
Speaker 1: life as possible. We pointed out in our episode about
Speaker 1: a Mars colony that we wouldn't have the luxury of
Speaker 1: that magnetosphere on Mars. Mars does not have a magnetosphere,
Speaker 1: so we would have to make allowances for that, and
Speaker 1: that's why the Martian colony that's been proposed would largely
Speaker 1: be underground because the soil would end up being a
Speaker 1: protective barrier from that radiation. Um, the reason why the
Speaker 1: Earth has a magnetosphere is that we have we have
Speaker 1: a the core of Earth. We've got the inner core
Speaker 1: in the outer core, right, Joe and I had this
Speaker 1: discussion already. But but but iner, the inter core, like
Speaker 1: Joe pointed out, the intercore is solid iron, so that
Speaker 1: that would by itself would not create a magnetosphere. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of planets out there that we
Speaker 1: suspect have solid cores. But our planet has an outer
Speaker 1: core that is molten, and it's molten mixture of metals,
Speaker 1: and through convection this movement due to heat and pressure,
Speaker 1: we have these fluctuating magnetic fields and then we create
Speaker 1: that we the Earth has a sphere, and we don't
Speaker 1: have someone down there. It's like better get on that
Speaker 1: magnetos sphare or else everyone's gonna be burning up. Jules
Speaker 1: Burn was lying to us, So there are there's a
Speaker 1: very good possibility that we might discover life on a
Speaker 1: planet that does not have a magnetosphere, which means that
Speaker 1: the animals, assuming that their life forms are similar to
Speaker 1: the ones that have evolved here on Earth, would have
Speaker 1: to have some measure of protection against this kind of radiation. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting because I've never heard of an organism
Speaker 1: that is immune to radiation. To such an organism exists,
Speaker 1: you know, it's an excellent question that we use a
Speaker 1: blast of radiation to say like clear packaged food product
Speaker 1: of all living organisms inside. Yeah, I would imagine that
Speaker 1: I would. Well, here, I'll never say never, I am
Speaker 1: not aware of such an organism, but I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that one doesn't exist, because there clearly could be one
Speaker 1: that I'm not aware of. But thinking assuming that most
Speaker 1: life forms would have to have some protection because that
Speaker 1: you're talking about on a on a molecular level. You know,
Speaker 1: the d n A within a cell can be altered
Speaker 1: by this type of radiation. Means you could create mutations
Speaker 1: that could potentially kill a creature. You'd have to have
Speaker 1: some sort of protection against that. Yeah, you'd have to
Speaker 1: think that it would have to be based on some
Speaker 1: sort of robust chemistry that was that could withstand having
Speaker 1: sub atomic particles knocked out of place every Now, you
Speaker 1: would have to have some sort of genetic modifying, genetic
Speaker 1: evolutionary advantage that would allow it to address cellular mutation
Speaker 1: to adapt so quickly or to be able to replace
Speaker 1: damage cells very quickly. Uh. It also would likely there's
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of suggestion that it would likely
Speaker 1: have some sort of either shell that would protect it,
Speaker 1: you know, either an exoskeleton or some other form that
Speaker 1: would protect it from radiation. Or perhaps it would live underground,
Speaker 1: so again using the ground of the planet itself to
Speaker 1: protect it from radiation, or it could be a combination
Speaker 1: of the two, or if it admits its own radiation
Speaker 1: that cancels out the waves. So it's nice. So the
Speaker 1: animals are reverse seeing the polarity. Yes, h yeah, you
Speaker 1: either reverse the polarity. Are you divide by zero? Um?
Speaker 1: That's another interesting point though. What about what about artificial life?
Speaker 1: What about but something I wanted to talk about. Um,
Speaker 1: what if it's the case where when we encounter alien intelligence,
Speaker 1: we don't encounter the life itself. Maybe it's totally extinct
Speaker 1: or maybe it's very far away, but all we're going
Speaker 1: to have access to is its technology. Well here's that's
Speaker 1: again bringing us right back to the beginning of this
Speaker 1: episode where we talked about the voyager, right, and the
Speaker 1: likelihood of an alien encountering the Voyager is incredibly small.
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking you know, space is big, really big.
Speaker 1: You might think it's jowned down to the chemist, but
Speaker 1: that's just big nuts compared to space. Um yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's space is enormous. So the likelihood of any alien race,
Speaker 1: intelligent or otherwise, coming into contact with the Voyager is
Speaker 1: incredibly tiny. But when you think about it using robots
Speaker 1: to explore, to send those out and to gather information
Speaker 1: and to bring it back, that that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to us. So there is the potential that
Speaker 1: that can make sense to other alien civilizations that also
Speaker 1: have attained that level of technological expertise. So it's possible
Speaker 1: that the Voyager is going to go reb elbows with
Speaker 1: a alien version of the Voyager or that, or that
Speaker 1: the first encounter we ever have happens to be with
Speaker 1: some sort of improbe exactly uh hopefully would not be
Speaker 1: highly likely to me more likely than encountering an intelligent
Speaker 1: alien species. Well, I think in a spaceship that knows
Speaker 1: how to blow up specifically like the White House, because
Speaker 1: I know it's important right now again some Independence Day
Speaker 1: stuff in here. You know what I'd have to say,
Speaker 1: is that for my money? I think st He's probably
Speaker 1: got it right in that if we're going to encounter
Speaker 1: a first sign of an alien species, I think it's
Speaker 1: very likely that it would be some kind of signal
Speaker 1: on the electromagnet expected. Yeah, because again you think, cause
Speaker 1: the electromatic like radio, isn't just arbitrary, like the electromagnetic
Speaker 1: spectrum is like fundamental to the physics of the universe
Speaker 1: as we understand them. Yeah, and it's still going to exist,
Speaker 1: you know, at the other side of this galaxy. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and also the idea that unless the alien race has
Speaker 1: discovered some means of traveling towards you know, near or
Speaker 1: at or greater than the speed of light. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: unless they happen to be really close neighbors and we've
Speaker 1: just been really bad about detecting them, it would take
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of years for them to ever get
Speaker 1: to a point where we would be able to interact
Speaker 1: with them in a meaningful way. And that's one of
Speaker 1: those things that people who believe in in in extra
Speaker 1: dimensional being start talking about. You know it, if if
Speaker 1: a civilization achieves either the ability to to move through
Speaker 1: other dimensions, or if they exist in them to begin with,
Speaker 1: um that we're more likely hypothetically to run into those
Speaker 1: because of the speed of communication. If they can just
Speaker 1: pop by because time is meaningless to them, then well
Speaker 1: in space would be too. We're talking about the factors
Speaker 1: that define our perception of reality. Wouldn't matter to them necessarily. Well,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say meaningless, but it would be more easily navigable, right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: time as we know it would be meaningless if it's
Speaker 1: as easy for them to navigate time as it is
Speaker 1: for us to go forwards and backwards. And then the
Speaker 1: tartest just shows up and yeah, right, and then we
Speaker 1: run because everyone knows when the doctor shows up stuff
Speaker 1: about to go down, especially at Christmas. If it's Christmas
Speaker 1: and the doctor shows up, just just go inside, don't
Speaker 1: go back out. And and unless you're you're a particularly
Speaker 1: attractive young lady, um, in which case you become a
Speaker 1: companion for the next season. Yeah, and then things don't
Speaker 1: turn out well for you anyway. Okay, So now that
Speaker 1: we've talked about these, uh, these different plausibilities, I want
Speaker 1: to come back to the sci fi visions. What do
Speaker 1: we now think are the most plausible if we just
Speaker 1: had to go with our gut, as Carl Sagan said
Speaker 1: he would not if you say cone heads, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: slick it. Probably cone heads. I think it's gotta beigger.
Speaker 1: Well what do you imagine? Now? I respect it was
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan right who said that he didn't want to guess,
Speaker 1: like he didn't want to think with his gut whether
Speaker 1: or not there was alien life out there. But we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna go against that now and use our
Speaker 1: guts because our guts did did? Do you have it? Wow? Uh,
Speaker 1: this is such a tough question because I do want
Speaker 1: to couch everything in the idea that because we're working
Speaker 1: from just one sample, it is really, you know, ridiculous
Speaker 1: to try and draw conclusions. But I'm gonna say that
Speaker 1: the most likely physical appearance of any alien would be
Speaker 1: go weaving. That's my answer. Um, I don't have anything
Speaker 1: less sarcastic to say. I was. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: like like crying from teenage mutant ninja turtles, but that's yeah,
Speaker 1: we're too afraid. I mean, you know, seriously, something like
Speaker 1: the alien xenomorphs wouldn't really shock me. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: something something shame over I agree actually to some extent
Speaker 1: because of the insectoid sort of characteristics, and look at
Speaker 1: the the way insects just kind of like dominate on Earth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything more alien looking to me
Speaker 1: on on on our planet than an insect. So it follows, well,
Speaker 1: it's just the basic, the basic insect body type, you know,
Speaker 1: the the exoskeleton, the way it shaped. It's clearly an
Speaker 1: extremely successful efficient in this environment. We don't know about others,
Speaker 1: but it works like a charm here on Earth. To
Speaker 1: be more serious than my Hugo weaving, I think jellyfish
Speaker 1: actually would not be too far jelly I say jellyfish,
Speaker 1: I mean jellies. Don't don't correct me. I know the
Speaker 1: I know the terminology. No, I think I've I've read
Speaker 1: somebody saying that. Yeah, jellies I think would be uh
Speaker 1: not incredibly surprising. Although whether they would be on the
Speaker 1: macro scale or be kind of like a microscopic version
Speaker 1: of that, that's another thing. I mean the discussion. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that absolutely life does exist. Um, whether other
Speaker 1: life exists on the macro scale that we will ever
Speaker 1: encounter is more to but um, here, here's one other
Speaker 1: thing that I do think is is pretty interesting and
Speaker 1: I also think kind of plausible. Um, if you all
Speaker 1: played the games in the Half Life series, I'm playing Portal,
Speaker 1: are you familiar are with the concept of the combine? No, Joe,
Speaker 1: please tell me what is the combine? Well, okay, so
Speaker 1: villains in let's say, like Half Life two, UM are
Speaker 1: not just one species, but it's sort of a federation
Speaker 1: of species. And you can't necessarily tell if they're different
Speaker 1: species that are sort of allied or some have conquered others.
Speaker 1: But basically, the Earth is invaded by UM, by a
Speaker 1: an army of lots of different types of alien creatures.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like an in in Halo, but with
Speaker 1: UM a little bit more um insectoid in in basic anatomy,
Speaker 1: I would say, Whereas, whereas the creatures in Halo, are
Speaker 1: those those bipedole Yeah Halo, but yeah, the Covenant in Halo,
Speaker 1: that what you're talking about. I haven't played Halo, so
Speaker 1: I don't know. But um, so she'll translate for me.
Speaker 1: But basically, what flood the flood are? Sorry, go ahead, Well,
Speaker 1: just basically what I'm trying to say is that not
Speaker 1: necessarily any of the specific anatomical design of any of
Speaker 1: those aliens. But the idea that it's not just one
Speaker 1: species from one planet, but it's a sort of federation
Speaker 1: of different life forms that have banded together. And I
Speaker 1: do think that's an interesting thing to consider because most
Speaker 1: of the time it's always just one species that invades. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say, because this this brought to mind something else,
Speaker 1: the idea of the alien species landing on Earth and
Speaker 1: then immediately dying because of our Earth germs is kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous because you're talking about completely independently evolved life form.
Speaker 1: So the compatibility between any sort of virus or bacteria
Speaker 1: on Earth and an alien uh physiology is it's it's
Speaker 1: astronomical right. If my dog can't catch my cold, then
Speaker 1: why would an alien? Right, So it's yeah, the odds
Speaker 1: of that. In fact, I had a discussion with this
Speaker 1: with someone who specializes in biology and talked about this
Speaker 1: because I was talking about the computer virus level because
Speaker 1: we talked about Independence Day, right, So computer virus from
Speaker 1: Earth being able to infect an alien technology is ridiculous
Speaker 1: because that assumes that both are working under the same principle.
Speaker 1: Aliens and Independence Day used max right, or just binary
Speaker 1: computer science, like that it's using the same basic computer
Speaker 1: science that we use. That's that's a huge assumption. Same
Speaker 1: sort of thing with physical virus, like actual bacteria and viruses.
Speaker 1: Uh so I wouldn't expect that to happen. Now, that's
Speaker 1: not to say that alien life wouldn't somehow otherwise be
Speaker 1: deadly to us. It could be that it's toxic, you know.
Speaker 1: It could be that whatever chemical compounds make up this
Speaker 1: particular alien life form are hazardous to us, but they
Speaker 1: exhaled sulfuric acid, or that they you know that just
Speaker 1: that maybe they wouldn't even be able to live or
Speaker 1: to come to Earth in any way because their version
Speaker 1: of atmosphere would be totally different from ours. Or maybe
Speaker 1: they're terribly allergic to water. Yeah, well, then they shouldn't
Speaker 1: invade an earth that is mostly made of the stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well we've reached signs. So I think that means it's
Speaker 1: a scient Yeah, I believe, I agree wholeheartedly. Well, this
Speaker 1: wraps up our speculative episode of forward thinking. We will
Speaker 1: be doing more of these in the future. We've got
Speaker 1: a whole list of episodes that we've kind of brainstormed,
Speaker 1: and uh, We're very much excited to bring some of
Speaker 1: them to life in the next coming weeks and months,
Speaker 1: so I hope you guys stay tuned. Meanwhile, if you
Speaker 1: want to join in on all the fun, go to
Speaker 1: fw thinking dot com. That's the site where we've got
Speaker 1: all the videos, the blogs, the podcasts. We've got articles
Speaker 1: are relate to some of the things we talk about.
Speaker 1: We also have our our social media links that you
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