Scientists are now seriously asking if humans were seeded by aliens — RogueAI

The article doesn’t say anything about humans being seeded by aliens. It says that some of the components for life might have been transported to earth on meteorites or comets.

No.
:up:

guided evolution also be taken seriously — RogueAI

Should theistic evolution be taken seriously because life could move from planet to planet within a solar system by accident?

Just because life could be seeded doesn't explain abiogensis, or whether it requires or does not require a supernatural explanation.

You're right. This is probably the sorriest thread I ever started here.

This is probably the sorriest thread I ever started here. — RogueAI

Here's to many more. :grin:

(also, you can request a Mod to move it to the Lounge, if you'd like. I mean, the article literally does mention aliens in the link so, your beguilement does not rest solely on your shoulders alone FWIW...)

Well, I was rushing to get my kids back from recess and made some clearly wrong assumptions.

You're right. This is probably the sorriest thread I ever started here. — RogueAI

Congratulations.

Let's say you are the alien/god who can seed life but you don't get to guide the process in such a way to produce something specific relative to you, like pugs, purple carrots, cloth wearing apes who can talk to each other and build an internet.

There is a big red button that every time you press it seeds life on some viable planet in the universe, even if the chemical substrate is vastly different. What reasons might you give for why you ought to or ought not to press the button? Let's say the way in which life is seeded on these planets is in the way life would've naturally started there in the first place, so you aren't imposing an overarching goal much, except for the process of natural selection.

Compare this kind of non-guided seeding of life to a scenario of guided seeding, such that the panspermia seed reproduces our particular kind of life elsewhere (humans with a carefully chosen set of symbiotic organisms, like purple carrots, potatoes and dogs). Is the imposition of this kind of specific life in new areas of the universe any more morally questionable than the impositions of any kind of life anywhere?

If there is plenty of space and resources out there, seemingly empty, and our type life cannot escape the inevitable transformation at the hands of an evolutionary process, whether it incorporates goals or no goals, does it matter whether we seed life or not?

Don't answer if you don't care to.

abiogenesis is poorly understood for as to how life can come from non life I think the naturalistic and supernatural explanation would be equally valid although I prefer the theistic or supernatural explanation because even simple life like plants utilise and exhibit extremely intelligent design in being able to sustain and reproduce themselves which would imply a pre existing intelligence.

naturalistic and supernatural explanation would be equally valid — kindred

Supernatural explanations are plural (every culture has its own gods and mythologies). The gods/Gods resemble projected variations of ourselves or other creatures, metaphorical amalgamations pulled from nature, beings with supreme agency yet still limited in power over what happens in the natural world. They don't appear to us except as extensions/combinations of entities entirely natural.

We often can't help our anthropomorphisms and our metaphorcial flights of fancy. They are helpful because they comfort and amuse us.

Sure I know that different cultures and epochs have different conceptions of God and the various mythologising that goes around the creation of life or creation stories. I’m a theist by nature (and former atheist) but only believe in a higher power or architect of the universe rather than follow any established religion although I agree with a few moral teachings especially the golden rule espoused by Christianity of “do unto others…”

The point I’m trying to make is that life in its various guises exhibits various levels intelligence in implementation and I therefore consider this manifestation in nature to be a sign of a higher intelligence which preceded life on earth.

This would make the alien seeding theory moot as the same explanation of how life emerged would apply to them too as to how their life emerged from abiogenesis. I guess you could apply this to God too … in terms of asking what created him/it/she.

Although I prefer to believe that god has always been and is vastly different to created life forms.

Is the imposition of this kind of specific life in new areas of the universe any more morally questionable than the impositions of any kind of life anywhere? — Nils Loc

That's a good question. Are we talking about imposing life on a barren planet or "overriding" the life that would have evolved on a life-bearing planet with life of our choosing?

I have a book published mid 1980’s The Intelligent Universe, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasingha mentioned in the article. They made a good case for panspermia, I felt. They say there are vast clouds of proto-organic matter drifting around in the cosmos, and that when planetary conditions are right, some of it might fall to ground and begin to combine and develop. Also that viruses arrive in interstellar matter. Hence the name ‘panspermia’ - the idea of the earth as a fertile ovum and comets as interstellar sperm. I like it more than Darwin’s ‘warm little pond’.

I think the naturalistic and supernatural explanation would be equally valid ... — kindred

The latter does not explain anything in a testable – predictive – manner unlike the former which (even if only in principle) tends to be very testable. They're clearly not "equally valid" as "explanations".

["Supernatual explanations"] are helpful because they comfort and amuse us. — Nils Loc

:up: Yep, like placebos.

I like it more than Darwin’s ‘warm little pond’. — Wayfarer

The lack of enchantment is these three words could well be a turn off; perhaps he should have called it a prebiotic aqueous niche with sustained thermal input.

:smirk:

Are we talking about imposing life on a barren planet or "overriding" the life that would have evolved on a life-bearing planet with life of our choosing? — RogueAI

For the purpose of the hypothetical, let's say no direct overriding. We seed only lifeless planets that could maintain life, with the kind of early life it would naturally develop if it could. Problem here is the degree to which initiating this kind life could be successful in time. Many seeding attempts would realistically fail as a matter of chance, through many levels of the Great Filter idea. So there is no telling how effective pressing the button really would be anyway in terms of stages of evolution. Even if we got global levels of bacteria, is evolving complexity inevitable if it doesn't go extinct for 5 billion years?

Or you can run with any version of guided panspermia. Ought we send civilizational seeds to other worlds that grow version of ourselves as we are at the time? Is this any worse than jump-starting in situ natural selection on a planet by magic. I guess the technological process of the seeding technology could be its own form of life (autonomous robots growing humans).

Think my sci fi hypothetical collapsed... The only reason we don't want to contaminate other planets in our solar system is because we want to find evidence for how common independent events of abiogenesis might be in the universe.

Although I prefer to believe that god has always been and is vastly different to created life forms. — kindred

We can have all/any of the gods though in any way we want them but they remain disembodied abstractions.

I'm partial to the idea of achieving some kind of mystical union with the universe, however ridiculous that sounds. I need a placebo. Maybe it is just the hope for existential peace, achieving greater ease in the world. I think the true function of kinds of religious life (discipline) helps us to get to a better way of being in the world.

Will the civilizational seed contain one's choice of religion?

I don't see why it would be immoral unless one had views similar to antinatilism.