An octopus is now an alien and they probably can start predicting who will win the world cup. — TimeLine

I'm confused as the OP did not mention panspermia let along tardigrades and octopuses.

If that is your specific concern here - you haven't mentioned a specific criticism of the OP - then that should have been stated in your expression of moderatorly discomfort. You could have just called Wayfarer out for doing his usual thing of introducing panspermia into the conversation at every opportunity and, more especially, asked him to source his comments about tardigrades and octopuses (but only if you wanted to encourage him to derail the OP - a reason I passed over it in silence).

Panspermia research does offer the evidence of extremophiles like tardigrades. But talk about octopuses being alien is - as far as I can see - just a meme. Wayfarer might be able to show to the contrary that it is part of panspermia as a serious hypothesis. So if you were really looking to draw some line, tardigrades would be some kind of accepted science, octopus become the lunatic fringe.

So you are attempting to justify drawing a boundary line in terms of hyperbole - "An octopus is now an alien and they probably can start predicting who will win the world cup." But hyperbole is a rhetorical device and not a suitable method for the drawing of fine distinctions. If you defend your position, as you have, with hyperbolic statements, then that is a bigger failure in critical thinking than the one you meant to criticise.

I do respectfully agree and reiterate that I will certainly be cautious before ever making a decision otherwise, but my intention really was to understand whether this subject could indeed be considered Philosophy of Science and not about moderating risks and what not. — TimeLine

Cool. But again the OP seems utterly unproblematic in that light. It sets out a chain of reasoning in full. It asks a question that is worth answering - on moral grounds, if we are going to cart our bugs to Mars, if nothing else.

It contained a "scientific error" at the last step, in my opinion. The OP assumed that our immune system has to be evolved to recognise invasive biological threats. But we now know our immune system instead can learn because it generates a variety of antibodies on a "just in case" basis. It doesn't know what might be coming down the pipe, so it produces a range of receptors and uses these to discover what might be "alien" in terms of what it knows to be not "the usual biology out which 'I' am constructed".

So, my point is, even if we found an Earth like world - with similar gravity, atmospheric composition etc - this similarly is only superficial - and its biosphere - especially life at the microbial level - would make moving and colonising this planet impossible - unless we develop immunity to its biosphere as we have done here on Earth. — JohnLocke

So - given the OP's constraints around this other planet having a very Earth-like chemistry in other respects - it is reasonably unlikely that alien life would escape detection by our immune system, especially if the life was biologically similar enough to be infective. And even just being an unrecognised organic chemistry would be enough to set off an allergic reaction.

But because our immune system learns, then it is possible we could adjust in months rather than millions of years.

Thus the OP asks a completely reasonable question - one that is speculative and yet also one we can start to make more precise sense of; break it down into more specific questions to be answered.

Wayfarer of course went off at a tangent. The idea that octopuses could be aliens in our midst is a risible hypothesis with little to no scientific motivation.

If Wayfarer thinks something he read somewhere does provide proper motivation, he can cite the source. He would need to present a similar careful chain of reasoning that leads towards some central well-focused question - a question that would have maximum impact on the holding of the theory outlined.

And then even a risible hypothesis is meat for philosophy of science. Learning how to deal with crackpot suggestions is central to learning critical thinking. Bad ideas teaches how good science should work.

If PF has a serious function, it should be not to close down uncomfortable discussions but instead to expose what faulty thinking looks like.

I have actually been to a lecture by Davis, by the way, and I find his ideas on evolution and cancer research to be really compelling. His suggestions about tracing this works similarly to his ideas of Mars, of going back to a time when it may have been habitable and how this could indeed initiate the biosignatures now on Earth. — TimeLine

Davies is one of my favourite scientists. He is more prepared than most to speculate wildly because that speculation could bring great rewards.

And unlike Crick, his speculation is careful. It always has a good metaphysical grounding.

It is also not without controversy. — TimeLine

How could any new and good idea be anything else than controversial? I don't get why you seem to think that a lack of controversy is a plus. If you aren't challenging accepted paradigms, then what is the point?

The trick is to be able to tell the difference between well-motivated challenges and charlatanism. But if you aren't living on the edge of controversy, you just ain't living.

Perhaps the prime moderating rule here should be "this isn't sufficiently controversial". :)

Tardigrades arguably arrived via interstellar spores. There's some thought that the octopus family might have as well. — Wayfarer

The octopus is an alien? What about the squids, cuttlefish and nautiloids (mollusks) they are related to? Also alien? Cuttle fish, for instance, have complex brains -- it takes a lot of brain power to operate their expert pattern and texture matching facilities. They are as intelligent as some other smarter creatures, and are far, far smarter than even your brilliant clam, to which they are related. irrelevant to present discussion...

As for tardigrades... Why would we think they are from elsewhere in the galaxy? Yes, they are remarkable creatures, for sure--very tough--but they are not extremophiles--that is, they don't thrive in extreme settings even if they can survive +300 degrees F to -200, terrific pressure, vacuum, and radiation -- but not indefinitely. They aren't indestructible.

While they have been retrieved alive from a module exposed to radiation and the vacuum of space, they weren't floating in space for months, years, decades, or centuries. They can go into something very close to stasis, at about .01 percent of their normal metabolism, In stasis they have low moisture content, antifreeze, antioxidants, and other chemical defenses.

Panspermia may be true, but picking out a couple of oddball species (Octopi and tardigrades) and identifying them as cosmic travelers doesn't wash.

I'm confused as the OP did not mention panspermia let along tardigrades and octopuses. — apokrisis

The OP was about the supposition that if we as humans travelled to another planet with the same atmospheric composition would we survive, and this together with the title about aliens arriving on earth can cause - by extension - the octopus result. It could have rendered a plethora of other possibly ridiculous outcomes. It is precisely because the OP did not mention or specify - as you have - that enables absurd outcomes and it is the same when questioning metaphysics or quantum mechanics; specificity is a must and my intention with the octopus hyperbole is to show how one absurdity can possibly lead to another. It is also very difficult to argue with someone who believes in questionable theories and you should know this from metaphysics.

It is not necessarily about posters and whilst it is true that the ability of reducing the prospect of these ridiculous outcomes is determined by the poster' capacity to weed out the absurdity to find something scientifically intelligible, how this is achieved is rather ambiguous and so it would be preferable if the post itself - the original post - is more appropriately aligned with mainstream research from the get-go, to say something like "Davis wrote about martian biosignatures, what do you think?" and it is easy to forget with all the rubbish that exists out there that content and context matters in both philosophy and science.

Cool. But again the OP seems utterly unproblematic in that light. It sets out a chain of reasoning in full. It asks a question that is worth answering - on moral grounds, if we are going to cart our bugs to Mars, if nothing else.

It contained a "scientific error" at the last step, in my opinion. The OP assumed that our immune system has to be evolved to recognise invasive biological threats. But we now know our immune system instead can learn because it generates a variety of antibodies on a "just in case" basis. It doesn't know what might be coming down the pipe, so it produces a range of receptors and uses these to discover what might be "alien" in terms of what it knows to be not "the usual biology out which 'I' am constructed". — apokrisis

I agree, except that the question was not a moral one at all but that is how you interpreted the broad speculation that returns back to my abovementioned issue. I guess my intention of questioning whether this was philosophy of science was really brought up because of the Wayfarer response and indeed applying this expose of faulty reasoning through a reminder of sorts. I like what you said, actually, about uncomfortable discussions; that will definitely remain something I will always remind myself of.

Davies is one of my favourite scientists. He is more prepared than most to speculate wildly because that speculation could bring great rewards.

And unlike Crick, his speculation is careful. It always has a good metaphysical grounding. — apokrisis

He is a nice guy and I am doing a subject on astrobiology next year so I would be interested to read more about the subject as a whole, despite my concessions. A close friend is studying her PhD in astrogeology and knows him pretty well.

Anyway, carry on!

I saw that video clip; remarkable, especially given it's provenance.

As for tardigrades... Why would we think they are from elsewhere in the galaxy? — Bitter Crank

It was mentioned in Fred Hoyle and Chandrawickramasingha's book The Intelligent Universe, which is my sole source of info on the idea, aside from a website by an amateur but well-informed researcher by the name of Brig Cylce. I don't have a serious interest in the topic, but it makes perfect sense to me. Hoyle argued that there are massive clouds of proto-organic matter drifting throughout the cosmos, and that wherever the conditions are suitable, life begins to take root and evolve. I's like what happened on the Galapagos Islands, but on a cosmic scale. I just see no reason why this is not a plausible idea. The image of the comet as sperm (hence, 'panspermia') and a fertile planet as an ovum, strikes me as metaphorically compelling.

My general view is that the Earth IS our spaceship, the only one we have. We're never going to physically 'go where no man has gone before', i.e. to another life-bearing planet, because it's physically impossible. Interstellar distances are simply too vast. I see space travel as a sublimated wish to go to Heaven, now that 'the cosmos' has more or less replaced God in the popular imagination.

(That also means I am extremely sceptical that UFOs are literally alien spacecraft. I am sympathetic to Jung's interpretation of them, although I've never studied it in depth.)

My general view is that the Earth IS our spaceship, the only one we have. We're never going to physically 'go where no man has gone before', i.e. to another life-bearing planet, because it's physically impossible. Interstellar distances are simply too vast. I see space travel as a sublimated wish to go to Heaven, now that 'the cosmos' has more or less replaced God in the popular imagination. — Wayfarer

Earth is a planet.

Indeed, interstellar distances are incredibly vast, so why exactly do you believe in something like "cosmic sperm" just because the speculation appears metaphorically compelling? There are a lot of metaphorically compelling things out there, like people bending spoons with their mind or teleportation. Unless you are conscious of it being pure speculation and make that clear that you obtained the information from dubious sources, your respectability on the subject becomes questionable.

And no, space travel is about gaining knowledge.

The OP was about the supposition that if we as humans travelled to another planet with the same atmospheric composition would we survive, and this together with the title about aliens arriving on earth can cause - by extension - the octopus result. — TimeLine

So the very mention of "aliens" opens the Pandora's Box of crackpottery, hey?

My argument was that only the most tenuous "extension" let Wayfarer introduce his personal hobbyhorse of panspermia. His barely acceptable justification (implied if not stated) was, hey look, we've already been exposed to possible alien biology - who hasn't eaten an octopus?

So sure, you might have grounds to clamp down on derailing a thread. But Wayfarer would still have been able to legitimate his extension - if only just.

And again, any comments about the merit of the OP should focus on the OP's actual content. As what is reasonable about expecting it to explicitly add "...and don't go running off and talking about panspermia, anyone".

The onus was never on the OP to rule out every possible derailment of its stated focus.

I am doing a subject on astrobiology next year so I would be interested to read more about the subject as a whole, despite my concessions. A close friend is studying her PhD in astrogeology and knows him pretty well. — TimeLine

Well then, why not just rebut Wayfarer in the first place? Use your more serious interest in the subject to say something worthwhile.

It just increases my confusion here that you say you are about to study the very subject that you seem to want to rule fringe science at best. What are you going to write in the exam when its says discuss the evidence from extremophiles like tardigrades?

I would really like to know how earthlings would respond psychologically to an alien visitation. Let's assume that the aliens landed in the middle of New York or Shanghai, so that the event could not be denied by the military and/or civilian authorities. There it is, the somehow indisputably alien thing sitting there.

Even if aliens didn't land, let's say that SETI hits the jackpot and receives clear, unambiguous messages from a civilization somewhere. People suddenly have process several questions: A. we are, in fact, not alone. We are not as unique as we thought. What territory do earth-bound religious cover? Does the God of Israel (or whatever gods one follows) have jurisdiction over a planet 10 light years away? What do we think their real intentions are -- never mind what they say.

Would it be better if the aliens looked very much like us, or would it be better if they looked weird (unconditionally alien, no similarities)?

What sort of gift might they give us (using your imagination) that would lead us to think that maybe this would work out OK, or contrariwise, who sort of event or threat might they offer that would suggest our days were numbered in fairly low digits.

It was mentioned in Fred Hoyle and Chandrawickramasingha's book The Intelligent Universe, — Wayfarer

Paul Davies was Fred Hoyle's student by the way. Davies (and Lineweaver) have done the maths to convince that interstellar panspermia couldn't feasibly be the case - not enough time to cover the distances involved. So it could only be Mars impregnating the Earth now.

(And hey - science politics at work - a space agency has good reason to drum up interest in spending a trillion getting there. Trump thinks its a noble idea. By now every bullshit detector should be flashing red alert.)

I would really like to know how earthlings would respond psychologically to an alien visitation. — Bitter Crank

We already had such a moment when we went into space and looked back at the Earth. Suddenly we realised it was a tiny and delicately balanced "spaceship". We immediately resolved to look after its ecology, change our wicked ways.

So evidence of aliens would produce an existential shock that would turn into a psychological shrug as we turned back to business as usual.

I remember a panel discussion of this topic on public radio--way back in the 70s when SETI was still being thought about; something along the lines of "what is the likelihood of us encountering extra-terrestrial species"... anthropologist Ashley Montague said that "we will do what we always do when we [wicked westerners] come across a new civilization -- we'll wipe them out."

hey look, we've already been exposed to possible alien biology - who hasn't eaten an octopus? — apokrisis

Hey I hadn’t thought of that, but thanks. Although I must add I went off octopus after the first Alien :-)

I am doing a subject on astrobiology — TimeLine

There is some astrogeology going on that we know about. What are you going to learn/say/write about astrobiology, of which there is zero evidence, so far. (Or does growing asparagus on a space ship count as astrobiology?)

I tasted some raw octopus once. More than sufficient.

There is some astrogeology going on that we know about. What are you going to learn/say/write about astrobiology, of which there is zero evidence, so far. (Or does growing asparagus on a space ship count as astrobiology?) — Bitter Crank

I have no idea. I would have asked Paul the Octopus, but he dead.

It's Christmas, but still seems relevant......

Excellent cartoon joke. Now, over in the Relief Theory of Humor thread the question is, "Is this relief humor, superiority humor, play humor, or incongruity humor. This strikes me as "incongruity humor"--which a lot of the Far Side cartoons incorporated. The incongruity is of course the "normal" domesticity of aliens + holiday meal + the horrifying scene in Alien.

Indeed, interstellar distances are incredibly vast, so why exactly do you believe in something like "cosmic sperm" just because the speculation appears metaphorically compelling? — TimeLine

Hoyle's book was detailed, and I thought at the time, plausible. I mean, Fred Hoyle had his eccentricities, but he wasn't a fringe scientist. The idea that proto-organic material - or would that be 'information?' - is found throughout the cosmos, awaiting a fertile planet on which to form and evolve, is intuitively plausible, because that is exactly how life works on Earth. It's the same model, but on a much larger scale. I simply can't see anything logically to far out about it; it seems a lot less far out than Everett, for instance.

As I understand it, during the formation of multicellular organisms there were whole classes of organisms that combined symbiotically to form single cells. Hoyles' idea was that some of this kind of genetic information arrives in interstellar debris, such as comets and meteors, and becomes part of the synthesising process. He thought that this might account for the origin of some epidemics.

Wickeramasinghe is still active, although I agree his methodology appears highly dubious. He claimed to have found a life-bearing meteorite in around 2013, but I think it was debunked by the fact that he didn't rule out contamination from local sources. So I don't actually believe that anything has been proven, but I'm amendable to the idea. (Incidentally, Davies' own cosmological speculations, as explained in for example The Goldilocks Enigma, are far more exotic than panspermia in my view.)

As for tardigrades - the arguments about their exotic origin was based on two observations. The first is, they're a unique phenotype - they don't appear to be related to any other genus (forgive me if I don't get the taxonomy correct.) And also they're able to survive in conditions approximating interstellar space - as per this story.

The incongruity is of course the "normal" domesticity of aliens + holiday meal + the horrifying scene in Alien. — Bitter Crank

Indeed. Typical farside. I love his stuff.

The possibility of earth-contamination (or seeding) from Mars is plausible, because rocks from Mars are sitting on Antarctic ice, for instance, and elsewhere on earth. So we know, for sure, that rocks can get from Mars to earth (in time no less than 6 months). Of course, life would have to be very well established on Mars before rocks were ejected and became earth-bound.

The problem with Tardigrades is not that they are too flimsy. Rather, thinking they could make it in the vacuum and cosmic radiation bath of space for a long time (6 months, say) is quite a leap. Not all of the Tardigrades in the orbital experiment survived, and that was only after 10 days. It could be that some might have survived for 180 days, but it's quite a leap -- 10 days survival to 180 day (minimum) survival.

You might be interested in where Tardigrades fit into the classifications:

Thanks! I know where they fit in the tree but I recall that they are anatomically unlike anything else on Earth. (And I think it’s neat that they’re also called ‘moss piglets’.)

Like their very small size and 8 legs, aside from Octopi and spiders. And they are much more primitive than spiders. They don't fossilize well (too small), but the two eras where a fossil was recovered was the Cambrian period (541–485.4 million years ago) and an amber fossil from the Cretaceous period.

You'll remember that there were a lot of fairly weird looking species in the Cambrian: either cooked up here, or brought here by the panspermatic delivery service.

The Cambrian Explosion. There’s an ID argument based on that, but I like to think of it in terms of the Pleroma - nature's abundance.

I would really like to know how earthlings would respond psychologically to an alien visitation. — Bitter Crank

I have a hard-time believing in technologically advanced aliens for some reason. Seems to me much like believing in ghosts - it's certainly possible, just very unlikely. I mean what could they understand that allows them to have such technology? How could they travel faster than light, when the speed of light is an absolute limit in the Universe? Etc.

But I do think it's almost inevitable that there are forms of life elsewhere.

we are, in fact, not alone. We are not as unique as we thought. — Bitter Crank

Yeah, but we have no reason to think we are alone or unique in the sense that there are no other intelligent creatures out there, or that Earth is the only life-bearing planet in the Universe.

What territory do earth-bound religious cover? — Bitter Crank

Our territory, obviously. If aliens exist, then either they are spiritual creatures (aware of spiritual realms), or not. They may just be intelligent, without having a spiritual nature. If that's the case, then they wouldn't have any religion. Or they may be spiritual creatures, in which case they would have their own religions. The Bible represents Creation story in-so-far as it concerns man. It is only reasonable that different creatures would have a different role to play in Creation than man, and thus may even have different moralities. These creatures may be polygamous for example.

Does the God of Israel (or whatever gods one follows) have jurisdiction over a planet 10 light years away? — Bitter Crank

Yes, He would have to. But that jurisdiction may not resemble our own religion in many regards - though it would, in at least SOME regards, have to resemble it.

The problem with Tardigrades is not that they are too flimsy. Rather, thinking they could make it in the vacuum and cosmic radiation bath of space for a long time (6 months, say) is quite a leap. Not all of the Tardigrades in the orbital experiment survived, and that was only after 10 days. It could be that some might have survived for 180 days, but it's quite a leap -- 10 days survival to 180 day (minimum) survival. — Bitter Crank

What is all this bullshit about Dr. Who's phone booth. Now that's pseudoscience.

I respect you as a poster and know you are capable of this, but when you reflect back on this thread, has there really been any critical thinking in action? An octopus is now an alien and they probably can start predicting who will win the world cup. — TimeLine

This thread has had more critical thinking than about 95% of the others. I haven't enjoyed one this much in a while. On the other hand, many threads are full of boneheaded ideas put forward by knuckleheads. I thought it was only sheep who could predict the results of sporting events.

It's Christmas, but still seems relevant...... — Wayfarer

Where have you gone Gary Larsen, the nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Are you done? It is not mainstream science. And clearly the thread is still here so what exactly is your point? There are just as many people who would disagree with you and say that the level of PhilSci is lacklustre at best and should be moderated. — TimeLine

If you had said "This is the biggest goddamn bunch of dogshit I've ever heard of," I wouldn't have minded and I wouldn't have written my response the way I did. A month ago, if you had questioned the validity of the subject and questioned whether or not it should be on this forum, I wouldn't have minded and I wouldn't have written my response the way I did. But, as I wrote, and which was my point, when a moderator questions whether a thread belongs on the thread, that carries a potential threat. I thought it was important I tell you what I thought of it. Others have agreed with me.