Gribēju šodien uzrakstīt kaut ko depresīvu, taču pārdomāju.
Kā jau rakstīju, maita pirms kāda laiciņa atsūtīja man meilu ar virsrakstu «Are We Alone in the Universe? Solar system may be one of a kind.» Viss, kas tur bija – kāds mazs jociņš un saite uz /. Savukārt Slashdot atradās mazs rakstiņš un daudz komentāru. Tie arī, protams, bija tā interesantākā daļa. Diemžēl ar navigēšanos starp komentāriem es īsti galā netiku, tāpēc pilnīgi visus izlasīt neizdevās. Lai nu kā, šeit ir interesantākās domas. Gan par, gan pret.
Lasīt grūti nebija, nav tur pilns ar visādiem specifiskiem terminiem vai ko tādu, taču.. Vai tiešām viņiem skolās angļu angļu vai amerikāņu angļu valodas stundās NEKO nemāca par komatu pareizu lietošanu?

eric99: Maybe we are looking for the wrong sort of thing. Who is to say another life form even has a physical body.
On the other hand, I am not so sure finding another form of life outside of Earth is such a good idea. We have a hard enough time getting along with people on the other side of our own planet.

Alan Partridge: You agree? I'll tell you why we haven't found any E.T. life; – it's because we're incredibly primitive and haven't really made any reasonable attempt at looking. Even SETI admit that if there was a planet exactly like Earth orbiting Alpha Centauri they could not detect it. If we can't detect a civilisation like ours in one of our nearest neighbour stars, how the hell could we search thew rest of the galaxy, let alone the rest of the universe?
Let there be no doubt, the universe is FULL of life, we're just too primitive to see it.

<Anonymous Coward>: Actually I think the most important fact that points to the (relative) uniqueness of the Sol system is that it is a failed binary system. Yes, that is the case. Saturn and Jupiter are a failed star. (Red. x-f piez. – ūja!) Accretion was probably to slow or some body in the near extra-system area caused tidal forces to delay the process. If I recall correctly the vast majority of the star systems are binary, the presence of gas giants, however, points to other cases of failed solar accretion. The question thus becomes, what is the proportion of failed binary systems ? It is unlikely that an earth like rock would exist in a full binary as the tidal and radioactive forces would create inhospitable zones to large to statistically accomodate a planet over billions of years. Our own habitable zone is decreasing as the sun ages and burns its limitited fuel. Having two stars would eat away at any habitable zone from two sides. In addition to these problems, many systems with gas giants may as yet devellop stars or quasi stars. In fact Jupiter is constantly on the "verge" of ignition, hence the massive radiation output, were it at some stage to change it's relationship with Saturn ignition is a serious posibility. As the sun grows and its output increases this may trigger such an event. (Red. x-f piez. – pārlasi vēlreiz divus iepriekšējos teikumus. biedējoši ne?) All in all it seems unlikely that life evolved only on earth. I personally believe that the basics of life started on a dirty snowball in the van Oort Cloud. These balls exist all over the Galaxy let alone the universe. I doubt however that "they" exist near us in either space or time. The scales are just too big. Even if they are there here and now, the distances make contact impractical at best, uneconomical in reality.

RatBastard: We may be the first intellegent life to exist in the universe. Or we may be the first ones to live past the developement of nuclear weapons. Or we might be the first ones not killed off by a asteroid colliding with our planet, or a plague, or a massive volcanic eruption, etc... It doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to kill a species off. We can't even count the number of near misses the human race survived.
The universe is massive and ancient. It is also heartless and dangerous.

Xeriar: The Solar system is a mineral-rich system (for Sol's size) in a mineral-rich galaxy. Minerals are good, they allow for life, production and the pursuit of happiness. They're also bad, they mean meteors and lots of them.

nofx_3: You are making some serious assumptions about the needs of life. Life does not have to be like us, and it needn't require things like heavy metals. It might just be something we couldn't imagine in our wildest dreams.

Nedaudz filosofijas un daži jociņi arī. :)

sniggly: There are these scientists that deny something if it can't be proven to exist. That's the wrong way around, something can exist unless you can actually prove circumstances under which it can't exist. There's no way to prove and convince everyone of anything so the whole point of proving what's real and what's not is totally futile unless you want to control people's reality in a religious sense. Science should stay away from proving what doesn't exists and stick to providing us with engineering challenges.

RazzleFrog: How about looking at it this way. I have a Mix CD here with 20 songs spread out over the last 60 years (big band to Korn – don't ask). Now based on the huge number of CD's that have been burned since CD-burners have become common place I believe that someone must have created the identical CD (same songs and order of songs). But based on my sample size of one I will never know until I find someone with the same mix.
CreatureComfort: Except to push your analogy a little farther, not only have the SETI people not found a CD with the same mix, they haven't even found anyone else with a CD burner.

jonskerr: Look where I'm pointing! Don't you see 'em? Look! Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there.
What do you mean you can't see these 'atoms', Mr Newton? Newton wouldn't have denied the existence of atoms as the basic building blocks of matter just because no one could conclusively prove they existed at the time.

<Anonymous Coward>: Hey, it is even hard to find intelligent life on this planet.

jyoull: can we google the universe for life?
rsadelle: Sure we can. We just have to finish building the index first.

No manis.
Ja Tu nezini, kas ir SETI, es ar Tevi nerunāšu. :)
Par to, vai mēs esam vieni vai nē. Es domāju, ka neesam vieni. Visums ir tik milzīgs, ka ir maz ticams, ka dzīvība varētu būt apsēdusi tikai vienu pašu planētu. :) Maz ticams, jo Tas patiešām ir milzonīgs (vēlreiz iesaku pārlasīt hope.less skaidrojumu par Visuma formu un apjomu). Protams, ļoti maza iespēja, ka tā varētu kaut nedaudz līdzināties Zemes dzīvībai. O₂ tai var būt nāvējošs, Zemes vidējā gaisa temperatūra +18°C (šķiet) – stindzinoša vai neizturama svelme, gaisa spiediens – daudz par daudz vai vakuums, Saules starojums, mākoņi, vēji, gāzes, .. Tāpat arī saprāts. To nevar iedomāties. Bet nedomāju, ka esam vieni. «I want to believe» – no X failu plakāta Maldera un Skallijas kabinetā.
Vēl viena lietiņa. Ja nu Zemes kosmosa kuģis aizlido līdz kādai planētai un atrod tur dzīvību, kā var noteikt, vai tā ir analoģiska Zemes cilvēkiem vai Zemes dzīvniekiem? :)