Cartoons and Satire

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The intent is to share insights and generate ideas. Comments can be sent to: cartoon@cartoonste.com

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Extraterrestial life and intelligence?

I look at how our perspective changes and our horizon broadens. I remember sitting in elementary school and the teacher saying at one time we thought the earth was the center of the universe. The sun and planets revolved around us. I was later to learn this was the orthodox view of Catholicism when all Christians were Catholic. I also learned about Copernicus and Galileo that held a different view.  Eventually it was acknowledged the earth was not the center of the universe.

I remember the reported intellectual difficulty of accepting our sun was one of many. I witnessed the difficulty of accepting our galaxy was full of millions of stars and there are millions of galaxies. Now they are trying to get across the concept there might be many universes.

But I was thinking closer to home. How long before our horizon on life expands? Suppose there is intelligent life most everywhere in the universe. Life that does not adhere to our model. The idea of "extremophiles" is just making its way in our psyche. Suppose there is life in the tremendous gravity of Jupiter, the heat on Mercury or the cold of Neptune. We could easily miss being visited. If you came from a much greater gravity or atmospheric dense environment, your destination would be the deepest parts of the ocean. You would seek an environment most like what you were used to from where you came.
Maybe one day we will marvel at how myopic a perspective we had.

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