RE: UFO's anyone?
There is no general supremacy to be had, and nothing real to measure 'perfection' against. Ultimate completely misses the mark in terms of life forms.
When it comes down to it, life is chiefly just a convolution of how the sun's light reflects off of the earth, save for some interesting exceptions who fall in the minority. Even those are driven by other equally mundane phenomena, like the rusting of iron.
When I see the night sky, I'm given to thinking that there are likely other slimy patches out there somewhere in that whole wide everything. Even if that slime stands up, like it did here, it's still just plain old slime.
Our intelligence is merely self proclaimed. In spite of all our moving mass and energy around in ways we say are clever we're nothing but plain old organisms, through and through. To use a witless pun, it's inalienable.
There's no reason aside from whim to say a human is more or less metaphysically significant than the nonhuman goop in it's gut that supports it's life or the tree it's shading itself under and trading breath with. It's arbitrary to say so.
Given the aforementioned lack of evidence, it truly might be that this is the one and only slimy film out there, and I'd admit my surprise at that revelation.
On the other hand, what we mean when we say intelligence may very well have no meaning whatsoever to whatever we would find out there.
It would be rad to meet aliens though :)
Very neutral ground you are standing on @a-non-e-moose
But I can tell you are basing all of your thought on a theory: evolution. That can be dangerous as a mental tool
Thanks for the reply @cngrobler!
A scientific theory is not so shaky as could be implied by the colloquial usage of the word 'theory'.
The common usage would be closer to 'conjecture' or perhaps 'hypothesis' which is to say a falsifiable conjecture. Cell theory, germ theory, evolutionary theory, quantum theory, and the theory of plate tectonics are all certainly neither mere conjecture nor hypothesis.
To say "...all of your thought..." might be a bit hasty, and give me too much credit for rigor. Some of what I say here isn't based on any scientific theory, but only my personal fancies such as "...I'm given to thinking that there are likely other slimy patches out there somewhere..." for instance.
In fact much of what I say here seems to me to have little to do with the theory of evolution, strictly speaking. I make no mention of heritable traits, mutation, selective pressure, or other such central concepts to evolutionary theory. I tend to speak relatively strictly however. Perhaps you are not doing so here and that's absolutely fine by me.
If 'dangerous' can be taken to mean 'uncertain' I definitely recognize the underlying uncertainty. Though if we're going to assume that there exists some objective external world to study outside of perception that acts in ways humans could apprehend, among other pills I find impossibly hard to swallow, I can stomach the comparatively slight uncertainty of evolutionary theory on top of all that.
Nonetheless, I find myself a bit puzzled as to why you would invoke evolutionary theory here and extol it's dangers. Particularly I find 'dangerous' vague in this usage. Care to elaborate?
See now, this is the type of meaningful and relevant conversation I am looking for, although yours seem a bit more elaborate and intricate than mine :)
My reference to danger you by collective reasoning understood very well, thank you for that. I do however still feel a tint of allusion has played it's part in your statement about any sort of slimy organic substance, protruding the fundamental parent of it's being: evolution. Unless I am in the dark here and there are other existential theories referring to slime as a key starting point. If that be the case, I retract my comment and wish to learn about that which I do not yet know.
You flatter me @cngrobler :) I simply lack the time management skills to realize when I've spent too long writing a rambling comment, and that twists itself into such elaboration and intricacy.
I don't really think 'slime', as I've so cursorily used here, is just the starting point per-say. Extant microorganisms have had just as long to evolve as humans for instance, and far more generations to do it in. In this way we could be tempted to say that the microorganisms are "most evolved" due to having the most generations to do their evolving, but my spine shivers at such hierarchical diction.
I must say "...protruding the fundamental parent of it's being..." did confuse me a bit. If you mean to say that what I'm talking about involves evolution in some way I agree wholeheartedly.
Evolutionary theory is intimately connected with all things biology. Recognition of it's veracity is likely the biggest factor that sheds light on the mysterious machinations and forms found in organisms. I see no way to divorce the two, evolution and biology.
As far as starting points go, and the origins of life (extraterrestrial or otherwise), I suppose I'm talking more about abiogenesis. This is the concept that life does arise from what we consider nonliving matter under certain conditions. While far from being a laid out process we are sure happens, at least when I last researched it, it seems to me a real contender for explaining the starting point of life.