Spring Break
Earthlings ought to seek true meaning of life
Amar Maniar
Issue date: 3/5/04 Section: Sci-Tech
What is life? Something that has the following characteristics is considered: it moves, talks or makes noise. Basically, something that has some or one of its characteristics like us is "life" (according to us). If you see the movie Frankenstein, when the robot stands up (moves), the doctor exclaims "It's alive!" Well, how did he reach that conclusion? Why was it alive when it moved? Couldn't it have been alive all the time? Who knows? I believe that our perception of life has been and is something that moves, and therefore, to say that something is alive, something has "life" in it, is to imply that something moved. This might not be the best analogy to exemplify my point but it is the most famous one to use.
I have no problems in believing that Earth is not the only gifted planet with "life." If it were up to me, I would believe and proclaim there to be life on all planets, but our mission to constantly send automated systems to other planets to find out traces of "life" might never be successful. I believe that we might never be successful because we would look for "life" according to our perception, according to our definition. Now, the definition of life might or might not be the same on other planets like Mars. How can you necessarily bring things from Mars and say that they are just stones or rocks? How can you be sure about that? The perception of life, the definition of life, might not be the same on Mars. We perceive that Mars does not have any living beings and our search is on to find if there was ever life on Mars or there is any right now, but how do we know that our definition of life is the correct one? How do we determine that the definition of life on Mars, or any other planet for that matter, is the same? We consider ourselves to be right. We consider ourselves as the ones who can determine life. I believe that we might never find life on Mars.
Or another way of looking at it would be that we might be bringing what is "life" on planets like Mars to Earth. Rocks might be alive there. Who knows? There is no possible way of determining that it, a rock, is not alive. Reading this you might feel, "How can rocks be alive? That makes no sense." But it does when you do not know whether you are right or not.
I have no problems in believing that Earth is not the only gifted planet with "life." If it were up to me, I would believe and proclaim there to be life on all planets, but our mission to constantly send automated systems to other planets to find out traces of "life" might never be successful. I believe that we might never be successful because we would look for "life" according to our perception, according to our definition. Now, the definition of life might or might not be the same on other planets like Mars. How can you necessarily bring things from Mars and say that they are just stones or rocks? How can you be sure about that? The perception of life, the definition of life, might not be the same on Mars. We perceive that Mars does not have any living beings and our search is on to find if there was ever life on Mars or there is any right now, but how do we know that our definition of life is the correct one? How do we determine that the definition of life on Mars, or any other planet for that matter, is the same? We consider ourselves to be right. We consider ourselves as the ones who can determine life. I believe that we might never find life on Mars.
Or another way of looking at it would be that we might be bringing what is "life" on planets like Mars to Earth. Rocks might be alive there. Who knows? There is no possible way of determining that it, a rock, is not alive. Reading this you might feel, "How can rocks be alive? That makes no sense." But it does when you do not know whether you are right or not.
