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Why do we compare aliens to ourselves?

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posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 10:51 PM
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I see this all the time on this forum and in many debates.

"We wouldn't do that so why would they?"

"If WE advanced that far why would WE do that?"


We simply cannot imagine how aliens would act.

Lots of people say aliens wouldn't come here with hostility because that would be a waste of travel time?

What if they act like Predator? Whose to say they dont like the challenge of sneaking around and killing people?

"Aliens wouldn't enslave us because they could just build robots with their technology."

What if the robots have problems? Maybe they want something that can learn new tasks and adapt? What if their robots are just slightly more advanced versions of our robots? This would mean they can do simple tasks but any kind of orders and training would be impossible. Adaptability would be another hard thing to program into a robot. A combination of slaves + robots would probably be ideal for a totalitarian star race.

"Aliens are here to steal our resources because we run around and do that on earth."

What if all the aliens are hippies? I mean, seriously. What if everyone got together on their home planet, smoked a bunch of weed and built a giant space ship. And because of their happiness and unity they where able to traverse the stars without any problems. If we had one giant spaceship, there's a good chance some maniac would blow themselves up and kill everyone on board. If we had a giant spaceship and everyone was a hippy, well i doubt there would be too many problems.

Anyway, the point is stop comparing aliens to us. If you want to compare aliens to anything on earth, at least analyze the earth as a whole. It is possible that when we die out another species might evolve in the same fashion. So if you wanna compare aliens to what we know, use a bigger sample size than just humans.

For example:

If aliens where advanced forms of Dolphins:
They would be extremely friendly to us. Probably fly along side us. A lot of UFO sightings seem to relate to this kind of engagement.

If aliens where based on Lions/Tigers/Cheetahs etc.:
They would probably come here for food and/or to hunt. Or just to check us out and scout about. Maybe they want a place to live(their own world is dying etc.) so they want to just scare us away and kick us out. Say "this is my turf get out."

If you analyze all facets of our world, you can then compare how those animals behave and relate to their own environment. Even though we have changed over years as a civilization(from hunting to building cities), the way in which we interact with our environment hasn't changed at all:

We move from place to place, gather what we need, and behave very unfriendly and hostile to anything we cannot be certain of.

This is not a bad trait to have. Nobody wants to hug a bear only to be eaten alive, so we must be cautious.



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:08 PM
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It is the way our thought processes work. We automatically compare the unknown to our own personal experiences and situations. In short our brains have very limited data to work with. We would probably have a hard time adjusting to an alien environment or comprehending some of the vast differences between alien species or technology. Since we haven't experienced it our brains lack the data needed to draw the proper conclusions. It can then only be left to the imagination, a trait that differs amongst individuals.



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:12 PM
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The truth is no one knows. We think we are the most advanced beings on the planets so a comparison between us and them is always going to be there. We compare ourselves to everything, it's part of our ego.

We are fairly well built machines, though, with our opposable thumbs for precision grip and our stamina to help us run. We have just been the most successful species thus far, and therefore consider ourselves the best. But, evolution never stops, whether it is by mother natures hand or our own. In 300 years we could have fully incorporated ourselves with machines and might not even resemble ourselves, or, something like nuclear winter happens and the only ones to survive are mutants.


TBH, life can look like anything and we have no idea what aliens might look like. It just makes sense to us that they would have 2 eyes, for depth perception, 2 ears for sound perception, 2 arms with hands for precision gripping, and to 2 legs to move. Everything else is beyond our thoughts because to us we are superior, and our superiority is all the result of natural selection.

We make other being look like us because it is easier to understand.

That's why god usually looks like the people that worship him, and that's why he hates the same people as they do.


Pred...



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:17 PM
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I don't know because I have never considered comparing myself to a hypothetical, non-existant alien species from the cosmic regions of the universe that was simply created from the human imagination in an attempt to solve unsolvable mysteries as a default hypothesis on everything from creation to the energy crisis and why we should be paranoid about our governments.

People compare themselves to aliens because they tend to think aliens are their saviors or creators or both. People want to be aliens!



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:22 PM
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reply to post by demonseed
 


Because humans only have themselves as a reference point for comparison.

If the only music Ive ever heard was classical music, all my speculation about theoretical other forms of music would all be based on my experiences with the only form of music Ive ever known; classical. Same idea with humanity and aliens.



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:22 PM
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I can't really say anything more than these guys have, it is a matter of us judging things based on our own knowledge and experience. Having said that, if you are a follower of the ancient alien theory, as many people are; they claim there is evidence to suggest that the aliens that have visited in earth in the past (and allegedly still do today) look similar to us, because we are engineered in their image. I cannot say if thats true or not, but it also does not account for other intelligent alien life that could have very different forms, or indeed communicate in different ways.

In terms of the intentions of alien life, wether that be based on the comparisons to ourselves or our imaginations; the reality is that any theory is possible, friendly aliens who want to help, evil aliens that want to enslave, hungry aliens that want to eat and so on. The fact is, we can only speculate at this stage until the information is revealed or ET knocks on our door.

Good post though, you make a very good point.



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:41 PM
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we like to think we are superior to everything else, having alien life that would look like a ant-eater but have 10x our intelligence does not make much sense to our small lil heads. Arthur C. Clark had really cool aliens in his Rama trilogy, kinda opened up my mind a little after reading those books. The universe is huge, we are nothing!



posted on Aug, 15 2011 @ 11:47 PM
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Originally posted by flight-dynamics
I don't know because I have never considered comparing myself to a hypothetical, non-existant alien species from the cosmic regions of the universe that was simply created from the human imagination in an attempt to solve unsolvable mysteries as a default hypothesis on everything from creation to the energy crisis and why we should be paranoid about our governments.

People compare themselves to aliens because they tend to think aliens are their saviors or creators or both. People want to be aliens!


I think you make a very valid point that many people compare themselves to aliens because they think they are their creators, some people would appear to find it more plausible than to believe they were created by a hypothetical, non-existant omnipitent father figure from the mystical place they call heaven
.

I don't know if you are one of these people, but one thing I have noticed a lot is that many people of religious faith poopoo the idea of extraterrestrial life (as do many ufologists poopoo religion and god) which strikes me as a bit odd. It is my understanding, it is said that got created the world and everything, so surely, is it not concievable that god created life on other planets? You could also argue the fact that many believe that man invented god and therefore invented aliens too, equally as plausible.

My personal belief in the existance of extra-terrestrial intelligent beings comes from the fact that it is mathematically improbable (some would argue impossible) that we could be the only intelligent life in the universe, along with the fact that it would be extremely arrogant to assume that we are the best the universe has to offer.

The problem remains, however, that until undeniable evidence of god or aliens is brought to ALL of the human race (I make this distinction because I am talking about evidence that convinces EVERYONE not just those who want to believe it, wether religious or ET based) then both will co-exist as merely belief systems and people will side with that they choose to believe



posted on Aug, 16 2011 @ 02:12 AM
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reply to post by demonseed
 


Why?
Because being WE is all we know and in our arrogance ( or ignorance or lack of creativity ( unless it's designing new ways in which to kill ourselves)) asume that everyone else should be the same as us, hell we even create God in our own image. White man = White God, Arabic man= Arabic God etc

I personally WANT them to be different maybe then there would be some common sense in the Universe...:lol
edit on 16/8/11 by DataWraith because: edit







 
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