Kind of a stupid thought, but what about the

Alright, this is just a random thought I had a while back when I was bored and thinking about things, but I wanted to see what everyone else thought about it, so here it goes. Whenever I see aliens in movies or described in stories, their size always seems like it's in "our" scale. Usually they're either a few feet shorter than us, a few feet taller, or just about our height. But why? Why, in this vast vast universe in which we are merely a grain of sand in millions of beaches, would aliens even be close to our height? Is it possible that the extra terrestrials we are looking for could be the size of bacteria? What if there were whole civilizations out there that were so small that we could only see them with a microscope? Maybe the people are a little bigger, but only milimeters tall? What if they were giant? Maybe compared to whatever is out there, we are so tiny that it would be difficult to see us without some sort of tool. See where I'm going with this? Is there a reason this possibility is already ruled out, and I'm just stupid?

Well, I see no reason aliens can't be a multitude of sizes. All reports of aliens in real life (or claimed to be real incidents) that I've heard of are between 3-8 feet or so. Hard for a bacteria-sized alien to probe someone...

I do see a reason for human size aliens in movies - it's cheaper and easier to film.

Edited for typo

[edit on 27-4-2007 by niv]

That's not a stupid question at all. Actually it's something that's crossed my mind a time or two, as well. For all we "know" we could be at either end of the spectrum or Anywhere in between. I see it as one of those points to ponder which often find one hours later .. still doing so.

Read the book by Dr. Seuss called "Horton hears a Who!", and try to look beyond the cartoonish Illustrations and such. In my opinion, that would be very similar to what you're asking/pondering here.
Are we Horton? Are we the Whos? ... or are we somewhere in between?


Certainly not a thought to task one's self with if your short on time.


 

Kind of like a fish only grows as big as its container? I have always heard that dont really know for sure if its true. If their was a planet 20 times bigger than earth maybe the occupants are 20 times bigger, wow.

12M,

First of all, I am sincerely impressed and touched with your avatar!!!!

To the OP,
I have also had this thought and even started a thread before on it...unfortunatley it dies. I hope this one stays alive as it is a great thought!? I see no reason that other creatures throughout the uni/multiverse would have to abide by our laws of physics as we understand them....or rather, don't understand them sometimes! So, I agree with your thoughts that perhaps other living beings could come in a variety of shapes and sizes, spectrums of light, and so on.

Nice thread my brother! Peace, Mondo

[edit on 27-4-2007 by Mondogiwa]

Originally posted by earth2
Kind of like a fish only grows as big as its container? I have always heard that dont really know for sure if its true. If their was a planet 20 times bigger than earth maybe the occupants are 20 times bigger, wow.

True and I imagine size would be especially influenced by gravity, habitat etc.

Larger planets with more gravity would lead to smaller beings. Brain size would equate to intelligence. So very small animals with small brains wouldn't have enough "functional intelligence" to travel around (other than bacteria that could live on a comet perhaps). Sizes of 3ft to 8ft with a large cranium make sense based on what physics seems to say.

Then again, what's to say a solar system doesn't have some intelligence of its own (in terms of the combination of energy, gravity and such).

I think it's a good question, but has a couple of facets. When we're talking about "life" in general, there has been some work done on the theoretical limit of size for a living organism.

Check this lengthy [url=http://nssdcftp.gsfc.nasa.gov/miscellaneous/jupiter/NRC_SSB_Reports/Astrobiology/Search_for_Life's_Origins/Size%20Limits%20of%20Very%20Small%20M icroorganisms%201999.pdf]>LINK

An interesting question...... and I am not sure how you could go about answering it.


With stuff like nano technology... it really makes you think.

i don't think smaller brain would indicate less intelligence , elephant has bigger brain than us , but it's less intelligent.

I would say that ET life could most definately be much much smaller (most probably is) than we are. It could also be much much larger as well.

But the question is, would life that is smaller or larger than us be intelligent life? (by that I mean self aware, concious, able to question its existence and its place in its environment) Is there a minimum or maximum brain size that can incorporate intelligence?

Are our little unknown vistors being piloted by colonies of goo, or are the objects themselves a living being?

Just to keep our neighborhood safe for us in my mind I like to think that the bidedal humaniod between 4-8 ft tall would be the common denominator for intelligent life. It is here, for now anyway, and I cant see why that cant be extrapolated to other worlds, with some variations on the theme of course....

Thanks for the replies guys. Didn't think I'd get so many so soon.

About the "smaller brain equals less intelligence" part, I don't think that's necessarily true. As another member touched on, there are animals with larger brains than us that are less intelligent. And with a smaller body, wouldn't that mean the brain wouldn't have to be as big? If a solar system or a galaxy were "scaled down," everything would be smaller...or vice versa for things being gigantic.

Maybe there is life on Mars - we just can't see it.

I am reminded of the part in The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, when the huge, combined alien warfleet reaches Earth, and is eaten eaten by a small dog.

I see no reason why Aliens would be the same size or shape as us, unless they evolved under similar conditions. But I'm hardly an expert.

[edit on 27/4/2007 by Perturabo]

I've actually thought about this too.

They could be any size, giants, maybe like the Zentraedi from Macross/Robotech.

Or hell, the size of planets.

Its freakish to think about.

Originally posted by Herman
Thanks for the replies guys. Didn't think I'd get so many so soon.

On ATS? Round here threads tend to explode when they're good.

I like this one, but probably biased because I thought the same thing recently when looking at the hubble deep field photo.

Apparently size isn't everything, after all. I have read somewhere that the reason modern humans outcompeted Neanderthaal man was that our skulls are thinner, meaning they resonate with our incessant vocalisations. This coalesces impurites out of the cerebro-spinal fluid into small clumps that are disposed of. Hence our mental function is much more efficient than theirs, with the result that we learned new tricks, they did not.

Perhaps there are lifeforms whose mental processes are to ours what ours are to old cap'n caveman.

There is a limit to how big and small life can be, naturally.

There is a set brain size limit to how small a brain could be that could
be sentient.

Now, it's not impossible for some kind of sentient life form to be based
on microbial life, for instance, it's not impossible that on some water
world, a kind of algae evolved, that when enough amalgamate together,
the distributed processes of all of them could create a single sentience,
however individual microbes are incapable of sentience.


There is a definite size limit to how big something can be as well,
a species that evolves on a lower gravity planet would be able to evolve
to be very large, however even than there would be a size limit, simply
to prevent them from going extinct, that is if you get a species of two
mile tall animals, they, and alot of other life on the planet, are not going
to survive very long.


Now, when it comes to artificially created life, which I like the term
Neogen for (it's a term from a SciFi project I read) in theory you could
create sentient planets, or even gigantic nebula life forms, with sufficiently
advanced science and technology at least.

The real question is how did we end up this size? If humans turned out to be around 5 feet tall, that says something that there is a good chance other intelligent life will turn out to be 5 feet tall. If you look around Earth, there are lots of animals around our size. There are some whales and elephant type creatures, but most are 50 - 500 pounds normally.

Why don't aliens have eyes on the side of their heads? Because intelligent life can probably only grow from predatory animals. If you look at predators (wolves, bears, lions, eagles), they all have eyes on the front. If you look at other animals like rabbits, they have eyes more spread out, almost on the sides of their heads.

CO2 also has an effect on the size of living things. Dinosaurs were so large because there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere back then, compared to how much there is now. Even plants were considerably larger.

Originally posted by iori_komei
There is a limit to how big and small life can be, naturally.

Life, as we know it(?) BIG     small

There is a set brain size limit to how small a brain could be that could be sentient.

"Intelligence" knows only the bounds of those tasked with deciding such ... pft!?

There is a definite size limit to how big something can be as well,
a species that evolves on a lower gravity planet would be able to evolve
to be very large, however even than there would be a size limit, simply
to prevent them from going extinct, that is if you get a species of two
mile tall animals, they, and alot of other life on the planet, are not going
to survive very long.

Again, are we but more/less than a "world" contained in a particle of dust, resting on a clover ... in a Large field.
in reference to my inital post.

OR, otherwise ... who's to say!?




An interesting thread, though.



 

[edit on 27-4-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

The first MIB movie pointed this out with showing how a whole 8universe in a little marble could be held as important as any other universe should be regardless of size. It was just a kovie, but what is it that we actually do know of places farther than our sights can see? I think movie renditin of aliens are only made to appease our views of aliens to fit the context of whatever the movie is trying to portray. they wouldn't make E.T. look like the alien from ALIENS movies.

There's limit's, both large and small to the size and even the shape of alien life forms, at least scientist think so right now.(Though we know how often that can change.) I for one expect that in a large place like the universe many surprises await us.

But your original question was aimed at the movie versions. Well, It's hard to find enough good actors who are under three feet tall or over seven.

Now we could do some bigger aliens if we could just get Arnold on a few more steroids and some growth hormones....?????