Extraterrestrial life discovered in the solar system

What would it mean for mankind if one-day extraterrestrial life was discovered on a planet in our solar system? We would normally think that this is exciting news, as the discovery of extraterrestrial life would make humans feel less alone in the universe.

But there is a view that the discovery of extraterrestrial life in the solar system is not good news for humanity, on the contrary, it will be the beginning of human despair, why do you say so? Here we will find out.

The theoretical basis for this view comes from the "Great Filter Theory", which was proposed to explain the "Fermi Paradox".

In short, the "Fermi paradox" is that the universe is so big and has existed for so long, even in the Milky Way, there are hundreds of millions of habitable planets, many of which are older than the Earth, and by common sense, there should be many intelligent creatures in the Milky Way that are hundreds of millions of years ahead of humans or even billions of years, and By now, they should have developed into interstellar civilizations that can span the galaxy, and we should easily observe traces of their existence in the universe, but the reality is that we have never found such a phenomenon, and a paradox has been formed.

"The "Great Filter Theory" explains the Fermi Paradox simply by saying that there is a mechanism in the universe called the "Great Filter" that prevents the emergence of interstellar civilizations. This mechanism is so difficult to break through that no habitable planet in the galaxy has evolved into an interstellar civilization until now.

Since the "Great Filter Theory" can reasonably explain the "Fermi Paradox", it has been accepted by many people. But the question is, has lived on our planet evolved up to now, and has it ever broken through the limits of this "big filter"? There are only two answers to this question: "broken" and "not broken".

Assuming that we have broken through the "big filter", it means that in the past, life on Earth has undergone a process so difficult that it is almost impossible to do it again, what would it be?

Looking back at the evolution of life on Earth, we can briefly summarize 4 key processes, namely: 1. the birth of life; 2. from simple life to complex life; 3. from complex life to the evolution of primitive human beings; 4. primitive human beings developed modern Earth civilization. In fact, among these 4 processes, we already have a considerable understanding of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, but we know very little about the 1st one.

The complexity of life is so astonishing that the internal structure of even a single-celled organism is so exquisite that modern human technology cannot use non-living matter to create the simplest of lives.

How exactly did such a complex life emerge on Earth? This is a great mystery to modern humans, but we are almost certain that the "birth of life" is a process that has a very small probability of occurring.

Scientists have found that all known life on Earth is based on the same basic biochemical organization and has almost the same genetic code, which strongly suggests that life on Earth originated only once, and all known life on Earth likely has a common ancestor, scientists even gave it a name: LUCA.

In other words, in the billions of years of the Earth's history, the "evolution of life from non-living matter" is likely to have happened only once on Earth, and the probability of its occurrence is negligible.

Therefore, it can be said that if we have broken the limit of the "big filter", then this "big filter" is probably the first of the above 4 processes, i.e. "live birth "After all, this is the one with the highest unknown factor and should be the most difficult.

If this is true, the galaxy is not as widespread as we previously thought that extraterrestrial life exists, although the galaxy has hundreds of millions of habitable planets, due to the limitations of this "large filter", the probability of life on these planets is very small.

This will cause the galaxy with life on the planet to be extremely rare, the life on Earth is likely the first few life in the galaxy, or even the only one in the galaxy, so that the galaxy now, of course, there is no interstellar civilization exists.

If extraterrestrial life is found in the solar system, the above speculation is disproved, for the simple reason that the existence of life on several planets in the small solar system is enough to show that the "evolution of life from non-living matter" is not as difficult as we think and that there should be some mechanism to make it easy. There should be some mechanism to make it easy, and life is common in the galaxy.

This means that it is likely that we have not broken through the "big filter", which is not good news for mankind, and could even be the beginning of our despair, because if the many beings in the galaxy are never able to break through the "big filter", then as one of the many beings in the galaxy, we will not be able to break through the "big filter". "limit, then as one of them, of course, we on Earth will also face the same dilemma.

And if this is the case, waiting for human beings, is likely to be a bleak end, because the carrying capacity of the Earth and even the entire solar system and habitable time are limited, if human beings have never been able to develop into interstellar civilization, is destined to disappear from the universe.

Of course, this is only reasonable speculation, whether this is the case, we are currently unable to confirm. To take a step back, even if the "Great Filter Theory" is correct, humans will not necessarily be in a desperate situation, after all, we have never found any definite extraterrestrial life.

So we can still be optimistic that human beings have broken through the limits of the "Great Filter" and expect that in the distant future, human beings will become an intergalactic civilization that spans the galaxy.