Can They Exist?

[aareavis]

I was thinking about this the other day.  I find it funny that the Yeerks are photosynthetic, yet they live in brains where they can't have direct sunlight (or Kandrona light).

[Blaise Zebrataur]

Yeah sure why not..anything is possible,and who knows..we might be under attack from the yeerks right now..

[estrid]

i def think aliens exist. I mean, if the universe never ends, how are we the ONLY life forms in existence? Earth can't be alone! i refuse to believe it!

[Unknown User]

I don't know if other sentient creatures exist (I want them to but am not sure), but I believe that other life-in-general exists; there are too many worlds, too many stars.

[CounterInstinct]

The Chee might exist. )

[Toominator Z]

To those interested in this topic I recommend also checking out Asmodeus' thread "Could Yeerks Really Evolve?".

That said, it seems Yeerks and Andalites are the most debatable here. A very valid point was made to the possible metabolism of the Andalites. Their bodies could be adapted to simply be more efficient than what we're comparing to. Also, the nutrition itself needs to be taken into account. The plant life itself on the Andalite home world could be much more energy rich, thus making less food necessary. Finally, even assuming Andalites must feed constantly to sustain themselves, they can presumably do it while standing around doing just about anything. So, what's to prevent them from doing so?

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Thing is, you're comparing their hooves, which directly absorb nutrients from their food, to our small intestine. The small intestine is absorbing nutrients from anything you've eaten for a long time after you eat it. There's a reason human small intestines are more than twenty feet long- absorbing enough nutrients to keep a human body running isn't an easy thing to do. The food has to be ground up, dissolved and liquefied, and even then, it has to pass through twenty feet of intestine in order for our bodies to absorb enough to keep running. Since the Andalites only have their four small hooves, and since the only "digestion" they have is stepping on the grass, they'd better have an incredibly efficient system for absorbing it, even if their bodies use next to no energy.

[Toominator Z]

Well, as far as I recall, the books do not explicitly state that Andalites have no digestive system. For all we know they can have one in conjunction with the job their hooves do. The hooves could be the equivalent of an esophagus.

All that aside though, there's still the possibility of all day eating and food with a nutrient level far beyond what we're accustomed to. These attributes combined with what you mentioned, incredibly efficient bodies, provide a feasible explanation.

[RYTX]

I should say more but right now I'm just putting out that they also eat earth grass; obviously we aren't getting the most out of that type of food, but even for an organism that is, it's still probably isn't a 5-hr energy

[Toominator Z]

I should say more but right now I'm just putting out that they also eat earth grass; obviously we aren't getting the most out of that type of food, but even for an organism that is, it's still probably isn't a 5-hr energy

Touche. This invalidates the theory of the plants providing extra energy. Point well made.

[Kotetsu1442]

*whistle* Okay, but for I start let me lay out my ground plan here. The creation of the universe is random, the development of life even more random, and the evolution of true sentience incredibly more random: no creators, no original designer. Each of these events has an infinitesimally small chance of happening, each even more so than the last. All of it is statistically impossible, including and especially us.

Is it weird that I agree that all of your reasoning makes sense except for the groundwork you based it upon? I don't know what to base the 'creation of the universe is random' part on, meaning the spontaneous existence of mass and energy is something that is possible, but subject to a random chance with low odds? I would say that, if you assume there is no omnipotent creator or designer then, as far as we can conclude, energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can merely change forms, and since we are made of matter (a form of energy) and are able to observe plenty of examples of energy then we must conclude that that energy has always existed in one form or another, its existence isn't subject to random chance (This doesn't tell us why it exists, but that it does).

Also, we know that there is lots of observable energy... and a lot of space between the various sized concentrations of it. We can infer that there may be more energy beyond what we are capable of seeing, which is no conclusion but makes it possible. Our universe may be unlimited, or simply to vast for us to comprehend, containing an infinite (or so vast as to be infinite from our perspective) amount of energy (again there is not an answer as 'why' there would be infinite energy, but just as it is eternal, it can be infinite).

In any case, what I am getting at is that if the universe, in this case meaning all existing energy in whatever form it happens to be, is both eternal and infinite, then it is completely irrelevant how unlikely a random event is, or how unlikely a series of unlikely events are. There is no "statistically impossible" it is either impossible given a universal set of laws that govern all energy (lets not even get into why all energy may or may not be subject to some unknown, arbitrary set of laws), in which case it doesn't happen, or else it is possible and it does happen... if it is possible that it does happen, you could say that it is 'statistically improbable' but that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, it just isn't likely to happen anywhere near you, but given an infinite amount of energy and time it will happen... an infinite number of times... just, you know, a lesser infinite amount of times than the more probable infinite number of events (if that is worth trying to comprehend in anything more than an academic sense  ).

Furthermore, even if we don't assume that energy is both infinite and eternal (because it may not be), but that it is still possible that there is still the possibility that it is incomprehensibly old and incomprehensibly vast then even if you still can't call something that is possible 'statistically impossible' because a vast enough number of events will make an unlikely event occur eventually anyways.

Which isn't to say the cliche "Anything's possible" (Because it is certainly possible that not everything is possible  ) but that, if it is possible through random chance, then given enough chances you don't have to worry about 'statistically impossible' because it'll eventually happen anyways.

Beyond this, I won't go to the trouble with each species of saying of saying "Well, it is theoretically possible that an Andalite exists, but it would have to be beyond our limited knowledge of what physiologically impossible. But while it is theoretically possible it is unlikely because its energy absorption of crushed grass through the hooves is unlikely to be able to provide enough energy for what we know to be required for a creature of roughly its size and nature; so it is either impossible, or simply far beyond what we know to be physiologically possible... but if it is physiologically possible then given a big enough universe it has happened." Suffice it to say that I agree with a lot of the general ideas that RYTX and most others have shared on which creatures we are more likely to come across if we find a faster-than-light method of travel that makes distance irrelevant in the search for extra-terrestrial life.

Following the discussion on "Habitable Zones" and the make-ups of various creatures in the Ani-verse (such as the assumption that a Taxxon is physiologically similar to Earth insects because its outer appearance is similar in shape to a particular Earth insect), I think the larger problem that is too easily overlooked is the likely-hood life exists in the sameway across various planets... all animals have the same structure to their DNA, are carbon-based and require the exact same limited set of nutrients and can survive in environments providing very similar proportions of atmospheric components and pressures: If there was life on the planet you discovered then their food was nutritious to you, or at least safe (you might not be able to consume it, but it wasn't poisonous) the air was breathable, ect. There were never intelligent species of such a different atomic make-up that they simply couldn't exist in our world (other than the water-air barrier), a drug that worked on one specie might be more or less effective than another (unless like the oatmeal it was a single, isolated plot device) but would never simply not work or have a completely different effect. Andalites never wondered "Can we eat this, it sure looks like our grass but is it at all the same" it just simply worked. Ultimately, the biggest problem with the various aliens in the Ani-verse may not be that they are too fantastically alien to be possible, but that they are too not-alien to be probable (Although yes, before you spit my words at me, given a vast enough universe, then eventually a few dozen species that all look very alien but have identical living conditions will eventually develop in relatively near locations).

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Excellently said. The universe is vast beyond our comprehension- what we are capable of observing may only be an infinitesimal portion of the universe in its entirety. Statistically, even the (probably) near-nonexistent probability of sentient life evolving is bound to repeat a couple of times.

Quick note, though, on your comment about Animorphs life being too Earth-like. I fully agree for the most part, but odds are in favor of any alien life sharing some fairly distinct properties with Earth life. Life, as we define it (a molecule or collection of molecules capable of reproducing, for the sake of my argument here), is by necessity a fairly complex system. This is likely to require life to be Carbon-based, for starters. If you look at the sci-fi standard for making life seem alien, Silicon, you find that there's a lot more Silicon in the Earth's crust than there is Carbon, and yet for the most part, life on Earth is centered around Carbon, because unlike Silicon, Carbon is excellent for forming long, complex molecular chains capable of changing and re-forming. Life on Earth requires liquid water as well, and there's a reason interplanetary scientists are so interested in finding liquid water as a potential starting point for life- in the general temperature range at which life exists on Earth, there is no other liquid as suited to maintaining life, if only because of the wide temperature range at which water does remain a liquid.

Anyway, point I'm trying to make is that it's not... entirely unreasonable to expect alien life, if we do run across it, to share similarities such as DNA, a need for water, and, for non-photosynthetic life, a need to take in other Carbon-centered organic components to run. It's a long shot, but I feel this does make, say, Taxxon life seem a bit more likely in the grand scheme of things.

[MoppingBear]

maybe andalite hooves usse fission to get energy?

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Badass. I'm all for that theory

[Kotetsu1442]

That's a good point Kit, certainly here on Earth life-forms are all carbon based and really all the billions of different types of organic molecules are basically composed of only eight or nine different atoms in various arrangements. And while we would expect that if all of the life on our planet has a common original source then they would follow the same general pattern, it isn't unreasonable to hypothesis that either:

A. Life on Earth started based on a particular set of atoms with a various sets of properties in their interactions that allow life , but there are other possible sets of building blocks so alien life-forms could be completely different in their basic compositions.
OR
B. The set of atoms that all of life on Earth is based on is the ideal set, and all life arising on any planet will be of this nature because it is somehow necessary based on the laws of physics that govern our universe.

It is fair to say that the Ani-verse operates on B, so even when creatures from various planets are biologically different, they will all be built from the same basic set of building blocks.

To be more specific, my problem isn't so much that the similarities in the inter-planetary life-forms are there, but that none of the highly advanced species wondered at it. That is to say, a sci-fi author doesn't have to actually create all of the science in their universe, but part of sci-fi is establishing that it is there and that the universe is governed by it. Occasional comments from Ax like:

<It is amazing that the Escafil device works on humans. It is known to be capable of giving animals from the Andalite home-world the ability to morph, but that it works on humans as well suggests a basic universal similarity to all life-forms. I suspect that that many Andalite biologists would be very interested in studying the implications of this>

or maybe:

<In the past few of your decades, Andalites have begun to study what is now known as the Ideal Mass Theory. You see, Earth and many other planets have shown that life can exist in scales both extremely large and extremely small relative to Humans and Andalites. But, with only a few exceptions, the majority of truly intelligent life-forms seem to have a relatively similar mass, with 90% of known species falling between 1-3 times the average fully-grown human's mass. The theory is that there is an average mass that is ideal for the development of higher intelligence, and that larger and smaller scale examples of intelligence are the results of statically improbable developments. Andalite biologists are attempting to find physiological explanations for this phenomenon.>

OK, so maybe Ax doesn't have to be as long winded as I am, there's certainly a good reason why I'm not a popular author  . But what I am saying is that it's those occasional details being slipped in that lend a real verisimilitude to the universe you've created, an author's: "Yes, I'm aware that most of the intelligent life-forms encountered are surprisingly similar in scale to humans when for all we know about intelligence it is just as likely to develop in much smaller life-forms (like the Helmacrons) or life-forms that are literally thousands of times larger. I've thought of this, and justified it in my universe by noting having characters note this and suggest reasons for it."

Again, I really wasn't clear clear initially. My problem isn't in the similarities, but in the lack of awareness of it. Though I do understand, of course, the difficulty an author has when creating an entire universe to step back and objectively notice "what assumptions am I taking for granted from my perspective as a human?"