Planets With Four Suns May Be Not So Rare After All

While numerous two- and three-star systems containing planets have been discovered (with planet-harboring binary-star systems possibly outnumbering planet-harboring single star systems), four-star systems with planets were at first thought to be if not impossible, highly unlikely. How can a planet maintain an orbit? 

30 Ari a Double Double

However, we now know of two planet-harboring quadruple-star systems. First was Kepler-64b, found in 2012. The latest is a system called 30 Ari which lies 136 light-years away in the constellation Aries. The star system was first thought to be a triple-star system but a fourth star was discovered, making 30 Ari a double double-star system, with each binary orbiting a point in space between the two systems (the center of gravity for the entire quadruple-star system).

A diagram of the newfound system show the two pairs of stars in orbit together, while a planet circles one of them. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Planet (30 Ari B b) 

The one planet found to date is a giant planet 10 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits the main star in 30 Ari  B every 335 days; it lies about 0.995 AU from the main star. The second star orbits at about 22 AUs away (for comparison, The Earth is 1 AU from the Sun, Uranus is around 20 AUs away, and Neptune is about 30AUs away). 

The planet orbiting the main star in 30 Ari B might lie just within the habitable zone. While the planet itself is probably not habitable due to its mass (it is most likely a gas giant), this does not rule out a habitable moon.

A Complicated Sky

A sentient being on such a hypothetical moon would see sometime in the daytime sky (when the gas giant is not occluding or blocking the main star) one small sun and two bright stars. With a large telescope, it would see that one of the bright stars was a binary system (30 Ari A binary system).

Some days, depending upon the tilt of the gas giant and thus the orbital plane of the moon with regards to the orbital plane of the stars, as well as possibly depending upon latitude if on a large moon, the sentient being would see just one (the main) star in the sky, or the main star with one of the two bright stars. One of those stars would show retrograde motion on a "yearly" basis.

Why celestial objects orbiting farther out display retrograde motion.
Credit: Prof. Pogge, Ohio State University.

Night, or when the gas giant is blocking the main 30 Ari B star, the sentient being would sometimes see those two bright stars (they would be the brightest nighttime stars), or just one of them, and sometimes none. If the moon is on the sun-facing side of the gas giant, the nighttime side of the moon would face the gas giant which would probably block any stars of any kind from being seen.

In fact, with a gas giant 10 times the mass of Jupiter, it is possible the moon beings would not see the night sky for part of their year. When their moon-planet is between the main star and the gas giant, night is just the gas giant. When the orbit begins to take the moon to the other side of the gas giant, then a starry night begins to be seen, with the day being replaced by a starry night (and the nights always the gas giant filling the sky, or filling most of it). This does depend upon how far away the moon is orbiting from the gas giant. Further away and then they may be able to see the night sky framing the gas giant, though most of the sky would still be the gas giant.

What a complicated sky! What complicated early religions would arise from such complexity? A mighty light in the sky that has two smaller, wandering lights that has a complicated dance.

If the newfound star is on the same orbital plane as the main 30 Ari B and main 30 Ari A stars, then sometimes the lesser lights (but still brighter than any other star) would seem to merge together, only to separate again, on a repetitive basis. If not, then they would approach and pass each other, with the newfound star being the fastest moving.

The 30 Ari A system would be like a zodiac indicator, for when the beings are able to see the night sky, since the 30 Ari A system is always opposite of the 30 Ari B system (circling a point in space in between the two systems). But since the 30 Ari A system is moving (both systems dancing around that shared point), that pointer would slowly move over the centuries, where, for example, the first day of spring used to be when 30 Ari A was in constellation D, it has slowly moved to where it is now in constellation E.

I would think that sentient beings would be pattern seekers on some level--visual ones would try to make some sense of the dots in the night sky, whether they would have a close equivalent to our concept of a zodiac is another matter. The stars will align at certain times of the year, times that are important for a primitive people to survive (best time to hunt, when to prepare for lean season, etc), as well as any religious meaning that gets attributed to stars and the movement/dance of those stars.

What kind of Stonehenge would arise in such a complex system? Though the aliens would be able to handle it--we had to figure out when eclipses would occur and that is no easy matter. 

Even More Complexity

Just as the two binaries orbit a shared center of gravity, the stars within each binary revolve around a shared center of gravity (or barycenter). The more alike in mass the two stars in a binary system are, the more the center of gravity will be outside of each star, in between. Two equally massive stars would orbit around a point essentially halfway between the two stars. A big imbalance in masses, however, could put the center of gravity inside the largest star. In our solar system the barycenter moves about as the planets have different masses, revolve at different rates, and are at different distances--sometimes the barycenter is inside the Sun, sometimes outside the Sun.

Solar System Barycenter Orbit Around Sun, from Wikimedia Commons. Credit Carl Smith, Rubik-Wuerfel.

Depending upon how heavy the newfound star turns out to be relative to the main star, the barycenter could be midpoint. Then the newfound star would never go behind 30 Ari B. The newfound star would sometimes be in the daytime sky and sometimes in the nighttime sky, but it would never be seen to merge with the main star. 30 Ari A still would--and depending upon orbital planes, could still look like it merges with the newfound star.

All Hail the Sky Giant

Retrogrades are hard to explain if you believe your planet is non-spinning. Would seeing a large gas giant spinning above you help a race to think of their planet, the gas-giant's moon, as spinning as well? With ancient humans, the Moon pretty much always kept the same face toward the Earth (we can see a wee bit more as the Moon's orbit is not perfectly circular). A gas giant, even if the giant's moon was tidally locked, would appear to be spinning. Even if the gas giant was tidally locked, there would be at least some cloud bands that would circle the globe and spin. However, maybe those cloud bands would be looked at as just clouds and no proof of a spinning planet.

On the other hand, the sentient beings would probably quickly realize they are orbiting that gas giant. The moon would not be the center of the universe--the gas giant would be. They may try to at first explain the night sky as everything circling the gas giant.

A gas giant that is always looking down on them, a huge presence every night. The main star is not as constant, disappearing behind the gas giant for part of each year. The two bright wandering stars also disappear behind (or into) the gas giant at different times of the year. A sense of pattern helps to put a mind at ease--chaos is dangerous, especially to early societies that are always on the edge of death due to climate patterns (from too little rain to too much rain to devastating storms or floods or fires during times of droughts, etc). And the one constant--the only constant (even if it face changes a bit with the cloud bands)--the gas giant, the sky giant.

Would the gas giant then be the home of the gods? Heaven? Hell? Birth place of the universe? A god itself?

The Great Eye(s)

And if that gas giant had one or more giant storms, like Jupiter, a big eye or eyes peering down? The ever watching eye...if tidal lock and always see the eye. If not, then the eye moves--watching the heavens, scanning creation, turning its eye upon the inhabitants of the moon on a regular basis.

When the eye appears, is that the time to supplicate to the great sky god? When its eye is most directed to the moon?

Alien Technology - 2. Sociology/Culture

"Enclosure" (c) DigitalBlasphemy.com

Of the five areas of speculation on alien technology - what it will be influenced by - sociology/culture is, in addition to theology, one of the most speculative! How can we even begin?

One way to begin is to study the social patterns of animals, and how they behave in groups (or if solitary creatures, how they behave). Yes, these are Earth animals, affected by an Earth environment, but it does give us some tools to work with - there is a logic, if you will, involved in why certain social systems instincts develop in animals, a logic of survival. Without this logic of survival, would there be much of a chance for the development of sentient beings?

Another way is to study the influence of physiology and environment upon our (human) societies and cultures, for physiology and environment do influence societies. A society that adapted to a desert environment, for instance, will have different societal pressures than a society that has adapted to a tropical island environment (such things will affect primitive theologies as well, of course). A culture fighting over scarce resources will have different technological needs and desires than a culture that is more isolated and in a lush environment. Thus, cultures, while rather varied, all are patterns, and they have their own logic, usually a logic of survival based on the parameters of their physiology and the physical environment they find themselves in.

By the way, if some of discussions in this blog sound like discussions relating to a mathematics equation, that is because on level it is. As Galileo Galilei said, "mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." This is one reason why I hypothesize that there is a universal biology, that underlying all the great and incredible diversity in life are some basic universal biological laws which are the "natural" result of universal physical laws (see the blog post "Repeating Patterns - Universal Biologies" for some preliminary thoughts related to this).

There is, though, one variable that is quite difficult to nail down. While animals mostly have social structures that are instinctual, humans have social structures that are a result of a combination of instinct and abstract thought. And it is when we deal with abstract thought that the greatest difficulties in speculating alien technologies arises: abstract thinking can confuse, can create different interpretations from the same data, and influence sentient beings in similar physiological and environmental conditions to evolve very different social and cultural systems.

And let us not forget the abstract desire for power, or the sometimes related desire for self-preservation. Animals protect themselves instinctively, but do not have a global awareness that advanced sentient beings have. This desire for power connected with global awareness affects societal systems, and the direction technology takes (too often a negative direction).

However, studying the great diversity on Earth has drawbacks - it is just one "experimental" laboratory. We don't know the full extent of diversity that can arise with life originating and evolving on very different environments. Universal biology will allow for more diversity than our little blue marble: " There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy" (Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 159–167).

For instance, maybe life, when it first forms, has different paths it can take, that once a path is taken it is fairly locked in - all life following having a propensity toward a set of behaviors, all of which self-reinforce the path. Thus, just because animals on Earth tend to, on average or in general, behave in a certain way under conditions x,y, and z, it does not follow that we can apply that knowledge to alien species - even if the alien planet is remarkably like the Earth.

Another question to ask is how much of an influence on the creation of social structures, systems is luck, chance, or randomness? How much is a social system the product of the people in it (alien or human) and how much of it is a product of a charismatic leader figure bending the social system to fit his or her own opinion or philosophical view of the life? Are the appearances of charismatic leaders predictable in some way, due to biological and environmental laws? Or are their appearances flukes, luck, chance (*)? If the latter, then here we have another example where you can have two virtually identical planets, with virtually identical life, and still have very different societies. And you don't even need charismatic leaders - as we see with twins, virtual duplicates living in the same environment will still be different.

This leads me to yet another way we could begin to speculate - we can take what we do know, and subtract x, or y, or z and contemplate on what would be the difference in human society, on human technological development for the removal of that one item. It would give us more data to play with - it may not be much, but it is something.

So, when speculating upon alien realities, I posit that most advanced sentient societies would want to survive (various smaller sub-groups may not, of course). Those that do not, while it would be also interesting to speculate on them, they would be of small concern as they would not last long (unless they were zealots about it and wanted to take all other life with them wherever it could be found). And thus, one of the forces will be a logic of survival (though that can sometimes be subverted or overruled by abstract thinking). I posit that there are universal biological laws which, while allowing for a great diversity - greater than we can yet imagine, will have an influence on the development of social systems.

Despite the length of this blog entry, we've only just begun contemplating this particular Alien Realities topic. Coming Soon: "Alien technology - 3. Theology."


* Of course, charismatic leaders would only work on a species that can be emotionally manipulated. However, for such species of advanced sentient life, there can be other ways an individual can have a large impact or influence on the development of its society.

Christmas on Omicron Persei 8

During this time of year, my thoughts turn philosophically, sentimentally deeper toward several things: family, the past, spirituality and, of course, life on other planets.

For family, this time of year means additional sentimental thoughts partly because, for the Northern hemisphere, the weather is growing colder, and the nights darker and longer, and so our hearts instinctively look to shorten the distances between loved ones to increase warmth, security, and hope.

For the past, at this time of year, with the New Year approaching, it is a time that we begin to realize that another year has gone, and we begin to look back and take stock of what has happened - sometimes with happiness, sometimes with new knowledge realized, sometimes with anger, sometimes with regret, and sometimes with sadness. If used right, it is a time of extra growth.

For spirituality, this season has strong, and many times somewhat similar, religious meanings for many of the world's theologies. This is in large part because, again for the Northern hemisphere, the Winter solstice brings not only the longest night of the year, but the knowledge that the days will now begin to lengthen again - the Sun returns, and with it renewed warmth and energy filled life. It is the promise of Spring. It is the promise of rebirth, renewal, and resurrection that we rejoice in and are thankful for. It is the promise of death conquered. And connected with looking back to the year that was, and looking close to loved ones, it is a time of year to be thankful yet again for the blessings that loved ones, that love, brings (though for those struggling with a bad year, with abandonment, it can be a very dark time of year indeed).

Of course, too often all of this is ruined by crass commercialism, by the pressures and stresses of false and shallow meanings that have been attached to the season. But that is a topic for other blogs.

For life on other planets, I wonder how they would treat a solstice on their planet? To be high level sentient does one have to be a pattern seeker, to look for the meaning and/or reasons for the patterns? If so, then such sentient beings would see the pattern of solstice and equinox as even our distant ancestors did (from even before Stonehenge) and work to apply a meaning or reason to the pattern (for to find meaning or reason is to find purpose and to be able to make predictions, and maybe even gain some control over - or at least the illusion/delusion of some control).

This, of course, depends on many factors which would affect the severity, or the placidness, of annual weather patterns. Is the planet in a very circular orbit, or a somewhat elliptical one? Is the planet close to its star, and thus with a very short year? Is the planet actually a large habitable moon circling a gas giant? Is there a virtually non-existent tilt to its axis or it is a large tilt? And what of these combined?

If, for instance, the planet is in a very circular orbit, at a close orbit (a red dwarf, for instance, would have a habitable zone much closer to it than a normal G-type star like our own Sun), and with virtually no tilt to its axis, such a planet may have very little differences between its seasons - and seasons that come and go quickly (smaller orbit means, usually, a shorter year). If a longest night is very quickly followed by a longest day (weeks later, i.e.), would there be as much imperative to celebrate the return of the sun's dominance in the sky?

For a planet-moon circling a gas giant, the sun could disappear for days at a time before returning to a "regular" schedule.

Or if the planet-moon is phase locked with its parent gas giant planet, then for the time it is behind the planet there would be, for the far side of the planet-moon there would be constant darkness until the planet-moon came out from behind the gas giant; but then the sun would rise and stay in the sky as it slowly arcs to the opposite horizon as the planet-moon orbits in front of the gas giant. On such a world, a short winter may cover the entire globe while in the shadow of the gas giant, and summer cover the entire globe while in front of the gas giant with extremely short springs and fall at the point the planet-moon is over the terminator line of the gas giant (the line where day and night on the gas giant meet, where one begins and the other ends). Maybe the world's sentient race would view their world as more of a unity than we view our own as on Earth the Northern and Southern hemispheres experience direct opposite seasons at the same time, while on this hypothetical world, both hemispheres experience the same season at the same time.

Anyway, back to the long day and long night, a primitive sentient mind may see that as a mighty heroic epic struggle between day and night. Though if a non-aggressive sentient species, say a slow moving herbivore species on a cool planet, maybe the day and night would represent a sort of "wheel of fortune" - first good luck (sun, warmth, plants taking full advantage) and then bad luck (days long darkness, worsening cold, plants folding up waiting for the sun)?

Additionally, there would be no solstice like we have - there would be no gradual shortening of the night - just one long night, and then one long day, each individual night as long as the night before, separated by an equally long day. Essentially, they would be in eternal equinox. Spring would be morning, summer would be the day, fall would be the evening, and winter would be the night - if you wanted to give them seasons. It may be more accurate to say such a world would have no real seasons at all, only the kind of "seasons" any day-night cycle would have.

If, instead, the planet-moon did have a noticeable tilt to its axis, and a non-circular orbit around its parent gas giant planet, which itself had a non-circular orbit around the central sun, or if the parent planet had a noticeable tilt to its axis with the planet-moon orbiting directly over the parent planet's equator, then the planet-moon, while still retaining non-changing lengths to its day and nights, would gain true seasons. The sun would arc over the sky differently through out the parent planet's year - while the planet-moon's year is the time it takes to orbit around the gas giant, the gas giant has its own year as it orbits its sun.

On such a world, a season would not be different parts of the planet-moon's year, but would be seen year to year. A number of years would be Spring, while another number of years would be Summer, and so forth, repeating itself. What a different kind of zodiac such a world would have! In some ways, it would be similar to a Chinese zodiac calendar (the year of the horse, the year of the dog, etc), except each zodiac would cover a span of years. Their zodiac could contain a zodiac within a zodiac within a zodiac.

Solstice on such a world may not represent so much the return of day, since it is possible that the day and nights would not change in length from year to year, but could represent the point where Winter is half over and thus the return of Spring begins. And maybe, just maybe, the celebration would be a whole year (for the planet-moon).

Of course, this is supposing that all higher level sentient beings feel, in an emotive sense, for in some ways spirituality, and especially sentimentality, depends upon emotion more (at least at times) than reason. Is emotion necessary to higher level of sentience? It seems on Earth, at least, the higher the level of sentience, the more emotion the creature seems to have.

But this is a topic for a future blog.

Comments? Feel free to comment on any post in this blog. Please feel free to disagree with me (just do so respectfully please - even if you think I sin in any or all of my opinions, please recall, if you are Christian, Jesus' attitude toward the adulteress: while he was against what she did, he did not condemn her, and turned away those who would stone her).

Happy Holidays to you and yours (and even to Lrrr, Ruler of Omicron Persei 8, and his wife Nd-Nd. And what the heck, to Robot Santa too!*).

* If Lrrr, Nd-Nd, and Robot Santa mean nothing to you, you need to run, not walk, to the TV and catch an episode of Futurama.

Alien Life on Earth? - And Universal Biologies

In a recent edition of Discover, an article, "Aliens Among Us," asks the question "do we share our planet with alternative forms of life?" (62). Mathematical models indicate that there is a 95% chance that life originated two or more times on the Earth. There is no reason, from natural laws, that life didn't have more than one origin. DNA based life dominated, but that doesn't mean that niches are filled with RNA based life (DNA based life uses RNA, and evolved from RNA based life). At present, most of our methods for detecting life do not look for RNA, they look for DNA instead.

In early Earth history, the Earth would've been bombarded by large planetoids, comets and meteors - some of which may have wiped out early life. Life would've begun again. Why? Why can chemical reactions be predicted if the type and quantity of the chemicals involved are known as well as the environment (temperature, pressure, etc)? Why can large (and thus Newtonian) physical systems be predicted given known values (mass, density, magnetic fields, etc)? Because laws are universal. Given certain range of conditions, life will rise.

Life has great variety on Earth "but at the molecular level they are staggeringly uniform" (62). This doesn't mean that alien life will share the same uniformity as Earth life. But it will probably have its own uniformity. And it does mean that when looking for life, we need to broaden the tool set we use for looking for life. But it also means that here on Earth we need to study all the forms of life that exist here to help us gain an idea of the universal biology laws.

You see, forces all work to find an equilibrium. A star burns because gravity compresses it down, igniting a nuclear furnace. The radiation pressure from that furnace pushes back against the forces of gravity. While they balance, the star burns in an overall steady state. Depending upon mass, the star lives a long life, or a short life, and ends in a supernova or a blackhole (OK, this is a bit oversimplified). This happens over and over again throughout the universe because the forces are everywhere - gravity, light, and electromagnetism, for instance, are common and they react each according to their natures; and because their natures are not random natures, they do not interact randomly: gravity doesn't randomly become light and then magnetism, for instance, and it doesn't randomly change the way it interacts with the universe.

True, constants may actually change over time (there are debates about just how constant constants are), but overall forces have a nature to them, a pattern to them. And patterns interacting with patterns, and you get great variety of results, but it isn't chaos. Same with biology. There will be universal biological laws. And given the right range of conditions, and life will arise again and again in the universe, just like stars die and stars are born, they didn't come into existence only once, to die as a one time occurrence. Galaxies weren't created only once. There is an overall evolution to the universe (change may be the only true constant), but it is a slow evolution, and right now life exists, and we are learning more and more just how tenacious life is. It survives terrible calamities, terrible upsets - particular life forms may not survive, but life itself tenaciously persists.

Reference:

Zimmer, Carl. "Aliens Among Us." Discover. July 2007. 62 - 65. Can also be found at <http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/aliens-among-us>.

Patterns, Seekers, & Religion

We'll get back to the humor, pattern seeking, and sentience in a post or two, but I wanted to touch more about the idea sentient, pattern seeking beings, and spirituality that was only momentarily mentioned.

First, a revisit, rewording, of the musings to the question Why would sentient beings be pattern seekers?

Whether they seek the pattern as individuals, or as some hive mind, seeking patterns is a way to 1) determine, learn, and predict cycles of good and bad weather, feast and famine, good and bad mating opportunities, best and worst hunting or gathering techniques, and other things related to survival of the individual and the species and 2) especially for higher level sentience - to find, learn, and predict "abstract" cycles.

The first is easy - to some degree most any creature with some sentience to it will have some ability to learn patterns. My fish know that when the aquarium light goes on in the morning, it won't be long until I will be feeding them. I visited a Japanese garden in the Bay Area in California when I was a teen and I remember that a Buddhist monk came out and rank a bell - he was clear across the garden (and it was a big garden) but the fish near me all suddenly turned and swam furiously away - toward the bell. This is similar to Pavlov's famous experiment with dogs. To train a creature, it has to learn to recognize and memorize a pattern - a ringing sound means food is a very simple pattern, but an important one for those fish.

Higher level beings gain the ability to recognize, memorize, learn, and predict more complex, and more abstract, patterns. They look outward from themselves, and outward even from the group. They see patterns in the stars, in the galaxies, in the Universe. They detect complex patterns that may take generations to repeat, and pass down that knowledge to others of their kind.

This pattern seeking has a bit of a drawback though. As we've all probably experience or heard about at some time or another in our lives: we see patterns in clouds ("doesn't that one look like a horse?"), patterns in the stars ("doesn't that pattern of stars look like a horse?"), and patterns in nebula's ("doesn't that interstellar nebula look like a horse head?"). We also see patterns in potato chips (chips that look like Elvis, Abraham Lincoln, the state of Nebraska, or the Virgin Mary), in cliffs ("The Old Man of the Mountain"), and even a rabbit, or a Victorian Lady reading a book in the moon. Those who can play with the brain's way processing and recognizing patterns are those that can create optical illusions.

And sometimes we misinterpret patterns - we have causality logic errors; just because one thing happens before another repeatedly doesn't mean that the first is responsible for the second, maybe the both have a shared cause. For instance, the ancient Egyptians noticed that the flood season for the Nile always happened after the "Dog Star" Sirius would make its first appearance for the year. Since Sirius' first appearance always shortly preceded the floods, Sirius was the logical cause since no other could be discovered. However, what the ancient Egyptians didn't realize was that the seasons were caused by Earth having a tilted axis and its travel around the sun, and this also caused the appearance of the night sky to cycle throughout the year as well. Sirius rise and the rise of the Nile's water levels were the result of one shared cause.

And sometimes we oversimplify, or apply a particular logic further than it should go. As I was writing the above paragraph, I realize that many English students struggle with "its" and "it's" - this is because the usual pattern for a possessive (for a word not ending in "s") is to use an apostrophe and then an "s" at the end of the word. Logically, one would think this applies to pronouns as well, but it doesn't. Pronouns have their own logic. They do not use " 's " to create possessives (I - mine, you - yours, she - her, him - his, we - our, they - their, and it - its). Keeping those two patterns straight is a bit of a pain.

OK, great, so what's this to do with spirituality?

The ultimate pattern, the ultimate abstract pattern, is, I believe, that which answers the ultimate abstract questions - why are we here? what is our purpose (beyond the biological purpose of eating, surviving, and reproducing)? Are there higher patterns than the physical? This is the area of ethics, morality, philosophy, and theology - an area I believe most other creatures on this planet do not concern themselves with. It can be argued, that some creatures do have a sense of sorts of a wrong and right - "bad dog" and "good dog" sort of thing; but I think it could be also argued that such awareness is limited (not that having an even limited concept of good and bad isn't still amazing). Last year there were studies that showed that dogs could actually map language - something that was thought only humans could do, and that some birds could actually make and use a tool. Abstract thinking folks, and the kind that requires abstract processing of patterns.

A few side anecdotal stories:

• My mom had a Manx cat, Mr. Stubbs. I once came around a corner and saw him walking along the mantle - he did not yet see me - and knock over some glass knick-knack. It crashed to the floor and he immediately dived to the floor ran a short distance, curled up like he was asleep but then jerked his head up as if awakened by the crash. To me any animal that can lie, has at least some awareness of the abstract, and has some awareness of good and bad, even if limited. And it seems to me a hint that maybe animals have souls.
• We had several dogs over the years, and what amazed me about them is that when you got home and found one of them cowering under the table, you knew that it knew that it had done something wrong, and knew it was going to be in trouble when we got home (seems cats lie more readily than dogs, maybe all dogs do go to heaven after all!).
• One day we can home to find a most interesting sight: the bird cage was knocked over, and our German Shepherd was standing over Mr. Stubbs who was standing over JoyBoy our small, and obnoxious, parrot. They were all frozen - the bird in fear of the cat, the cat in fear of the dog who was going to attack if the cat was going to attack the bird (that dog just loved birds, if she could read, Snoopy would be her hero).

However, while some creatures do show various higher levels of sentience, of abstract thinking, I'm not sure they worship god(s) - oh, sure, the joke goes that cats think they are gods because we take care of them (and the Egyptians did worship them as gods) and dogs think we are gods because we take care of them, but there is no evidence yet of any creature on this planet other than humans that feels an inherent need to worship, and especially in an organized (itself a pattern) way.

Most creatures don't have a need to figure out higher patterns. For instance, the patterns of the seasons -many don't live long enough for that to be of great concern (some don't even live a year, some less than a month, and the adult species of some insects live only a day). But humans live long enough, and have evolved to become hunters and gatherers and farmers. And to be successful farmers, one needs to have a long term understanding of nature. Not only of rain cycles, but the more complex cycles that involve crop rotation, among others.

This need to understand the world around us may be the cause for our need to understand the universe. To make sense of it. Or maybe this need to predict and understand long term cycles created a side-effect - like the process for an incandescent bulb to create light has a side effect of giving off heat - the process of processing more complex, and more abstract, patterns has a side effect of creating a wonder about the meaning for the patterns.

The meaning for the patterns - or, maybe, the pattern behind the pattern. The fish who respond to the bell don't look for the meaning behind the pattern, just that the meaning OF the pattern is food is being delivered. Not why it is delivered when the bell rings, or what is the nature of the bell ring sound, or its cause - what is behind the bell ring? How is the bell ringing created?

But humans - and, I believe by extension, most, if not all, sentient life - look for the meaning for the patterns. It is a higher level of pattern searching. I don't know if an even higher one exists (maybe it does). But this looking for the pattern behind the pattern is what leads to theological questioning.

And so, would it be the natural, logical, common pattern result of the pattern of higher sentience? That is, will most, if not all, alien intelligent sentient beings eventually have theological/philosophical thoughts?

If they do have those thoughts, how would they be similar, and how would they be different, from ours? Some, like the Mormons, feel this question is already answered - all planets have met Christ (it is only on our planet that he was crucified - we, apparently, are the worst brats in the universal family). Others, well, that answer is up in the air (and some Earth religions do not believe any other intelligent race exists in this large universe filled with hundreds of millions of galaxies).

So, how aliens' theologies differ (or echo) ours? It may depend upon how strong their emotions are compared to ours (or if they even have anything equivalent to our emotions). It may depend upon their celestial environment: beings on a planet circling a twin star may develop a whole different line of mythological reasoning than those on a planet circling one star, beings on a planet in a galaxy that is colliding with another galaxy, or in a galaxy very close to two galaxies colliding (such that it is visible to the naked eye) may very well develop a whole different line of mythological reasoning, or beings on a habitable moon circling a gas giant - well, the list goes on.

Though could those different starts have similar endings? Could most arrive to the same conclusion, given enough time? And how would civilizations advanced enough to discover and communicate with other alien civilizations be theologically affected? Would that allow for some ultimate Universal Religion?

I do think there is one thing common with all religions on this planet. Patterns - patterns looking for meaning and purpose and thus patterns looking for order. Order -that is the positive and negative of it.

The positive is that such patterns of understanding and of ultimate order gives us peace, and calm, and strength to endure. It is what defines what is good - for good seems to be that which is order or gives order (that which creates patterns from chaos), and evil is that which is chaos, which destroys. The Ultimate Pattern will show that what may appear to be chaos, is not, for this Ultimate Pattern will explain all, show all, expose all the patterns in the universe, and gives them purpose.

But of course there are false patterns, patterns which seem on the surface to be order, to be constructive, but in the long term are momentary patterns, and thus still chaos, still destructive.
Some use the Great Order, the Ultimate Pattern of religion to impose selfish and shortsighted "order" on others. It is used to control and suppress, and in doing so, to destroy. It is a pattern that can be sustained for it is not a real pattern, or at least not a real Universal Pattern (but merely a local pattern, based just on one person, or one elite group).

Anyway, it seems that maybe most religions will be that which looks to determine, describe, learn, and predict the Ultimate Pattern - the one that explains all other patterns, that gives all other patterns purpose and/or reason, and that exposes the true chaoses.

At least, that will be, for now, the definition I will use when discussing alien theological possibilities. There may be other definitions, but I think for now this is the most useful as a starting point.

Reference:

"The Timeline of...The Old Man and the Mountain." New Hampshire Division of Parks and Recreation. 18 Nov 2007. http://www.franconianotchstatepark.com/oldmantimeline.html

Repeating Patterns - Universal Biologies

We see patterns in the universe, repeated patterns, that arise from the balance of physical forces, or physical forces working to achieve balance or to regain balance. Why not for biological forces as well - if physical forces control biological forces. The universe finds a way. Stars exist everywhere. They vary in particulars, like species vary in particulars, because of differences in the factors: the formula is the same, but change the values of the factors/variables in the formula and you get different answers - all within a range, because the range of the variables themselves are controlled or influenced by other formulas. The universe is a tapestry of physical laws, of formulas, all interacting together, all striving to find a balance, or steady state. The balance it finds is not a cold, static balance, but one of a repeating pattern (or a mixture of repeating patterns). The universe is hot, energetic. At least for now.

In a sense, stars reproduce in a repeating pattern - when a star dies, it sheds gas and elements into interstellar space, and some of that gas will eventually join other interstellar gas and condense to form another star; the same forces that formed the first star will form the next star: gravity causes the particles to collect together (accretion), forming a larger and larger body, the increasing pressure in the growing body creates heat which tends to push the elements outward, but the gravity counters this, and the star finds an illuminating balance. Patterns exist in this universe, reproducible, repeating patterns. Biology exists in such a universe. Biology is acted upon, lives within, is influence by the physical laws of the universe. And so, maybe, just maybe, biology is a reproducible, repeating pattern.

Maybe physics and mathematics is what describes the particulars, the elements, of the sonnet, and biology is the text, the words, the poetry within the sonnet.