Note 9

We must all strive to share a mutual perspective on the fecundity of the question "Is there any such thing as alien life?"  If our own ideas of where we stand on the great cosmic scale of existence were to expand themselves to consider our home as being merely identified as the greater set of the entire universe, then all life within said parameters might suddenly become not so alien to us, after all.   We should each be able to see that the question of whether or not there is alien life out there and what it might be are indeed two separate and thorny questions, and our situation here seems to be in the habit of lumping them together as if they were one and the same question.  Ah,  "To be, or not to be..."

When we participants of this discussion all agree to stick with the spirit of the question, and then decide we mean any sentient species that happens to exist upon other planets, we put ourselves in the position wherein we may necessarily exclude the term "alien" in favor of "extraterrestrial"—it entirely depends on whether or not our DNA is being shared, or whether we can agree on the definition of sentient. Because if we cannot be compelled to agree on what the spirit of the question is in the first place, it renders this topic nearly obsolete in terms of conducting a rational discussion about it. For instance, one possible outcome of this deliberation about extraterrestrial life is the distinct possibility our own species may end up being discovered to actually be indigenous to the whole universe.  This particular example might render all technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations in our universe to be bipedal by nature and homo sapiens sapiens by definition, as more accurately meaning "of the cosmos."   

The spirit of this question then becomes an integral consideration in our guesswork of not only what the true nature of the alien might actually be, but also our own true nature. It renders the meaning of the term "alien" with the caveat that it must then define something truly separate from us, in the sense that it may not even share our DNA, or even not be of this universe at all...And as a fraction of us are already beginning to suspect...existence itself may in fact be a singularity. These perspectives become crucial for us to keep in mind when defining life itself and our universe. The very consideration we are still struggling with (and on different pages of) our own definitions for life and our universe itself, renders any discussion on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence all the more challenging. At this stage of my understanding of the universe, I'd wager it is ourselves who are being searched for and discovered, and not the other way around.  Unless...the Universe is like a game where we must first lose ourselves in order to then begin our search all over again.