On Other, Other Life Forms
The quest for other life forms must be anchored in the knowledge of why we’re even here.
Let’s get nitpicky. Also, unapologetically religious in nature, though the points stand on merit regardless. This isn’t a screed against space travel, for looking up, even beyond, is worthwhile. Rather, the aim is to properly frame our search through understanding what exactly is “other life” and where exactly is “out there.”
The terminology “other life” or “other life forms” is presumptuous in nature, as it can only be asked within a vacuum which denies the existence of myriad life forms on planet Earth. Not only are there other life forms aplenty, but the range, capacities, colors, designs, etc., etc., etc., are so diverse and so far-ranging that not a single planet in our system comes anywhere close to dreaming of similar potential. Even more, every part, planet, and particle in space lends to the preservation of life on earth in some way. Almost as if it’s all here for us.
Per Torahic categorization, there are four general kingdoms in creation. The so-called lowest is “silent”, for the predominately inanimate basics of existence, water, soil, rocks, minerals, and the like that comprise it have a lifeforce so quiet it’s barely noted. Thus, we view creations in this kingdom as existing but not exactly alive. The next kingdom is “growth”, essentially plants and all vegetation where growth is usually visible and indicative of the lifeforce within. Third is the “life” kingdom, which includes all creatures from insects to birds to marine life to mammals, as each overtly display an animating lifeforce not only through growth, but also some measure of mobility, intelligence, communication, or similar. The final kingdom is “speaker,” aka man, the only kingdom made in G-d’s image. The lifeforce within man is undeniable, not only for all previously specified reasons, but also because, unlike the other kingdoms, man goes beyond a measure of intellect in his ability to communicate ideas, teachings, morality, ethics, and abstractions to others, mainly through speech. For this display of what’s deemed higher intelligence, man is considered the highest of the four kingdoms.
With that set, our quest for other life begins with understanding why these four kingdoms aren’t life forms enough.
The “silent” kingdom covers just about everything that isn’t obviously alive. For example, the four building blocks of creation, earth, water, air, and fire. The varying parts of our atmosphere which cause the sky to blaze at sunrise and sunset. The very earth from which all things grow, as well as rolling hills, fertile valleys, and majestic mountain ranges. Gentle waters which calm the soul and raging waves which quicken the heart. Rocks which stand against the fiercest winds, but also caves and crevices sculpted over time. Geodes, crystals, stalactites, stalagmites, in shapes and colors man cannot always describe or name. All are “silent” in their steadfast, unchanging existence.
In the context of our quest, any discovery within the “silent” kingdom doesn’t qualify as an other life, not only because some forms within this kingdom have already been discovered in space, but also because the categories within this kingdom literally don’t display signs of life. Never mind that the “silent” kingdom sustains every kingdom above it, revealing it may not be quite so lowly a kingdom as supposed. Either way, our search mandates we find a form that’s obviously alive.
Ergo, despite the wonders and marvels of the “silent” kingdom, our exploration continues.
Does the “growth” kingdom qualify as another life form in our search? Do we seek proof of some sort of life beyond moss and ferns and fungi and flowers and vegetables and fruit and trees? Well, yes and no. We’d be thrilled to find any kind of vegetation, as long as it’s not here. In other words, we want what we have here, just somewhere else. Then again, we don’t have to find an exact replica of Earth, only something that’s entirely like it but on a different planet.
Plants show life in their visible growth, and are incredible dynamic doing so. Plants can run rampant and wild, plants can be domesticated and tamed; some thrive in the sun and some only open to the moon. They have no eyes, they have no ears, yet they know the difference between night and day, between summer, winter, spring, and fall. They know when it’s time to blossom, to shed, to regrow.
Even more, there are plants which heal, plants which harm, plants which flavor, plants which sustain, plants which dominate, plants upholding entire ecosystems, and plants which light the way with their glow. Some plants are beautiful, some terrifying, some cooling, some fragile, some stronger than blades. Some plants tower, some are unnoticed, some provide food, shelter, clothes. The “growth” kingdom climbs and clings, flowers, buds, twists, and bends. The above doesn’t even include the incredible array of shape and color, which continually startle and dazzle the eye of the beholder.
All this is only part of what we know about the “growth” kingdom, for though we live in a highly advanced world, we have yet to discover the full extent of just how many creations call this planet home.
As with the “silent” kingdom which sustains it, the “growth” kingdom provides for the kingdoms above it. But while plants are really, really nice and cool and intricate and beautiful and, and, and, we’re still set on looking for other life elsewhere. We’d be thrilled to find any of the “growth” kingdom on another planet, even though, as mentioned, it sure seems everything out there is pretty well-suited to the needs of here, but never mind that. We’re rather set on finding something new, something obviously alive out there.
Onward to the next kingdom.
The range of creatures packed into the “life” kingdom is so immense, we cannot in good faith claim to know its entire. The vast, not yet completely discovered “life” kingdom spreads an umbrella wide enough to include every non-human animate life form between plants and people, including insects, marine life, fowl, rodents, reptiles, beasts, cattle, and all the rest of terrestrial creatures. Every country, every state, every ecosystem has a unique web of animals, insects, marine life thriving in its environs.
Scientists are perpetually “astonished” at the new kinds and species discovered around the globe, as if this world of ours could ever fully be known. And even where we think to have catalogued it all, creatures of the “life” kingdom continue to surprise with their levels of intelligence, adaptability, and significant role on this planet we call home. Just spare a minute to consider the animals and plants that flourish in all the places humans can’t.
Only looking at the life contained in the form of insects is a dizzying proposition, for the thousands and thousands we actually know about which fly, walk, scurry, and roll. Insects that regenerate, insects that burrow in the dark and damp and soil, insects that color gardens and make honey and with strength to carry many times their own weight. Insects hum and call and chirp and buzz, spin silk that can be worn or webs that withstand rainstorms. Insects are harmful and harmless, brainless and multi-eyed, soft, hard, airborne, and pliable. We oft overlook the many we come across each day, but would speak of little else were even one to be found out there.
Though we have yet to discover every insect dwelling on earth, not one is the other life we hope to find.
A moment away from land to plunge into the sea, a world so vast, vivid, and varied, we haven’t nearly plumbed its depths. Beneath the waves, beyond our grasp creatures hide in the sand and glow in the deep no human can withstand. There are creatures so tiny they can hardly be seen, yet enough can feed creatures which cannot be missed. Leaping, breaching, scuttling, wriggling, swimming, floating, preying, and flying, in schools and pods and herds and shoals and consortiums and mobs and runs and swarms. Other kingdoms are also found in the sea, sand and coral, kelp, rocks, salt, and shells. Therein a whole world sustains itself, and the kingdoms above it, as well.
And yet, though fathoms remain beyond our current ability to explore, relatively far out of reach as the stars, none are the other life we seek. Finding some collection of water that sustains life would shake the world we know, but only if we find it somewhere that isn’t here.
Amphibians are forms of both water and land, the slimy, shiny bridge between both sorts of life. As with the others of the “life” kingdom, amphibians aren’t known in their entire, and the range of what they can do is as far ranging as the category itself. They also have their own unique twists to the norm, as bright colors aren’t signs of aesthetics but warnings of danger. Right alongside them are reptiles, including those that sting, bite, and choke. Ones that can swallow prey significantly larger than they, and ones which instantly camouflage to hide in plain sight.
What about the life forms of air? Birds don’t fit a single mold, and the multitudes well exceed human count. Birds that fly and birds that can’t, birds with vision and hearing much keener than man, birds that build nests without hands. Birds sing and twitter, hum, caw, and shriek. Birds dive and hunt, scavenge and hover. Birds sense shifts in the weather, and birds soar on the air. They’re cheery and territorial, colorful as flowers and dark as moonless nights. They’re predators and prey, oversized and tiny, imitators and instigators. But birds are also something we know in some form, and what we insist on is something we haven’t seen before, or at least, something we haven’t yet seen out there.
And so, the search for other life continues.
Perhaps the rest of the “life” kingdom will qualify? The innumerable animals which roam the deserts, plains, jungles, mountains, and forests. From rodents to beasts, from domesticated to wild, there is hardly a color or kind without peer in the “life” kingdom.
Animals hunter and hunted, solitary and social, protective and loyal and vicious and tame. Animals that observe, animals that learn, animals that comfort or guide or guard. Animals that defy the fiercest elements of their topography, and animals that adapt or blend in with impressive speed. Animals with a range of communication and expression, animals soft and hard and furry and rough. Animals weighing tremendous amounts, and animals that can shoulder the burden of even more. Animals endure the harshest habitats and conditions, animals hibernate for months or only wake with the night. Animals symbiotic, parasitic, or with an innate sense for assisting others.
Between claw, talon, teeth, and paw, the “life” kingdom is as wild and varied on land as beneath the sea. Yet, as we seek other life, we brush all this aside, for, when we’re certain there’s so much more to discover and know, why continue to look where we always have?
What sort of life forms do we then seek, if not any of the myriad already upon this earth? Much as we’d delight in finding the same creatures on a different planet, we’re adamant about finding something we haven’t seen before to definitively conclude other life exists. Consider, finding life forms which display some growth, with or without the sun, would be enough to fund space travel for years to come, but growth isn’t really enough to satisfy us.
When we seek other life forms, we don’t want something that grows, or even something that moves with overt signs of life, we want something that communicates, especially in ways we don’t. Putting aside every other kingdom and category of creation, including all their unique methods of interaction, we’ll declare victory in our search for other life if we discover a species that knows how to communicate with what, sound? Gesture? Semaphore? Dashes and dots?
No, no, we want something that communicates as a sign of and sharing of its intelligence. Again, putting aside all other kingdoms we know at present, their various modes of communication and ranges of intellect, our search will be a success only if we find different intellects that communicate with ours. About what’s relevant to us? About things that confirm our projections of what life and intellect should be? Assuming this isn’t a reference to learning about new languages and cultures, what do we really seek?
From all kingdoms of creation, perhaps the closest to “speaker” would be spiritual beings, namely angels. And not the cherubic children or glowing berobed humans with wings and halos, but fiery messengers of the Divine. Then again, unless they take a human form, angels, while other life, are not tangible enough to be discovered, so there’s little point in centering them in our quest.
The highest kingdom of creation is “speaker,” which is only and entirely mankind. Not because we are the only creations with verbal articulation, but because, as the only kingdom made in G-d’s image, we are the only kingdom which seeks and learns and communicates about that which is greater than ourselves. The rest of the kingdoms do not have a mind to challenge their Creator nor the nature He embedded within them. Only “speaker” has the choice to live up to his potential in creation, to fight or embrace his inherent design, to imagine and debate and give coherency to the abstract.
Essentially, we’re looking for other life forms, but not the other life we already know of heaven and earth. This other life may be almost identical to the life we know, or it may be something entirely different than the thousands and thousands we’ve already found. And perhaps the inability to know it all is what’s truly given us hope that there’s more out there waiting to be discovered. The emphasis is less on what we seek than on where we want to find it.
Considering what’s already been mentioned about the categories of creation, the question is why?
Is this exploration driven by a simple desire to know and understand and bear witness to the expansive capacity of the Creator? Or is there dissatisfaction with what we have here, and a desire to have different and more threading through it all? If the latter, nothing found will ever be enough, if the former, at least the premise isn’t so far afield.
So, we’re looking for advanced life forms, yet the question compounds, more advanced than us?
We’ve seen clearly that on this planet there are no other creatures quite like man. Creatures who for all their shapes, sizes, and colors don’t include the full package of abilities to communicate, procreate, perambulate, and debate. Other kingdoms have no struggles with moral frameworks around which to understand the purpose of existence. If anything, they already know why they’re here, so only man grapples with the existential side effects that come with the dissonance of a spiritual soul animating a physical body.
Though man is sustained by every kingdom below him, he also has the capacity to be ruler over them, in the sense that if every part of this vast creation somehow leads back to him, his sustenance, his shelter, his clothing, his appreciation, then it follows all was created to be of service to him. In return, he must use all the other kingdoms enable in a way that will honor them.
Think of what man has achieved. Think of what more he could. Think of the wonders that man has wrought from the kingdoms of this earth, and then reexamine our search for other life. What do we expect to find to surpass what we already have here? What else but perhaps a different conglomeration of the capacities we already know?
Do we cease exploring? Do we ground all ships to the stars?
Such questions can only be answered correctly by those with a clear understanding of what we’re doing here, as space exploration literally can’t occur in a moral vacuum. SomeOne put us here, and He did so for a reason.
That Earth is the only planet to sustain such a teeming array of life isn’t a fluke of smashing atoms but a signal of deliberate intent. Inanimate life exists on other planets, but an intricate ecosystem that sustains life doesn’t. What does it tell you when every entity we know of, both celestial and terrestrial, somehow serves life on earth? It’s almost as if we’re the point of it all. Which affects the search for other life, because it can only be sought in recognition that everything comes back to our purpose here. The purpose SomeOne launched all creation for, and that is to make Him known in this world.
If these other life forms are out there, what for? Is it only so the Creator can show off what else He can do? After everything He created here, does He really need to? Why do we assume this supposed other life is more advanced if we’re the central point of all creation? Why do suspect they’re advanced, when every celestial entity and kingdom of creation is here to sustain us? Why do we think they can surpass us, when we are the ones made to fulfill the purpose of creation?
It’s the “speaker’s” job to make the Creator known in this world. Man is the only creation that can. Everything and anything else only exist, or is known to exist, to assist man in his sacred task. Do we even know what we have? Do we appreciate what’s known, and what can’t be known? That said, now we can explore.
“Whatever the Holy Blessed One created in His world, he created only for His glory.”