Sean asked:

What are your philosophical views on the existence of extraterrestrial life? I see it as being both
physically possible and highly probable, which makes the odds high that life does exist "out there".
I've done a lot of thinking about the origins of life and the theories I've come up with allow, and could
possibly prove, the probability of alien life. The thing I can't yet understand is whether or not
consciousness would exist among these life forms, mainly because I don't even fully understand
consciousness in myself. Maybe I could get some other points of view on consciousness and
extraterrestrial life, I mean your own views. This isn't sci-fi, this is the philosophy of existence. Peace.

Sean also asked:

Do I exist? If so, how do you know? Do you exist?

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From a philosophical point of view one would have to say at least that the logical possibility of
extraterrestrial life cannot be excluded. Scientific thinking today is that it is highly probable that life
has existed or exists or will exist other than on planet Earth. Also it seems that consciousness and
self-consciousness naturally arise with a certain level of organisation and interaction, so it would
seem likely that given favourable conditions and enough time, this would evolve on other planets as
well ... If you have a theory that, as you say, could prove the probability of alien life — why not let us
know (in short) your argument?

For the question of existence Descartes famously concluded from the fact 'I am thinking' that to think
one must exist. In other words — from any state or action the existence of the subject follows. Thus
we can conclude from your E-mail to 'ask a philosopher' that you exist (but not who or what or how
many you are), and you may conclude that the 'ask a philosopher' list and web site exists ... (i.e. there
is at least one X such that X has sent the E-mail signed 'Sean' and at least one Y such that Y has
received it and posted it on the website, note that based on this evidence it cannot be excluded that X
and Y are the same)

Helene Dumitriu

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