View Full Version : Your thoughts on life "out there" and whatnot...
psmith2.0
2004-07-11, 21:38
Do you guys believe in life on other planets and stuff? Where do you stand on that whole issue? Any particular reason - of a scientific, religious or philosophical nature - you believe what you do?
And to what extent do you believe things stand? Simple, mindless microscopic life-forms or full-blown intelligent, advanced civilizations? Or somewhere in between?
Just curious.
I'll be puttering around in the backyard on an exceptionally clear night, perhaps feeling a bit more humble and thoughtful than usual. And I will look up to see all the stars and other glowing objects in the sky, and think to myself "we can't be all there is...".
For the record, yes...I believe. In the whole gamut (cellular to civilization). I just can't swallow that we - on this one tiny planet - is all there is. Simply too hard to believe, for me.
Quagmire
2004-07-11, 21:47
I believe there is life out there. I do believe that they are more advanced then us. There must be a reason why we got here. But, I do not believe that they are peaceful. They want to kill us when we go more advanced then they are.
Estimated 7x10^22 stars divided between 10^10 galaxies...
Yes, surely there is something out there. As for what is out there, I'm sure it runs the gamut. I wouldn't hold my breath on any breakthrough discoveries though...heh.
DMBand0026
2004-07-11, 21:50
I don't believe in life "out there" really. I don't have much to back it up, but no one has given me any reason to believe otherwise.
And on that note, I'm gonna go stare at the stars too. Feels like a good night to sit on the roof and contemplate life...or lack thereof ;)
psmith2.0
2004-07-11, 21:57
Before I die, I hope this is the ONE thing that is finally, without doubt, laid to rest. I'm sincerely hoping that within the next 40-50 years, "something" happens that makes it crystal clear we're not alone.
:)
I don't ask for much, really. I'd just like to die knowing, one way or the other.
Here's kinda an offshoot question/thing to ponder: what do you think, exactly, higher-ups in the government and military REALLY know but aren't saying? Not trying to be flippant here, but do you think, somewhere, exists a "captured" or crashed vehicle of some sort? Or some other definitive proof that we're not alone? I tend to think about this probably more than any other "recreational topic".
:)
I would love to be able to sit in front of some DC/Pentagon people and be allowed to ask two or three specific questions and get, with no double-talk or "that's classified, Mr. Scates" responses, simple straight, honest answers.
I wouldn't tell a soul. I just want to know for my own reasons...
:)
In case you're wondering, yes I recently saw "Close Encounters" on TV. Every time I see it, that whole end sequence just revs me up. I get totally teary-eyed every time I see Richard Dreyfuss board the ship and think "you know, I'd gladly trade 15 years off my life to be able to do that, what he's doing...". I'd go in a HEARTBEAT (have no wife, no kids, etc. so there's no problems on that front...you bet your ass I would!). I'd step onto a vehicle TONIGHT, and not care what happened afterwards, if I could.
:eek:
I have given this a lot of thought over the last few years, as I started to read more and more books on Cosmology (the scientific study aimed at understanding the origins of the universe and the processes of creation within the universe), Astronomy and space travel. While I am no physicist, I would be shocked if there *wasn't* a wide array of other life forms spread out across the Universe as we understand it.
The Universe is such an inexplicably enormous place, filled with *billions* of galaxies... and consequently with trillions and trillions of star nurseries, solar systems, planets, comets, etc... that the odds of there NOT being other forms of life are astronomically (pun intended) small. To give you some idea of the scale, if tomorrow we invent a full-proof propulsion system and spacecraft which could travel at and withstand the speed of light, it would take more than 25,000 YEARS (YEARS!) to reach the center of our own Milky Way. Travelling across to the other spiral arms... it might take as long as 70 or 80,000 years just to get clear of our galaxy.
Now consider the fact that there are galaxies like that everywhere "out there" that is comprehensible to us as humans, and that the distances involved between them are often astronomically larger than the diameters of the galaxies themselves. People always say "like grains of sand on a beach", but really, our entire solar system (not us as individuals) is one of those grains of sand... and all the sand grains that make up the beach is our galaxy... and all the other grains of dirt and sand in the world... the universe.
And there are some theories gaining credibility that there may be "other" universes parallel to our own. Still somewhat science fiction because it's hard to prove, but there are models being made that can explain such things at a certain level of theoretical abstraction.
However you choose to look at it, we are a pittance. LESS than a speck of sand in the grand scheme of things. And yes, I believe there is a God and that the engines that drive the creation and evolution of the Universe are the tools of the trade so to speak. Nothing so petty as the little stories we write in our Bibles and Qarans and Torahs. We don't even have a clue yet, but hopefully one day we will understand.
Who knows, maybe we all have to finish our lives here before we can understand the life out there. Maybe our brains just can't absorb it or the implications of it all. All I know is, if anyone with the slightest bit of imagination and perspective can read the few books I've read, and NOT see the real probability of other forms of life in this vast expanse of matter and energy (and anti-matter and dark energy) that we call the Universe... well, they need to rethink things.
To my way of thinking, it's almost impossible that there *aren't* other complex life forms just in our own galaxy alone. And by complex I mean something far more interesting that bacteria or amoebas. Remember: all the television, radio and communications signals we've sent in our entire history... won't reach even the center of our galaxy for another 25,000 years or so.
That's kind of the irony... there may be thousands and thousands of other complex life forms out there, but we're so far away from one another that in a sense, we're alone anyway. Life is a great paradox, I guess.
:)
PS - whatever the government knows... it ain't much in the grand scheme of things. We are like infants sitting in front of a computer motherboard, trying to figure out what it is we are looking at (to use geek-speak). Maybe we can touch and sense that it is a solid object, and it is green or blue... with little black shapes... and tiny silver lines... and little coils. But we're infants so in the end it's just a collection of textures and shapes until we have the cranial horsepower to understand it at a deeper level of absraction.
PPS - I too would jump onto the ship in a second... as long as my instincts told me the occupants were peaceful... I'm going.
psmith2.0
2004-07-11, 22:36
I've considered the "yeah, we're not alone...but we're so far apart, we may as well be" and I find it interesting. Interesting that maybe to some OTHER civilization we here on Earth are but "mindless microscopic organisms" and for all we think we know, we're actually quite primitive and in the dark.
:)
We think of advances in travel and propulsion simly in terms of what WE know, or what's possible in OUR world or things WE'VE managed to discover.
I always think about that too. Just because we haven't discovered it or figured it out...
;)
It's like watching those old B&W newsreels from a century ago, watching people testing out their various flying machines. They all crash and break apart. And while it makes for good comedy, how would we ever know that some ultra-ultra advanced life form isn't watching us and laughing their asses of (if they have one, of course) at our simplistic, primitive space shuttles, supersonic jets, etc.
If it comes to be that we're not alone, after all, then it stands to reason that there might be theories and laws and all sorts of things out there that, to us, are based in science fiction but are totally commonplace and "old hat" to other life.
"These idiots...they're still viewing space travel as a novel, only-for-a-select-few proposition...".
:D
We might very well be the dumb-asses of the universe, and just not know it.
BurningWheel
2004-07-11, 22:43
i don't like talking about it. it freaks me out since it brings me the religious question :(
but i do believe there are other life forms of all kinds
Paul, what you say is correct. The real trick is not the technologies themselves but understanding all the potential laws of physics, chemistry and even biology that can affect those technologies over long durations of time. Even time itself maybe not be as well understood as we think it is.
So, you are right: in 20 years the next Feinman or Einstein may be able to prove that one or more of our laws of physics are incorrect (or just incomplete). And the new things that we come to understand may enable us to fathom something more than say "light speed". Perhaps we will discover a way for a physical object to bend space itself... sort of like getting from one edge of a piece of paper to the other by scrunching it up and jumping the "gap".
But in the end this kind of all goes back to my point about us being mental infants even today. We just cannot grasp the things we need to grasp yet, to make travel across the enormous distances of space, an even theoretical practicality. And until we can go there, we'll have a hard time proving or understanding anything... unless "they" come here first.
:)
We are like infants sitting in front of a computer motherboard, trying to figure out what it is we are looking at (to use geek-speak). Maybe we can touch and sense that it is a solid object, and it is green or blue... with little black shapes... and tiny silver lines... and little coils. But we're infants so in the end it's just a collection of textures and shapes until we have the cranial horsepower to understand it at a deeper level of abstraction.'Domesticated Primates' is the term I've heard most, though I tend to fall back on 'Monkeys With Machines'. :)
And yes, I Believe. You'd have to be quite stubborn (or subscribe to some tiny-brained social voodoo that deems 'we are alone and the center of all') not to.
SonOfSylvanus
2004-07-12, 13:56
I've considered the "yeah, we're not alone...but we're so far apart, we may as well be" and I find it interesting. Interesting that maybe to some OTHER civilization we here on Earth are but "mindless microscopic organisms" and for all we think we know, we're actually quite primitive and in the dark.
While of course it is possible that we could be a lot dumber than some alien d00ds out there, I don't think they would be so flippant about "human civilisation". We have the power, now, to annihilate all life on this planet within a few hours. And that's a lot of life -- every square centimetre of air and soil and every plant or animal is alive. I think any aliens would instantly be wary of something (humans) that had such destructive power.
We have the power, now, to annihilate all life on this planet within a few hours. And that's a lot of life -- every square centimetre of air and soil and every plant or animal is alive.Just like Paul said, quite primitive and in the dark. :(
curiousuburb
2004-07-12, 14:25
http://www.intriguing.com/mp/_pictures/life/v-galaxy.jpgEric sings it so well (http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/astro/music/galaxy.mp3)
And apparently got most of the details right (http://ephemeris.sjaa.net/0312/b.html), even after 20 years of new astronomy
As for the Drake equation and similar attempts to calculate statistically, it's likely, if not certain that the probability of life elsewhere approaches 1 in a quantum way. Space.com and the SETI Institute publish regular columns (http://publish.seti.org/general/columns.php) on a variety of these topics that might be interesting reading for those who want to know the current states of the search and science.
Personally, I've always known I will leave this planet (maybe on Rutan's rocket as a tourist), though I've never been clear on if it was a return trip. I've also always felt there was intelligent life elsewhere.
During my time broadcasting in radio, I made a point of saying hello to extrasolar listeners since the station was 100,000 watts of FM that was leaving the planet. My late night show greetings from the late 80s are now 16 light years out and have reached the nearest 30 star systems. If they were BBKing fans or enjoyed the Jazz I spun, I might have heard back from those stars in the 8 year bubble by now. I'd have to check my astronomy software, but Alpha and Proxima Centauri, Wolf 359, and I think Barnard's Star are all in the response window... no reply might mean no life... might not.
One of the reasons I like running SETI@Home (and have since 97) is that I have sent my own interplanetary messages, and since I was somehow involved in outgoing communication, I'd like to be there for the reply.
Full disclosure: I grew up gazing at the night sky and watching Star Trek.
There is life out there, and we are the Alabama of the Universe.
GSpotter
2004-07-12, 15:23
We might very well be the dumb-asses of the universe, and just not know it. I have similar feelings. As Douglas Adams put it better than I could:
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea..."
There is life out there, and we are the Alabama of the Universe.
:lol:
Ouch.
psmith2.0
2004-07-12, 19:42
I bet, even on other planets in other galaxies, there are still buttholes who cut in front of you in the express check-out, with 212 items, and try to write a check with no ID using a pen that has no ink.
Some stuff is just universal, I'm sure.
:D
Maybe they're not so advanced after all, the little green bastards...
The Scates Theorum: the general prevalence of buttholedness is evenly distributed throughout the Universe and its constituent life forms...
Here's a cool link that some of you may find useful in your mental journies through the cosmos....
http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov/index1.html
curiousuburb
2004-09-04, 14:51
Sounds like SETI@Home spotted signals for further study (http://space.com/searchforlife/setihome_signal_040903.html)
Though this story is being discounted as the drift gets refined, it's put SETI back onto the evening news.
DMBand0026
2004-09-04, 15:11
Sounds like SETI@Home spotted signals for further study (http://space.com/searchforlife/setihome_signal_040903.html)
Though this story is being discounted as the drift gets refined, it's put SETI back onto the evening news.
pfft...who wants to use spare computer cycles to look for friggin aliens? How about a cure for cancer?
folding@home (http://folding.stanford.edu/) is where it's at.
http://www.iheather.net/personal/ski_fi/sm_x_poster.jpg
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~dnannery/yellowbanshee/photogallery/photo14770/bbelieve.jpg
or...
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/Babylon5/Img/Believe.jpeg
;)
There's someone out there, they've just got better things to do than hang around with us.
I believe somewhere there is. No reason to believe it is more or less intelligent though. I think the biggest advantage we have to figuring out things like this are people like stephen hawkings. People like him are they key to our real space knowledge.
wretched
2004-09-04, 19:01
I've always been a "believer", before I was in highschool up until now. I had to debate against the facts that Earth has been visited in my english class in college and I had to research reports done by the CIA and government's and I had to disprove what people who believe in aliens and UFO's have stated. It was painful, but ironically I did the best work on it (or so the professor said).
That said, it's hard to believe that we are the only ones in the Universe, talk about a waste of space if we are the only ones that exist. Do I believe Earth was visited by Aliens? I'm not too sure, there are some interesting sightings and it's tough to deny sometimes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember when I did my research, through the 80's the US government was testing it's "secret" planes (Some of these "secret" planes are the stealth planes we have today) and that was the CIA's excuse to the residents living in Nevada and New Mexico and from the reports I found I believe the CIA (I'm probably going to go off into Google after posting this and find all my sources again).
What I find more interesting is the crop circles, I just don't see how some of these crop circles I've seen could be man made because they seem so sophisticated to actually make. Anyone have any info on this? I remember reading briefly about this, and apparently two guys admitted to making crop circles.
Most are demonstrably fake, others are harder to prove one way or another because of their elaborate designs, etc. My guess though is that all are fake.
I adhere to the "it'd be an awful waste of space" theory.
I think that there probably is life out there. And I don't really think that this is a religous question. Perhaps God provided for life only on Earth...or perhaps (more likely, I think) he provided the building blocks for life - and life itself - in more thant one place in his/her universe.
There is an interesting book called 'Supernature'.. I think it is by a guy called Iain Nicholson? Not sure on the name.. I read it when I was at school. (A while ago! ;) )
Anyway he did the maths on the probability of life out there based on a similar equation to that which Eugene used.
What he actually proved was that not only is it 100% certain there is life out there, but there are so many planet capable of sustaining life that statistics prove that there are probably about 100 (That is not a typo) planets with me typing this very same message and all you guys out there reading it!
The problem as we all know is that everything is so damn far away from everything else we'll probably never meet anything.
It was an amazing book and had loads more stuff on Quantum Physics etc...
Yes there is. Has any of it visited us? very doubtful.
Yes but do those other planets have G5-based Folding Teams? I don't think so. Foldin' ain't easy. Macs up PCs down.
Looking for life "out there" is a waste of time and money. Carbon is the only element that can produce the complex, long chain molecules of life, and the environment required for carbon life is very limited. Conditions on a planet must be so finely tuned that there should be no planet in the universe with life. The odds against it are very high, and that is taking into account the esitmated number of planets in the universe.
So the fact that life exists on even one planet, earth, is absolutely amazing. If the sun were to change its energy output 5 percent, life would vanish from earth. That is but one of a great many conditions that must be met.
curiousuburb
2004-09-05, 12:47
snoopy...
Twenty years ago, nobody believed you would find "life" in extreme environments of 400 degree Farenheit water with more sulfur than oxygen. The narrow focus view of "we only think anthropomorphically, therefore life can only exist where we like it" has gone out the window with discoveries like the black smoker vents and their entire ecosystems that live purely on chemicals at temperatures that would be toxic to almost all other life.
Yellowstone has life in ponds that we would otherwise call chemical slurry.
We've even found life in highly radioactive reactor cooling ponds (no, not godzilla).
If we've learned anything in the past few decades, it's that our imagination is limited, and that life is far more robust than we thought, and can exist way beyond the romanticized 'room temperature' conditions of idealized biology.
If life can happily thrive in conditions with no light or oxygen, but massive doses of "toxic" chemicals at stovetop temperatures, maybe the probability of finding life in the universe other than the proverbial "narrow sweet spot" of conditions past errors made us dwell on is far greater than its ever been.
MBHockey
2008-02-16, 18:02
There is an interesting book called 'Supernature'.. I think it is by a guy called Iain Nicholson? Not sure on the name.. I read it when I was at school. (A while ago! ;) )
Anyway he did the maths on the probability of life out there based on a similar equation to that which Eugene used.
What he actually proved was that not only is it 100% certain there is life out there, but there are so many planet capable of sustaining life that statistics prove that there are probably about 100 (That is not a typo) planets with me typing this very same message and all you guys out there reading it!
The problem as we all know is that everything is so damn far away from everything else we'll probably never meet anything.
It was an amazing book and had loads more stuff on Quantum Physics etc...
That's interesting. A book I read Rare Earth (http://books.google.com/books?id=qz7YBLkabzAC&dq=rare+earth&pg=PP1&ots=Zkj0y-0_vC&sig=bNbEYBOMtFMyWykeP9u7RpI5djA&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=rare+earth&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail) takes the exact opposite side of that argument. I should read yours and you read mine. It basically says the probability of sustaining complex life on other planets is quite small, even in the face of the unfathomable amount of stars/planets out there.
At let's not be silly -- he didn't prove anything. :)
Naderfan
2008-02-16, 18:23
I definitely believe there's life out there, and it causes me no moral or religious qualms. :)
I read a great book in high school as part of our humanities/physics course. It's called The Sparrow and it's a novel about the discovery of life on another planet and the Jesuits, following their tradition of being explorers, send a secret mission to the planet, composed of both priests and atheists. Anyway, it was a very interesting novel, and something I'd recommend.
That's interesting. A book I read Rare Earth (http://books.google.com/books?id=qz7YBLkabzAC&dq=rare+earth&pg=PP1&ots=Zkj0y-0_vC&sig=bNbEYBOMtFMyWykeP9u7RpI5djA&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=rare+earth&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail) takes the exact opposite side of that argument. I should read yours and you read mine. It basically says the probability of sustaining complex life on other planets is quite small, even in the face of the unfathomable amount of stars/planets out there.
At let's not be silly -- he didn't prove anything. :)
I would love to read it, and will do as I like to hear all sides regardless of my personal view.
However, I would say that I think the view Supernature puts forward is generally accepted as the way of things.
And, yeah Luca you're right. Old thread!
MBHockey
2008-02-17, 08:54
Unless I'm severely mistaken, there's nothing that's generally accepted about complex life throughout the universe. That is, there's no consensus among scientists who study in the area. They may want to believe that (doesn't everyone?), but in science simply believing in something without proof has never made it accepted.
Stone Of Love
2008-02-17, 10:11
I was halfway thru the first page before I saw how old this thread was. :lol:
Anyway, I love this topic so..... I think that it's completely selfish to think we are it. And completely arrogant to think we've got physics all figured out!
In college an astronomy class I took, we talked about theories ranging from "we are it" to "life is everywhere", and the bottom line was, even if life is in every system out there, our chances of contacting each other are slim at best given our current knowledge of physics.
With that said, I assume at some point in the future, we will "learn something new" about physics that will change most peoples opinion on "if there is life beyond Earth".
And am I the only one who finds it laughable how many people assume that any "aliens" who come here will be hell bent on destroying us??!! We haven't a clue at all if there even is life out there, but because of a bunch of movies, people believe that "if" it will be bad. :lol:
Here's one for ya, what if there is life all over, and WE are the most advanced?? Pretty sad thought, eh??!! Without any data, its as good a theory as any other.
Mostly tho, I hope that I'm around when we make "first contact".
Unless I'm severely mistaken, there's nothing that's generally accepted about complex life throughout the universe. That is, there's no consensus among scientists who study in the area. They may want to believe that (doesn't everyone?), but in science simply believing in something without proof has never made it accepted.
Actually this area is covered by some pretty solid statistics and probabilities calculations.
It's absurd and arrogant to think that with all the billions upon billions of stars out there that there are no other planets within the 'life belt' around some of those stars. And even more conceited to delude yourself that we are 'unique'. That is simply one step removed from being a creationist IMHO.
Only last week a system was observed more closely than ever before and we found pretty concrete evidence that there was at least one planet within the 'life belt' around that star.. Assuming you don't believe in some omnipotent power seeding us on a whim then simple logic would dictate that on that one planet out of gazillions that we have observed there is a good chance of organic life existing, or having existed. And it follows without too much of a leap of faith (potentially bad use of the expression faith there I guess) that there will be other planets like that..
Have we not even seen some evidence of microbes on Mars? Or did I imagine all that?
What we have to remember is that the probability of us being within range of one of these planets in our civilizations life time, and messages, or contact happening on any level is vastly unlikely. Even radio messages would take potentially 100's or 1000's or millions of years to reach us from fairly local stars on a Universal scale.. So the chance of any of us actually being around to be looking the right way, and actually recognize the signal as intelligent is also statistically very unlikely in our own civilizations life time.
I too would love to be around for 'first contact'. I just sadly think the best we can hope for is a burst of radio waves one day from a civilization long gone...
If the internet continues to engross our daily lives as completely as it is capable of, then the discussion of life "out there" might end up referring to the mythical "IRL"
thegeriatric
2008-02-17, 12:04
It's absurd and arrogant to think that with all the billions upon billions of stars out there that there are no other planets within the 'life belt' around some of those stars. And even more conceited to delude yourself that we are 'unique'. That is simply one step removed from being a creationist IMHO.
...
I was just about to write something very similar, but you beat me to it. :p :grumble: :) ;)
MBHockey
2008-02-17, 12:13
Of course it is absurd and arrogant to think that we are the only form of complex life -- but do not confuse that with proof that there IS or the MUST be. Until there is some sort of scientific proof, it will remain just a debated probability.
No one has ever seen an atom. Yet we know they exist.
No one has ever seen an electron. Yet we know they exist.
No one has ever seen a quark. Yet we are pretty sure they exist.. and the list goes on.
Most modern science is based on suppositions based on repeatable 'observations'. But not necesarily actually seeing and touching things.. And yet we rely on those foundation truths every day of our lives.
That debate I think has two possible lines of discussion...
What do we think we may find / encounter / have come visit / communicate with / listen to / discover remnants of / or simply never see, but does exist..
The other is a discussion on the probability that white is in fact black.
The latter is akin to the discussion of the supposition that no other form of life in the Universe exists, did exist, or will exist ever. It's simply absurd based on what we currently know and understand.
Lots of our suppositions may be wrong about the nature of that life.. But as sure as you have a Mac in front of you now there is life out there.
If you want to have faith in something that you have never seen it would be more intelligent to have it in life elsewhere in the Universe than in a little man who sits in the clouds listening to everything we say and do, and being in complete control of everything from the beginning of time until the end!!!!
We could get into aspects of the "Anthropic Principal", on which Rare Earth is loosely based. A controversial, but nonetheless interesting thing to talk about..
But I think Rare Earth's biggest weakness is the way it deals with 'complex' life, and 'microbial' life and the way that the two are almost spearate, and that one is much more likely than another.
Then you could even get into a discussion about what is intelligent life anyway.
I don't think humans are that special. We certainly think way too much of ourselves, and I am not convinced we are the most intelligent 'thing' on the planet. Not by a long shot.
Intelligence is extremely subjective.
No one has ever seen an atom. Yet we know they exist.
No one has ever seen an electron. Yet we know they exist.
No one has ever seen a quark. Yet we are pretty sure they exist.. and the list goes on.
Most modern science is based on suppositions based on repeatable 'observations'. But not necesarily actually seeing and touching things.. And yet we rely on those foundation truths every day of our lives.
The major difference with your examples, however, is that we can directly observe something about them, such as the results of an experiment. For the argument of life outside Earth, however, we don't have direct or indirect observations; we merely have hypotheticals with a slew of assumptions based on our own still limited knowledge of life here, how it exists, and how it forms.
So far, we only have two real pieces of evidence for life in the universe: Earth itself (which is indeed full of helpful data) and the arguable fossils of nanobacteria on the ALH 84001 meteorite. Everything else is purely a game of numbers and probability.
The way I see these kinds of "proofs", you might as well be arguing that there's an Invisible Pink Unicorn hiding on the dark side of the moon. You've never seen it, you've never found a single shred of evidence of its existence, and your theories are loaded with statistical probabilities derived from the Flying Spaghetti Monster's existence (who we all agree is real and both directly and indirectly observable), even though you're not 100% solid on how He started off and you're also missing a number of important variables and constants you don't even realize... but you can prove it!
Granted, that is technically a "proof", but it's not a very good one, IMO.
I agree that it makes sense for the universe to be teeming with all sorts of life given its size, and I do hope we continue to find evidence of life to make the case more definitive, but to claim we can prove it using what little evidence we have today does seem a bit silly.
I think that's what MBHockey was trying to say, too, in a roundabout way. Am I close, MB?
http://www.britfilms.tv/images/news/wantto.jpg
MBHockey
2008-02-17, 19:43
rofl Foj
Brad, enjoyed your take on it and couldn't agree more.
The way I see these kinds of "proofs", you might as well be arguing that there's an Invisible Pink Unicorn hiding on the dark side of the moon.
Other than the fact we *have* been to the moon and know it is not made from cheese.
We also know that Unicorns require air to breath, and most likely eat grass, of which there is none on the moon! But I can't conclusively prove that there is not a space-walking, Nasa suited, white horse with a stick on horn and pink died hair there, cavorting around in-between the space dust and meteorite remnants..... I just think it's unlikely.
Conversely we know that if a planet is in the 'Life Belt' then life will spontaneously form, and then develop over millions of years. That is, unless you believe that we were seeded in 7 days by The Almighty.
Like I said before, it is supreme arrogance or a misguided belief (either direct, or through social indoctrination) that makes people think that the Earth is 'Unique'.
The Anthropic Principal and it's derivatives are the most perfect examples of that, as compelling as they may be as theories over drinks with mates..
Nice try, but no cigar. :)
The way I see these kinds of "proofs", you might as well be arguing that there's an Invisible Pink Unicorn hiding on the dark side of the moon.
He's actually hiding on his own planet. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W0DXUJUZJk) Hey!
I am almost positive that there is life on other planets. Statistics are on scratt's side.
But on that note, I am equally positive that unless we find a way to travel faster than light, we will never meet them face to face. Realistically, I don't think that humanity, in the conventional sense*, can expand more than a handful of light years away from our solar system. So, unless there is life in the Alpha Centauri system, we are effectively alone in the universe.
Which, leads me to my next question: just how impossible is moving matter faster than light? I mean, I know its impossible, but is there, for lack of a better term, a "workaround?"
And if the answer to the previous question is "100% impossible," how likely are we to find other ways to move matter?
I mean, I have absorbed so much sci-fi I could rattle off dozens of way people have imagined its possible. But do any of these theories make any sense? Do any of them have any significant grounding in reality?
Finally, a question for MB: did you hit this thread with such an epic bump because you woke up yesterday morning and saw this?
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_drake_equation.png
*See next post.
If the internet continues to engross our daily lives as completely as it is capable of, then the discussion of life "out there" might end up referring to the mythical "IRL"
In seriousness:
You're right. I don't think that we will rely on flesh much longer. What happens when it is possible to transfer ones consciousness into a computer? Then you're just a program. But now what?
Would we all transfer ourselves in to androids? The advantages of doing this are numerous, the drawbacks few. Just remember to charge your batteries and you're good to go.
After a while, would we even bother with the androids? Would we all just exist in a virtual construct?
Everyone would be immortal - and time would have no meaning. Then travelling to other stars suddenly is possible. Build a ship, put a giant computer on it, upload some individuals to it, and send it on it's way. Who cares if it takes 10,000 years? Everything humans need would be virtualized on board the ship. 10,000 years is an afternoon nap if you're immortal.
Learning is now more or less irrelevant. All information is now accessible to anyone, any time, anywhere.
But then what happens? Do we lose our individuality? Do we become a giant mass of conciousness?
How would we procreate? Would we "write" new individuals like we "write" programs? Would we even bother, since we're all immortal?
I think about this a lot.
I was just thinking about this in the shower, as you do..
I can see three basic explanations for us being on the planet Earth.
1. We were put here by God.
2. We spontaneously came into existence here.
3. We were seeded by aliens. (And that could either be deliberately, or as some biological product on a meteorite).
1 is silly.
2 & 3 both tend to argue that there is life out there.
Can anyone think of any other explanation? Not saying there are none. Just can't think of any that aren't basically sub-sets of those.
As for the Android question.. I'd do it in a heartbeat if it meant I got to travel through the cosmos forever.. But not simply as a way to prolong existence on this planet.
Which, leads me to my next question: just how impossible is moving matter faster than light? I mean, I know its impossible, but is there, for lack of a better term, a "workaround?"
Folding space (http://www.slais.ubc.ca/COURSES/libr500/04-05-wt1/www/b_ballantyne/science_fold.htm) is one possible 'work around.'
I truly hope that folding space and other cool methods of travel are possible.
But if it is why have we not been visited yet? It's a bit like the argument against time travel.. If it was possible we would have been visited from the future. Or is it that we have just been unlucky, and there are many planets that have been visited by Aliens. Just not us. Could be I suppose.
Our perhaps we are not considered worth visiting yet. A la Star Trek and the Prime Directive!
Our 'emissions' still only travel at the speed of light, and so suffer from the same problem of range, and time / distance as we would, even if we could travel at speeds tending towards the speed of light. So I guess our messages getting detected is also quite a shot in the dark.
The problem I understand with traveling at the speed of light is that the way we currently understand it, your mass and length tend to infinity, at which point you'll need infinite amounts of energy to move your infinite mass. I am not that hot on this subject after that, but I guess that is why light is kind of seen as both a particle and a waveform, so it can perhaps jump the gap between traveling at that speed, and not being infinite in mass.
I really hope worm holes and folding and so on could be realised.. I am just think they are more 'out there' than the belief that life exists on other planets as theories.
MBHockey
2008-02-17, 21:17
I bumped the thread? If i did it was only because it somehow came up in the View New Posts results...that's the only way i browse forums.
Edit: haha! yeah looks like it was me! Now that is interesting!
Learning is now more or less irrelevant. All information is now accessible to anyone, any time, anywhere.
I liked your post, but there's a significant difference between information, knowledge and wisdom. The ready access to information may make the priorities of learning slightly different, but it doesn't make it irrelevant.
I liked your post, but there's a significant difference between information, knowledge and wisdom. The ready access to information may make the priorities of learning slightly different, but it doesn't make it irrelevant.
Very well said.
curiousuburb
2008-02-18, 03:07
Which, leads me to my next question: just how impossible is moving matter faster than light? I mean, I know its impossible, but is there, for lack of a better term, a "workaround?"
Folding space (http://www.slais.ubc.ca/COURSES/libr500/04-05-wt1/www/b_ballantyne/science_fold.htm) is one possible 'work around.'
Been done*. Faster than light travel has been proven possible.
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/haulab/slow_light_project/ultra_slow_light/USL%20nature%20cover.gif (http://www.seas.harvard.edu/haulab/slow_light_project/ultra_slow_light/ultra_slow_light.htm)
*Light has a maximum speed (c in vacuum), but isn't always going full pelt.
One trick is to move faster than light as is slows in different media, such as Bose-Einstein Condensate. Or crystal.
See 2006 post (http://forums.applenova.com/showpost.php?p=342578&postcount=12) on the work of Dr. Lene Hau and her team at Harvard for more links.
Physicists can now actually stop light and walk across the lab faster than the pulse.
Now, travelling faster than c... that's a wee bit more challenging. ;)
There is this fact:
Intelligent life capable of space flight evolved on at least one planet in the universe.
So the question of whether there's intelligent, space faring life is already answered, it's only a question of whether that happened only once or if it happened more often.
Given that the conditions arose once, given the statistically HUGE amount of opportunities for it to happen again, the odds of it NOT happening again seem greater than the odds that it has happened again.
It would be like having one blue flower on the face of the earth, or one red-headed person, whatever. "Totally Unique" doesn't seem to happen too often hereabouts.
[SIZE="1"]*Light has a maximum speed ([I]c in vacuum), but isn't always going full pelt.
One trick is to move faster than light as is slows in different media, such as Bose-Einstein Condensate. Or crystal.
Those things are really cool!
I had an idle thought one day about building a small steel box and painting it black, and putting a small lens in two of each of it's corners. Between each of those lenses (inside the cube) I wanted a 'lossless' length of fiber optic cable (about the thickness of 'Shigawire') tightly wound up, and in total the required length for light to take about a second or so to travel down it... What I wanted to do then was shine a light in one end, and wait that second or so to see it emerge the other end.
An idle thought, and not practical at all by any means, unless you lived in Larry Niven's Universe, but still a nice way to idle away an hour or so doing pointless maths and pondering. :)
If there is life out there, then we will find a way to kill it.
I fervently hope we meet our match.
Another random thought that occurred to me today (while reading an article about SETI, and the negative results so far):
What if, yes, there's loads of life out in the Universe, but we just happen to be the "furthest along" in terms of technology? I suppose the chances are similar to that of us being alone entirely, but still, it's possible, right?
And if so, wouldn't that be amazing, but also kind of scary?
What if, yes, there's loads of life out in the Universe, but we just happen to be the "furthest along" in terms of technology? I suppose the chances are similar to that of us being alone entirely, but still, it's possible, right?
The odds that there is lots of sentient life out there but were the furthest ahead is highly unlikely. If we are the first to achieve sentience period, then we are probably alone.
The universe is so old, it's impossible for you or I to really grok how ancient it is. The best we can do is frame it in a manner closer to something we can understand, such as Carl Sagan's Cosmic Calendar:
http://visav.phys.uvic.ca/~babul/AstroCourses/P303/Images/cosmiccalendar.gif
So, if there are lots of sentient civilizations out there, but we are the most technologically advanced, that means that either something about Earth makes life evolve super fast, or, something happened a few million years ago which altered the way life evolves on a galaxy-wide scale.*
When considering extraterrestrial life, it's not about how big the universe is, it's about how old the universe is. There may have been hundreds—thousands, even—of civilizations which rose and fell before ours, and we would know nothing about them since they ran out of resources (or blew themselves up, died of a plague, hit by a rogue space rock, consumed by grey goo, star went supernova, sucked up by a black hole, or any other number of cosmic mishaps) before they could escape from their own star system.
As species, we've made it about 200,000 years. As a civilization, about 6,000 years. If the universe is a year old, we've been writing/talking/farming/waging war for about twenty seconds. Thousands of other civilizations may of had their twenty seconds, thirty seconds, maybe even a minute if they got lucky. Either way, it's a cosmic blink of an eye, and given that we can't go faster than the speed of light, we'll never know about their cosmic minute of fame, nor will those who come after us know about ours.
I personally believe that we probably aren't the first and probably aren't the last. But given the lack of evidence (radio waves, among other things) from nearby stars, I think that planets on which life can evolve must be rare. There are a number of things about Earth/the solar system which could be both rare and conducive to the evolution of life: inner terrestrial planets, outer gas giants to capture comets, and a large natural satellite which is important because it generates tides. It's even possible that our position in the galaxy itself (in the middle of a spiral arm, not to close but not to far from the center of the galaxy) could be important to the evolution of sentient life. Maybe it only happens on a few dozen planets every billion years. Maybe only some of that life achieves sentience. And maybe that sentient life doesn't last long.
*This, of course, is the plot of ST: TNG episode 6x20 The Chase. (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/The_Chase) Great episode.
Another random thought that occurred to me today (while reading an article about SETI, and the negative results so far):
What if, yes, there's loads of life out in the Universe, but we just happen to be the "furthest along" in terms of technology? I suppose the chances are similar to that of us being alone entirely, but still, it's possible, right?
And if so, wouldn't that be amazing, but also kind of scary?
There could be tons of life out there, but since we only have what's on Earth to compare with, we may not really know what the hell to look for as far as extraterrestrial life.
It is possible that we are alone in the universe. In my mind though, I doubt that out of billions of solar systems and billions of planets, ours is the only one that somehow managed to create some sort of way to sustain life.
Perhaps we just happen to be in some backwoods, out the way part of the universe. If there are beings able to travel away from their own planet, they either haven't found us yet, can't travel far enough to get here or don't care enough to actually stop and take over our planet right now.
billybobsky
2010-03-14, 22:38
It is far more likely that any other intelligent species has done the same calculations we have and realized that leaving their solar system let alone traveling to the next one is an impossible (on the evolutionary time-scale) feat.
This sort of calculation/time consideration goes further -- the probability that we hear SETI signals from a civilization that still exists is so miniscule that it would take a profound amount of irrational hope to even believe that the search and two way communication is going to be successful. Rather, SETI is a pipe dream that drives innovations in telescope technology, nothing more...
This is not to say that I believe life is terribly rare or 'intelligent' civilization; rather space is big.
curiousuburb
2010-03-15, 06:04
Even radio wave leakage as clues to a 'technological civilization' face a diminishing window.
Once upon a time we spewed 100,000 Watt signals from analog broadcast towers.
Carl Sagan notes in Contact that it's only once we got signals strong enough to make it past the ionosphere (Hitler's rally at Nuremburg was the first) that we were noticable to ET.
Today, 75+ years later, analog broadcast is on the way out.
Teevee and radio are starting to go digital, or satellite, or cable/fibre.
None of these methods will leak enough RF signal past the ionosphere to be noticable offworld.
For all intents and purposes, inside a century we're going 'silent' again (other than military radars and dedicated signals).
So if SETI is presuming the same development curve in the best case (worst case would be civilizations failing to get this far by nuking themselves, etc), it is possible that the window of visibility of radiating species is actually quite short.
Old school tech FTW!
What's particularly depressing about that is when you look at the tiny bubble of time that those messages actually exist in, and how far the first radio waves have travelled, you realise the chances of the message being received by an intelligent life-form that is actually looking for them and then getting back in touch with us before either we or they cease to exist is incredibly small.
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