are we alone in the universe?

[Ken g6]

It is kind of scary to think that we are alone in the universe. It is also kind of scary to think that we are not alone in the universe. STOP SENDING SPACE PROBES INTO THE UNIVERSE WITH DIRECTIONS LEADING THEM TO OUR PLANET!

Space probes are tiny. They're not easy to find. It's radio signals that we need to worry about. They spread out over huge areas.

My point is that if there really are so many advanced civilizations out there, we would know about it by now. The only reason we wouldn't is if it turns out FTL travel isn't possible no matter how advanced you are, which I don't believe for an instant.

Almost all FTL travel methods introduce the possibility of time travel. Which is either impossible or makes things really complicated.

But that reminds me, relativity means that "now" at a great distance can be any time within the light travel time to or from that point. So "is there life in the universe" can cover not only all of space but also almost all of time. That makes it even more likely to be true.

 

[Fritzo]

I am of the school that believes advanced, intelligent life is extremely rare. If an advanced civilization has a million year run (which is generous), the chances of one existing at the same time we're around is very slim. The chances it's anywhere near us is even more slim.

However, I do believe cellular life is all over the place, and plant/animal life is also more common than we think (those I'm betting most of it will be aquatic).

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Easier than living on a planet that's perfectly suited to us?


Well it might well be that we don't have a choice in that.

I guess you missed the point I made that this planet isn't perfectly suited to us. Try living most anywhere without shelter, appropriate clothes, gathering/hunting your own food, clean water etc. Hell, I've known way too many people who've died with all our current technology because the world we live in is not a safe place.

 

[WelshBloke]

I guess you missed the point I made that this planet isn't perfectly suited to us. Try living most anywhere without shelter, appropriate clothes, gathering/hunting your own food, clean water etc. Hell, I've known way too many people who've died with all our current technology because the world we live in is not a safe place.

It's as perfectly suited for us as we are going to get.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

It's as perfectly suited for us as we are going to get.

No, humans haven't stopped adapting. We are not what we will be. Nothing says we can't continue the journey on another planet. We have the technology to build a generation ship, we lack the will. Hell, I'd sign up to colonize the moon or mars and we know the environment is more inimical than this planet. Pushing boundaries is the second best thing humans are good at.

 

[WelshBloke]

No, humans haven't stopped adapting. We are not what we will be. Nothing says we can't continue the journey on another planet.

As you said earlier, we sometimes struggle on this planet and we've been adapting to this environment for a long time! The band of temperatures we can handle is really small, the mixture of gases we need to breath is pretty precise, there are a bunch of things that we need to eat that are going to be extremely unlikely to be found on another planet, we are very sensitive to a bunch of EM radiation that our planet filters out. Unless all those things are near identical to those on earth we won't have time to adapt, we'll just die.

We have the technology to build a generation ship, we lack the will.

We don't, we can't even reach Mars.

Hell, I'd sign up to colonize the moon or mars and we know the environment is more inimical than this planet. Pushing boundaries is the second best thing humans are good at.

I doubt that Mars and particularly the moon are able to sustain colonies that are self sufficient.

 

[JPS35]

Yes, there is intelligent life in the universe as is evidenced by the fact that it hasn't tried to contact us.

 

[Darwin333]

Why would we waste visiting those that didn't either have planets in the goldilocks zone or have massive amounts of minerals we were interested in? The farther out we go, the farther out our telescopes can see allowing us to further refine targets for investigation. There is no need to investigate every star. Even so, it would take a very long time. What's wrong with that?

I just mentioned visiting all of the galaxies, not all of the stars. We have very little clue what our own galaxy holds much less other galaxies so why wouldn't we visit them in our search?

 

[Darwin333]

You don't have to visit all of them, just the ones that have life(I'd bet probably all of them do). There's probably interesting shit in this galaxy if we could get there in a reasonable time to check it out. "I can't do it all, so I'll do nothing" is a defeatist attitude.

No one would be happier than me to see us have a vastly larger existence in space. That doesn't change the math of how vast it is.

 

[paperfist]

Of course we aren't alone. Who do you think built the pyramids, the Egyptians?

 

[Charlie22911]

I think it is certain that there are multiple instances of life even in our own galaxy. Perhaps at one point even in our solar system. Multicellular intelligent life is hard to guess about since we don’t even know how it arose on our own planet yet.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

As you said earlier, we sometimes struggle on this planet and we've been adapting to this environment for a long time! The band of temperatures we can handle is really small, the mixture of gases we need to breath is pretty precise, there are a bunch of things that we need to eat that are going to be extremely unlikely to be found on another planet, we are very sensitive to a bunch of EM radiation that our planet filters out. Unless all those things are near identical to those on earth we won't have time to adapt, we'll just die.



We don't, we can't even reach Mars.



I doubt that Mars and particularly the moon are able to sustain colonies that are self sufficient.

We can reach mars and already have with unmanned vehicles. We can do the same with manned vehicles but, again, we lack the will. The moon would actually be easier to colonize due to proximity. Self sufficient colonization is doable with our current level of technology. Colonization is never easy even if we found an exact copy of Earth. None of which means it couldn't be done or shouldn't be done. Our own grandparents had much tougher lives than we do but, it didn't stop them from colonizing. I get it though, 90 percent of people are happy with the way things are where they are. Where, the greatest challenge is picking Mickey D's or Burger Queen. However, some of us are still pioneers willing to bet it all on our own skills, determination and, opportunity to build something new and unique.

 

[WelshBloke]

We can reach mars and already have with unmanned vehicles. We can do the same with manned vehicles but, again, we lack the will.

Unmanned vehicles are (relatively) easy, you don't have to worry about the squishy meat sacks surviving a high G landing, you don't have to cart air, water or food, you don't have to carry some sort of habitation, plus supplies for however long the mission is. Plus you don't need a way of getting the squishies home!

The moon would actually be easier to colonize due to proximity. Self sufficient colonization is doable with our current level of technology

I don't think that self sufficient off world colonies are possible even in theory right now. In practice there's no way. Anything goes wrong or breaks down and everyone's
dead really quickly.

Colonization is never easy even if we found an exact copy of Earth. None of which means it couldn't be done or shouldn't be done. Our own grandparents had much tougher lives than we do but, it didn't stop them from colonizing. "

The colonisation of North America would be a walk in a mild midsummer afternoon compared to colonising Mars or the moon.

I get it though, 90 percent of people are happy with the way things are where they are. Where, the greatest challenge is picking Mickey D's or Burger Queen. However, some of us are still pioneers willing to bet it all on our own skills, determination and, opportunity to build something new and unique.

I'm not sure many people have got the skills for off world colonisation!

 

[Fenixgoon]

almost without a doubt. the universe is too large for there NOT to be other sentient life. simply a matter of space/time. whether we actually achieve contact is a whole different ballgame.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Seeing that people such as Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Modi and many other fascists got elected I highly doubt there is much intelligent life on Earth. It is very likely that there is intelligent life on many other planets throughout the universe, and even if they have found a way to travel at far beyond the speed of light (by using wormholes or whatever) they would not be very smart if they would contact us.

Seriously, the best thing that could happen to this planet would probably be a nuclear war annihilating most or all of the human race.

 

[Charmonium]

How exactly would we know about it by now? We've only been sending signals into the galaxy for 100 years, there could be a million advanced civilizations out there and they would have no idea we're here. Even if they theoretically could travel faster than light they would have no reason to come.

As of at least a billion years ago our planet would have shown spectral signals of biological activity that could have been picked up by alien astronomers. The real question is would they have been curious enough to investigate.

In order to make the technological advances necessary for FTL and other achievements, some amount of curiosity would be required. That would make it likely that they would have some interest in investigating other life in the universe. So if you have countless advanced civilizations, at least some would investigate.

But if such civilizations are rare, then after a billion years, light from our planet would only have covered a small fraction of the universe and may not have reached such a civilization yet.

Almost all FTL travel methods introduce the possibility of time travel. Which is either impossible or makes things really complicated.

But that reminds me, relativity means that "now" at a great distance can be any time within the light travel time to or from that point. So "is there life in the universe" can cover not only all of space but also almost all of time. That makes it even more likely to be true.

That's according to the normal "local" physics that governs the 3% of the universe we know something about. Quantum mechanics is non-local and both QM and relativity are incomplete. So we have no idea what's actually possible.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Unmanned vehicles are (relatively) easy, you don't have to worry about the squishy meat sacks surviving a high G landing, you don't have to cart air, water or food, you don't have to carry some sort of habitation, plus supplies for however long the mission is. Plus you don't need a way of getting the squishies home!


I don't think that self sufficient off world colonies are possible even in theory right now. In practice there's no way. Anything goes wrong or breaks down and everyone's
dead really quickly.



The colonisation of North America would be a walk in a mild midsummer afternoon compared to colonising Mars or the moon.



I'm not sure many people have got the skills for off world colonisation!

Meh, you probably wonder why people still homestead in Alaska.

 

[Charmonium]

I find it strange that you think that it is not possible that an alien society can be so advanced in technology and thinking that we are just not interesting to them at this time. And not just us , many civilizations that are like a coin, they (we) are going to self destruct or become enlightened a few times more to coexist with their(our) surroundings on another level of conscience.
Why would we have to know about advanced civilizations. If we assume they are advanced as you say, why would they not immediately understand that showing themselves to us would make a lot of us worship them like gods. When an intelligence exists on a whole different plane, we are just not interesting. It is the same principle religious people wonder and ponder about, God has no interest in slaves. Only in lifeforms who grow to a higher plane of existence.

I don't really understand what you're saying. If you're saying that they wouldn't be curious about us, I address that in a previous above. If you're saying that they wouldn't want to interfere with our culture, sure, that's a possibility but that unduly anthropomorphizes them and is very unlikely given the range of possible attitudes aliens might have. You need to clarify.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I like the possibilities more than the probabilities, as they are far more exciting to my imagination.

Addressing light speed as the universal speed limit: If it is, there may be/have been, beings that created an A.I. race of explorers that are self replicating and capable of procuring the energy necessary to explore indefinitely. Tens of thousands of years of travel time to a destination could be SOP.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

As of at least a billion years ago our planet would have shown spectral signals of biological activity that could have been picked up by alien astronomers.

What kind of dope are you taking? Spectral signs of biological activity that can be detectable across a galaxy? ROFL!! Dude, you gotta stop turning to Star Trek for your "knowledge" of science.

 

[DietDrThunder]

What kind of dope are you taking? Spectral signs of biological activity that can be detectable across a galaxy? ROFL!! Dude, you gotta stop turning to Star Trek for your "knowledge" of science.

What you talking about Willis? Everything I ever needed to know I learned from watching Star Trek.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

What you talking about Willis? Everything I ever needed to know I learned from watching Star Trek.

Well turn on your Heisenberg Generator, set the dilithium crystals to full power, take a right turn up the nearest Jefferies Tube and establish subspace communications with an alternate universe phase where Charmonium might know what he's talking about.

 

[DietDrThunder]

Well turn on your Heisenberg Generator, set the dilithium crystals to full power, take a right turn up the nearest Jefferies Tube and establish subspace communications with an alternate universe phase where Charmonium might know what he's talking about.

It is a Heisenberg Compensator. If you' want to bash me, you to get your Star Trek terminology correct.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

It is a Heisenberg Compensator. If you' want to bash me, you to get your Star Trek terminology correct.

My bad, I'm not as well-versed in fake science as some others around here. Did I at least spell Jefferies Tube right?

And BTW, I was bashing Charmonium, not you.

 

[DietDrThunder]

My bad, I'm not as well-versed in fake science as some others around here. Did I at least spell Jefferies Tube right?

And BTW, I was bashing Charmonium, not you.

I know, that is why I used the winkie and yes, you spelled Jefferies Tube correctly.

I'm just a Star Trek, Star Wars, SciFi in general kind of junky.