Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ... or Aliens

[JEDIYoda]

This goes here.....

 

[Dave_5k]

Yes, we have lots of "evidence" of unidentified flying objects - but UFOs have resulted in zero correlation to date with aliens. Still absolutely no evidence of intelligent aliens. Given our current astrophysics knowledge and astronomy observations, very high probability that there is at least low level alien life (somewhere) in our universe, though near-zero chance we'll ever visit it - outside of a small chance of finding "alien" microbes that developed on one of the bodies in our own solar system.

 

[cytg111]

Have you read The Black Cloud? A recent movie "The Arrival" is pretty good too. Both deals with the idea that "Alien life" may not look like, at all, what we imagine it to.

The idea that we will never move beyond throwing reaction mass out the rear for transportation is "limited" in my opinion, as long as we keep relative peace so technology can keep advancing, to imagine our tech prowess of tomorrow is to imagine magic is real... So ill keep an open mind .

 

[Paratus]

I forgot the theory’s name but it was sort of sad. Concept is there are tons of advanced civilizations in space, just not all at the same time. Each race/civilization lasts only a tiny flash in history then goes extinct. Faster than light travel is not possible.
Basically advanced civilizations live out their days on their planet and that’s it until either they kill themselves, nature kills them like global warming or something catastrophic kills them like a massive asteroid. Millions or billions of years pass and a new “smart” civilization appears somewhere else.
We are all too far apart and too few at any given time to contact each other.

I think what you are talking about is the Drake Equation, the Fermi Paradox, and the Great Filter.
The Drake Equation is a way to estimate the number of technological civilizations in the galaxy.
N = R* x Fp x Ne x Fl x Fi x Fc x L

N - number of detectable technological civilizations

R* - rate of star formation

Fp - fraction of stars systems with planets

Ne - avg number of planets per system that can support life

Fl - fraction of planets that develop life

Fi - fraction that develop intelligent life

Fc - fraction that develop a technological civilization

L - avg length of time the civilization is active



Depending on the assumptions for these variables and length of time the galaxy has existed there should be several alien civilizations that are detectable - there aren’t. Which brings us to the Fermi Paradox. Where is everyone? Even with conservative estimates for the variables there should be somebody detectable around.



Since there isn’t, that means something drives the estimates to be much lower than we think they are. That could be REALLY bad for humanity.



The hypothesis for why there is no other detectable alien civilizations around is called The Great Filter. It assumes there is one or more “filters” that affects the term(s) in the Drake equation.



For example if planets like Earth that could support life are extremely rare then intelligent aliens would also be extremely rare. If the conditions that allow life to form are extremely specific then maybe it rarely happens and again intelligent life would be very rare.



Now for some of these terms our technology helps us make a good estimate. Astronomy gives us a good idea of how many stars there are and how fast they are forming. Since the 90’s we’ve gotten better at finding planets around those stars including ones in similar orbits to Earth. In the next couple of decades we can probably narrow down how likely some of those are to have atmospheres like Earth.



The problem for humans is what if the filter is on the last term, the length of a technological civilization. If it turns out there are plenty of habitable planets and intelligent life easily occurs again again, yet we don’t detect them, then something prevents civilizations from existing for very long. Something like most civilizations tend to wipe themselves out via war or environmental collapse. Or maybe natural phenomena like supernovas and gamma ray bursts happen frequently enough to sterilize almost all planets with life on them.



Or maybe some advanced race of aliens sends some mysterious blue goo to your solar system that could have wiped out all life on Earth if it hadn’t gotten caught by Saturn a la the Expanse.



At any rate lets hope we are past the filter since our civilization is detectable in greater than 100 light year diameter sphere via our radio transmissions. Which suggests we might not have much time left

 

[pmv]

Does anyone believe there's intelligent life on Earth?

 

[sportage]

I sure hope that aliens do not exist for their sake. Or at least that they chose to stay the hell away from planet earth. Frankly.... this world or at least this part of the world simply can not handle more living creatures with a different skin color. If the poor green suckers ever did make an appearance on planet earth or more so in our neck of the world, we'd have some idiot president build a wall, call them names, take the baby aliens away from the parent aliens and put them youngsters into cages. And god forbid the aliens would want to actually live here among us. They would be denied food stamps, housing, a living wage should they find employment, and our police would shoot them. So the question is not do aliens exist, the question is would they be smart enough to never show their face within 10,000 lights years of this planet earth? The human race isn't exactly diversity friendly, ya know.... STAY AWAY LITTLE GREEN ONE, STAY AWAY.

 

[cytg111]

I sure hope that aliens do not exist for their sake. Or at least that they chose to stay the hell away from planet earth. Frankly.... this world or at least this part of the world simply can not handle more living creatures with a different skin color. If the poor green suckers ever did make an appearance on planet earth or more so in our neck of the world, we'd have some idiot president build a wall, call them names, take the baby aliens away from the parent aliens and put them youngsters into cages. And god forbid the aliens would want to actually live here among us. They would be denied food stamps, housing, a living wage should they find employment, and our police would shoot them. So the question is not do aliens exist, the question is would they be smart enough to never show their face within 10,000 lights years of this planet earth? The human race isn't exactly diversity friendly, ya know.... STAY AWAY LITTLE GREEN ONE, STAY AWAY.

Oh settle tf down .
You know how we domesticate dogs right?
Yea. We're doing the same to you... EH I MEAN I would expect this hypothetical "Alien" to do the same to us.....

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I think what you are talking about is the Drake Equation, the Fermi Paradox, and the Great Filter.
The Drake Equation is a way to estimate the number of technological civilizations in the galaxy.
N = R* x Fp x Ne x Fl x Fi x Fc x L

N - number of detectable technological civilizations

R* - rate of star formation

Fp - fraction of stars systems with planets

Ne - avg number of planets per system that can support life

Fl - fraction of planets that develop life

Fi - fraction that develop intelligent life

Fc - fraction that develop a technological civilization

L - avg length of time the civilization is active



Depending on the assumptions for these variables and length of time the galaxy has existed there should be several alien civilizations that are detectable - there aren’t. Which brings us to the Fermi Paradox. Where is everyone? Even with conservative estimates for the variables there should be somebody detectable around.



Since there isn’t, that means something drives the estimates to be much lower than we think they are. That could be REALLY bad for humanity.



The hypothesis for why there is no other detectable alien civilizations around is called The Great Filter. It assumes there is one or more “filters” that affects the term(s) in the Drake equation.



For example if planets like Earth that could support life are extremely rare then intelligent aliens would also be extremely rare. If the conditions that allow life to form are extremely specific then maybe it rarely happens and again intelligent life would be very rare.



Now for some of these terms our technology helps us make a good estimate. Astronomy gives us a good idea of how many stars there are and how fast they are forming. Since the 90’s we’ve gotten better at finding planets around those stars including ones in similar orbits to Earth. In the next couple of decades we can probably narrow down how likely some of those are to have atmospheres like Earth.



The problem for humans is what if the filter is on the last term, the length of a technological civilization. If it turns out there are plenty of habitable planets and intelligent life easily occurs again again, yet we don’t detect them, then something prevents civilizations from existing for very long. Something like most civilizations tend to wipe themselves out via war or environmental collapse. Or maybe natural phenomena like supernovas and gamma ray bursts happen frequently enough to sterilize almost all planets with life on them.



Or maybe some advanced race of aliens sends some mysterious blue goo to your solar system that could have wiped out all life on Earth if it hadn’t gotten caught by Saturn a la the Expanse.



At any rate lets hope we are past the filter since our civilization is detectable in greater than 100 light year diameter sphere via our radio transmissions. Which suggests we might not have much time left

You covered it pretty well Mr. Scientist Man. But I have comments to add. Among them:

I have read that the radio waves, being weak and attenuated, the chances are extremely poor that they will be detected even close to 100 light years away. And with our galaxy being approx. 110,000 light years in diameter, not many neighbors will be making noise complaints.

And my favorite ideas for why we have not found anyone else include-

The Dark Forest. The idea that everyone is paranoid, and immediately frags anyone else they find, because they work from the premise of - We have to get them, before they get us! Has the right amount of - self preservation level = batshit crazy, to be believable.

I also like David Brin's take on The Great Silence, as well. Shortly after discovering radio communication, you get FUBAR for it, is why it is so quiet. That is fun stuff to think about. The whole universe is worse than that ST:TNG episode Clues. At least they only clapped you for the - You came to the wrong neighborhood meme. These theories posit that they nuke you from orbit simply because they could hear your radio from their yard.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Oh settle tf down .
You know how we domesticate dogs right?
Yea. We're doing the same to you... EH I MEAN I would expect this hypothetical "Alien" to do the same to us.....

I always liked this song, and it is apropos.

 

[Moonbeam]

When I look at the world I see an unconscious self hate in mankind that has as a consequence of that unconsciousness an unconscious wish for self destruction. And when you look at the degradation taking place on the planet you find confirmation of it.

The obvious conclusion from that fact, this unconscious self hate based on the dualism of thought and language creating a reality that does not exist with a concomitant feeling of inner worthlessness too painful to allow into consciousness, is that human survival as a species will require this condition be treated. We will have to awaken to our deeply hidden inner pain and attain enlightenment which is itself nothing more than a feeling of worthiness or put differently, universal love.

So since a feeling of worthiness will be required to survive, a sense that life deserves to live rather than die, no alien race that survives for long will want to have intercourse with those who hate life itself even though they don't know it.

In this way we can be pretty sure, I think, that those who are enlightened and any aliens who are similarly consciously awake will stay deeply hidden. But it isn't just a matter that they would hide but that real love, something beyond self hate's understanding would be, having long been forgotten, be completely invisible. The journey to the joy of being follows a road through hell and none will walk it without intense curiosity and self honesty or who whose egos are so broken they have nothing to lose.

The problem for humanity, a catch 22, is that we have an unconscious will to stay asleep. That gives us the false impression there is no such thing as our sleep, that the dream we experience, the destruction of our planet, is what happens when you are awake. It isn't just Republicans who live in a delusional reality.

 

[dphantom]

Does anyone believe there's intelligent life on Earth?

If this forum (echo chamber??) is representative, then no.

 

[igor_kavinski]

When I look at the world I see an unconscious self hate in mankind that has as a consequence of that unconsciousness an unconscious wish for self destruction. And when you look at the degradation taking place on the planet you find confirmation of it.

The obvious conclusion from that fact, this unconscious self hate based on the dualism of thought and language creating a reality that does not exist with a concomitant feeling of inner worthlessness too painful to allow into consciousness, is that human survival as a species will require this condition be treated. We will have to awaken to our deeply hidden inner pain and attain enlightenment which is itself nothing more than a feeling of worthiness or put differently, universal love.

So since a feeling of worthiness will be required to survive, a sense that life deserves to live rather than die, no alien race that survives for long will want to have intercourse with those who hate life itself even though they don't know it.

In this way we can be pretty sure, I think, that those who are enlightened and any aliens who are similarly consciously awake will stay deeply hidden. But it isn't just a matter that they would hide but that real love, something beyond self hate's understanding would be, having long been forgotten, be completely invisible. The journey to the joy of being follows a road through hell and none will walk it without intense curiosity and self honesty or who whose egos are so broken they have nothing to lose.

The problem for humanity, a catch 22, is that we have an unconscious will to stay asleep. That gives us the false impression there is no such thing as our sleep, that the dream we experience, the destruction of our planet, is what happens when you are awake. It isn't just Republicans who live in a delusional reality.

I would say that humans have an innate unconscious desire to destroy anything and everything for short term gains. You wanna know what will happen if we DO contact aliens and they visit us? We will imprison them under the guise of "studying" them, find how they or their body parts/organs etc. could be useful for us and then formulate a plan to lure more of them to us, maybe even inviting millions of them here, only to sacrifice them to satiate our undying thirst and hunger for destruction. There's a reason why George Lucas chose a vile human as the Emperor and not some alien lifeform. His military forces are also human because only humans can justify killing living beings impunitively.

 

[cytg111]

I would say that humans have an innate unconscious desire to destroy anything and everything for short term gains. You wanna know what will happen if we DO contact aliens and they visit us? We will imprison them under the guise of "studying" them, find how they or their body parts/organs etc. could be useful for us and then formulate a plan to lure more of them to us, maybe even inviting millions of them here, only to sacrifice them to satiate our undying thirst and hunger for destruction. There's a reason why George Lucas chose a vile human as the Emperor and not some alien lifeform. His military forces are also human because only humans can justify killing living beings impunitively.

So. You havent been around nature much have you?
The selection principle is a governing force of the universe, from anything we’ve seen and observed close and far to this date. Big Q is if we’re gonna continue to give in to it or be masters of our own disasters. Its a test. If we can throttle this thing, shit we may get to see the stars and what else is out there, if we dont then the experiment ends here.

 

[Meghan54]

So. You havent been around nature much have you?
The selection principle is a governing force of the universe, from anything we’ve seen and observed close and far to this date. Big Q is if we’re gonna continue to give in to it or be masters of our own disasters. Its a test. If we can throttle this thing, shit we may get to see the stars and what else is out there, if we dont then the experiment ends here.

The sim will just reboot if it ends here....

 

[hal2kilo]

I forgot the theory’s name but it was sort of sad. Concept is there are tons of advanced civilizations in space, just not all at the same time. Each race/civilization lasts only a tiny flash in history then goes extinct. Faster than light travel is not possible.
Basically advanced civilizations live out their days on their planet and that’s it until either they kill themselves, nature kills them like global warming or something catastrophic kills them like a massive asteroid. Millions or billions of years pass and a new “smart” civilization appears somewhere else.
We are all too far apart and too few at any given time to contact each other.

If you can even fathom how long even a billion years are, I can believe that this is quite possible. Our time as sentient beings on this ball is barely a blink, and my pessimistic outlook tells me, it won't be much longer than that.

 

[hal2kilo]

Have you read The Black Cloud? A recent movie "The Arrival" is pretty good too. Both deals with the idea that "Alien life" may not look like, at all, what we imagine it to.

The idea that we will never move beyond throwing reaction mass out the rear for transportation is "limited" in my opinion, as long as we keep relative peace so technology can keep advancing, to imagine our tech prowess of tomorrow is to imagine magic is real... So ill keep an open mind .

First time I saw that listed on the SCI FI channel I thought, oh I've seen that movie with Charlie Sheen before. Then I saw a much more thought provoking movie about the difficulties in even beginning to conceptualize a frame of reference to communicate with alien life with the added dimensions of clairvoyance and time shifting. The new arrival is a wonderfully thought provoking sci fi movie.

 

[cytg111]

The sim will just reboot if it ends here....

And we get to push the rock up the hill ONE MORE TIME?
There must be a way to end this, a proper row-hammer exploit would take the operating system down with it... Now where to punch a hole in the universe repeatedly and super fast.. hmmm... thinking.... edit: qubits .... I bet they punch the same row when collapsed. So we need to put muscle into quantum computing get an insane amount of qubits going and then run a loop over an algorithm that collapses as many entanglements as possible… over and over again…. with a little luck *blink* *gone*.

 

[Paratus]

I forgot the theory’s name but it was sort of sad. Concept is there are tons of advanced civilizations in space, just not all at the same time. Each race/civilization lasts only a tiny flash in history then goes extinct. Faster than light travel is not possible.
Basically advanced civilizations live out their days on their planet and that’s it until either they kill themselves, nature kills them like global warming or something catastrophic kills them like a massive asteroid. Millions or billions of years pass and a new “smart” civilization appears somewhere else.
We are all too far apart and too few at any given time to contact each other.

Dp