We're probably the middle child. Too advanced to care about microbes traveling on asteroids and too basic for the truly advanced civilizations to even notice.
True but the time it'd take that to reach anyone could mean that if another life form tried to get here, we'd probably be gone for whatever reason. It's like trying to have a conversation across an ocean with just your voice. Unless they've mastered the art of faster than light travel or some of sort worm hole tech.
I understand why people make statements like this but it is not the people who think aliens are likely that don't understand probability. People who assign a likelihood at all don't really understand probability. rocketsjudoka mentions the Drake equation and believe that it states the intelligent life "very likely" exists out in the universe. It does no such thing! All the Drake equation sets out to do is list the variable that are involved. People then make total guess for value of most of the variables, and there may be many other variables that we don't know about that aren't even mentioned. pirc1 states that people cannot grasp the huge number of planets that are in our universe. Fine, let's just go with a super large number. There are an estimated 10^80 protons in our universe. Let's call all of the protons stars and just say we have 10^80 stars. For just one variable in the Drake equation, the chance that life evolves, we have to guess totally. It may be 1. It may be 10^80. We have no data to guess, other than to say it is possible. I am going to guess the possibility is 1 in 10^800. Just from this one guess I can now say that it is very unlikely that life has ever evolved on another planet. All of this is to point out how nonsensical it is to say whether or not it is likely that there is life on other planets.
Yes you are correct the Drake Equation is based upon variables that we don't know but even taking some relatively conservative numbers, say that 1 out of ten million planets has life, given the vast numbers it still comes out favorably that intelligent life is out there. Obviously though until we find proof of that life we will never know for sure.
You're smarter than that rocketsjoduka. How do you do know that your guess of 1 in ten million planets having life is conservative? What if that is way too high? What if the chance is 1 in 10^600 planets having life? Show your work please.
That is certainly a possibility. Now what is the likelihood of that being true? Do you have any way to answer that other than saying "I guessed?" I am not saying that life is uncertain by any means, and it is obviously interesting to speculate about (I love star trek, sci fi, etc).
I read it on the internet. Also note, even if we do encounter aliens...they might be the *only* other aliens in the entire universe, and their planet might be dead due to supernova. So they fled here only to all die of a virus given to them by us. So sad. We then naturally assume there are more out there, but there aren't. Imagine the cf.net discussions that would start. "Of course there are aliens, we just met an entire race of them. But how do we know there are any more. Do you know for a fact there are? Maybe those unfortunate saps who couldn't handle our diseases were the last ones?"
Seems pretty arrogant to assume we are the only life there is in such a vast universe. People are just afraid it will contradict with their religious beliefs. When in fact in can still play along with it just like evolution. God's days are not our days. God's story is not our story. That same God you believe created you in his image in 1 day...1 day could be a million years. We don't know what else God has done, we just know what he has done here in our relative time and space. if that makes any sense to anyone besides me
I'm with you - I don't believe that Evolution and Creation are mutually exclusive either. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us - But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. I'm also reminded of an old Star Trek Episode where after leaving a planet Spock questions the thought that the natives worshipped the sun - as they were constantly referring to "the sun". At which point Uhura points out that she had been monitoring their conversations and that they weren't worshipping "the sun" they were worshipping "The Son of God - Jesus" The episode ended on that line - it postulates a very interesting scenerio. What if God created life on other planets? They may have turned out completely different from a religious aspect - ie..what if there was no original sin on those planets, and life is one big Garden of Eden for them? philosophically, its a very interesting thoughts
Blah blah blah. Yes, i believe in the possibility of aliens. Definitely interesting to consider. But be careful. You're bound to incite the resident D&D crowd who vehemently stifles any view point that isn't empirically proven.
True its speculative but considering that we are almost constantly finding new planets, including ones in the "Goldilocks" zone of orbits, and almost constantly finding life on Earth in conditions that where we previously thought impossible. 1 in 10 million planets harboring life seems like it would be conservative.
The stuff that I really find compelling is the Tehran incident and the "Wow!" signal. Basically anything in which human-made technology goes bonkers for unexplainable reasons always piques my curiosity. First-hand sightings are always a red flag for me, even though stuff like the Tehran incident I exempt because everyone involved was either high-ranking military personnel or an experienced tower operator. There are just some events out there that are straight up strange, and you know for a fact that something happened. Whether or not it was aliens is always a tentative (and at times comical) leap to make, but as long as there are no answers, I don't think it's totally unreasonable to remain open to all possibilities.
The probability that life form only exists on this planet and not the gazillions of planets just like ours in the universe is statistically insignificant.
But finding all of the other life from on Earth is irrelevant to the one variable I mentioned first: the chance that life can originate at all. Certainly life has adapted on many amazing ways but life didn't spontaneously generate in thermal pools, arctic lakes, etc. Even for planets in the "Goldilocks" zone, what percentage of those have an abnormally large moon to protect against asteroid strikes? What percentage are too near a quasar or other source of radiation? All we have are guesses, and not even educated guess. Just total, "shrug your shoulders and say 'I dunno?' guesses.
It's just amazing to fathom how large the universe actually is. It's hard to believe that it goes on forever. Just think about that, for-freaking-EVER. Incredible.
