Are We Really Alone in the Universe?

[Erring Flatley]

[SOLVED] The Others in the Universe

There are about a billion stars in our galaxy and a billion galaxies in view according to many. The chance that we are not alone is certain. The chance that most of the others have civilizations far more advanced than ours is certain. The chance that they found us first is certain. And the chance that some one of the others is running our society is certain. Have you given in and do you obey them?

 

[512kCrasher]

Certain is that there are weapons of mass distruction in Iraq. Certain is that any movie with a well known celebrity (i.e. Gigli and Glitter) will be successful. Certain is that God does in fact exist. Yet two of those have proven to be false, and one has yet to be proven. People say a lot of things are certain, but nothing ever is. So what is your point?

 

[Erring Flatley]

Certain is that there are weapons of mass distruction in Iraq. Certain is that any movie with a well known celebrity (i.e. Gigli and Glitter) will be successful. Certain is that God does in fact exist. Yet two of those have proven to be false, and one has yet to be proven. People say a lot of things are certain, but nothing ever is. So what is your point?

The world is an intensely corrupt place. This is a tragedy. Most people participate in the corruption for their survival, advancement, or gratification. It is a challange before us to turn away from corruption and all its negative aspects. If we are ever to find our way into the community of the Universe, we must do this. Whoever is in command of our society from "out there" will not tolerate violence and deceit as a way of responce to difficult situations, as a way of responding to them. Yet what corrupt person will not do exactly as told even if it means resorting to these. We must learn to say "No, that is wrong, and this is why:...", to those who lord over us, even if they can crush the Earth or us personally in a moment, and they can. It is a situation of us nonviolently and communicatively against them. To sit this challange in its truthful context is important.

 

[Dayle Record]

The Sufis have a very interesting saying regarding Heaven and Earth. They say, "As above, so below". Juan Matus of Castanedas group of socrerers, stated that what you saw, when you looked upon the universe was, "Something very impersonal". It is ever so easy to let our dreams and wishes define reality. It would be ever so nice if someone would show up to sort out this mess. I think the test is that we must sort it out ourselves.

Once we are all fed, all educated, we all have some land, and all the other creatures are respected, so we can know them; then maybe we will be ready for knowledge of the universe's other inhabitants. We haven't even explored this world yet.

If someone is coming here, it is going to be either the oxygen farmers, or the Monkey On A Stick Farmers, or worse; real estate developers.

 

[Vance]

I did post one, but I deleted it, I know someone would chime in and with such a comment, full of implications which I think it is actually not that necessary to say so...
I can be an oxygen farmer, the Monkey On A Stick Farmers, or better a real estate developer. But Is Mick rich ? How rich is he ?
Galathaea used to call me a stickie, intrusive monkey, now there is also someone poping up calling me a monkie.
YES, I am a monkie, really stickie, as i used to say, I stick with what and whom I love. So, what's wrong with you about that ? Thats the Universe. I love the the Universe and dats all!

 

[Erring Flatley]

The Sufis have a very interesting saying regarding Heaven and Earth. They say, "As above, so below". Juan Matus of Castanedas group of socrerers, stated that what you saw, when you looked upon the universe was, "Something very impersonal". It is ever so easy to let our dreams and wishes define reality. It would be ever so nice if someone would show up to sort out this mess. I think the test is that we must sort it out ourselves.

Once we are all fed, all educated, we all have some land, and all the other creatures are respected, so we can know them; then maybe we will be ready for knowledge of the universe's other inhabitants. We haven't even explored this world yet.

If someone is coming here, it is going to be either the oxygen farmers, or the Monkey On A Stick Farmers, or worse; real estate developers.

I agree, but I think we do not have to worry that anyone from elsewhere in the galaxy will come here to live, travel for living beings across the reaches of the universe is impossible in that the distances are so great and the energy to travel that far is impossibly large. But sending nonmanned computerized telemetrically controlled probes is possible. And that is what we are facing from them. The planet is ours, and it is ours forever, if we can learn to live truthfully and respectfully and lovingfully with others. But, as they will never come here as living beings, we will never leave Earth. We can only learn to live here together peacefully, and let the others live on their planets in isolation and peace as each planet grows into and achieves peace. I hope one day we grow as individuals and together to achieve peace here on Earth.

 

[Alem2000]

It is highly unlikey, considering the probability and chance. The factors that are necessary to support life...think about it(not philosophically but quntitatively).

 

[Allah]

I agree, but then disagree

"There are about a billion stars in our galaxy and a billion galaxies in view according to many. The chance that we are not alone is certain. The chance that most of the others have civilizations far more advanced than ours is certain."

You cannot make such a claim. Some of the others may be more advanced, but we may find that we are the most advanced.

"The chance that they found us first is certain. And the chance that some one of the others is running our society is certain."

Those are contradictory claims. If a hostile advanced alien race has found us, then we would not be speaking. If a peaceful advanced alien race has found us then I believe that they would not want to see any more humans die. Please do not say that they are trying to bring us down from the inside because many would have noticed them by now and the info would have leeked.

and 512kCrasher
"Certain is that there are weapons of mass distruction in Iraq. Certain is that any movie with a well known celebrity (i.e. Gigli and Glitter) will be successful. Certain is that God does in fact exist. Yet two of those have proven to be false, and one has yet to be proven."
There are iraqi WMD http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_1.html

 

[Chronos]

It is hard to believe we are the crown jewel of the universe. The principle of mediocrity suggests we are most likely pretty average in terms of intellect and technological achievement. What is unlikely that any other civilization similar to our own is near enough to be detected. I think it also unlikely that any civilization advanced enough to travel the galaxy would be inclined to interact with us. We would have nothing they could not easily obtain elsewhere or by means considerably less primitive and wasteful than 'strip mining'. Only their biologists and sociologists would find us more much more interesting than an ant farm. And I'm sure they would be very upset if others of their kind interferred with their studies.

 

[selfAdjoint]

To me the most plausible answer to Fermi's "Where are they" question is that civilizations have finite lives, and the "technological phase" of an intelligent species' development is apt to be even shorter.

We can see this around us. As science became "big science" , and also more abstract and impractical, it became more dependent on government money. At this point the withdrawal of governments from high physics research is threatened around the world. And without the big colliders, satellite experiments, and orbital telescopes (Hubble has been abandoned), physics as we know it today will wither on the vine. Perhaps the New Age is truly the wave of the future, and if so that would mean we no longer will have the chance of affecting star systems near us. And that principle of mediocrity says that if it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody.

 

[setAI]

you don't see the aliens that developed past us because they more than likely don't even live in natural universes any more- I'm sure they all synthesize new kinds of artificial universes both "virtual" and "actual" [using the equivalent of artificial branes/bulks of arbitrary and customized dimension/physics] and all their material/technological substrate is composed of Planck-scale structures and distributed networks-

there aren't any spacefaring civilizations with starships and Dyson's spheres- these macro-technologies are silly ideas- sophonts probably go from fire taming/language creation to godlike or extinct very rapidly [like us]

there is even a misconception of our own technology were current levels of technological development are linearly projected forward and predictions of slow centuries of progress and crawling space exploration take place- but technology is exponentiating and the rate of exponentiation is exponentiating- and this exponentiation emerges from diverse plurality of technologies so a slow-down is essentially impossible without a catastrophe- so even our own species will go beyond things like bodies/ natural matter limitations/ enrgy limitations/ need for instrumentality/form / etc will all be gone in less than a century- not in thousands/millions of years-

the same sort of acceleration toward a technological "Singularity" should obtain for all intelligent life I would imagine-

so they could already be here- lurking as distributed networks of strange Planck-scale structures/ wormholes/ artificial micro-black-hole quantum computers/ etc that saturates [or is very sparsely distributed throughout] the spacetime around us- or they could observe us from "folds" and connections to our brane from their own artificial brane realm- that sort of thing- there won't be any spaceships hidden behind moons or stars with vast machines orbiting them-

species that grow up disappear into the shadows between the Planck-spaces and out into the multiverse- they don't need/use big chunks of dead matter or remain within a limited spacetime IMO- meeting an alien would be more like seeing a ghost or a vision or out-of-body experience- not star trek

we are like birdies still in the egg who have just woken up and started looking around inside the egg for others like us- we are just beginning to realize that we are going to have to break out of the egg

___________________________

/:set\AI transmedia laboratories

http://setai-transmedia.com

 

[Nereid]

Only their biologists and sociologists would find us more much more interesting than an ant farm. And I'm sure they would be very upset if others of their kind interferred with their studies.

Maybe though we will soon be perceived more as we perceive less-than-benign micro-organisms, or harmless insects in the house of a fastidious cleaner. Or perhaps as sport, as we perceive foxes, wild boar, marlin, ducks, baited bears? Or as target practice for their 'space navy', as we have used natural rock formations for ours? And so on.

Is there anything to suggest that the 'principle of mediocrity' isn't just another speculation with no foundation (wrt homo sap; there's lots to suggest it's more than idle speculation wrt life, planetary systems, etc)?

 

[michelle s]

Have you given in and do you obey them?

We have no other choice. If there are beings of greater intelligence taking control of our society,then they are more powerful than us. They may be able to take human form or, more likely, create alien-human hybrids whom have the intelligence to pose as full bred humans and get into leading positions or just mingle with everyday nobodys, sending data retrieved though radio or telepathic wave signals (hahaha). They would take control for their own benefits and needs. Whether these "benifits and needs" are purely for exploration purposes, is another question, although i do think that it would be the only believable option out of the many paranoid versions that could be created. Humans explore less intelligent life forms on our home planet earth.We do this to gain a better understanding of the "way things work". We have easy access to Earth's different environments and can quite easily explore them. This "them" you speak of- the aliens... may have developed some kind of technology which enables "them" travel through these billions of galaxies with ease.. and they would like to explore the universe and the "way things work" just on a much larger scale... Earth being just one of the many possibly inhabited planets with intelligent life that they are exploring and experimenting with... this experimentation could be perceived as threatening from our perspective but from theirs it most likely is not...

I hope i have not just written a whole load of irrelevant rubbish

 

[Mk]

We have no other choice. If there are beings of greater intelligence taking control of our society,then they are more powerful than us. They may be able to take human form or, more likely, create alien-human hybrids whom have the intelligence to pose as full bred humans and get into leading positions or just mingle with everyday nobodys, sending data retrieved though radio or telepathic wave signals (hahaha). They would take control for their own benefits and needs. Whether these "benifits and needs" are purely for exploration purposes, is another question, although i do think that it would be the only believable option out of the many paranoid versions that could be created. Humans explore less intelligent life forms on our home planet earth.We do this to gain a better understanding of the "way things work". We have easy access to Earth's different environments and can quite easily explore them. This "them" you speak of- the aliens... may have developed some kind of technology which enables "them" travel through these billions of galaxies with ease.. and they would like to explore the universe and the "way things work" just on a much larger scale... Earth being just one of the many possibly inhabited planets with intelligent life that they are exploring and experimenting with... this experimentation could be perceived as threatening from our perspective but from theirs it most likely is not...

I hope i have not just written a whole load of irrelevant rubbish

Maybe you should read Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot," sounds like you'd like it.

Nothing's rubbish on physics forums, except rubbish... have fun in the UK ;)

 

[Chronos]

Maybe though we will soon be perceived more as we perceive less-than-benign micro-organisms, or harmless insects in the house of a fastidious cleaner. Or perhaps as sport, as we perceive foxes, wild boar, marlin, ducks, baited bears? Or as target practice for their 'space navy', as we have used natural rock formations for ours? And so on.

Is there anything to suggest that the 'principle of mediocrity' isn't just another speculation with no foundation (wrt homo sap; there's lots to suggest it's more than idle speculation wrt life, planetary systems, etc)?

Agreed, there is nothing to suggest the 'principle of mediocrity' is more than speculation. I am just suggesting possibilities that make sense to me and appear to be consistent with observation. I take the Fermi question very seriously. I am just reluctant to accept the proposition we are priveledged, in any respect, with the rest of the universe as a whole.

Please don't take this as criticism, Nereid. I respect your opinions.

 

[Chronos]

To me the most plausible answer to Fermi's "Where are they" question is that civilizations have finite lives, and the "technological phase" of an intelligent species' development is apt to be even shorter.

We can see this around us. As science became "big science" , and also more abstract and impractical, it became more dependent on government money. At this point the withdrawal of governments from high physics research is threatened around the world. And without the big colliders, satellite experiments, and orbital telescopes (Hubble has been abandoned), physics as we know it today will wither on the vine. Perhaps the New Age is truly the wave of the future, and if so that would mean we no longer will have the chance of affecting star systems near us. And that principle of mediocrity says that if it can happen to us, it can happen to anybody.

Hope blooms eternal. Perhaps the purpose of us having discussions, such as this, will enable us to survive long enough to explore the questions we ask. So I hope.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Yes indeed. And to attract bright young people to carry on the torch of science.

 

[vanesch]

There are about a billion stars in our galaxy and a billion galaxies in view according to many. The chance that we are not alone is certain. The chance that most of the others have civilizations far more advanced than ours is certain. The chance that they found us first is certain. And the chance that some one of the others is running our society is certain. Have you given in and do you obey them?

Actually, when looking at the highly improbable event of biogenesis, my own personal theory is the following. The visible universe is simply too small to have even a reasonable chance of generating ONE single planet with intelligent life on it. Then why are we here ? I think that the answer lies in inflation. If inflation is correct, and it seems to be more and more plausible, then there are a multitude, if not an infinity of "universe bubbles", of which ours is just one. I know that this is an application, on one side, of the antropomorphic principle, but on the other hand, I don't see what is wrong with it. In fact, everything depends on the probability of biogenesis. But honestly, in order for aminoacids to cling together by accident to produce a self-reproducing system looks to me as an event with very low probability.

cheers,
Patrick.

 

[Nereid]

Actually, when looking at the highly improbable event of biogenesis, my own personal theory is the following. The visible universe is simply too small to have even a reasonable chance of generating ONE single planet with intelligent life on it. Then why are we here ? I think that the answer lies in inflation. If inflation is correct, and it seems to be more and more plausible, then there are a multitude, if not an infinity of "universe bubbles", of which ours is just one. I know that this is an application, on one side, of the antropomorphic principle, but on the other hand, I don't see what is wrong with it. In fact, everything depends on the probability of biogenesis. But honestly, in order for aminoacids to cling together by accident to produce a self-reproducing system looks to me as an event with very low probability.

cheers,
Patrick.

Isn't science wonderful? None of us alive today can recall a time when the compounds which we today call 'organic' were thought to have been incapable of being formed by natural processes. Then it was non-racemic mixtures of amino acids, and today some kind of self-replicating chemical system.

While the specific steps along the way to biogenesis on Earth (or Mars, maybe life started there first? or a completely different solar system?) may never be known, extrapolating from trends of the last few hundred years suggests we could well find that Patrick's 'very low probability' isn't so low ... maybe by the year 2154?

 

[Tau_Muon_PlanetEater]

The first problem with all the theories I've just read, is that they are based on humanistic preconceptions. You cannot say how aliens would act, or why they would come here, or how they would require impossible amounts of energy to get here. Even if we assume that some alien civilizations exist at a near identical level of technology and social/political development, there can be no assumptions that they arrived at this level by the same means we did. Nor can we assume they share our same kind of logic. All we can do is try to project how many planets there are in the Universe that could sustain life similar to our carbon-based selves. And even this is impossible to estimate since we do not know the size of the Universe (we believe its 13.7 billion years old based on WMAP). I admit its fun to discuss, but if you use words like 'it's certain', you instantly bury your argument. Also, if you put other's theories down, you likewise instantly bury your argument, because egos are like akin poles of a magnet, they instantly repel each other.

Personally, I believe alien life exists, but its only a belief, and its not even a belief based on evidence, its a belief based on beliefs. Truly the weakest kind.

 

[plum]

I thought all that was necessary was a planet with a mean surface temperature above freezing and below boiling for water, orbiting a sun old enough to harbor planets with a comparable age to Earth in order to duplicate its life experiment. Now we're finding evidence of water on Mars, we've detected an Earth-like planet just 60 light years away, and just the other week Hubble found 100 new planets. My opinion is the only way for ETs not to in all probability exist would be for the laws of the universe to be rather peculiar in our particular neighborhood of it. Also- if they're out there, the chances of them being within a biliion years of our stage of evolution would be negligible. They would be between 100 million and 10 billion years more advanced- meaning they would be immortal and would have an acquaintance with the universe's geography that would make ours look rather insignificant. And as has been said, they would have no reason to invade or drop in for tea. Even our wars would bore them.

 

[Nereid]

plum, it may well be that life (like bacteria and amoeba) is very common in the Milky Way (and other largish galaxies). However, complex life isn't necessarily a sure thing, given prokaryotes ... after all, it took perhaps 3 billion years from life on Earth to eukaryotes (and they were plants, not animals!). Beyond that, intelligence? Gould, in Life's Grandeur (and probably other publications too) gives a very powerful demonstration that 'progress' to 'higher lifeforms' is in fact simply a random walk ... on Earth it began as 'the age of bacteria', and it hasn't changed.

 

[plum]

There are equally plausible arguments supporting the idea that there is inevitability and inexorability of life's progress, given time, towards complexity and intelligence. If the die of Earth were rolled again, would it turn up an intelligent humanoid civilization? My answer is yes and many scientists would agree.

 

[Nereid]

Ain't astrobiology infuriating? With a sample of 1, hardly any hypotheses can be tested So serious work is limited to extrapolating from that sample of 1 ...

Further, the 'negative data' (e.g. Fermi's question "Where are they?") only constrain the question in relatively modest ways.

 

[hytomi]

help

hi, i hav a physics first year test tomorrow and i really don't know anything, any help is appreciated

 

[plum]

Ain't astrobiology infuriating? With a sample of 1, hardly any hypotheses can be tested So serious work is limited to extrapolating from that sample of 1 ...

No, serious work is building better telescopes and spaceships to find hard data instead of idly philosophizing about various potentialities and probabilities... The answers to these questions lie in long term technological innovation, not math and philosophy.

 

[Nereid]

No, serious work is building better telescopes and spaceships to find hard data instead of idly philosophizing about various potentialities and probabilities... The answers to these questions lie in long term technological innovation, not math and philosophy.

What sort of telescopes? What kind of spaceships? Since $$ is always limited, how to decide among competing proposals for telescopes or spaceships?

 

[plum]

Well, if people with control over lots of money decide that it is important to try and make contact with aliens, then money could be put into building telescopes designed to search for extrasolar planets (like the T.P.F.) or physics experiments aimed at learning more about the fundamental properties of light and gravity, leading towards long range goals of interstellar spacecraft . Currently, people with control of lots of money either are not interested in ETs or have been convinced that the technological innovations necessary would be impractical in their lifetimes or for humanity indefinitely. I for one disagree with this.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Well, if people with control over lots of money decide that it is important to try and make contact with aliens, then money could be put into building telescopes designed to search for extrasolar planets (like the T.P.F.) or physics experiments aimed at learning more about the fundamental properties of light and gravity, leading towards long range goals of interstellar spacecraft . Currently, people with control of lots of money either are not interested in ETs or have been convinced that the technological innovations necessary would be impractical in their lifetimes or for humanity indefinitely. I for one disagree with this.

And just what is your basis for disagreement?

 

[plum]

As you can see from my thread in the Technology forum, I am learning about warp drive, so I will get back to you on that one. Now no one can rule out the possibility that the light barrier is old hat to every advanced species in the galaxy but ours, and that various races make regular house calls on one another- while making jokes about us.

 

[physicsisphirst]

The answers to these questions lie in long term technological innovation, not math and philosophy.

quite possibly, but doesn't the math and the philosophy also support this?
for instance, if we exist within a solar system and there exist X solar systems that have some similarity to ours, isn't there a pretty good probability that something similar to us also exists? philosophically, if we can do the cogito ergo sum thing and then go on to conceive of other beings who also can do the cogito ergo sum thing, then it may be likely that it can work the other way around too.

in friendship,
prad

 

[Chronos]

Back to the ancient equation... crap = crap. No doubt the ancients tell human jokes. Most of us just doubt the ancient races care enough to do stand up comedy in front of us. Warp drive is warped science, for now.

 

[Altune]

Hmm a lot of talk about Aliens and other worlds and civilizations. Intelligent life is always thought of in the form of Humanoids or beings such as ourselvs. The fact of the matter is Intelligence can be found in many beings on our world and they are not humanoid at all. Whos to say that within the cosmos there could or could not be life in almost any form that would be quite a bit more advanced than us.
remember we just within the last hundred years or so we discovered the use of radio waves and such.

 

[sol2]

Warp drive is warped science, for now.

http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/thorne/oh/01.html

Thought you might like to see what warp people talk about.

 

[alexkerhead]

Hmm a lot of talk about Aliens and other worlds and civilizations. Intelligent life is always thought of in the form of Humanoids or beings such as ourselvs. The fact of the matter is Intelligence can be found in many beings on our world and they are not humanoid at all. Whos to say that within the cosmos there could or could not be life in almost any form that would be quite a bit more advanced than us.
remember we just within the last hundred years or so we discovered the use of radio waves and such.

Such as the idea of the existence of light based entities?