other life forms?

[mgargan1]

What are your thoughts on other life forms out there... do you think is other life in this universe? And if there is, is it intelligent enough to try to contact us?

[macka]

The universe is so freakin' H-U-G-E it's likely that there would be other life forms out there. Hell, haven't they already found some?

Intelligent life, I wouldn't know. Maybe we can chuck a Jimmy Neutron and stick a device into space to communicate with aliens...what? They're intelligent life forms are they not?. :eek: :p

[Awimoway]

And what about the 95% of the universe that we can't even see--dark matter? We might be surprised to find that life is far closer than we think.

I know some of the non-religious/anti-religious at MR can be very caustic and condescending, so I may be sticking my neck out just to get my head chopped off, but I can't help but wonder if at least a small portion of this largely imperceptible matter isn't spiritual essence, the afterlife, heaven, hell, etc. My religion says spirits are composed of matter that is simply more refined, whatever that means. I kind of wonder if dark matter is what it means.

And, I suppose, that would count as a different kind of life form. :)

[Awimoway]

Intelligent life, I wouldn't know. Maybe we can chuck a Jimmy Neutron and stick a device into space to communicate with aliens...what? They're intelligent life forms are they not?. :eek: :p

If you can argue that the universe is large enough to accomodate other life forms--which I agree with--isn't it possible that they are so different that we might never be able to effectively communicate? Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. are so full of humanoid aliens with bisymmetric bodies, two eyes, two nostrils, two ears, and a single mouth conveniently placed in more or less the same order as our own. The Roswell/Area 51 conspiracy cranks are in love with the idea of some short, pale bug-eyed humanoid race. Well I don't buy it. If there is intelligent life out there, it could be so foreign to our way of understanding that we might not even notice each other. It could be a pool of bacteria. It probably wouldn't be DNA-based and it might be so fundamentally different that we can't begin to imagine. It could have a hive mentaility. It could be a single pan-planetary organism with no relatives or ancestors. It could be anything. Which is my point. I respect the SETI movement, but I wonder if any intelligent life in range would even want to talk--they might be antisocial or simply less curious. They might not dream of using ER or using it the way we do. The patterns they send might be so foreign as to go unnoticed by the computers. Or maybe other intelligent races killed themselves off even faster than we (probably) will. The possibilities are so endless that hope for an answer seems unfulfillable.

[Dros]

There are 50-100 billion stars in our galaxy.

There are 50-100 billion galaxies in our universe.

Those numbers are so large, even something that has a very low chance of happening, such as the formation of life, must happen all the time. And I'd say, once you get multicellular life, it is just a matter of time before a brain arrives on the scene.

[takao]

have to agree there are just so many other stars, galaxies planets out there
i guess there should be a place where some "pro-life" accidents happend and some intelligent life forms exist
the problem is thou that we will perhaps never meet other life forms from other planets...the distances are just too great
without ability to move a _lot_ faster than light ..."it's not gonna happen"

but i have to add one of my favourite quuotes here:
"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers."
Richard Feynman

[coopdog]

There are 50-100 billion stars in our galaxy.

There are 50-100 billion galaxies in our universe.

Those numbers are so large, even something that has a very low chance of happening, such as the formation of life, must happen all the time. And I'd say, once you get multicellular life, it is just a matter of time before a brain arrives on the scene.

I agree. Scitistist toss around "light years" when talking about things in space like they are the size of city blocks. Not 5.88 trillion miles. With visable space being 13.4 BILLION light years away there is no doubt that something with a brain is out there, in my mind.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

I DO believe there's life out there. There HAS to be...

However - the way the Universe ORIGINATED all that time ago leads me to believe that if there WERE life out there, then it would only theoretically be at the same technological level than ourselves. So, all that talk of UFO's seems a little far-fetched, especially if you consider the VAST distances needed to travel from one location to another...

Kip Thorne's theory of Folding Space seems like the BEST idea to travel from one location to another - I think it goes something like this:

By the use of an ENORMOUS source of energy (one yet to be found or harnessed - but he speculated the use of a Black Hole at one point...), one can "fold", or distort, space to bring two points closer together.

Otherwise, you're stuck with the whole "Time Dilation" issue; where as you travel to a point APPROACHING TO or FASTER THAN (currently theoretically impossible - but you have to have an open mind about things) the speed of Light, then time - as YOU know it - slows down, yet stays at the constant rate outside your "sphere" of travel. Therefore, you've theoretically gone FORWARDS in time, and will have outlived your relatives by the time you return. Of course, the speed you travel is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to the length of time you spend away...

Kind of freaky, really.

That means that any aliens, in order to travel the vast distances, would have had to do so from perhaps THOUSANDS of years previous. A bit pointless, when you consider they came ALL this way, and NOT make contact when they arrived...

:rolleyes:

[mgargan1]

take a look at what Stephen Hawking thinks... http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/lindex.html

[edesignuk]

IMO there must be other inteligent life out there somewhere! I can't beleive that given the enormous size of space/universe/whatever, our little planet is the only place where life exists.

[iGav]

IMO there must be other inteligent life out there somewhere! I can't beleive that given the enormous size of space/universe/whatever, our little planet is the only place where life exists.

Ditto.. ;)

Although the only thing that worries me, is all the 'noise pollution' we send out into space... radio, music and since the late-early 20th Century motion pictures, now think of all the stuff that's transmitted... everything including WW2+ other major conflicts, movies involving death and destruction... nevermind the dodgy music that goes with porn films... :eek: but let's face it, if other intelligent life is capable of receiving these signals, what are they going to think?? personally I reckon they'll be doing their best to avoid 'us' ever knowing about them.... either that or slipping their spaceships into 5th and getting as far away from us as possible :(

[Les Kern]

I used to think so.... but in the last few years I'm becoming more and more convinced that we are alone in this universe. No, it's not a "god" thing either... Carl Sagan's famous analysis has a flaw in it. So let's assume that after the "mind game" you're down to a billion planets that "could" have higher life forms. Silly, as the calculation used to get there "assumes" too much. I'd be the first to admit that I am WAY wrong... when evidence comes in to support it.

[Les Kern]

I DO believe there's life out there. There HAS to be...

Why?

[Les Kern]

There are 50-100 billion stars in our galaxy.

There are 50-100 billion galaxies in our universe.

Those numbers are so large, even something that has a very low chance of happening, such as the formation of life, must happen all the time. And I'd say, once you get multicellular life, it is just a matter of time before a brain arrives on the scene.

Too many assumtions, dude.

[Les Kern]

And what about the 95% of the universe that we can't even see--dark matter? We might be surprised to find that life is far closer than we think.

I'm partial to string theory, even though 11 dimensions leaves my brain a quivering mess. But "partial too" and "facts" are two entirely different things. One things for sure: We know pretty much nothing about the universe, and even with 100 billion worlds, there is a chance that they are quite empty.
Hope I'm wrong... I want my daughter's daughter's daughter to be the first to shake the apendage of the emmisary from planet Wrrch-nthchgyef.
It's all crap.

[Dros]

Too many assumtions, dude.

Well, the numbers of stars in the galaxy and the number of galaxies in the universe are built on assumptions that are pretty well supported. I assume you are talking more about the "chance of life". Sure, tons of assumptions there.

But no one has any idea. My feeling is, it has happened here, so it is possible. If we see evidence of it on Mars, then it probably has happened thousands of times in each galaxy. To me, the assumptions needed to say there is no life anywhere but here are more unlikely than those needed to say there is life elsewhere.

[coopdog]

Why?

The bigbang is constantly going out in every direction creating planets, stars, space. Ok, the farthest object we have ever seen from earth is 13.8 BILLION LIGHT YEARS away. Thats just what we can see. However theroreticaly space goes on forever in every direction. Now use the volume of a sphere equation and insert 13.8 Billion light years as the dimaiter. Think of how many cubic light years that is. And that's just a fraction of the volume of space. The odds of a planet that has water or another earth like plannet is a giant number. It doens't even have to have water to support life. Carbon, silicone? Or an element we don't even know about. Then the odds get even higher.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

There's a cool book out there by Isaac Asimov, entitled "Extraterrestrial Civilisations".

It gives a scientific and mathematical process as to find the possible existence of extraterrestrial life. Using basic statistics, and our crude knowledge of the CURRENT size of the Universe, it breaks down, chapter by chapter, the feasibility of life out there.

If anything, it's an interesting read - and it CERTAINLY gets you thinking...

[Mac|caM]

The bigbang is constantly going out in every direction creating planets, stars, space. Ok, the farthest object we have ever seen from earth is 13.8 BILLION LIGHT YEARS away. Thats just what we can see. However theroreticaly space goes on forever in every direction. Now use the volume of a sphere equation and insert 13.8 Billion light years as the dimaiter. Think of how many cubic light years that is. And that's just a fraction of the volume of space. The odds of a planet that has water or another earth like plannet is a giant number. It doens't even have to have water to support life. Carbon, silicone? Or an element we don't even know about. Then the odds get even higher.

No more matter is being created. All of the stars and planets and galaxies are already here, they're just spreading out. I think by the latest estimates, there are more like 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and 200 billion galaxies. that works out to about 80,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 80 quintillion stars. Even if only one in a billion had planets (actually, the percentage is far more than that) That's still, at the very least, 80,000,000,000,000 or 80 trillion planets. Of those, there has to be at least one with some form of life. Heck, there might even be other life in our solar system, like under the ice on Europa, where there's a liquid ocean. Mars probably had life at one point, too.

[tpjunkie]

With billions of stars in a galaxy, and billions of galaxies, there's got to be life out there. In fact, theres a good chance that there's a lot of life out there. If it can happen once, it can happen again. In fact, if you assume the universe to be infinite, (which it probably isn't) anything that can happen has or will happen, and more than likely will happen multiple times. If we are alone, it seems like an awful waste of space.

[Opteron]

What are your thoughts on other life forms out there... do you think is other life in this universe? And if there is, is it intelligent enough to try to contact us?

If there isn't it's an awfully big waste of space.

Just think of the logistics though.
earth is 4 and a bit billion years old. and humans have been space capable in some fassion for 50 years.

[Doctor Q]

I think it's more likely than not that there is other life out there in other galaxies, and less likely than not that we will be able to communicate with it, because of the distance separating us. Life on Mars would be a lot easier to talk to than life in another galaxy.

[mgargan1]

here's the problem with having a planet with intelligent life... the species has to evolve in... the life of its star, the time between major astrological collisions, and it has to be able to evolve to a high enough level before it destroys itself.

Also, if there is more intelligent life out there, why would we want it to come over here? That would be like the United States fighting WWI over again, only we had the technology of today back in 1918. Or maybe even present day America vs. 1776 Britain. Their technology would be so much greater than ours if they figured out a way to travel across the universe.

[Awimoway]

take a look at what Stephen Hawking thinks... http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/lindex.html

That was a nice link. Thanks. This was my favorite part:

There used to be a project called SETI, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. It involved scanning the radio frequencies, to see if we could pick up signals from alien civilisations. I thought this project was worth supporting, though it was cancelled due to a lack of funds. But we should have been wary of answering back, until we have develop a bit further. Meeting a more advanced civilisation, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it.

[mgargan1]

exactally, i simply said that cause i didn't think too many people would actually read the whole article...

[Dippo]

There are 50-100 billion stars in our galaxy.

There are 50-100 billion galaxies in our universe.

Those numbers are so large, even something that has a very low chance of happening, such as the formation of life, must happen all the time. And I'd say, once you get multicellular life, it is just a matter of time before a brain arrives on the scene.


Even if there is other life out there we will never know about...

If it took just one second to scan a solar system for life, then it would take 1,600 years to scan our entire galaxy (according to your numbers). Now multiply that by the number of galaxies and you have a number reaching into the TRILLIONS of years...

Unless there's A LOT of other life out there, we will never find them and they will never find us!

[Josh]

The universe is soo big...there are soo many stars and planets that theres no way there CANT be life...



Think about this....for every single grain of sand on Earth, there is AT LEAST a billion stars in the universe. Now, each star is a sun (most bigger than ours). Each of those stars/suns will have some number of planets orbiting around it. (not talking about the visible universe, or the 5% we think we know, but the entire thing - which is nearly limitless to imagine)

You do that math..... how many planets is that? Even if you figured 2 planets per sun/star, the number involved is still way too big for the human mind to even imagine.

Now to think of the huge # of other planets out there and to think that our little tiny planet is the only one of them to have life on it - thats a little egotistical, dont ya think?

There IS life out there - tons of it. Some more primative than us, many in the forms of small simple forms, others large - possibly comparible to what we know as "dinosaurs". Some life forms will be nearly = to us (not in apperance, fundamentals, or behavior - but in general intelligence). Others will be far more advanced than us.

And for the huge number of other life forms there are out there, there is a good chance there is one that could be very closely simialr to us. But ether way - wether close to advanced as us, or far more advanced than us....as we sit here wondering about them, you can be sure something, somewhere out there, is wondering about us.

[Dippo]

The universe is soo big...there are soo many stars and planets that theres no way there CANT be life...


I don't think there is life anywhere else. Why would God create life on other planets?

[Dros]

Even if there is other life out there we will never know about...

If it took just one second to scan a solar system for life, then it would take 1,600 years to scan our entire galaxy (according to your numbers). Now multiply that by the number of galaxies and you have a number reaching into the TRILLIONS of years...

Unless there's A LOT of other life out there, we will never find them and they will never find us!

Never is a long time. Human civilization is 10,000 years old. A lot has happened in that time. I would guess that in 100,000 more years there will be humans travelling to other stars, even if it takes several generations. Travelling to other galaxies would be tougher, even at near light speed. There are several galaxies within 100,000 light years, so those may be reachable. It would be hard to imagine such a journey, though. But in 100,000 years, spacecraft could be large asteroids hollowed out, so why not send it off on a journey with tens or hundreds of thousands of passengers?

Your scenario depends on us sitting here, looking at other stars one by one. It seems humans are more restless than that.


I don't think there is life anywhere else. Why would God create life on other planets?

Well, if God doesn't want to bother I'm sure evolution will take care of it!

[Awimoway]

I don't think there is life anywhere else. Why would God create life on other planets?

If you follow that logic, why the hell did he bother with us?

[coopdog]

Well, if God doesn't want to bother I'm sure evolution will take care of it! :p :)

[MoparShaha]

I would guess that in 100,000 more years there will be humans travelling to other stars...I would be shocked if we were still around in 2,000 years, let alone 100,000. Personally, I do believe there has to be other life out there. There was nothing special about it developing here on Earth, it just took time. By laws of probability and statistics, there must be other life out there. Whether we'll ever know about it is questionable though. As curious as many of us are, it's probably for the best we don't know. We can't even live with each other, and we're all the same! I can't imagine what encountering aliens would do to us (regardless of whether they were hostil or not).

[takao]

I would be shocked if we were still around in 2,000 years, let alone 100,000.
yeah 500 years ago the earth was flat,no human can fly ever or move faster than a horse or bird,
when the first trains came up people feared that moving faster than 70mph would destroy the human brain,or being photographed will steal your soul :rolleyes:
wasn't it common sense sometimes in the medivial age that warm water in combination with soap will kill you ? hehe
2000 years are a lot for human mankind
in the last 15.000 years mankind changed from big,less hairy apes to space exploration

[Josh]

I don't think there is life anywhere else. Why would God create life on other planets?

Well, do note in the Bible it says God "created the heavens and the Earth" (notice heavens is plural??)

So while we may not know "why" God would created life on other planets, we cannot assume for any reason that he did not.

<personal/religous opinion>
In my personal opinion, I think God created everything with the exact intention to create us, as well as everything else. Some people believe in either creation or evolution - I believe in both. Evolution can be scientificaly proven, but I also know that it takes more than random chance to create life. I believe God created everything to work out as he did - he knew the "Big Bang" would happen, he knew life would form on a planet called Earth, and he knew (and planned) that man would evolve. God did create man - but the way he did it was through evolution. So by the same logic, I believe God created matter with the plan that it would create life eventualy - and everything he created fits into his plan, for whatever it may be.
</personal/religous opinion>

[mgargan1]

if any of you guy out there ever read, or have read comic books, does the story line of the "secret wars" mean anything. What if God, (who created us in His own image), is a very curious being? And he created more life forms, in order to see which life form would be more prosperious. Kinda like the Beyonder did. Only he used superheros, and not regular human beings. Also, God could have set far enough apart so we would never run into each other.

I know that sounds very far fetched. It's just so hard to imagine a place created from nothing. Just the fact that science says there was a big bang, would imply that it had to have been created from something. Even the laws of physics, math, and time break up the closer we get to the big bang. Wouldn't that be like God creating a program, and the laws of physics is his code? Lets just hope that God didn't use Windows as His OS that created us:) Actually, that's the OS he used when He created the dinosaurs... and look what happend to them.

[javabear90]

Have you ever wondered if there are things out there like us trillions of light years away wondering if there is life out there. They might be entering information on their.... devices communicating with other people around their world. Quite freaky really if you think about it.

Could it be that God created the Big Bang and then let it go. Like a child. He created it and then let it go. However gave him a nudge here and there... aka prayer.

Just a thought.

[Doctor Q]

Have you ever wondered if there are things out there like us trillions of light years away wondering if there is life out there. They might be entering information on their.... devices communicating with other people around their world. Quite freaky really if you think about it.Maybe everything on their planet is exactly like it is here, except that people with Earthlink accounts have Xyzzylink accounts instead. :eek:

[Foxer]

Two things:


1. I am troubled by our attempts to contact other potential lifeforms, because, put simply, what if they aren't nice people. Imagine American Indians trying to announce their existance to the Europeans prior to 1492. I just don't want any one else "dropping by" Earth.

2. I thought this one up a few years ago. If you subscribe to the whole Big Bang thing, and since I'm not a physicist I see no reason not to, then most of the things around us are about the same age. All planets that can sustain life got started about the same time, at least in our "neighborhood." Right?

Well, life on Earth had a "false start" - we call them the Dinosaurs. In effect, that cost us over 120 million years. Suppose on some other planet, the first big life forms were intelligent and didn't go extinct. That planet would have a "head start" of many millions of years on us. Given the progress we would expect to make over the coming decades and centuries, I have to view a 100 million year jump start as potentially significant.

This leads to one of two conclusions: 1) There isn't anyone else out there, at least "near" us, or 2) they are out there, but travel at speeds greater than light isn't possible.

Just my liberal arts viewpoint.

[Dippo]

Two things:


1. I am troubled by our attempts to contact other potential lifeforms, because, put simply, what if they aren't nice people. Imagine American Indians trying to announce their existance to the Europeans prior to 1492. I just don't want any one else "dropping by" Earth.

2. I thought this one up a few years ago. If you subscribe to the whole Big Bang thing, and since I'm not a physicist I see no reason not to, then most of the things around us are about the same age. All planets that can sustain life got started about the same time, at least in our "neighborhood." Right?

Well, life on Earth had a "false start" - we call them the Dinosaurs. In effect, that cost us over 120 million years. Suppose on some other planet, the first big life forms were intelligent and didn't go extinct. That planet would have a "head start" of many millions of years on us. Given the progress we would expect to make over the coming decades and centuries, I have to view a 100 million year jump start as potentially significant.

This leads to one of two conclusions: 1) There isn't anyone else out there, at least "near" us, or 2) they are out there, but travel at speeds greater than light isn't possible.

Just my liberal arts viewpoint.

Those are some really good points.

Another point would be,

3. There was other life on other planets but it became extinct, which could have happened naturally or not.

I am sure that within the next 100 millions years, there would be at least one major asteriod that would hit the earth, but I doubt we would get that far. We would probably end up blowing up the earth and every other planet we colonize.

[crenz]

I'm sure people working in IT support call centers sometimes doubt there's intelligent life on this planet :p

[x86isslow]

we should watch this Mars-methane stuff closely. I am betting that there are RNA-based methanogens on Mars. excuse the geekiness :)

on another note, I highly doubt the existence of any life that would be 'intelligent' elsewhere in our solar system. Think about it: on Earth today, Deuterostome-Animalia (essentially everything with neurons), makes up a tiny proportion of life. Life elsewhere, given the harsh climes, will be archeobacteria.

[jefhatfield]

The universe is so freakin' H-U-G-E it's likely that there would be other life forms out there.

huge, but finite
but i bet we will find life in our solar system besides us

[Josh]

Two things:


1. I am troubled by our attempts to contact other potential lifeforms, because, put simply, what if they aren't nice people. Imagine American Indians trying to announce their existance to the Europeans prior to 1492. I just don't want any one else "dropping by" Earth.

2. I thought this one up a few years ago. If you subscribe to the whole Big Bang thing, and since I'm not a physicist I see no reason not to, then most of the things around us are about the same age. All planets that can sustain life got started about the same time, at least in our "neighborhood." Right?

Well, life on Earth had a "false start" - we call them the Dinosaurs. In effect, that cost us over 120 million years. Suppose on some other planet, the first big life forms were intelligent and didn't go extinct. That planet would have a "head start" of many millions of years on us. Given the progress we would expect to make over the coming decades and centuries, I have to view a 100 million year jump start as potentially significant.

This leads to one of two conclusions: 1) There isn't anyone else out there, at least "near" us, or 2) they are out there, but travel at speeds greater than light isn't possible.

Just my liberal arts viewpoint.

What I have bolded is a very interesting! Good thoughts.

But how does that in any way lead you to the last 2 conclusions? a head start of 100 miliion years implies nothing on wether or not anything else is out there - and it especialy is not relevant to wether or not travelling faster than the speed of light is possible.

What, in the section I have bolded, leads you to those conclusions? Those conclusions are completely un-related to what you were saying - like total different thoughts.

Its like me saying: "My milk was spoiled today. This leads me to conclude that either a)my shoes are in the other room or b)the average gestation of a kangaroo is different than that of a beaver."

Where my shoes are at, and the gestations of beavers & kangaroos is in no way related to if/why my milk was spoiled. Just the same as when things in space were created & how much of a head start another life form my have is in no way related to wether or not travelling faster than the speed of light is possible & if anything else is out there.

Maybe you can explain your reasoning? I just dont see how it relates...

Unless you are pointing to the idea that because they have such a large head start on us, that they would be FAR more advanced - and thus would be able to contact us somehow and have the technology to do so. And because they havent yet, you feel its not possible. Is that what youre getting at?

Consider this:

Perhaps they do have the technology and the ability to contact us - but perhaps they are deciding not to. There are several reasons why they wouldnt contact us:

1)It wouldn't benefit them. They are way more advanced than us. Sure - it would benefit us and we might learn from them, but they have nothing to learn or gain from us - and teaching us wouldnt benefit them either.

2)Take a look at our world. We kill each other by the thousands...bombs going off all the time. With the current state of politics and the nature of our species - would you really want to pay us a visit? Humans are very ignorant, greedy, selfish, and cruel. I can't see why an extraterrestial would want anything to do with us.

3)Given the hostile nature of humans - if aliens ever made contact, war against them would break out. Either a gov't would try to protect its people, or a civilian militia would act out of fear. People would panic - religion would be turned upside down - and everything people thought they knew would be proved wrong. It would be total chaos. Maybe you or I would be able to handle it and like it - but the world would not.

4)Maybe they do know of our existence, and instead of making direct contact (which has no benefit for them - and from the reasons listed above, would be very harmful) maybe they are watching us, studying us. Maybe they do want to learn about us (not from us). Just like if we found life on Mars, we would study it and it would never even know we existed. Just the same, they could study us while keeping us completely oblivious to it. Microbes arent conscious and cannot think, so they wouldnt know we were studying them - we are way more evolved. But who knows how much more evolved aliens are than us - maybe they can study us without us ever even knowing. Now think about abductions....are they studying us? I believe they are - but full-on contact will never be made....there is no reason for it.

[Foxer]

What I have bolded is a very interesting! Good thoughts.

But how does that in any way lead you to the last 2 conclusions? a head start of 100 miliion years implies nothing on wether or not anything else is out there - and it especialy is not relevant to wether or not travelling faster than the speed of light is possible.

Unless you are pointing to the idea that because they have such a large head start on us, that they would be FAR more advanced - and thus would be able to contact us somehow and have the technology to do so. And because they havent yet, you feel its not possible.

Yes, that's basically what I'm getting at. A society with 100 million years would have to be so much more advanced that they'd surely be zipping around the universe by now, if that were possible. Even if they're only 1 million years ahead. Or 1000 years. I'm not talking about biological evolution so much as technological development.

I can't really adress your thoughts as to they might not CHOOSE to contact us. Maybe we would seem insignificant to them. I watch Star Trek and know all about the Prime Directive and all that, so maybe we're the backwards little backwater that is being observed. None of us, really, can answer that.

I'd like to think that, if benevolent aliens arrived here, we wouldn't turn on them en masse (unless the bastards tried to take our water and women ;) ), but who really knows. It would be about the most significant thing to happen to us a species in a long, long time. I have a little more faith in us.

Put succinctly, I do believe that, given the number of planets that must exist, there must be other life out there. Leap of faith, but one that I choose to make. Given that belief, I look at the physical distances between the stars. Even if there were life around EVERY star (which I do not beleive), the distance to even the nearest star (Wolf 359 or Alpha Centauri, whatever it is) is just too far for it too matter. Interstellar travel is simply not practical (or even possible, really) at speeds less than the speed of light.

OK, so then SINCE I think there is life out there, and SINCE I think it is at least possible (if not probable) that some of that life might be far ahead of us technologically I conclude that interstellar travel may not be possible, since we haven't heard from them. This theory, as you point out, is premised on a presumption that the aliens would WANT to talk with us - if they don't, of course, my whole thing is out the window.

It has simply always bothered me that there is a presumption that we are on the vanguard of technology, when could be other planets far, far ahead of us. Forget about my dinosaur thing, what if Rome never fell? We sort of shut down technological advancement for almost 1000 years between 500 and 1500 AD. Where would we be if that hadn't happened? Or if the dark ages lasted only 500 years?

[Josh]

awesome thoughts!

That is a good thing to wonder - if Rome never fell.

I think it would be amazing if aliens contacted us - they could show us soo much and it would change everything. If they were friendly - it would be the best thing to happen to our planet. All sorts of scientific breakthroughs would happen (not really breakthroughs, since we'd be cheating :P).

Could you just imagine what life on another planet could be like? Sure there are the ones in the UFO's flying around - but what about the ones that built the UFOs? What about their families and friends? What, if anything, do they do for fun? What is a day like on their planet? What is their history like? They werent always technologicaly advanced - at one point they were less advanced than we are - what were they like then? What are the other species on their planet like?...

Theres just too many questions I could think of lol...

I really do think when I get to heaven, that God may get annoyed with me. For all eternity, I will be doing nothing but asking questions like those above - wanting to see every bit of life on every other planet out there and see how things are there - their fun, politics, struggles, histroy, humor, art, academics..etc.

[kiwi_the_iwik]

Ok - let's suppose (and I'm stretching the imagination, somewhat...) that there IS no way to traverse the great distances across the universe - that we're STUCK in this spiral arm of the galaxy, inhibited by the Einsteinian laws that govern our lives.

And let's ALSO suppose that no other life form can make the SAME journey.

What if:

It's not DISTANCES being traversed by extra-terrestrials - it's DIMENSIONS?

We are the masters of 3 dimensions (up/down, left/right, forward/back), and just along for the ride in a fourth (time). It is a well-known fact that there are other dimensions, and that we'll probably NEVER be able to work them all out - or even know how many there are. But what if OTHER beings live in dimensions that we cannot access, and that THEY can bridge? It certainly would explain the existence of UFO's, and how they can just "vanish"...

Would THAT mean that they could "skip" between their world and ours? Is their world our Earth of another dimension? What if our worlds' developments have been linked throughout existence? Or perhaps, there are an infinite number of parallel universes, where choices have been made and lives changed after going down any number of paths.

Certainly food for thought - especially after, perhaps, some chemical experimentation...

;)

[iJed]

One good quote that I agree with is: "It is very arrogant to assume that we are the only intelligent life forms in the universe."

[jefhatfield]

with the great distances in space, it doesn't make sense for anybody to travel from point a to point b in a linear fashion

but if some alien civilization could bend space and travel from point a to point b through a wormhole, then long distance travels would become practical

it's still only a theory of bending space to shorten a large linear distance in space and humans will not be able to pull that type of trip off anytime soon...of course, all of our science fiction related heroes have been doing it routinely for nearly 4 decades ;)

i still think some earth rover will find some sort of simple protozoa level of life on mars or another planet in our solar system...the challenge will be finding it

if there is intelligent life out there, it will be up to them to come here...if they already haven't...and hopefully they will not destroy us or rule over us since i think any culture with the technology to travel great distances in space could easy beat us with one hand tied behind their back....it would be no contest

imagine if just one company of world war II era paratroopers with their technology of the time available to them took on, let's say, king george III's army from 1776

even the much larger british army with muskets would not be able to take on 200 paratroopers with world war II era technology

i wonder how many advanced aliens it would take to bring the earth to a point of surrender...remember that our combat planes and missiles have little or no chance in shooting down any ufo/alien spaceships...even if they didn't have access to huge explosives, their great reported speed would make them an enemy impossible to conquer

so i hope the aliens, if they are here flying around like many believe, are only observing us and not thinking to take us over or destroy us

[jefhatfield]

if aliens came here, it would disrupt politics and religion

but as far as religion, i can't think of anything in the judeo-christian belief system that says anything one way or the other about life on other planets...only that all life was started by god

i don't think the absolute proof of alien life would disprove all religion, just like i think the pretty much accepted theory of evolution has not destroyed the credibility of the whole bible

when the bible was written, it could be assumed from the generations counted down from adam and eve that the earth was not much more than 6,000 years old...even if one attaches huge non scientific lifespans to the early generations of peoples in genesis...it would be a stretch to say, from biblical accounts that the earth was 8000 years old

but china has been around for longer than that...but if they weren't and were only as old as the middle east cultures, then i guess the people were really, really, really, really busy making babies ;)

[Doctor Q]

It's funny to read (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apollo_11_30th.html) how Neil Armstrong and the crew of Apollo wore "biological isolation garments" and were put in quarantine for 18 days after they returned from mankind's first walk on the moon. But, at the time, there was no way to know if they would come home with "someone" on the bottom of their boot!

Klaatu Barada Nickto!

[mgargan1]

the problem with the 100,000,000 years more advanced than us theory, is that a major asteroid or comet collides with a body in space (planet) on average about once every 20 million years. Well, the last hit on us was 65 million years ago. We have been very lucky, and have been able to evolve with out any major astrological collision. That would be the same for other civilizations throughout the universe. If they were to be unfortunate enough to actually gain the intelligence enough to start interspace travel, they could and will soon enough be wiped out by an asteroid. But then, on the other hand... maybe that one civilization has Bruce Willis, and destroys the asteroid himself :)... there's just too many possibilites.

It's just amazing to think of life... what it actually is. How energy (that's all we are), can change into a way that will actually produce something else. It's so hard not to believe in a God, or some larger power, when you think about what life really is. How we really got here? Life can't just be a coincidence, they're just too many things that could have gone wrong. If Carbon didn't bond with four other elements, we wouldn't be here. If the molecule of water had an even distrubution of electrons, instead of uneven... we wouldn't be here... it just seems like there is a set of plans (physics) that was laid out by something or someone for the recipe of life. In science... the most simple answer is usually the correct one... what's more simple... God created life and the universe... or, honestly I can not think of another possibility. How did that one point of singularity, that exploded into the big bang, get there?

Okay, now that I said all that, this thread isn't about the existense of God, but I think that God just created the recipe for life, and that whatever life formed, formed... doesn't mean that He did or didn't create others.

[Awimoway]

the problem with the 100,000,000 years more advanced than us theory, is that a major asteroid or comet collides with a body in space (planet) on average about once every 20 million years. Well, the last hit on us was 65 million years ago. We have been very lucky, and have been able to evolve with out any major astrological collision. That would be the same for other civilizations throughout the universe. If they were to be unfortunate enough to actually gain the intelligence enough to start interspace travel, they could and will soon enough be wiped out by an asteroid.

Can we assume that every planet in the universe has the same 20 million year window, give or take the occasional lucky break? We live on the outskirts of our own galaxy. I would assume that closer to the center major asteroid collisions are much more frequent. So I suppose that would diminish the number of viable planets out there a little.

Okay, now that I said all that, this thread isn't about the existense of God, but I think that God just created the recipe for life, and that whatever life formed, formed... doesn't mean that He did or didn't create others.

Oh, I don't think he just walked away. Obviously, we live in a pretty self-sustaining mechanism. But that doesn't mean he couldn't have tinkered from time to time to ensure at least a few important results--tipped an asteroid our way to wipe out the dinosaurs; instigated the mutation that shrunk some primates' jawbones, thereby easing pressure on the cranium and allowing it expand; perhaps protecting us from asteroids in the last 65 million years. I know I'm trampling all over the anthropic principle, but my point is if there is a god, I doubt he just threw the chemicals in a timespace bowl and walked away.

Edit: I just reread your post and realize that we don't necessarily disagree. But if you're suggesting that he fine-tuned everything so precisely at the beginning that he was able to sit back and let the Big Bang, galaxy and planet formation, and evolution go forward exactly as he intended, or decided to let it surprise him and see what it produced--well I guess that's possible, but my own convictions are not comfortable with it.

What if humans are as good as it gets? I know that's kind of a depressing thought, considering our propensity for violence, hate, and general loathsomeness. We dream of computers that can do so much more than us and it makes us wonder if evolution, by itself, couldn't have produced a smarter being. But what if we were exactly what god wanted to make? He knew the yield rate of decent people would be fairly low, but he decided that it was worth it anyway? I guess I've run pretty far afield of the original question, but my point is that just because god could throw the chemicals together and let them run their course doesn't mean he would.