Do you think intellegent aliens exist?if yes would they have already found us?

[Masquerouge]

I doubt there is a long term trend either. Take humanity's history for example. Do you think there is a long term trend in technology. Humans as we know has been around for about 50,000 years at least. For 45,000 (90%) of that there has been no steady progress in technology. For the next 5000 there has been halting progress. Only in the last 100 years or so there has been substantial forward progress.

That's actually an argument for the Singularity

 

[Narz]

Wow, I was very suprised at these poll results!!

 

[King Flevance]

However I think smaller "recon" missions would be able to be made rather easily with our current techs as I know them. Not "no worries at all" easy but fairly easy for someone with galaxy travel.

To add to my previous statement, if they are friendly and UFO sightings are real as of now, it will never go beyond this. I doubt we are a group they want to meet. They probably dont even like having to take a "pitstop" on our planet.

Alien1: I gotta pee.
Alien2: Can't u hold it, Earth is the closest place we can stop.
Alien1: Oh nvm, I will pee out the loading bay. Those people are nuts.

 

[betazed]

That's actually an argument for the Singularity

Actually, its an argument against Technological Singularity. Of course there are tons of other good aguments too.

 

[Masquerouge]

Actually, its an argument against Technological Singularity. Of course there are tons of other good aguments too.

I thought Singularity was derived from exponential curves... and having no progress for 49,500 years and then 500 years of blooming advances seems like an exponential curve to me.

 

[Mirc]

This poll is really making me think more about the intelligence of the people on this forum... 71% believe this sh**??????????????

I think my opinion is obvious.

 

[King Flevance]

Dude, it is pretty scary that the first thing you think of about aliens is "invasion"

Not only people advanced enough to space travel would kick our butt if they so chose, but it would be pretty amazing to be able to develop the technology to space travel only to use it to invade a random, unexceptionnal planet at the fringe of the galaxy occupied by savages whose main concern is to find ways to kill each other.

A bit like developing nukes to invade Wallis and Futuna.

Sorry to say it but I wouldnt trust them. Thats foolish. Just because they exist and have super duper technologies doesnt make their intentions pure. If their intentions were pure it would prove itself over time. Until then, my gun stays by me. Do I think it will save me? Hell no. But maybe I will take out an eye or something in my last seconds of standing up for what I am against.

If they are THAT far advanced, they had been scoping us out for a while. And if they were indeed "pure" and wished for contact it would have been more solid sooner. We get worse as we go along. How do we know Earth is a crap hole. If they had something that could exterminate us without causing harm to the rest of the world (Super-tech) then why not take it? The only reason for galactic travel is to expand. Not neccessarily for territory but for survival. Darwin includes existance, not just earth I bet.

I no doubt we would be slaughtered if this happened, but I am gonna try and at least stub a toe on my way out.

 

[El_Machinae]

Surely, on average, you can expect such an ancient civilization to be more advanced than ours.

How long have ants had their 'ancient civilization'? The evolution of the ant is very separate from the progress of our species. They've been around (and having technology - ie, building homes for the group, not themselves) for millions more years than us. But currently, we kick their butts. In fact, we've put selective pressure on them, and they still haven't advanced as quickly far as us.

That's what I mean. The rate matters.

 

[kingjoshi]

No one here is claiming in alien abductions or anything! well, AFAIK

 

[betazed]

I thought Singularity was derived from exponential curves... and having no progress for 49,500 years and then 500 years of blooming advances seems like an exponential curve to me.

What I am saying is that the 500 years of avancement could very well be a historical fluke because there is no fundamental reason why this is the beginning of a monotonical long term upward trend (at least no reason that I have seen as of yet). You see an exponential curve because you are focussing on 500 years. I see a random blip because I am focussing on 50,000 years.

Random events (asteroid strike, nuclear war, global pandemic) have the potential to set us back centuries.

Don't you think it is possible that technological progress could take a step back in such scenarios?

 

[El_Machinae]

Betazed:There certainly does seem to be a long term trend of progress, though.

Fire
Agriculture
The wheel.
Literacy
Metalworking
Mining
etc.

Once these things appeared, they seem to have stayed (especially when looking at the whole). The issue seems to be the concept of 'substantial' progress. Many of the earlier advances were necessary for the later advances.

Let humanity survive and make progress in the next 50,000 years. Then we will say that there is a trend.

This is more likely to occur if we take deliberate steps to make it more likely!

 

[warpus]

How long have ants had their 'ancient civilization'? The evolution of the ant is very separate from the progress of our species. They've been around (and having technology - ie, building homes for the group, not themselves) for millions more years than us. But currently, we kick their butts. In fact, we've put selective pressure on them, and they still haven't advanced as quickly far as us.

That's what I mean. The rate matters.

I'm talking about the time since the dawn of civilization - we've had 6,000 years. Now imagine a civilization with millions of years behind their belt.

 

[El_Machinae]

Ants HAVE had millions of years. They have a civilization. If time is a factor, then the rate is important.

 

[Masquerouge]

What I am saying is that the 500 years of avancement could very well be a historical fluke because there is no fundamental reason why this is the beginning of a monotonical long term upward trend (at least no reason that I have seen as of yet). You see an exponential curve because you are focussing on 500 years. I see a random blip because I am focussing on 50,000 years.

Oh, I don't see an exponential curve. All I'm saying is that it can be seen as exponential (no growth for a long time and then the beginning of a spike), and THAT is an argument for the Singularity

 

[Wolfe Tone]

If they do exist, they are probably too primitive to contact us or too advanced to care.

 

[Xanikk999]

This poll is really making me think more about the intelligence of the people on this forum... 71% believe this sh**??????????????

I think my opinion is obvious.

I dont think beileving intellegent life exists is stupid.

There are over a sextillion stars in the universe.

Thats 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. And to think that only one planet from those stars is able to support intellegent life is a bad assumption.

Even if our planet type is very rare the odds are very high that other earth like planets exist. And besides only LIFE AS WE KNOW IT requires the exact same conditions as our planet. Life is ever adapting to changes. I think life could adapt to harsh changes that are not seen on earth.

 

[Yuri2356]

If they do exist, they are probably too primitive to contact us or too advanced to care.

Exactly.

We'll find cavemen and angels, but not men.

 

[Eli]

I've been thinking about the Fermi Paradox lately.

The first and boring solution is the impossibility of FTL travel. It's simply impossible to travel FTL no matter how much you talk about wormholes and singularities and whatnot. All intelligent life is forever forced to use expensive chemical or nuclear propulsion and it never expands beyond it's solar system.

A second, sad, solution is that somewhere along the "technology tree" there is a tech that inevitably destroys the race that developed it. For example, a gray goo scenario. All the alien races eventually develop self replicating machines and there is something about this technology that makes these machines going out of control impossible to prevent.

A third, good, solution is that all alien races eventually develop the technology to completely control their own bodies and minds. Quickly enough, 99.9% of them turn into brains-in-a-vat. There are never enough of those who prefer reality to go for the stars.

The fourth solution, which is the best and quite unlikely one, is that we're a real fluke. We are the only intelligent lifeform in the galaxy.

Of course, many other solutions are possible but remember that they all must be universal. We didnt encounter any alien race and therefore an explanation to this phenomenon has to apply to all possible alien races.

 

[betazed]

Betazed:There certainly does seem to be a long term trend of progress, though.

Fire
Agriculture
The wheel.
Literacy
Metalworking
Mining
etc.

Not really. Each of these (apart from fire - which seems to be a pre-requisite for survival) have been lost and rediscovered multiple times. So instead of a trend what you have is oscillations above and below a mean and the mean technological level has not moved for a long time. Only when a large (critical) number of people have learnt it has the change of these technologies being lost gone to zero.

And therein lies the core of my argument.

A technology/knowledge is guranteed not to be lost (and hence you can say that the mean of the technological progress has definitely increased) when a ciritcal number of people know it. In that case, a random event cannot wipe out the knowledge (with high probability). Is that the case with most of our technological progress? i don't think so.

If we had a massive asteroid strike today, I am sure General Relativity will survive. Not too sure about M-Theory though since not too many know that. You get the idea.

Once these things appeared, they seem to have stayed (especially when looking at the whole). The issue seems to be the concept of 'substantial' progress. Many of the earlier advances were necessary for the later advances.

Many of our new technologies and knowledge require an unusual amount of stability and prosperity. If the stability is interrupted then I see no reason why we would keep that knowledge around.

This is more likely to occur if we take deliberate steps to make it more likely!

No argument there. I am all for heading to the stars. Ad Astra Per Aspera!

All I'm saying is that it can be seen as exponential (no growth for a long time and then the beginning of a spike), and THAT is an argument for the Singularity

Singularity requires not only a beginning of an exponential spike but the continuance of teh spike indefinitely. It is the 2nd requirement that I doubt.

The first and boring solution is the impossibility of FTL travel. It's simply impossible to travel FTL no matter how much you talk about wormholes and singularities and whatnot. All intelligent life is forever forced to use expensive chemical or nuclear propulsion and it never expands beyond it's solar system.

Fermi Paradox does not need FTL travel to define the paradox. The paradox exists even if there is no FTL travel. AFAIK, there is no satisfactory solution to the paradox as yet which does not violate either Occam's Razor or Principle of Mediocrity.

 

[Eli]

Fermi Paradox does not need FTL travel to define the paradox. The paradox exists even if there is no FTL travel. AFAIK, there is no satisfactory solution to the paradox as yet which does not violate either Occam's Razor or Principle of Mediocrity.

I dont see how any of the solutions I proposed violate any of these principles.

If FTL travel, or to be even more constricting, any space travel, is either impossible or so expensive as to be not worth the investment, then no race, including ourselves, will ever expand beyond it's solar system with the exception of a small number of Voyager style probes that will never be found.