Assuming they want to be noticed. Maybe broadcasting your presence, and the presence of your nice lush resource laden solar system to the universe is actually foolish?
How much intelligent life is there?
- Thread starter choxorn
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Assuming they want to be noticed. Maybe broadcasting your presence, and the presence of your nice lush resource laden solar system to the universe is actually foolish?
I suspect that it is
I'm not sure if this point has been made, but on the whole point of being completely unable to calculate odds for life to occur (re Drake equation).
If those odds were indeed so small as to multiply up to that tiny number which would make us unique - why would those odds occur in the completely regular circumstances we are? We are in no exceptional galaxy, neither smack in the centre nor at some fringe of it with a pretty average sun.
Explicitly I'm making the opposite case here: If life occured here and nowhere else in this incredibly large universe, something really really special must of occured here. Before we don't find that, we should assume that plenty of intelligent life exists in other solar systems.
If those odds were indeed so small as to multiply up to that tiny number which would make us unique - why would those odds occur in the completely regular circumstances we are? We are in no exceptional galaxy, neither smack in the centre nor at some fringe of it with a pretty average sun.
Explicitly I'm making the opposite case here: If life occured here and nowhere else in this incredibly large universe, something really really special must of occured here. Before we don't find that, we should assume that plenty of intelligent life exists in other solar systems.
Gooblah
Heh...
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Your argument is flawed on the assumption that aliens would either want or somehow be forced to visit Earth. Consider the amount of extrasolar planets also assumed to exist by your argument - the probability that aliens would visit Earth, which is just one out of possibly billions of planets...?
Anywho: there's other 'intelligent' species out there, but I would bet that the great distances that must be traveled to reach another solar system would force contact to wait for a while (at least until the invention of hyperdrive/warp drive/slipspace engines).
I seems to recall a calculation somewhere that assumed a reasonable number of intelligent, advanced civilizations in our galaxy and then assumed a pace of their expansion and colonization. The conclusion was that they should have spread across the galaxy and that also our solar system should have been visited. So that calculation supported the Fermi Paradox! But of course, as long as we don´t have any actual numbers to put into these equations and calculations, we can´t say anything for sure...
My dream would be if aliens visited Earth 70 millions of year ago and took a complete sample of our biodiversity. Then they could return now and resurrect our lost dinosaurs!
My dream would be if aliens visited Earth 70 millions of year ago and took a complete sample of our biodiversity. Then they could return now and resurrect our lost dinosaurs!
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
If we really are all alone, I wonder what is the "point" of the rest of the universe? I guess only God knows...
What's the point of this bit of the universe? Why does there have to be a "point"?
Why?
Can we really be sure we're so lush and resource laden? We might be picking through a garbage dump compared to Marklar.
I think it is our duty to spread life in universe, because if life is indeed unique on Earth it is so sacred and precious. It need to survive the death of our planet, our sun and our solar system, and continue to live, evolve and prosper wherever it can...
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
I can't put a number on it, but it's very likely there's life out there. And maybe sapient life too. Considering events like gamma ray bursts and self-extinction, I'll have to go with a conservative estimate.
I think we've seen sapience convergently evolve a few times on Earth, so I'd not be surprised if it's a natural outcome of life. Once cells begin to communicate, then a nervous system can evolve to integrate that communication.
Well we know 1) we inhabit a planet suitable for at least one form of life; and 2) our solar system includes 8 (7 now??) other planets, some of which are enormous and contain vast sums of material for harvesting, and may include a wealth of other stuff we know nothing about; and 3) we have one sun, which is relatively stable, and there is nothing crazy going on in our near vicinity (that we are aware of) that would threaten the existence of the solar system or of life as we know it.
Our concept of worthwhile galactic real estate might not be very advanced. Still, I would assume any solar system with at least one planet known to harbor life, and without any sort of natural phenomenon threatening the system's immediate existence, (considering how rough and tumble the universe is out there) and with a host of other stable planets in stable orbits, (plus a huge amount of non-planetary material) and a few gas giants with material that an advanced civilization may want to harvest, we would be something another spacefaring race may have interest in.
If one were to assume that broadcasting our presence was not dangerous, the cost for being wrong would be very high. OTOH assuming it is dangerous and trying to be cautious would not preclude discovering other civilizations, instead it would mean we would be discovering them on our terms.
Then again I do like the idea of SETI, of space programs, and of exploring the universe, so I am a little conflicted there. Obviously we can't stop broadcasting or living our normal lives out of fear of invasion by some alien race. That's a little loony.
BUT the possibility that alien life could be either hostile or completely indifferent to our survival is just as likely as them being nice and cuddly...
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
What's so sacred about it?
I also suspect that alien life wouldn't have more than an academic interest in us, if that. What I don't see is what's so special about our solar system. There are bajillions of other stable suns with bajillions of other raw-material planets. Ours might be totally crappy. Sure, Pluto might be high-quality rock, but I seriously doubt that we've got extra-awesome water or anything better than what they've got over in their own neighborhood.
Yeah, I wouldn't expect us to be interesting in a 'materials' kind of way. We might be interesting to those ETs that have a compulsion to breed, if we're in their climate sweet spot. "Academic interest" was a good term, because we have a billion years of complex life built up, which is probably an intellectual resource worth mining.
Imperialmajesty
Emperor
Other: We simply don't have the data to make an informed judgment. If I had to go with my gut though, I would say a few thousand currently in this galaxy. I of course base this number on nothing.
My theory as to why intelligent life has not been discovered is that when a life-form reaches a certain level, in which the capacity to commit self-extinction becomes more and more prevalent, said life form will eventually destroy itself via warfare or other means, since the means are more and more prevalent.
This process might weed out intelligent lifeforms, leaving an all powerful remnant of unbelievably powerful lifeforms that would not give a damn about a puny planet at the edge of the galaxy called earth.
The remaining lifeforms would either be developing, which means we will never hear from them as is, or have been reduced to the stone age via extinction level warfare.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Of course, there is always the possibility of a race colonizing planets, and still killing off a a large proportion of itself via some unforeseen extinction level form of warfare.
My theory as to why intelligent life has not been discovered is that when a life-form reaches a certain level, in which the capacity to commit self-extinction becomes more and more prevalent, said life form will eventually destroy itself via warfare or other means, since the means are more and more prevalent.
This process might weed out intelligent lifeforms, leaving an all powerful remnant of unbelievably powerful lifeforms that would not give a damn about a puny planet at the edge of the galaxy called earth.
The remaining lifeforms would either be developing, which means we will never hear from them as is, or have been reduced to the stone age via extinction level warfare.
Thoughts?
EDIT: Of course, there is always the possibility of a race colonizing planets, and still killing off a a large proportion of itself via some unforeseen extinction level form of warfare.
caketastydelish
Deity
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Those that have read the Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy know the true answer to this question.
Unless FTL travel becomes a reality, it'd take us generations just to make it to another star system capable of being colonized. That's a huge logistics problem for an uncertain future of little gain.
Any civilization that existed before us or after would have the same problem.
Perfection
The Great Head.
You're missing the potential of a Goldilocks type condition, where too much one way or another might prevent life from occurring. Just because the values aren't extreme, doesn't mean that these aren't special. For example, being at the center of the galaxy would mean the solar system is more likely to brush close to another solar system, with disastrous results to worlds that might have otherwise harbored intelligent life, whereas the outskirts might not contain sufficient heavy elements to make planets; it's not implausible that only systems not too close nor too far from the center can spawn intelligent life (or life at all). There could be many many of these parameters that need to be just right for life (or intelligence) to occur. They might each be fairly typical bulk parameters, but the worlds that can support life (or intelligence), might require a very special kind of typical!
However, that's not the full story! That something really really special need not be anything astronomical! It could be that life itself is really really special and rare, even if brute astronomical conditions are common. It may be that worlds of many, sizes and shapes, in a variety of orbits around a variety of stars in a multitude of areas in plenty of galaxies might all be about as likely to have had life as Earth. It's just that that probability is very small that life would develop in the first place.
So in the end I don't believe you can assume that life (or intelligence) is common.
LucyDuke
staring at the clock
I still think it's a pretty good guess. Of course we can't know, but if I had to bet one or the other I'd go for yes.
Perfection
The Great Head.
It's about as good a strategy as throwing scissors I guess...
I really don't see any compelling reason why to guess one way over the other.
I really don't see any compelling reason why to guess one way over the other.
Yes, and Reagano knows too. We've simply never been.
Also, like why all the necros today? First day of necromancy season
?There are a couple or overarching hypotheses I'd subscribe too though. The first is the rightly oft-repeated observation that we haven't been observing, or broadcasting, anything for all but the tiniest fraction of cosmic time. The second is something technically unknowable but I think it does mislead a lot of regular people. It really does break my heart, I know, I wish it weren't so, but I'd put a good probably that the laws of our universe really do preclude the existence of stuff that's commonly found in sci-fi, that people assume about aliens. For instance, a good place to start, if FTL just really wasn't possible, that puts a huge limit on the expansion and contact of all civilizations, including our own.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
IMO it would be statistically unlikely for life to only emerge in one place, out of all the places that exist. There must be more of it out there.
Intelligent life? It would be weird if it only arose here - I'd call that a miracle. Heck, there's probably bacon out there somewhere too - the Universe is insanely huge.
Intelligent life? It would be weird if it only arose here - I'd call that a miracle. Heck, there's probably bacon out there somewhere too - the Universe is insanely huge.
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