Do You Believe In Aliens?

[belligerent drunk]

The conditions needed to sustain life have been found in other places, it's very shortsighted to assume our little rock is the only source of sentience in the universe. What makes us any different than any other planet?

Given the immense number of other planets, and yeah it indeed is mind-boggling how large our universe is, I think it is rather unlikely that Earth has been the only planet to harbor life. However, I also believe it is rather unlikely that there is more than one intelligent life in our universe at the same time, or if there is, that we'll ever have the ability to interact with eachother.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^Hey MDAO. Nice to see your name again

Thanks willow! It's good to be back.

 

[Nixiam]

I believe in possibilities.

 

[babyangel_]

most people dont beleive me when i tell them what happened to me when i was 3 years old.
i was staying with my family at a rented mobile home temporary while this house was being built.
i woke up in the wee hours of the morning around 2 or 3 am i need to use the toilet , when i came back i was standing at the doorway of the bedroom and i saw an alien standing next to my bed around 12 feet from me . it wasnt dark the hallway light was left on , we stared at each other for over an hour i saw it move occasionally under the bed or try to hop on the bed. my mom would sleep in the same bed as me since dad was working nights at the time as a trucker . my mom woke up eventually told me to come to bed , i said " no mom , the bear , the bear" , i had no idea what the word alien or exterrestrial was so thats what i called it a bear. so i went around to the other side of the bed to get in . and i went to sleep .

i really know what i saw that night i woiuld swear to you on my grandmother's grave for you to beleive me .

another unexplained event happened to me when i was 11 or 12 , i was with a friend outside late late at night like midnight or 1am , we were sitting near the ditch on driveway talking / hanging out . down the road like 250 feet away at the time it was wooded on both sides of the road i saw a fast moving being about the size of a human move back and forth to each side of the wooded area very fast , too fast for a person to move . my friend had to go that direction to go home she had to go another way to avoid this area

 

[polymath]

However, I also believe it is rather unlikely that there is more than one intelligent life in our universe at the same time

Remember that there are about 10²³ stars in the observable universe. A number with an order of magnitude similar to Avogadro's number. I don't see it as unlikely at all that there could be overlap between the time intervals of existence of different intelligent species in the universe.

 

[Nixiam]

There are no forms of higher intelligence or parallel 'dimensions' / 'realities'. That's as silly as saying that we're being grown. Consciousness is rooted in physical matter. Now everyone get back to work evolutionarily chasing the concept of infinity by reproducing and developing consciousness. I wonder if there's a reason we experience the emotion of hate when we reproduce

We cannot necessarily say that.

 

[neurotic]

It bugs me how immensely anthropocentric and short-sighted the notion of 'intelligent life outside of Earth' is. What is 'life', what is 'intelligent'? Those are but *human* concepts, and when we ask 'is there intelligent life outside of Earth's we are actually asking 'is there something like us out there'. For some reason, matter has arranged itself in this fashion, here on this 'planet'. Why would it have to be arranged in any similar way, or even, in any way that could be 'interesting' to us or that we could grasp, anywhere else? Given the vastness of the universe and the limitations of our minds, I'd expect most things out there on sideral space to be pretty fucking crazy in ways we probably cannot even conceive, very possibly not reassembling anything with which we're familiar. [Of course, this does not exclude the possibility of there actually being something anthropomorphic out there]

Given how human-like, or at least, carbon-based-lifeform-like aliens seem to be in popular culture, I think that as such they are more elements of collective imagination, like ghosts or spirits, than anything else - no wonder that aliens attract exactly the same type of people that are attracted to other supernatural ideas already.

 

[polymath]

It bugs me how immensely anthropocentric and short-sighted the notion of 'intelligent life outside of Earth' is. What is 'life', what is 'intelligent'? Those are but *human* concepts, and when we ask 'is there intelligent life outside of Earth's we are actually asking 'is there something like us out there'. For some reason, matter has arranged itself in this fashion, here on this 'planet'. Why would it have to be arranged in any similar way, or even, in any way that could be 'interesting' to us or that we could grasp, anywhere else? Given the vastness of the universe and the limitations of our minds, I'd expect most things out there on sideral space to be pretty fucking crazy in ways we probably cannot even conceive, very possibly not reassembling anything with which we're familiar. [Of course, this does not exclude the possibility of there actually being something anthropomorphic out there]

Creation of any kind of life (abiogenesis) probably begins with some amphiphilic compounds forming membranes that enclose a space, because a living organism must be able to contain itself (I don't think there will ever be a living creature that can be dissolved in a liquid solution and then precipitated again, retaining its identity in the process) and that kind of membranes are the physically easiest way to do it. Genetic code will probably not always be in the form of nucleic acids, because it's easy to imagine alternative compounds for information storage, the same applies to the storage of energy in the form of carbohydrates and ATP. Most living creatures that can perceive light will probably have two "eyes" because that's the only way to get an effective stereoscopic vision.

 

[No one]

Belief has nothing to do with it. The sheer size of the universe dictates there is no way we are it.

 

[Profit Prophet]

The only reason we question if we are anomalous, is because we hate ourselves?
Society and intelligence: not the result of alien intervention.
There is no missing link. We were supposed to build machines.
This is not something to detach from nature.

Nature builds man. Man builds machine. Therefore, nature builds machine.
From everything we understand of evolution, there is no reason to assume technology (so, intelligent life) is not widespread.

 

[vortech]

I like the idea of a higher intelligence, we can call it God or Aliens but they are one and the same, I call them the engineers. This Universe is their simulation, and Earth is basically just a big science experiment for them. The more humanity comes to realize this and understand the engineering behind it, the closer we get to making this world as we see it in our dreams.

 

[polymath]

I like the idea of a higher intelligence, we can call it God or Aliens but they are one and the same, I call them the engineers. This Universe is their simulation, and Earth is basically just a big science experiment for them. The more humanity comes to realize this and understand the engineering behind it, the closer we get to making this world as we see it in our dreams.

You might like the ideas presented here: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-real-physicists-method-universe-simulation.html . Looks like it's possible to test experimentally whether our universe is really a simulation, like prof. Nick Bostrom from Oxford suggested. Not that I'd take this very seriously myself, though.

 

[belligerent drunk]

Remember that there are about 10²³ stars in the observable universe. A number with an order of magnitude similar to Avogadro's number. I don't see it as unlikely at all that there could be overlap between the time intervals of existence of different intelligent species in the universe.

Yes, and also consider how short of a time period our intelligent life has existed for (for about 10^-7 of the lifetime of our universe). And I don't mean just any kind of life, but intelligent life comparable to the level of intelligence of ours, it would require not just any conditions, so only a small portion of the stars would potentially qualify as harbors for such life. I just think the chances of us existing at the same extremely short time-frame is very small (although obviously not nonexistant). But these are just my speculations, that's all.

 

[belligerent drunk]

Creation of any kind of life (abiogenesis) probably begins with some amphiphilic compounds forming membranes that enclose a space, because a living organism must be able to contain itself (I don't think there will ever be a living creature that can be dissolved in a liquid solution and then precipitated again, retaining its identity in the process) and that kind of membranes are the physically easiest way to do it. Genetic code will probably not always be in the form of nucleic acids, because it's easy to imagine alternative compounds for information storage, the same applies to the storage of energy in the form of carbohydrates and ATP. Most living creatures that can perceive light will probably have two "eyes" because that's the only way to get an effective stereoscopic vision.

This might be a very far-fetched idea, but it occurred to some at some point. The life on Earth is basically a cascade of physicochemical processes reproducing themselves into similar collections of molecules, ions etc (basically chemistry based life). Would it be possible that there could exist some other form of self-replicating process resembling life? Something dependent on nuclear processes, or some form of radiation? Probably sounds ridiculously stupid, but seems interesting to me nonetheless. The interesting thing about it is we would probably be unable to detect such form of life because the fundamental processes would be so different from ours.

 

[polymath]

This might be a very far-fetched idea, but it occurred to some at some point. The life on Earth is basically a cascade of physicochemical processes reproducing themselves into similar collections of molecules, ions etc (basically chemistry based life). Would it be possible that there could exist some other form of self-replicating process resembling life? Something dependent on nuclear processes, or some form of radiation? Probably sounds ridiculously stupid, but seems interesting to me nonetheless. The interesting thing about it is we would probably be unable to detect such form of life because the fundamental processes would be so different from ours.

In the Scifi novel "Dragon's egg" written by the physicist Robert L Forward there is a nuclear matter based life form that lives on the surface of a neutron star. I've seen one Finnish professor write that he thinks this is a really good book, but I haven't read it yet. I think the problem with life occurring in such conditions is that as you know, in high-temperature conditions the Gibbs energy change of processes (which dictates what kind of processes are thermodynamically possible) mostly depends on the entropy change and very little on the enthalpy change. Therefore processes that occur in the nuclear matter of a neutron star would probably tend to higher entropy (disorder) and that would exclude the formation of complex low-entropy structures that are typical of life.

Most radiation fields, including the electromagnetic field, have linear field equations and therefore there can't occur a formation of complex patterns in them. Sufficiently strong gravitational fields are an exception to this, and there are so called "Mixmaster" theories of cosmological geometry where the spacetime curvature behaves chaotically. Maybe there exists some cosmological scale life-form that is "made of" spacetime curvature patterns and spans an area of millions of light years, who knows? (just kidding)

 

[Xorkoth]

I've often ruminated on the idea that life could exist in drastically different forms. I mean, here on Earth, due to early factors in the planet's history, life evolved the way it did, carbon-based, with DNA proteins to carry forward information. But it seems entirely likely to me that in some different set of circumstances it could have evolved in a very different way. I mean we barely understand consciousness as it is, who's to say what requirement there is for some collection of matter to become self-replicating, let alone conscious. Ultimately, all we know about is our own planet's life system, so all we can base our knowledge off of is that. One planet around one star among one galaxy among hundreds of billions of observed galaxies.

 

[belligerent drunk]

In the Scifi novel "Dragon's egg" written by the physicist Robert L Forward there is a nuclear matter based life form that lives on the surface of a neutron star. I've seen one Finnish professor write that he thinks this is a really good book, but I haven't read it yet. I think the problem with life occurring in such conditions is that as you know, in high-temperature conditions the Gibbs energy change of processes (which dictates what kind of processes are thermodynamically possible) mostly depends on the entropy change and very little on the enthalpy change. Therefore processes that occur in the nuclear matter of a neutron star would probably tend to higher entropy (disorder) and that would exclude the formation of complex low-entropy structures that are typical of life.

Most radiation fields, including the electromagnetic field, have linear field equations and therefore there can't occur a formation of complex patterns in them. Sufficiently strong gravitational fields are an exception to this, and there are so called "Mixmaster" theories of cosmological geometry where the spacetime curvature behaves chaotically. Maybe there exists some cosmological scale life-form that is "made of" spacetime curvature patterns and spans an area of millions of light years, who knows? (just kidding)

Well, this is what I'm talking about. To us, the fundamental principles of life (such as maintaining low entropy) are necessary, but what if it's only one of the possible configurations? I mean, how much do we really know about the universe?

Of course, this is purely non-scientific speculation, but it's just one of those mindfuck things that have occurred to me when on psychedelics. The main problem is that we may not be able to recognize the life even if its right in front of us. Dark matter anyone? Again, I'm not being serious, just putting a few out-there thoughts out... there (that pun).

I've often ruminated on the idea that life could exist in drastically different forms. I mean, here on Earth, due to early factors in the planet's history, life evolved the way it did, carbon-based, with DNA proteins to carry forward information. But it seems entirely likely to me that in some different set of circumstances it could have evolved in a very different way. I mean we barely understand consciousness as it is, who's to say what requirement there is for some collection of matter to become self-replicating, let alone conscious. Ultimately, all we know about is our own planet's life system, so all we can base our knowledge off of is that. One planet around one star among one galaxy among hundreds of billions of observed galaxies.

Yes, our understanding of life is limited to what we have learned about life on Earth. As far as life based on chemistry, I think it's safe to assume that it would most likely have to be carbon-based, because that's the most flexible element in terms of compound formation. But you never know...

 

[vortech]

In related news, I feel like the Earth Coincidence Control Office has been very busy recently...anyone else feel what I'm saying?

 

[Kittycat5]

No.

 

[Xorkoth]

Yes, our understanding of life is limited to what we have learned about life on Earth. As far as life based on chemistry, I think it's safe to assume that it would most likely have to be carbon-based, because that's the most flexible element in terms of compound formation. But you never know...

Yeah I was going to mention this but decided not to because I think it's a bit colored by our only frame of reference for what life can be. But you're right, carbon is the perfect molecule to base life on, at least from our perspective, because of how good it is at forming bonds with other molecules. I wouldn't be surprised if carbon-based would be the most common way for life to form in the universe, but when considering how else life may exist in the universe, unfortunately all we can really do is speculate, at this point.

I hope the earth really has been visited by extraterrestrial intelligent life, because that would mean that some method of travel that circumvents the speed of light limitation must exist, and that would mean that one day it could become feasible for us to actually travel to other places and truly discover things that we can only speculate about. If it's not possible to travel faster than the speed of light, then I don't see how it's at all feasible that we or any other form of life could ever actually visit another. The time scales required to travel such overwhelmingly vast distances are too prohibitive. And once gone, even communication of any kind back and forth would be limited by the speed of light.