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Do you Think there is Intelligent Alien Life?

After reading Lilys reports on dolphins, I'm not sure we would recognize another intelligent species even if it was right in front of us.
 
rantNrave said:
Any formula is nonsense until realistic and accurate numbers are plugged in to it.The problem with the Drake equation is that until we find accurate numbers to plug in, we won't have any way to even speculate what the numbers should be. In other words, we need more data, but that doesn't make the formula shit. You have to know what you're trying to calculate before you can have an answer.
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lol
That reminds me of Hitchhikerss Guide to the Galaxy. They built that machine to figure out the secret of the universe. First they realized that they needed to figure out what the question was. Finally the answer was some seemingly meaningless number like 42. Probably had some numerological significance but pretty much doesnt get you any closer to the answer from where you are now.
 
I wouldn't bet that there is intelligent alien life out there. However, I am totally open to the possibility intelligent life could be supported on other planets and I wouldn't be super surprised if there was. I feel the same about aliens as I do about gods. I doesn't really make sense to me to assume they exist but if there is proof then there is proof and that means it's real.

mihna said:
After reading Lilys reports on dolphins, I'm not sure we would recognize another intelligent species even if it was right in front of us.
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Apparently belugas are pretty smart too, so are some apes. I would not be surprised if one day we realize there is other intelligent life of the planet but I know humans are too conceded to treat another species as an equal.
 
Sentience said:
lol
That reminds me of Hitchhikerss Guide to the Galaxy. They built that machine to figure out the secret of the universe. First they realized that they needed to figure out what the question was. Finally the answer was some seemingly meaningless number like 42. Probably had some numerological significance but pretty much doesnt get you any closer to the answer from where you are now.
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I absolutely LOVE that book/movie!!!!It always seems to be capable of reminding me that we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously. Laughter is such a beautiful thing.


MAGRATHEA!!!!!!
 
moonyham said:
Supposing that right now there is, 5000 civilizations, capable of space travel at light speed. It would still take millions of years before any of them found us, and thats supposing they were looking, and thats supposing they would want to even talk to us.
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A race capable of interstellar space travel would probably figure out how to go faster than light speed. Once they progress to the point of transdimensional technologies and evolution, which is very likely considering how much of a head start other civilizations can have, long distances become less of an issue.
 
Yerg said:
A race capable of interstellar space travel would probably figure out how to go faster than light speed. Once they progress to the point of transdimensional technologies and evolution, which is very likely considering how much of a head start other civilizations can have, long distances become less of an issue.
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^If only that weren't physically impossible...
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It may not be directly possible, but who's to say we won't eventually find a way to "hack" physics into doing what we want? We've already managed to hack electrons into moving from one object to another without applying current (quantum tunneling is awesome). I know that's an unrelated example, but it demonstrates that all is not as it seems, especially when it comes to physics :D
 
Physics is an ever-changing science. What is considered physical law today may not be tomorrow. There are already several ways to travel "faster than light", albeit only theoretical as of now.
As far as I know however, we(or at least I) have no criteria in which to say an alien species "probably" will do anything.
 
there are several theoretical ways to travel faster than light
also once we have a proper understanding of the universe in which we live, there will no doubt be more
FTL travel in some form will become a fact at some point in the future, i have no doubt of that
 
If you consider that in roughly 100 years we have discovered what we believe to be the 24 fundamental particles of nature, its pretty safe to assume that lifeforms with some billions years head start on us would have been able to fully understand the workings of the universe.

The question is would a complete understanding of the nature of the universe enable them to accomplish things we find physically/theoretically impossible (or just cannot even imagine)?

Who knows, the key to finding other intelligent life may very well involve looking deeper and deeper into the fabric of space-time around us, rather than traveling large distances faster than light.
 
We're Unique in the Univirse (No Aliens)

I believe we are unique in the universe & we should appreciate nature. Copied this from my website. . . .

Rare Earth Factors

From: Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, Peter D. Wood & Donald Brownlee, 2000

Astrobiologists, Wood & Brownlee postulate that the following 18 factors prohibit or hinder bacteria from evolving into complex life.


Right distance from star
Habitat for complex life.
Liquid water near surface.
Far enough to avoid tidal lock.

Right planetary mass
Retain atmosphere and ocean.
Enough heat for plate tectonics.
Solid/molten core.

Plate tectonics
CO2-silicate thermostat.
Build up land mass.
Enjance biotic diversity.
Enable magnetic field.

The right tilt
Seasons not too severe.

Atmospheric properties
Maintenance of adequate temperature, composition and pressure for plants and animals.

Right kind of galaxy
Enough heavy elements.
Not small, elliptical, or irregular.

Right mass of star (sun)
Long enough lifetime.
Not too much ultraviolet.

Jupiter-like neighbor
Clear out comets and asteroids.
Not too close, not too far.

Ocean
Not too much.
Not too little.

Giant impacts
Few giant impacts.
No global sterilizing impacts after an initial period.

Biological evolution
Successful evolutionary pathway to complex plants and animals.

Right position in galaxy
Not in center, edge or halo.

Stable planetary orbits
Giant planets do not create chaos.

A Mars
Small neighbor as possible life source to seed earth-like planet, if needed.

Large Moon
Right distance.
Stabilizes tilt.

Right amount of carbon
Enough for life.
Not enough for Runaway greenhouse.

Evolution of oxygen
Invention of photosynthesis.
Not too much or too little.
Evolves at the right time.

Wild Cards
Snowball Earth.
Cambrian explosion.
Inertial interchange event.

Another proof: Aliens don't exist
By Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 11/11/03

Suppose, for example, that the first alien spaceship that sets out for another star takes a million years to arrive there and become established. Then the new colony and the original civilization each send a spaceship on a similar voyage, and so forth, so that a wave of new colonies is formed, doubling the total number every million years.

After 10 million years, there will be 1023 alien settlements, plus the original. After 20 million years, there will be amillion. After 40 million years, if they keep it up, there would be a trillion -- more than there are stars in the galaxy.

By now, after 10 billion years, if there were more than one spacefaring civilization in the galaxy, they would be tripping over one another or one another's artifacts [and raidowaves]. But in fact there seems to be nothing.

The Radiation Factor
New York Times, 12/09/03

Alien beings from outer space would not only have to contend with traveling many light years from home but with radiation: Americans receive an annual average dose of 200 millirems of radiation. A chest x-ray is 8 to 50 mrems. A person in Kerala, India (where there's lots of sun) receives 1300 mrems/year. A person on the space station for 84days receives 17,800 mrems but a one year trip to and from Mars would entail a fatal 80,000 mrems.
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There is a whole set of problems that must be addressed before WE can set out among the stars. Artificial gravity to combat bone density loss and muscle atrophy, sheilding from stellar radiation and micro-meteor impact, crew habitability issues, finite survival resources and fuel, artificial intelligence to run the ship. These are just a few of the problems NASA is currently working on. There is a theoretical propulsion method that proposes the use of solar wind to power a spacecraft which would solve a big portion of the fuel storage issue and allow travel at speeds far beyond what we can travel now. But, unfortunately it would not allow us to travel faster than the speed of light. For that, we would probably have to use ( pardon the cheesey terminology, and the fact that this concept is PURELY theoretical ) a warp drive system. Which causes a wave or warp in space/time that the spacecraft rides like a surfer. It works much like an aircraft at sub-sonic speed, space/time compresses in front of the spacecraft and creates a wave behind it. The spacecraft rides the wave like a surfer and theoretically can travel at tremendous speeds but this technology is years, maybe even decades from reaching reality.
In order to reach out into space we HAVE to be able to reach speeds beyond the speed of light because the distances are so vast in space. The nearest star to our solar system, Andromeda, is 5 lightyears away, thats 30 TRILLION miles. And that is 5 years traveling AT the speed of light, which we currently cannot do. Einstien theorized that light speed was the absolute speed limit of the universe, so faster than light travel may not even be possible. We have no idea whether matter can even exist traveling at those speeds or what effects it will have on us, fragile beings that we are. We may instead be looking at finding a way to travel across the universe inter-dimensionally. No matter what, in order for us to reach out into space we are going to have to have another quantum leap in technology.
Any extra-terrestrial civilization that is capable of inter-stellar travel will have already had to solve these problems. We are just reaching beyond our first tenuous steps outside our atmosphere. We have big problems to solve before we can get there. Who knows, maybe in order for us to make the leap into deep space, we may need a bit of tutoring from our extra-terrestrial nieghbors. We may not be able to solve these problems on our own. Either way, we have a long way to go before we're ready to travel among the stars.
 
Artificial gravity is easily created through revolving modules, though these have to be put together in orbit. But I'm sure a spacefaring race would have figured out a better solution to this a long time ago, as with the radiation problem.

Technically though, if they had the technology to open hyperspace windows to travel through, all they'd have to do is travel just under our visible space fabric, taking a shortcut if you will. Then, if they were advanced enough to make wormhole drives, we'd be talking about a totally new kind of travel, way past anything us pitiful humans could create, for a long time anyway. What else? Vibrational drives. When one reaches the speed of light, it turns to energy. If one could manipulate this effect, travel through space would take on new meanings.
 
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Interesting discussion... We will not see intelligent aliens in our time. But I have no doubt that they exist and will expose themselves sooner or later.

Either that, or we will find them.
 
First off, of course there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. To believe otherwise, to me, seems only to be willful ignorance.

As for the more pertinent question, seeing as how this thread is evolving, as to wherher-or-not they have visited THIS planet? I have no idea but it is certainly possible.

The whole brouhaha over UFOs though? Absolute nonsense. Why would a civilisation able to traverse a galaxy be so incompetent to leave themselves vulnerable to detection by what must be unimaginably primative technology?

Funny though, read the earlier parts of the Old Testament it actually seems to be talking about some kind of extra-terrestrial visitation(s) so who knows?
 
rachamim said:
Why would a civilisation able to traverse a galaxy be so incompetent to leave themselves vulnerable to detection by what must be unimaginably primative technology?
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I would hardly call the human eye "unimaginably primitive" 8)
There are hundreds if not thousands of eyewitness reports of UFOs and aliens every year. Of course the majority of these are debunked but a sizeable percentage of these remains unexplained.

And we're perfectly capable of traversing galaxies as well I don't know what gave you idea that we're not. It's just that using conventional rocket technology would take many thousands of years to do so is all :)
 
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