Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register
Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

Life on other worlds?

AsshatAsshat
edited December 2011 in General Banter
With the discovery that Mars defiantly used to have water on its surface and maybe still does somewhere even today, new earth like planets being discoverd all the time, and just recently the Curiosity rover being sent to Mars (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15882809). What would your reaction be to the discovery of life beyond Earth? Microscopic to sentient beings?

I think I would very much feel connected with the universe more than ever before. Knowing there's more up there than there is down here just makes me feel all warm inside. We are not alone. :3

Comments

  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    Well I would have to take a lot of factors into account. Firstly if they are sentient, intelligent or not. Then also how far away, and of course how intelligent. Steven Hawkin said that we should stop trying to communicate with aliens via radio signals etc because if they did have the technology to come to our planet, they would be far superior to us. If you then go by superior species on our planet, the superior and more intelligent ones are the hunters and rule. I personally would take Mr Hawkins word because he is so clever.

    By the way, thanks for the other night for you and your partner guiding me through the setup, it has helped A LOT!! :D
  • B5CB5C Veteran
    While there is no physical evidence of life outside of Earth. The numbers and odds say that there is life outside of Earth. Stars with planets is very common with the latest discoveries with the Kepler telescope. Now we are finding a good number of them living int eh Goldilocks zones of their mother star(s) (Planets have been found orbiting binary star systems). Chances are big that there is life. Odd for "intelligent" life is another story.

    Earth took BILLIONS of years to have intelligent life forms.
  • praxispraxis

    Earth took BILLIONS of years to have intelligent life forms.
    An interesting aspect, there are much older (and more developed) areas of the galaxy. So we might ask, why don't our older siblbings ever come to visit? Is it because we are uninteresting, or the distances can't be traversed, or do sentient beings typically destroy themselves like we seem to be doing...
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    I agree that considering the sheer numbers of stars, that even with our relatively primitive instruments we know almost every star has worlds, and that the building blocks of life are very common, it is unimaginable that life is not scattered around the universe.

    But intelligent life? We're still faced with an almost infinite number of potential worlds. I'd have to say the odds must be overwhelming for it.

    But we do have one thing to consider. Someone has to be the first. Even if intelligent life pops up all the time, some race had to be the first and only one to look up at the stars and wonder. So maybe it takes a universe in its middle age to be stable enough to create life. If so, we are the first, but not the last.
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    edited December 2011
    There was never a begining or a first species to gaze up at the stars. There are infinite universes that crash into each other, there is a constant recycling if you will of universes over billions and billions of years which will carry on forever.

    If we cannot exploit wormholes or some shortcut of this nature, then the chances of us ever going to find life is near enough impossible. Even if we could travel as close to the speed of light as anything whith mass can, it would still take way too long. Also, when we see these stars, these planets and galaxies, people often forget we are looking at something that is very very old, maybe it does not even exist anymore. The light has had to travel so far that maybe supernovas have taken place before we would ever see them.

  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    I would be *much* more surprised if there weren't life everywhere in the universe. Since now know that debris from comets and asteroids contains the building block molecules for amino acids, and therefore DNA, it's a virtual certainty that life is highly abundant in the universe.
  • AsshatAsshat
    We are happy to help Tom! :3

    @praxis @B5C If there was intelligent life in this universe that got to a point where they could freely explore the universe themselves, i would imaging that they look at us as we look at ants. We see the ants building there nests, gathering resources and trying to survive. We wouldn't expect them to understand language, or place an iPod on there ant hill and expect them to listen to music. This is how a intelligent species most likely views us. Just another species that hasn't even left its world yet. We probably can't even comprehend what they would know. This distance in intelligence would defiantly be Ants as Humans and Humans as Intelligent extraterrestrials on the scale.

    An ant colony doesn't know the world beyond its territory.
  • ArjquadArjquad Veteran

    Earth took BILLIONS of years to have intelligent life forms.
    An interesting aspect, there are much older (and more developed) areas of the galaxy. So we might ask, why don't our older siblbings ever come to visit? Is it because we are uninteresting, or the distances can't be traversed, or do sentient beings typically destroy themselves like we seem to be doing...
    That's brings us to the topic of space travel. As we all know we cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Now taking that into consideration the nearest planet that may have life is about 600 light years away. For us traveling even near the speed of light, let's say a fourth of that speed, about 46,570.5 miles per second it would still take us 2,400 years to reach it. If an alien civilization was going to travel that distance just to "talk with us" it would be pointless since if they could easily do that talking to us would be pointless. There are ways to travel those distances in short amounts of time but it would take massive amounts of power to do so. One example I saw was to "fold" space so your only going from on bit to the next while skipping everything in between. But to even think about doing that we would need to use all of the energy of our sun throughout it's whole lifetime every second. To put that into perspectic just one second of the suns output could easily power the planet for thousands of years.
  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran
    Odds are that life exists elsewhere in the universe. Its still an unanswered question as to how easy it is for life to arise. Is it a freak occurance that the building blocks come together to form life or is it almost certain when the right amino acids, liquid water and an energy source come together that life will form?

    I expect that intelligent life also occurs in the universe. I don't know that they would think of us as ants though. While the gap in intelligence between us and aliens may be as great, humans are a considerable step above most life and would be of different interest than insects.
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    For an advanced species to explore the cosmos, IMO they need to neglect self destruction of every kind. That would mean in our own species the war on religions, land, and money. hmmm..... That is the one thing that will hold us back. If you are young enough, just wait a couple of decades and watch and see.

    I was in the the back earier and I got talking to an elderly Irish couple, they were very quick to change all their euros into thai baht because they said the euro is soon to be dead. i do not watch the news, so I do not know for sure, but they said I made the rigth choice of moving to the east because the west has had it's day.
  • Floating_AbuFloating_Abu Veteran

    Earth took BILLIONS of years to have intelligent life forms.
    An interesting aspect, there are much older (and more developed) areas of the galaxy. So we might ask, why don't our older siblbings ever come to visit? Is it because we are uninteresting, or the distances can't be traversed, or do sentient beings typically destroy themselves like we seem to be doing...
    I sometimes wonder where our world is heading. And even if it is all just a concoction, do we still care ?

    _{\_
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    ...they said the euro is soon to be dead
    Highly doubtful. If it did, changing them for Thai baht will be the very least of their worries. The entire world economy would collapse. Glad I have enough land to grow food to feed myself.
  • Floating_AbuFloating_Abu Veteran
    That seems to be a very good thing in today's world, @Mountains. Apparently, the Earth is already experiencing food shortages and with the world economy heading who-knows-where, food is a good bet IMO :)

    Best wishes,
    Abu
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    Food = back to basics = hunting = survival of the fitest.
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    Don't eat meat = no hunting required. Spend the time gardening instead :)
  • Telly03Telly03 Veteran
    I'm freezing poptarts :)
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    haha, yes there are many mushrooms I could eat also :rolleyes:
  • BekenzeBekenze
    haha, yes there are many mushrooms I could eat also :rolleyes:
    Mmmm... mushrooooms....

    image
  • IronRabbitIronRabbit Veteran
    "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. - Stephen Hawking

    http://www.dailytech.com/Stephen+Hawking+Says+Aliens+Probably+Out+There+Will+Want+to+Conquer+Us/article18222.htm

Sign In or Register to comment.