Astronomy / Space THIS and THAT... are we alone?

S3B4ST13N

S
400 billion stars in one galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies we have found so far.. and ... we're it? Humans are the only intelligent lifeforms? To think we, humanity, are the most intelligent species in the universe is arrogance of the highest order, IMHO. So for me, this is not a question that needs answering. :)
 

Florenus

Florenus
r0ckhat said:
400 billion stars in one galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies we have found so far.. and ... we're it? Humans are the only intelligent lifeforms? To think we, humanity, are the most intelligent species in the universe is arrogance of the highest order, IMHO. So for me, this is not a question that needs answering. :)
Click to expand...

True dat.
 

Cmdr Beteran

Cmdr Beteran
r0ckhat said:
400 billion stars in one galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies we have found so far.. and ... we're it? Humans are the only intelligent lifeforms? To think we, humanity, are the most intelligent species in the universe is arrogance of the highest order, IMHO. So for me, this is not a question that needs answering. :)
Click to expand...

Surely we are not alone. But what about Thargoids?

Are we free of Thargoids?
 

Dillon Fallon

Dillon Fallon
Given that there's no guarantee that we can perceive or understand all possible means of communication, it's not impossible that they could even within the local cluster of stars. If they're a similar stage as us or less advanced, we'd never know with our current technology.
 
Last edited:

viper666

V
Even using a very low probability calculation Loyd Motz calculated roughly 10,000 other species of intelligent life in the universe.
If we are alone, it's an awful waste of space. :D

When you factor in quantum physics and the possibility of parallel dimensions it gets even more interesting.
 

SuperFixxxeR

SuperFixxxeR
r0ckhat said:
400 billion stars in one galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies we have found so far.. and ... we're it? Humans are the only intelligent lifeforms? To think we, humanity, are the most intelligent species in the universe is arrogance of the highest order, IMHO. So for me, this is not a question that needs answering. :)
Click to expand...

Humanity is what, 200,000 years old? In terms of things happening in out in space that is an extremely short period of time.

"Are we the only ones" is a fascinating question, we can all agree with that, but what I can't get my head around is timing.

A good example of what I mean is humanity and dinosaurs... We never 'crossed over' during our existences. So lets say the dinosaurs never existed on Earth, they existed on... Venus or Mars and as humans we found evidence of this... Humanity would have found evidence of a "primitive alien race" that was already extinct... called "dinosaurs", who unfortunately didn't live long enough to meet humanity... so dinosaurs may as well be aliens to us humans, as all we can do is research what they were, they're alien enough in that they were really just big animals that started to prosper, until the planet they lived on was hit by an asteroid (using the generally accepted reason why the dinosaurs died out there)

Now imagine humanity as dinosaurs (raptor claws out, everyone, grrr) - What I'm saying is that humanity will die out, before it meets any other form of intelligent life because lets say humanity prospers in total for roughly 3 million years (before we all die from some sort of epidemic, kill each other, get hit by an asteroid like our dinosaur friends, run out of resources and never manage to establish off-world colonies etc etc) even 3 million years is a short period of time in terms of the universe and space etc.

Another advanced civilisation may overlap our existence, but we never meet because we never find them or vice versa and humanity ends up dying out, or they die out. Maybe an advanced civilisation starts to prosper 1 million years after humanity dies out? Maybe an advanced civilisation has already died out?

So, yes I agree it may be arrogant to think we are the only forms of -life- in the universe... as there will be microbes and bacteria and all manner of 'living' things out in space and on other planets, but -intelligent life-... mmmph.

Realistic caps on, humanity will likely live and die before we see life anywhere else... I believe we will literally 'miss' anything else that exists because as humans, we won't live long enough.

Dark, sober thoughts for a Thursday morning. Sorry :p
 

Thatchinho

Thatchinho
Auronio said:
From time to time these questions come up.
And then I think and feel it's kind of beyond human imagination, maybe beyond our brain capacity. Yet.
Don't know. But utterly fascinating.

https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/news-display.cfm?News_ID=573


http://www.hawking.org.uk/life-in-the-universe.html
Click to expand...
What's is it that you're thinking's beyond human imagination or brain capacity, OP? I'm kind of not getting what you're referring to on that front.

Do you mean the concept that we might be alone in the universe? If that's the case, then there's really a few different questions:

- are we the only planet with life in the entire current universe? (Possible but extremely improbable)

- are we alone in a practical sense? (Possible, and definitely not improbable)

(They're both very different propositions.)
 
Last edited:

Ian Skippy

Ian Skippy
r0ckhat said:
400 billion stars in one galaxy out of 100 billion galaxies we have found so far.. and ... we're it? Humans are the only intelligent lifeforms? To think we, humanity, are the most intelligent species in the universe is arrogance of the highest order, IMHO. So for me, this is not a question that needs answering. :)
Click to expand...

Small but relevant addition: are you sure other intelligent lifeforms outside out solar system exist now? Yes, space is big. Time is also vast. You could have thousands of civilizations, none ever overlapping in time.
 

Shiro Akai

Shiro Akai
Are we alone? Several answers to that and none of them satisfying since all of them give another issue. From memory:
- yes, we are. Humanity is the first highly intelligent species in the Universe. There will always be the first one and it just happen to be us. It means that we are those "aliens" that will be told in myths of other, future races. If we survive long enough to start roaming the space.


- no, we are not. But this can be divided into next cases:
1. we, the intelligent species, are spread too far away from each other so it's virtually impossible for us to meet in the life span of a species.
2. we are in totally different level of technology. Although we are technological and reached into space, our alien neighbors may still be in "dark ages"
3. we live/lived in different eras. Our neighbors may be long extinct or we may be long extinct when our neighbors will reach stars.
4. life exists on totally different basis so we could not realize it's life for it's so different.

SETI has an equation that estimates there are tens or hundred of thousands other civilizations out there. But I fear that distance factor is that great we may never meet.
 

Das Boot

Das Boot
The probability that Earth is the only life bearing planet is almost nil.

The probability that we are the only intelligent life in our version of space-time is likewise almost nil.

The chance of meeting another intelligent life form in the absence.of FTL and or time travel is similarly, vanishingly small.

Edit: Kind of ninja'd by Skippy
 
Last edited:

Auronio

Auronio
Thatchinho said:
What's is it that you're thinking's beyond human imagination or brain capacity, OP? I'm kind of not getting what you're referring to on that front.

Do you mean the concept that we might be alone in the universe? If that's the case, then there's really a few different questions:

- are we the only planet with life in the entire current universe? (Possible but extremely improbable)

- are we alone in a practical sense? (Possible, and definitely not improbable)

(They're both very different propositions.)
Click to expand...

With beyond imagination I refer to the sheer unfathomable size of universe and the number of stars, planets, etc out there. Yes, we can describe it in numbers but I think sometimes that it's way outside of the scale of human experience in terms of the three dimensions of space and the fourth time.
Would a bacteria comprehend the idea of the planet Earth?
Can we comprehend the idea of an Universe?

With regards to your two questions I believe
No, we are not alone
Yes, as experience tells us currently

However, when did we start thinking actively about the concept of alien life and when did we start developing technology which might some time in the future enable us to communicate let alone travel to other species. Or them to us?
For human mankind, 100 years? For sure best case something in the range of centuries.
That's absolutely NOTHING!

Personally I believe there are two reasons why we haven't found/been contacted already.
- In terms of space and time our activity is not more than a blink of an eye. Too short to be heard/detected by anybody.
- Sheer size of Milky Way let alone Universe. How likely is it advanced tech species already developped transwarp/FSD/wormhole/whatever travelling or shorter - travelling beyond light speed? If not, they have the same chance to reach us than we have to reach them - ZERO.

But I don't stop hoping the best for the future (which might be one of millions of years...)
 
Last edited:

Thalion Solarstorm

Thalion Solarstorm
We are certainly not the only World with "intelligent" Life in the Universe. But then again "intelligent" is also totally subjective. We even might be Part of a bigger Lifeform and our Galaxy just a Bloodspeck in teh Veines of a cosmic Beeing. Who knows ? From our narrowbanded View and Perception at least we are pretty much unique.

In this Iteration of Life at least, we are one "Model" of that Carbon, Water Experiment of our Galaxy.


Cheers!
 

Rob At Work

R
"I think we're alone now"

Tiffanny

PS I think there are some humans who currently trying to disprove your theory that humans are intelligent creatures
 
Last edited:

Auronio

Auronio
Ian Skippy said:
Small but relevant addition: are you sure other intelligent lifeforms outside out solar system exist now? Yes, space is big. Time is also vast. You could have thousands of civilizations, none ever overlapping in time.
Click to expand...

This is both an ingenious and terrifying idea/concept.
I like it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom