We are alone in the galaxy

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

To get to quantum communication they would probably have had to go through the radio stage so those radio communications would be traveling the Galaxy , those are what we're looking for.

a reply to: gortex

would probably have had to go through the radio stage

Most certainly..because...remember....they look exactly like us.

a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

So you don't think they would follow a progression in technology ?
They don't have to look like us but I'm sure they would work through technological stages before they achieve their "quantum communication" , radio would likely be part of that progression.

a reply to: gortex
Ever thought about , if we are a faster advanced planet/species then all the habitable planets in our vicinity ? And that the evolution of the other habitable planets are not even at the radio transmission age and live as ancient Rome.

And the civilizations that are more advanced then us have a " high evolved encryption method ,so we never know that its an encrypted message because it looks just like static ( quote Edward Snowden" ) Then we live in between and we cant hear both of those civilizations ....

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: wildespace
And that we've been listening to the cosmos using radio telescopes for decades and no communications or signals have been heard , SETI itself is over 50 years old and with their upgrades we should have heard something by now , the Wow signal is the best we got.

The fact that we haven't heard ET doesn't mean they aren't out there but it may be an indication that technological civs are few and far between, I hope that's not the case but we should prepare ourselves for the possibility.

That's a more reasonable possibility than saying outright that there are no intelligent civilisations in our galaxy at all.

A few decades is a short period of time in cosmic terms, and we might be one of the first civilisations to have evolved. Younger star systems might not have had sufficient amounts of heavier elements for life and intelligence.

a reply to: xoenneox

Why are people confused by how radio signals work. They don't arrive 180k years after we build the equipment...

How can people be this dense?

And I am sorry to the poster above. I don't mean to pick on them, but this was like the 4th post with the same premise. Everyone who thinks we can't find radio signals for several thousand years needs to educate themselves. All we have to do is point a listening device in the right direction and we will hear something. We've been doing that for decades.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: wildespace

He and that other guy cite the fact that we haven't been visited or contacted by ET civilisations, as the sole and fundamental reason to assume that we're alone in our galaxy.

And that we've been listening to the cosmos using radio telescopes for decades and no communications or signals have been heard , SETI itself is over 50 years old and with their upgrades we should have heard something by now , the Wow signal is the best we got.

The fact that we haven't heard ET doesn't mean they aren't out there but it may be an indication that technological civs are few and far between , I hope that's not the case but we should prepare ourselves for the possibility.

I really do not understand why your think that we MUST have heard something by now.

50 years? That is NOTHING.

We could have been listening for 200 years or more, and it still would not mean that we MUST hear something by now.

What part of "space is BIG" do you not understand? You've been told this several times in this thread: there could be a huge empire a thousand lightyears away, and we would not hear a damn thing from them if their radio signals have not reached here yet.

So SETI has been listening for 50 years. Big whoop.

Although the world's collective SETI programs have by now probably looked in most of the possible directions at some frequency for some period of time, we've so far only looked reliably out to a distance of perhaps 200 light years. But our galaxy is 100,000 LY in diameter. So in terms of the volume of interstellar space, we've seen less than one fifteen millionth of our own Milky Way galaxy.

SETI League

And in that 50 years, we have barely scratched the surface, and by NO means have we listened in on every star out there worth listening to in our own galaxy.

This has been pointed out several times in this thread. I'm sorry, but are you ignoring those posts?

There could be very well a advanced civilization on a planet around a star, only 600 lightyears away from us. If they invented radio 500 years ago (making them more than likely more advanced than us), we still would not hear their radio signals for another 100 years from now!!!

Worse: to hear them if it's radio signals, you're not going to use just any old radio and it's antenna. You're going to need one that is directional, and super sensitive, because those radio signals are going to be very, very, very weak by the time they get here.

Take yourself out to somewhere dark,and I do mean DARK, on a moonless night when it's clear. Look up. Look at all the stars you can see with just your eyes. Now use a telescope, and see even more of them. And that's just whatever hemisphere you're in.

Are you going to tell me that 50 years is long enough to listen to just about every possible star that needs listening to??

smh

But here's another theory. What if intelligent, evolved life is teaming in our Galaxy but it's all close to the same level, give or take a few hundred years?

Just as we are now only discovering habitable planets, perhaps they are doing the same.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Read my post above. The radio signals don't wait for us to build listening equipment to start working their way here... What that article is saying is we have covered a 200LY bubble around our solar system and no radio signals are cutting through any part of it. That is a huge bubble, something should be coming through.

a reply to: raymundoko

From 1,000 LY away, from a civ that only developed radio 400 years ago?

Do the math. Sorry, no. It's not a given, nor an absolute.

a reply to: eriktheawful

I really do not understand why your think that we MUST have heard something by now.

I don't think we must but the fact is we haven't , as I said earlier just because we haven't heard them doesn't mean they aren't there , but it could.
We have no evidence of other intelligent civs out there so to assume they are is not much different to assuming they aren't.

There is only one species on this planet capable of making a noise other could hear , if by some quirk we had become extinct 50 thousand years ago then this planet wouldn't be leaking radio waves either.

The point is it's a question that has to be asked , whether you like it or not the possibility exists that intelligent civilisations might be a rarity , life is out there but we may not be able to converse with it.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Can you explain the math you are doing in your head? No math is involved. It doesn't matter if we only invented radio's this year we could still pick up the signals...I am not sure why so many in this thread are confused about how radio signals work.

a reply to: raymundoko

It IS math.

Let us say that 1,000 years ago, a civilization on a planet circling a star 2,000 lightyears away invented radio, and began broadcasting.

That means, that their radio signals will have traveled for 1,000 light years.....in that 1,000 years to today.

But, because they are 2,000 light years away....it will be another 1,000 years before their very first radio signals even get here.

Yes, we could sit here and say, well, we've been listening for 50 years, and we've not heard jack.

As pointed out:

1) We have only listened to a very small area of our galaxy, and have NOT listened to everywhere yet.

2) You are assuming that there MUST be civs that developed before us, and long enough to of had radio, and that we MUST be able to hear them. What if they are only 500 light years away, but grew advanced enough to STOP using radio 1,000 years ago? They now use something else we can't detect, and their radio signals will have gone by us...there are no more coming from there.

3) Maybe it is true that intelligent species are really rare....it could very well be that they are also spread very far apart too. Space is a very dangerous place. There are many different things that could wipe out life on a planet, or destroy civilization.

As has been said here: Lack of evidence is not evidence in itself. It simply could mean we have not found it yet.

a reply to: gortex

Yes, I understand where you are coming from.

However, you keep saying that because we've not heard anything in the very short time we've been listening, to the very small area that we have listened too, is enough evidence to support us being alone.

I'm afraid that is like a person being in them middle of a desert, and they look around all about them, seeing nothing but desert, and because of that:

They assume that the entire planet must be like that.

When in fact, they are only seeing a very small part of the planet, and well beyond the horizon exists a very diverse, and very lush place, filled with all sorts of life.

Don't get me wrong. Over time I've pretty much the opinion that tool building intelligent life is a rare thing. Just looking at how we came about makes me think it might be something that does not happen all that often.

But due to the sheer size of just our galaxy alone, I think it balances out. If, let us say, only 1 world in 1,000 develops intelligent life, that still means out of 10 million worlds that can sustain life, 10,000 thousand of them would have civilizations.

If it's only 1 in 100,000 worlds that do it, that would still mean 100 civilizations.

And even if the odds are 1 in a million......then for 10 million worlds, that would be 10.

And even 10 is much better than only 1.

look life is alive on other planets and if you think that is not right you all must be so stupid .............

a reply to: tempestking

If you'd have read at least some of the thread you would see no one is saying life doesn't exist on other planets , shaky ground to be calling people stupid.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: MarioOnTheFly

So you don't think they would follow a progression in technology ?
They don't have to look like us but I'm sure they would work through technological stages before they achieve their "quantum communication" , radio would likely be part of that progression.

I'm puzzled why you think that'a given. Is radio unavoidable in this chain of progress ?

Your logic dictates they would have to then have all of the same stages of technological developement as we do. In the end they would have to be us. Inspirational wise.

For instance, the american natives knew of concept of the wheel, but never used it as a transportation device...apparently it was impractical to their circumstances.

You seem to think there is a predetermined set of steps in reaching certain tecnology advancement.

I disagree...great leaps in tecnology have always been determined by an inspiration of great individuals...not set of predetermined steps.

Sometimes people stumbled on to discoveries without actually looking for them.

"our planet is teaming with "other life", I believe our solar system itself is teaming with life.

Does our not having arrived on other planets and established communication disprove our existence? Not a good argument, imo. They havent visited or spoken to us for similar reasons we haven't them...who is to say ET species would make it their mission to travel around the universe and establish communication everywhere? And even those that do such things, given the size of the universe, there's no reason to think they would have established communication with one particular planet, particularly over a small window of time.

As I have said in the past, intelligent life like us (and really, who cares about intelligent life not like us?) might be pretty scarce in the bigness of the universe. We could very well be the only game in town. And as I have wondered, if there are other folks out there in the vastness but we'll never ever see a sign of them or contact them or interact with them in any way, how is that different from them not existing at all? Even if they actually exist in reality -- or at least the same kind of reality we understand -- if we don't find a trace of them, all they are is hypothetical.

I don't mind being alone in the galaxy or the universe. We're all alone in our heads anyway, and that's how we'll die.