What are the odds of other intelligent life in the universe? (pretty darn good)

a reply to: ketsuko

The way you stated;

"So you believe that it's there and that's enough to impact your life? "

and

"But at our current level of ability to explore the universe around us, it does us no good at all."

Made me think you disagreed with me when I said; I believe, it is overwhelmingly enough evidence to believe, and it can do me and potentially others/everyone good at all.

I think that this update on the equation is good . They are doing this I think because it is a soft disclose of sorts.

a reply to: 727Sky

What are the odds of other intelligent life in the universe? (pretty darn good)

I take it you consider mankind intelligent life.

I'm not sure that a species trying like hell to destroy itself with weapons of mass destruction qualifies as "intelligent"...

Seems like stupidity imo...

Eventually some paranoid dumbasses will push the collective buttons and it's, audios amigos.

Some truly "intelligent" species will point to our exploding planet and tell his youngster...."see what happens to those that refuse to learn from their mistakes?" "See why we had to quarantine them. We gave them a paradise and they ****** it up anyway"

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Bone75

That's not as likely as it evolving at a wide variety of times.

Lol. You could've just agreed with me to begin with and saved us a couple of posts.

Because, once life starts, there it is.

My question is... why doesn't life keep starting here on earth? Shouldn't there be more than just one tree of life?

a reply to: Bone75

Lol. You could've just agreed with me to begin with and saved us a couple of posts.

But I don't seem to agree with you.

My question is... why doesn't life keep starting here on earth? Shouldn't there be more than just one tree of life?

My answer is, no. Or, if you prefer, why? Why "should" life start at all?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Bone75

My answer is, no. Or, if you prefer, why? Why "should" life start at all?

Sounds like a God of the gaps argument to me. We can't figure out how it started, so... forever.

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: 727Sky

What are the odds of other intelligent life in the universe? (pretty darn good)

I take it you consider mankind intelligent life. I'm not sure that a species trying like hell to destroy itself with weapons of mass destruction qualifies as "intelligent"...

That may very well BE the definition of intelligent life. One of the factors in the various equations used in an attempt to define this stuff is, "What are the odds of intelligent life destroying itself before they could advance far enough to engage in interstellar travel?" And that number is greater than zero.

a reply to: Bone75

Sounds like a God of the gaps argument to me.

Yes.
If you think that life has a "reason", that would be the case.

originally posted by: 727Sky
Well it looks like main stream science has taken on step closer to playing the odds of life in our universe. Many of us have, 'no doubt' that life exist and is sprinkled throughout this universe... But it is always nice to see science trying to validate our beliefs. Now it would appear even science is accepting, "They are out there" or am I reading to much into the odds..... did they science miscount on the low side about there being 20 billion trillion stars.... with those numbers what are a few million here and there ?
www.cbsnews.com...

What are the odds that intelligent life evolved on Earth and nowhere else among the 20 billion trillion stars in the observable universe across 13.8 billion years of cosmic history?

About one in 10 billion trillion, according to researchers writing in the journal Astrobiology -- meaning it's very, very unlikely humanity is unique across the sweep of cosmic space and time.

Put another way, even if life evolves on only one planet in a billion orbiting in the habitable zone of its star -- the region where water can exist as a liquid and life as it's known on Earth could, in theory, evolve -- "that still means it's happened on the order of 10 trillion times," said Adam Frank, an astronomer at the University of Rochester.

Armed with data from NASA's Kepler space telescope showing planets are commonplace, Frank and Woodruff Sullivan, an astronomer at the University of Washington, decided to take a fresh look at the Drake equation, developed in 1961 by astrophysicist Frank Drake as a way of making a rough estimate of how common technological civilizations might be across the Milky Way galaxy.

I am not a scientist but I have an opinion. If the question is how probable life is in the universe given that it exists in the solar system, and that the solar system is a relatively common situation, universally speaking I think life is very probable, very probable indeed.

a reply to: ImaFungi

You chopped out a lot of the middle.

The first bit was just noting with irony that your faith in extraterrestrial intelligence seems to provide you impetus to live better the same way faith in God does for me.

Then I went on to different suppositions. Basically, in a material sense, knowledge of such would do us no practical good at the moment. We don't have the capacity to do much in any real way one way or the other.

So would it be nice to know about intelligent life in the universe? Sure. Can I see it being of any practical use to us at the moment? No. Unless they are vastly more intelligent than we are, simply knowing they exist does nothing for us anymore than knowing about the existence of exoplanets does. Heck, we know about asteroids loaded with iron and other rare elements it would be enormously useful to us to have access to, and it doesn't matter because we can't touch them.

a reply to: ketsuko

Yes, I meant no offense or rudeness, we do not need to quibble about this off topic spat. I agree that belief in the extremely high probability the universe is full of intelligent life can materially do nothing for us; but if you consider how many people, are interested and believe that not only that, but that many types of aliens and ufos have been to earth, and how much that belief can effect them potentially (even though it seems the gung ho ufo hype has died down the past few years around here...interesting...) whether a psychological trick and/or boredom and/or otherwise; my attempted statements in regards to my beliefs importance is potentially a few notches away from that according to me in terms of potential, as you may say, immaterial influence. Just a slight something to think about; I mean there are the people who are allured by the notion (I do not believe in) of parallel universes and different selves in each one (I presume for psychological reasons, as the ufo obsession may too, escapism, adding excitement to life, excuse to feel special, some type of hope); so I think of, and this is not something I think of often, once in a blue moon, maybe I am feeling a bit down, it is nice to feel some sort of connection, to something, to someone, so yeah, I can think there are people on earth who are like me, going through similar struggles, similar dispositions, characteristics, we could get along, and then just to expand that thought, an interesting thing to think of, there are people just like me, going through similar situations, on other planets, all throughout the universe, perhaps one is even thinking about me right now; to them I salute, my spirit brothers.

a reply to: Phage

If you think that life has a "reason", that would be the case.

Great statement. That being one of the biggest conundrums for me. Just the word "reason" itself, is a human construct, exposing the way our brains work. In the context of the universe , or life for that matter, having an underlying "reason" is like trying to rationalize infinity.. gives you a headache!. I cannot commit to reason or chaotic combinations. I hope science evolves enough to come up with an answer.

a reply to: Phage

I think that it's very likely that intelligent life has, at one time or another, evolved elsewhere. Even right here in our own Galaxy.

Careful, you just might have been added to the proof pile for soft disclosure.

a reply to: charlyv

I would argue that if life exists, it has a reason. Even removing the idea of faith in a higher power and the idea of grand purpose that tends to give us, life still has a reason. It's part of an ecology and has its niche in that.

a reply to: ketsuko
DNA, the selfish molecule.

originally posted by: 727Sky

But it is always nice to see science trying to validate our beliefs.

I'm sorry, but isn't that exactly what science is NOT supposed to do?

Drake's equation has been modified on the "down side" . This was due to the detection of planets outside our solar system and a better understanding of ecosystems. In fact , it has been reduced down so far in factors , it is approaching near 0 chance. Intelligent life may very well be unique to our planet.

The idea that because the number of planets that could support life as we know it might be very high so the odds of inteligent life must also be high just does not make any sense. You have to take into consideration that unique events happen everywhere in the universe every second of every day.

Think about it this way whatever you are doing now is a unique event. There is only one of you and although other people might be doing something similar its not exactly the same. and that's the same for practically every object in the universe. So by definition unique events outweigh non unique events maybe infinity to zero.

It is almost certain that something like self replicating DNA look millions of years of developments to happen. Each step of the way is essentially unique. What if life could only happen if every single one of those unique events had to happen in exactly the same way as it did to make our DNA? I mean its not like we have any evidence of life starting more than once on our own planet where we know 100% the conditions for it to happen are perfect.Why isn't it happening every second of every day? Why are there not billions upon billions of separate life forms on our planet right now? If it was even remotely easy for life to happen given the right conditions shouldn't there at least be evidence of one other example of life spontaneously happening right here on earth?

youtu.be...

i think the odds on us being the only life in the universe are extremely low bordering on no chance, although anythings possible so a chance anyway, and if that was the case we could potentially inhabit the whole universe, we could be the Adam and Eve of the Universe, i just think its Amazing that the chances are, that we are not alone in the Universe! that excites me to the core