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

What are the odds of other intelligent life in the universe?

I'm willing to bet that there's at least one other planet out there in the universe with a group of intelligent species sitting around staring up at the stars and asking the exact same question.

a reply to: PhoenixOD

That's what I'm saying. In 4.5 billion years abiogenesis has only happened once (allegedly), and that was 4 billion years ago.

The problem is that although intelligent life has to have evolved in many other places in this galaxy alone, the odds of us ever meeting another species are pretty damn small. The distances between star systems are vast, the odds of intelligent life evolving and then staying around long enough to explore without being wiped out by a hostile universe (comet/asteroid impacts, supernovae, novae, coronal mass ejections, gamma ray bursts nearby, disease, supervolcanoes, inter-species insanity, sheer age) make it unlikely that we'll ever meet ET. Not impossible, but unlikely. The sad thing is that when you look up into the night sky and look at a star and wonder if intelligent life might exist on a planet orbiting it, there's a chance that that star no longer even exists.

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

to think that our level of intelligence has evolved to its maximum and that we would not be able to bend space and time to get from one place to the other, which is a conceivable theory as it stands, i think that human potential is limitless and at the rate of technological advancement as it is in coming comets or life destroying asteroids would be delt with by the touch of a button in 1000 years time, which is a tiny amount of time since the last asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
the point is a life form thousands of years in advance of us are probably all over the universe exploring imo

"Life Doesn't need a planet to evolve. Why are we so anthropomorphic to think that life needs to be wrapped around a protein molecule and a stable platform like a planet.

Replicating, intelligent, sentient beings could very well be crystalline or gaseous. Or living in a void our primitive technology can't detect or even conceive of.

I seriously doubt if humans are at the top of the food chain....

originally posted by: ketsuko
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.

Reason, or the result of metamorphism driven by complexity? That is where I am stuck.

originally posted by: gort51
Yes, we supposedly haven't found any hard evidence (less the UFO speculation), but the premise that "We" are Not the only intelligent life in our Galaxy or Universe, is fairly much recognised in scientific circles, even if not generally openly discussed, one would think?

The question of intelligent life in the universe is openly discussed among mainstream scientists. There are scientists who have built careers looking for ways to somehow remotely detect intelligence on another planet (for example, by hearing a radio signal, or detecting industrial gasses in the spectrogram of an exoplanet's atmosphere, etc.).

a reply to: ketsukowell several in this system could have had lifeforms like ours with a little tinkering mars and venus not now but maybe in the past ,europa and titan i believe will be found to have exotic forms living on them with in a 100 years.