Universe Likely Has Many Extinct Civilizations: Study

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: TinfoilTP

I like being able to suggest this for people's light reading list:
www.amazon.com...

Hehehe Phage... did you write that book
Kidding...
But its a good thought experiment...

originally posted by: Miccey
a reply to: Signals

Another speculation...

How do "you" come up with that number?
Have you counted ALL species that ever existed and
then done your "math"... Seriously

Even IF that was FACT... How many species have survived
extinction level events?!? Thats a number that actually
CAN be calculated... And at those odds...Man, i think
surviving is inevitable, for SOME... BUT, that to is PURE
speculation.

No, I haven't counted them, but scientists have-

As long as species have been evolving, species have been going extinct. It is estimated that over 99.9% of all species that ever lived are extinct. The average life-span of a species is 1-10 million years, although this varies widely between taxa. There are a variety of causes that can contribute directly or indirectly to the extinction of a species or group of species.

en.m.wikipedia.org...

I was a little off though, I said "over 99%", it's really over 99.9%!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Really? They have counted all the species that
ever existed on this planet... wow
One hell of a job...

What about the ones that did NOT get extinct?
That actually have been around more than 10m
years.

Its ALL theories and speculations based on
arbitrary numbers...

Maybe some ppl need to put the corks back
in their ears, their brains is pooring out.

a reply to: projectvxn


That's a good idea and good point, projectvxn. I bet we have a better chance of coming upon ruins of an extinct civilization, before finding a live civilization. The drone can't be poisoned by radiation (or whatever), if it comes upon ruins caused by a toxic war either.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

It's good to see Drake's equation being kept current although it's like the more we know, the less we know. There could be dozens of civilisations in existence right now and we just can't see them due to distance or levels of technology. Could be. Then again, if we look at how tenuous our own existence is, it lends weight to the L factor.

There's a good article: The Unique Merger That Made You (and Ewe, and Yew). It ponders the sheer uniqueness of the origins of eukaryotes. Such things need to occur before we can start speculating about technological civilisations and it's not looking good!

There's another thoughtful (old) paper by Frank J Tipler that's worth reading too - Extraterrestrial Beings Do Not Exist. He's into the 'uniqueness hypothesis and it's good to see a context that places pressure on ideas like the extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH).

originally posted by: Phage

After reading this I wonder what if we were the last intelligent species in the Universe and all the other ones are long dead.

No need to be the last. The first would have had the same problem.

Like most kids, when I was young, I took it for granted that space would be teeming with life. A little older and the expectations begin to diminish.

The more I learn, the more stock I put in the notion that we are practically alone and maybe the first. It's heartbreakingly sad and beautiful at the same time.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: TinfoilTP

I like being able to suggest this for people's light reading list:
www.amazon.com...

I purchased and read that book tonight. It was very light reading, but i enjoyed
it. The price was right at $1.

I actually favor a form of the zoo hypothesis myself, but given the vast distances,
the drop off on EM signals to about nothing before they even leave a solar system,
the large chance of self-destruction, etc. etc. etc. There is no actual NEED to
embrace a zoo hypothesis. As that book stated correctly.. the Earth had single
celled life for more than 2 billion years, when it was in "prime colonizing form".
And it wasn't colonized or modified (it would be obvious).

I know that so many people feel lonely and want god or some alien to swoop in
and save them from Trump and Hillary, but I think we'd better get used to the
idea that's not terribly likely to occur in their or any of our lifetimes.

You guys are all forgetting one crusial detail...


EVOLUTION... NO!! im not gonna touch creationism...so dont even go there.

Every single organism on this planet has some origin. Yea, even Crocodiles.
And guess what, they have been around for a LOOOOOONG time.
Birds and the bees... Oh man, seriously... 99.9% is extinct, yea RIIIGHT.

No, they have EVOOOLVED...Ok

a reply to: Miccey

Yes indeed.

And someday the cockroaches will rule the Earth as they are better adapted to the radioactive piles of plastic waste that we created as we drive ourselves extinct.

"Advanced civilizations" may turn fragile and go extinct too. We are well on the way. And at present cockroaches don't build space ships; they probably never will.

originally posted by: KellyPrettyBear
a reply to: Miccey

Yes indeed.

And someday the cockroaches will rule the Earth as they are better adapted to the radioactive piles of plastic waste that we created as we drive ourselves extinct.

"Advanced civilizations" may turn fragile and go extinct too. We are well on the way. And at present cockroaches don't build space ships; they probably never will.

Wouldnt be surprised. And who knows. Maybe they WILL...

Im just saying, its AAAALL speculations and theories.

a reply to: Miccey

Yes indeed.

A dead and empty universe is just as likely as one brimming with sentient life. We only have one data point at present.

Yea i agree.
One planet TEEEAAMING with life.
Must be more...

originally posted by: starwarsisreal
What if the reason why we didn't detect extraterrestrial civilizations because many of them are now extinct?

Until we find even one, we really can't say for certain. It's all speculation based on extremely limited data.

Maybe they're extinct. Maybe they never existed in the first place and we're all alone in the universe. Maybe they're so far away that we'll never, ever find any trace of them, so they're no different than being hypothetical.

Because of the crazy way time works, maybe someday we'll find our own future civilization after it has become extinct.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Sounds like they took the old , unrevised Drake's equation out to the nth degree.

All you need is one zero in the Drake Equation and the whole thing equals zero. And the more parameters you add, the more chances you have for one of them to be zero.

originally posted by: carewemust
You know what? God is sooo.. AWESOME!

I tend to go along with George Carlin, who basically said that maybe the best thing you could say about God is that he/it is an underachiever, whose work record is something you'd expect from an office temp who didn't give a crap.

a reply to: starwarsisreal It is possible some CREATOR Creations have experienced e.l.e events just as it IS possible some may have survived.
The question or answer is were these events intentional e.l.e events spawned from planetary, interplanetary, Star system(s) Galactic and Intergalactic-Interdimentional ENCOUNTERS and or WARS?
Or were they NATURAL e.l.e events spawned from periodic failures of inhabited regions of EXISTENCE?

a reply to: Blue Shift
Or a Grade B movie maker.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: projectvxn


That's a good idea and good point, projectvxn. I bet we have a better chance of coming upon ruins of an extinct civilization, before finding a live civilization. The drone can't be poisoned by radiation (or whatever), if it comes upon ruins caused by a toxic war either.

This is obviously speculation on my part.

But I fancy the idea that one of the greatest resources in the Cosmos for us will be the extinct civilizations out there that left some infrastructure and some tech behind for us to use. I personally believe that the universe is teeming with life. And if the universe follows Earth to any degree in terms of how life evolves and goes extinct, then we are far more likely to discover millions of corpses before we discover millions of neighbors.

a reply to: starwarsisreal

i Dunno bout dat.

I think the Galaxy is old and far big enough for there to be Civilizations that are not just old but very ancient and more advanced when compared to us. Which, they could have survived all the pitfalls along the way we still have before us.

Still, doesn't it seem to anybody else that slowly Scientist are inching their way towards the very real possibility that ET not only exists but may be more numerous and much more advanced than we are? I imagine that there are not only many species out there but that they've known about us for some time. If not known about "us", may have rather, known that there is a planet in the "Goldilocks" zone in this solar system.

See, We with our limited technology are already detecting exoplanets that could fit the bill in distant systems. Why wouldn't it be possible for some other advanced race of beings to have detected our little pale blue marble?

Not only that, what of possible life that can not only exist but thrive outside of the narrow confines of said "Goldilocks Zone"

I'm more optimistic about ET

Something I read once trying my best not to mess it up, Quote Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Universe,

1. Area: Infinite.
   
   The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy offers this definition of the word "infinite".
   Infinite: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real "wow, that's big," time. Infinity is just so big that, by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.
   
   
2. Imports: None.
   
   It is impossible to import things into an infinite area, there being no outside to import things in from.
   
   
3. Exports: None
   
   See Imports.
   
   
4. Population: None
   
   It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there most be a finite number of inhabited worlds. And finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any person you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
   
   
5. Monetary Units: None
   
   In fact there are three freely convertible currencies in the Galaxy, but none of them count. The Altarian Dollar has recently collapsed, the Flainian Pobble Bead is only exchangeable for other Flainian Pobble Beads, and the Triganic Pu has its own very special problems. It exchange rate of eight Ningis to one Pu is simple enough, but since Ningi is a triangular rubber coin six thousand eight hundred miles along each side, no one has ever collected enough to own one Pu. Nigis are not negotiable currency, because Galactibanks refuse to deal in fiddling small change. From this basic premise it is very simple to prove that the Galactibanks are also the product of a deranged imagination.
   
   
6. Art: None
   
   The Function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn't a mirror big enough- see point one.
   
   
7. Sex: None
   
   Well, in fact there is an awful lot in this, largely because of the total lack of money, trade, banks, art or anything else that might keep all the nonexistent people of the Universe occupied.
   However, it is not worth embarking on a long discussion of it now because it really is terribly complicated. For further information see Guide chapters seven, nine, ten, eleven, fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one to eighty-four inclusive, and in fact most of the rest of the Guide
   
   

This notion seems baffling and logically absurd.

Are we alone and all other e.t. civilizations are dead?? Come on now.