It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus
I did not say life was a fluke, I said intelligent life.
but it's just evolution...isnt it ?
originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus
I did not say life was a fluke, I said intelligent life.
but it's just evolution...isnt it ?
Where there is life, and where there are forces causing that life to change, then there is evolution.
However, I don't think intelligence is always an inevitability of evolution. Look at our own planet, for example: evolution was going on for 3 Billion years before complex life began. For most of the history of life on Earth (until maybe 800 Million years ago), life was limited to single-cell life and very simple multi-cell life.
Complex multi-cell life with specialized and organized organs that could support larger brains came about later, but it does NOT seem that evolution was on a constant incremental-but-clear 3.5 Billion year path toward that complex and more intelligent life. Instead it appears that life was stuck in the "simple" mode for the first 3 Billion years, not really doing much in the way of gaining complexity through organization, even though evolution was still a force of change to that life over those first 3 Billion years.
What I mean is that it appears life dawdled around for 3 Billion years before some factor caused it to relatively recently organize into more complex life. Some other simple life out there in the universe might just remain relatively simple, despite the forces of evolution being present.
Heck, some people don't even think humans are the pinnacle of evolution on Earth. It could be argued that sharks are a more successful species (evolutionarily speaking) than humans are -- or maybe even cockroaches. Intelligence may be helpful, but it is not necessarily the be-all and end-all in evolution.
Intelligence might be one way for a species to become successful (evolutionarily speaking), but it may not be the only way.
originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus
I did not say life was a fluke, I said intelligent life.
but it's just evolution...isnt it ?
Where there is life, and where there are forces causing that life to change, then there is evolution.
However, I don't think intelligence is always an inevitability of evolution. Look at our own planet, for example: evolution was going on for 3 Billion years before complex life began. For most of the history of life on Earth (until maybe 800 Million years ago), life was limited to single-cell life and very simple multi-cell life.
Complex multi-cell life with specialized and organized organs that could support larger brains came about later, but it does NOT seem that evolution was on a constant incremental-but-clear 3.5 Billion year path toward that complex and more intelligent life. Instead it appears that life was stuck in the "simple" mode for the first 3 Billion years, not really doing much in the way of gaining complexity through organization, even though evolution was still a force of change to that life over those first 3 Billion years.
What I mean is that it appears life dawdled around for 3 Billion years before some factor caused it to relatively recently organize into more complex life. Some other simple life out there in the universe might just remain relatively simple, despite the forces of evolution being present.
At those earlier dates, it 's really hard to be quite sure. And the planet wasn't very hospitable for the first billion
years or so.
When it did become hospitable, that was largely due to the effect of the microbes themselves terraforming it.
Heck, some people don't even think humans are the pinnacle of evolution on Earth. It could be argued that sharks are a more successful species (evolutionarily speaking) than humans are -- or maybe even cockroaches. Intelligence may be helpful, but it is not necessarily the be-all and end-all in evolution.
Intelligence might be one way for a species to become successful (evolutionarily speaking), but it may not be the only way.
It doesn't matter what the "pinnacle" is.
The question is whether every habitat with life (and other basic conditions like abundant water and oxygen) has a niche for intelligence. Where there is a niche, some life form is just about certain to eventually emerge and fill it.
Note that humans/primates are not the only intelligent lifeforms on Earth. Some crows/ravens exhibit intelligence on par with a primate, and can use their feet as basic hands to manipulate tools. (And birds being descended from dinosaurs, this technically means a dinosaur has evolved these abilities.) Some breeds of octapus have been observed to use quite a bit of ingenuity, tool use, and self and social awareness.
If humankind had not shown up, one of those breeds would probably have gotten to technology sooner or later.
originally posted by: caladonea
a reply to: neoholographic
In answer to the title of your thread...they have visited and still do.
originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: MarioOnTheFly
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus
I did not say life was a fluke, I said intelligent life.
but it's just evolution...isnt it ?
Where there is life, and where there are forces causing that life to change, then there is evolution.
However, I don't think intelligence is always an inevitability of evolution. Look at our own planet, for example: evolution was going on for 3 Billion years before complex life began. For most of the history of life on Earth (until maybe 800 Million years ago), life was limited to single-cell life and very simple multi-cell life.
Complex multi-cell life with specialized and organized organs that could support larger brains came about later, but it does NOT seem that evolution was on a constant incremental-but-clear 3.5 Billion year path toward that complex and more intelligent life. Instead it appears that life was stuck in the "simple" mode for the first 3 Billion years, not really doing much in the way of gaining complexity through organization, even though evolution was still a force of change to that life over those first 3 Billion years.
What I mean is that it appears life dawdled around for 3 Billion years before some factor caused it to relatively recently organize into more complex life. Some other simple life out there in the universe might just remain relatively simple, despite the forces of evolution being present.
At those earlier dates, it 's really hard to be quite sure. And the planet wasn't very hospitable for the first billion
years or so.
It was certainly hospitable enough for the life that existed here 3 billion years ago. It may not have been hospitable to us oxygen-using complex multi-cell organisms (and oxygen is very useful for multi-cell animals, because it is a great catalyst for energy transfer processes), but it was just perfect for microbial life.
When it did become hospitable, that was largely due to the effect of the microbes themselves terraforming it.
Again, Earth back then had prime conditions for the type of life that existed here. The early microbes that gradually pumped oxygen into the atmosphere actually caused the planet to become toxic for them, because oxygen was toxic to that early life on Earth; they became the slow cause of their own extinction (although some anerobic life still exists on Earth today). As I mentioned above, oxygen great for more complex creatures such as fish, dinosaurs, shrews, reptiles, birds, weasels, and humans -- but nevertheless toxic to the anerobic type of life of the early Earth.
originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
originally posted by: bloodymarvelous
It doesn't matter what the "pinnacle" is.
The question is whether every habitat with life (and other basic conditions like abundant water and oxygen) has a niche for intelligence. Where there is a niche, some life form is just about certain to eventually emerge and fill it.
Note that humans/primates are not the only intelligent lifeforms on Earth. Some crows/ravens exhibit intelligence on par with a primate, and can use their feet as basic hands to manipulate tools. (And birds being descended from dinosaurs, this technically means a dinosaur has evolved these abilities.) Some breeds of octapus have been observed to use quite a bit of ingenuity, tool use, and self and social awareness.
If humankind had not shown up, one of those breeds would probably have gotten to technology sooner or later.
I agree that intelligent life almost surely has come to be elsewhere in the universe. And among that group of intelligent life, some of that life would have developed technology, and among that life that developed technology, some may have used that technology to develop a civilization. However, some of those relatively intelligent creatures may not have developed technology nor grown into a technological civilization. As you said, ecological niches become filled with life by evolution, but there may be some planets where no niche exists in which intelligence needs to evolve.
a "Technological Civilization" -- or even intelligence, for that matter -- is not necessarily the inevitable outcome of life in general. In fact, it is possible that intelligence that gets to the level of creating technology might even result in the cause of the extinction of that intelligent life.
That also brings me to my point about timescales, and the fact that even in recent timeframes of the galaxy -- say a very short 500 million years -- Intelligent life could came and go, and we would never have the chance to contact us. There could have been a few intelligent ETs in our own galaxy over that past 500 million years (a very short amount of time in the history of the galaxy, and relatively short even in the history of Earth0 that have gone existent for some reason or other. They existed, but we may never meet them, because they exist no longer.
So between the idea that evolution may not always lead to intelligence and the idea that intelligence might kill itself off, AND the idea that the timescale of the history of potential life universe are so large and we have only existed within a minuscule part of that history -- I think it is quite possible that intelligent life with technological civilizations that exist right now (at the same time our civilization is existing) could be very rare, maybe only a thousand or so in the galaxy, which due to the size of the galaxy means that they could be very far from each other. And the number of those civilizations that could have space-faring capabilities or the capability to communicate with us in some form might even be smaller yet.
...Remember, I'm not talking about how many civilizations might have existed in the history of the galaxy; that number could be very very large indeed, given the number of planets and the timescales -- I'm only talking about the number of civilizations that might exists right now.
And that could be the answer to the OP's question: "Where are the aliens?" Than answer might be that civilizations that exist in our galaxy right now might be rare, and civilizations that exist right now and have the ability to potentially come visit us might be extremely rare -- even if life in general is practically ubiquitous across the galaxy and universe.
originally posted by: bloodymarvelousoriginally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
Clearly the issue is not whether it "needs" to evolve. Evolution doesn't care about that.
If the niche exists, then filling it is inevitable eventually. All niches are eventually filled.
You can go back to my previous post and read the calculation that I did. It assumed technological humanity's total time on this Earth, from birth to death, was only going to be 10,000 years.
But you can do a simpler calculation. How many years old is Earth? 4.54 billion? Kepler's finding suggest 10 billion planets could be like Earth in terms of size, rockyness, and proper location relative to their star. If 1 in 10 of them have the right chemicals (water is likely for any rocky planet, because rocks contain oxygen and hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Giving us H2O)
I'll round 4.54 billion up to 5, because that will lower the odds, but not increase them. (Erring on the side of skepticism, as we should.)
So divide 1 billion candidate planets by 5 billion years, and you get 0.2. If the average technology society only lasts 1 year, then there should be approximately 0.2 planets in the Milky Way Galaxy out there hosting it right now.
If it lasts 100 years, then there should be 20 planets hosting it right now.
If it lasts 1000 years, then there should be 200.
I suppose the real question is whether faster than light travel will turn out to be possible. In current physics, there really isn't a way to do it. But current physics isn't complete, and won't be until General Relativity is finally unified with Quantum Physics (at which point it still might not be complete).
If one civilization achieves FTL (faster than light) travel, they'll probably expand and colonize every possible planet, and intelligent life will become very common in space.