Human Arrogance?

"intergalactic" trade routes

I don't think trade is a meaningful concept at the scale we're discussing. I don't think the manufacture of material objects at the atomic level is a technology all that terribly far away. Once you have Star Trek style matter replicators, what exactly do you need to trade for?

If there were that many lifeforms visiting this little place in the middle of nowhere, then statistically the universe would have to be positively teeming with life - and we'd really have noticed.

Why?

Imagine fish in the ocean having this same conversation. Would they have any concept of the existence of human civilization? Would they have any concept of birds flying through the sky? Ants? Bugs? Cattle farms? Trees?

Human Arrogance?

I find it arrogant of the human race to think that this small planet in a small star system, towards the outer edge of one arm of one regular galaxy... should be visited so often by other lifeforms... if you swallow half the stories?

Maybe they are visiting for the same reason we like going to the zoo to visit the penguin house.

Why? If there were that many lifeforms visiting this little place in the middle of nowhere, then statistically the universe would have to be positively teeming with life - and we'd really have noticed.

It seems arrogant on your part that you think we're intelligent enough to "notice". A civilization advanced enough for intersteller travel could easily not let us know they're here if they so wished.

Anybody familiar with THE DRAKE EQUATION?
FROM WIKIPEDIA

The Drake equation states that:

N = R^* \times f_p \times n_e \times f_l \times f_i \times f_c \times L

where:

N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate;

and

R* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fl is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

It's rather typical of Drake, an astronomer, to have phrased the equation in terms of the parameter R* (a variable of interest to astrophysicists, but not easily observable). The number of stars in the galaxy, N*, is defined as N^* = \int_0^[T_g] R^*(t) dt . Assuming for simplicity that R* is constant, then the Drake equation can be rewritten into an alternate form phrased in terms of the more easily observable value, N* [1]:

N = N^* \times f_p \times n_e \times f_l \times f_i \times f_c \times L / T_g

where

N* is the number of stars in the galaxy
Tg is the age of the galaxy

I don't think it's arrogant to think we're special enough to be visited. I don't think it has anything to do with the perception of being "special" at all. I think we're visited simply because we're here, and they want to learn about us, about our planet, about our development. Of course, that's just my opinion.

Why do we have an array of past, present, and future machines on, or going to Mars? I'd say because it's there, we can get to it relatively easily, and we want to know all there is to know about it. And that's just for a desert planet. What if primitive life was present on Mars, like dinosaur-type stuff? Would we have no interest, or the same amount of interest as we do now? Of course not. We would have so many satellites orbiting their planet that they'd be crashing into each other. We would be studying everything they do if for nothing more than the pure fascination of it all. The websites dedicated to the primitive inhabitants of Mars would be innumerable.

Tying it to my point, if aliens could get to Earth relatively easily, I can't think of any reason why they would NOT want to study everything we do.

Originally posted by tyranny22

So, let's do some math ...

5 million earth-like planets x 250 million galaxies = 1, 250, 000,000,000,000 (One quadrillion, two hundred and fifty trillion)

Then, consider that some galaxies have been around 4 times longer than life has existed on our planet.

That's a big chance for intelligent life. And this was a conservative estimate.
[edit on 3-8-2007 by tyranny22]

You were overly conservative and missed 3 zeros on the quote (you used 250 million instead of billion galaxies), but it was still quite high ... even if you took another 3-6 zeros, the chances of life being out there are higher than you hitting the lotto ... and people hit the lotto everyday!

so in turn, I will do closer to the estimated numbers on the higher end

You said the supercomputer estimated over 500 billion (I still find that to be conservative personally) ... so 500,000,000,000 galaxies.

100 million earth like planets per galaxy (still find that to be conservative, since our technology is very limited) 100,000,000 earth-like planets.

This would be 50,000,000,000,000,000,000 earth like planets in the 'known' universe. 5 x 10^19 ... just let that sink in. 50 trillion trillion possible earth like planets. In terms of human concept, which I think for 99.9999999% of the population is impossible ... Do you know how long you would have to live to add up to that many seconds of life? 1,584,404,390,701.45 YEARS In fact, that is so many years, if you added up all the seconds of everyone's lives currently living on the planet (7 billion - 7,000,000,000) and averaged their lives to 75 years ... you would still only have less than 1/3 the amount of required time.

I am just trying to use math and something people can think about with some resolution. I can't really think of any better examples at the moment. Time itself is a hard concept for a lot of people.

I don't care what percentage you want to use ... even 1 trillionth of a chance of life on each earth-like planet, that still leaves 50 trillion inhabitable earth-like planets. Take another 1 trillionth for intelligent life with means of communication and space travel ... that still leaves 50 planets ... (I still don't think we qualify as one of the 'intelligent' species yet with lack of respect for our planet, other animal and plant life, and our fellow humans ... we are worse than the rest of our co-earth-inhabiting-animals at co-existence).

There is one problem with the above assumptions. There is nothing that proves life has to exist with OUR needs. If you take that into consideration ... now the number of planets with possible life can be trillions of times more than even the higher estimate. Think outside the box (or sphere).

There would be a good reason we don't find 'communications' ... ours is primitive. We have only had radio and t.v. for a very short time ... we use wavelengths that have serious issues. It would make sense a smarter creature would in fact, use better technology. Compared to a space-faring species, we are no more than primitive cave-men ... maybe ones who are about to discover the wheel ... but, still quite behind the curve. I feel that way even if there wasn't other life out there. We are like babies with nuclear pistols. We just found electricity for the masses. Although, it can be argued that we had prior civilizations that were far more advanced than we give credit for ... maybe they became over-zealous and tried to take over the stars and bully the pacifists ... they in turn put us back in our place and eliminated most of the signs of technology.

I think a lot of things we find on this planet are hidden from us, as not to disturb the carefully orchestrated textbooks based on nonsensical theories and unprovable data sets.

Do I believe life is out there ... yes. Does that mean I can't be religious? No. Aliens and religion are not exclusive from each other. If I told you there was Washington D.C. and a government there ... does that mean that other governments don't exist elsewhere? No ... just because a religion does not speak of other worlds, doesn't mean they don't exist.

Do I believe other life would have interstellar technology ... most likely. If they do, and found us, they would observe us as we do other earthly creatures, since they are on a level above our own. In fact, I think the theory in Star Trek where they would talk to whales is quite accurate ... we are like an ant colony, but whales have been proven to communicate on a level far above our own vocally. I also found the Ferengi comment quite amusing and rather a true analogy for the current human state of mind globally.

I could see us being viewed as a zoo, or entertainment. We may be watched more than we realize, and played with as well. Since we ourselves our developing visual stealth technology (as opposed to radar stealth), it would be fair to assume they can 'cloak' themselves quite readily.

We, in general, limit ourselves to thinking in our own terms, instead of galactic terms. Our limitations and understandings may be quite simple to overcome, but since we 'learn' certain ways, we hold ourselves back. Until we get past these false regulations, we won't make the next leap in technology without outside influence. Some like tesla I think do go outside the normal boundaries and do give us these massive jumps that we need to become more benevolent.

The comment about watching too much Star Trek ... who knows, that might be what it is like out there ... if you look at our Space Command patches, they have a very similar symbol to the Star Trek patch Space Command Patch/Star Trek Federation? ... Star Trek emblem . Who knows, maybe Roddenbury and Lucas knew something we didn't

All I am getting at, to assume anything is a form of ignorance ... we don't have any provable facts AGAINST aliens, visitations, etc. If you want burden of proof, I say make it go both ways. I know if I ever get a picture of a craft/alien and presented it here, it would be debunked and defamed as soon as it was posted, as if people are paid to wait for such a post ... no matter how real the image I theoretically posted would be ... in fact, I wouldn't post it. I would U2U a mod, let them analyze and post it instead

FreeThinker,

Yeah, I caught that later on. I've posted these findings before and they didn't get much recognition, even for a conservative estimate, so I didn't bother changing it. Anyhow, that's for the fix and a great contribution!

Originally posted by tomnod
Saying that I do believe we are not alone just we aren't interesting enough to make the effort.
Comments?

Sure, when it comes to interesting things to look at, you pretty much can't beat the Louvre, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Museum of Natural History. But when you're out on the highway, driving along, sometimes you just have to check out Wall Drug, or go take your picture beside the World's Biggest Ball of Twine.

How interesting we are I guess would depend on what you want to compare us to. If there is life somewhere other than Earth, it might mostly be just a few dull fungus patches. Fun, interesting, intelligent creatures like us might be a real rarity, and worth going a little out of the way to see.

Also, if you have figured out a way to get between stars in a reasonable length of time, maybe a quick trip out to see us wouldn't be that much of a problem, so why not?

Originally posted by jfj123
Anybody familiar with THE DRAKE EQUATION?

The biggest problem with the Drake Equation is that we don't know enough about some of the variables to make the equation work. In particular, the variable that indicates the number of planets where life could develop is extremely difficult to pin down, because we don't exactly know how life comes to be. We know it happened once, but it might literally be an astronomical fluke. If you take a planet, give it a mild temperature with some liquid water, and toss in a few amino acid strains, does life automatically arise from it? Maybe yes, maybe no. We don't know.

Throwing a bunch of electronic components into a box and shaking for a billion years doesn't automatically create a computer.

So it could very well be that the creatures of Earth are the only living things in the entire Universe. If we are, it's a pretty lonely thought, not arrogant. It might encourage us to try to get along with each other a little better.