Why I Believe We Are Not Alone In The Universe – Intelligent Discussion

I know i have posted this before, but even now when i listen to it is seems most Apt.




Are we alone ?

If the universe truly is infinite and all possability's exist then thier is a 1 in 1 chance of life in the universe .. however , we could be that 1 chance .. that only chance.

Although i think the above has a slight possability, the chances are that life is abundant , on a Quantum level life may even create the universe around us, on a universal level we get the goldilocks enigma , some places are just right for life. and with the age of the universe i am sure there are plenty of advanced civilizations out thier.

As long as they havn't all died out already ....

[edit on 5/10/08 by Quantum_Squirrel]

Originally posted by Grumble
My little boy told me that babies are made when stardust falls down into mommies' bellies.

That is enough for me.

Man,that cheers me up.That is so cool.Kids have the greatest imagination.What a kid.Maybe one of the first to see the stars up close!!

reply to post by Badge01


Since machine intelligence is moving rapidly by the least conservative estimate it will surpass ours within 60-70 years and probably sooner. Machine intelligence doesn't have the limitations that we are born with. Not including the ease with which bacteria would spread (1 millions years to cross entire milky way on cosmic wind and comets), it's easier for an intelligent machine based civilization to spread around the entire Mlky Way, they wouldn't be constrained as we would by longevity

As far as life existing in the Milky Way? I'm very sure of it. Plenty of opportunity for it to develop. Intelligent life? Lower probability but still there. Tool using intelligent life? Rare but it may exist. However I feel that making contact with a presently flourishing technological civs may be problematic mainly because of the distances involved. I'll admit that I'm a bit of a fence sitter when it comes to Grays etc. However I won't rule out a advanced race either. The problem is being time overlap. Will a theoretical civ be around long enough for us to make contact is unknown. At ONE POINT I'm sure that one has existed. Does it still exist? I dunno.

It wouldn't surprise me none to one day find the ruins of other civs that flourished and died before ours. And of our explorers finding civs that are just starting out. Whether we will be around long enough to make contact is up to us.

Well, I think the math proves there is some kind of life out there. That is all I need. Math is the key to everything....Which explains why me being so bad at it leaves me knowing little.

i think in a romanticised kind of way i would like to think that there is life elsewhere in the galaxy, and for it to even be sentient.

However the more and more i learn the more i feel a disapointment inside of me because i suspect that if evolution is corret then the possibility of life is very slim and that our own creation was nothing more than a very random and freaky accident on the part of the universe.

if however life has stemmed from intelligent design, and im not attributing this to "God" but another race/being/entity of vastly superior intellect and understanding of the mechanics of the universe who would appear "God like" to us because of our primitive thought proccesses then its possible that life is quite abundant.

for evolution to be correct life would more than likley need to have developed from whats populalry called a primordial soup for a lack of a better term, now one of the most basic life forms on earth i believe has 480 odd genes, these amino acids would needed to have combined without the help of some "Other" life form. in Germany they have performed many experiments by combining amino acids upto 400 blocks but they can only make this survive by using a precreated cell membrane, all other efforts by creating a simple cell life form just combing the building blocks of life have failed.

but if were were to go down the intelligent design road we would eventually come to the point of well if some superior being/race created us then who created the superior being/race wich leads us back to where we started from although i guess you could postulate that the being/race would have needed to come from a dimension outside our own where eveloution of their form of life is easier to be created. or that their physical structure is so different (not carbon based) that it was possible for them to evolve in our own dimension.

untill such time as scientists can come up with a way that life can be produced from nothing more than amino acids and an enviroment conductive to the creation of life, i will be more inclined towards the intelligent design model because i guess i want to believe that we are not alone in this universe/galaxy.

now if you want to pose the question have alien life forms visited us here on earth.. well thats a different kettle of fish again

* Any mention of god or godlike isnt a reference to any religeon but more a reference to an entity or entities beyond our limited understanding.

[edit on 5-10-2008 by Demandred]

I think it's a no-brainer... I mean... It's as much a given as it is to say that I am sitting in a room on a computer... If there was only one other star out there, it would be a 50% probability that there would be life on the Planets around that star... But we have GAZILLIONS!!!! ... So ... One would have to be crazy to say that we are alone.

reply to post by Dave Rabbit


I find it extremely ridiculous to not think there is other life out there, even if they don't visit our planet in far advanced spaceships. One thing that is interesting is that whenever anyone thinks of of "aliens" per say, they think of far advanced creatures zooming around at warp speed visiting Earth when the reality is that there are other planets far more primitive than our planets. Maybe its because I'm an outside the box thinker but when I think about extra-terrestrial life I think of people just like us with their own form of a great creator and with their own looks and their own architecture and especially their own history. Or I think of planets ruled by some form of dinosaur. Or maybe not, maybe they never had giants roaming their planets, maybe they evolved straight from the first single celled creatures on the planet. The fact is that just because we don't have evidence of extra-terrestrials doesn't mean they don't exist. In fact, they HAVE to exist because we are one planet in one solar system, a planet that had the right conditions to develop life. I think out beyond our planet and wonder how those other civilizations developed and ask why ours just happened to develop the way it did. It is weird to think this but some form of Pokemon exist out there somewhere even if they can't shoot lightning or fire from their fingertips but seriously anything we can imagine exists somewhere in some form even it just barely resembles it.
Another thing is, alien dialect doesn't have to be in the form that we've made it, I'm sure there are plenty of civilizations out there with letters that look just like ours but with different words for everything.
Our finite existence limits us from ever comprehending what their lives are like and we come to deny their existence and replace it with a creator just to make ourselves think we are special, which we are in a sense that we are unique creatures with our own history, but really we aren't. We are just another inhabited planet to those far more advanced races and to the universe, no matter what you may think we really aren't that important since we can't impact anything past our moon. Once we gain the technology (though I doubt we will before we detonate ourselves) to go beyond our own solar system in a short amount of time we may be able to make a difference on other planets and then we will gain a place in the universe as another space-faring race.

Here's my scientific take on things. There is something called a "circadian rhythm" that all living beings have. It's the thing that makes us wake up and go to sleep - among many other functions. The earth's "circadian rhythm" is a 24-hour cycle. Yet when humans, like me, who refuse to wear a watch or worry about "time" - left to our own free will, scientists have measured the human circadian rhythm to be closer to 24.6 hours. How weird is that that something on earth doesn't have the same internal rhythms as the actual earth? And it's not only with humans either. Oh yeah, Mars happens to also have a 24.6 hour circadian rhythm. How about that? Anywho, look no further than earth if you want to see "life from outer space." I subscribe to the theory that the building blocks of life were indeed brought to earth by some asteroid or space debris from another planet. So if life at least partially existed in some form on some other planet or space debris (btw, you are going to hear this as true eventually from the Mars landing findings), it's pretty illogical of us to think we're alone in this universe.

Originally posted by Dave Rabbit
I simply cannot believe that in all these millions of stars, galaxies and planets, that we are the only ones.

Those images are truly beautiful. A technological testimony to something otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

Are we the probability of the impossible or are we a single instance of an actual possible? Then take that, and multiply it by all the variations of the life forms, and yes, this earth of ours seems pretty fantastic to just be confined to earth alone.

To define what alone is, one must think for a moment. If a planet of deer, or a planet with water and fish were found, does that constitute alone or should it be considered in the definition of finding another planet of life forms?

Peace


[edit on 5-10-2008 by HIFIGUY]

There is no possible way that we are alone in the Universe.

From the information I have read, the universe has a radius of about 14 Gpc (46.5 billion light-years). Think about that number.

46,500,000,000 light years.

And thats only to the edge of the observable universe.

The milky way is about 100,000 light years across. It has something like 200 billion stars. Imagine how many planets that is. And thats only one galaxy.

The low range of total galaxies in the universe is 125 billion. The high range is 500 billion.
2003 BBC article on observable stars:
news.bbc.co.uk...
2003 CNN article on the same thing
www.cnn.com...

"Astronomers in Australia say there are 10 times more stars in the visible Universe than all the grains of sand on the world's beaches and deserts."

70 sextillion, or seven followed by 22 zeroes.

70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000


Take a look at this website.
www.mpa-garching.mpg.de...

There you can download a simulation of the large scale structure of the universe out to more than 1 giga parsec (3.2 billion light years).

Youtube link.
uk.youtube.com...


====================================
People argue that since we have not made contact with an alien civilization already then it means they are not there. The universe is so huge that we could be in a cosmic backwater. Everyone else might be too far away to contact....right now. Im sure we will eventually find out that we are not alone.

[edit on 5-10-2008 by Skiball]

reply to post by Dave Rabbit


It is all just a matter of mathematical calculation, the probabilities of their being life on other systems are very high; the probabilities of their being intelligent life, as we know and can perceive it, are not that high; the mere probabilities of life even being possible are astronomical. The number of parameters required for life to flourish are so many that the equation would be almost impossible to calculate, since all those parameters have to occur in the same time/space.

Life, as we know it, could actually be a very rare occurrence...
This is the part where science goes out the door and faith comes in, do we believe, or not, in life outside our planet?
Having only mathematical calculations to rely on, it all comes down to a question of faith...

So, I see Ufology as just another "New Age Religion", for people dissatisfied with their previous belief system...

As for serious UFO/ELF investigations, I now see so few that they are not even worth mentioning, most serious scholars, on the theme, where destroyed when the "UFO Cult" took off...In spite of this, they still keep working, even thou underfunded, and we can always hope for a breakthrough...

P.S. I was specially aggravated by your quote, so, if you don't mind, I would like to change it:

”There Cannot Be Something Better Than Man, Just Can't Be!”
Norman Wolfe

For me to look at those photographs, to know the vastness of the Universe and to think we are all alone, is so very sad.

I like to think that we have brother and sister beings out there, somewhere, that will one day be introduced to us.

In my line of work, I have to look at the value of a coincidence as it relates to facts. The more coincidences, the more likely the facts are to be true. How many sightings do we need to have before people wake up and understand that they have to mean something factual is going on.

Just my opinion

Semper

I was in Science class one year, and the young girl beside me asked to herself or to me I don't know, "Are there other people out in the Universe?" And I just stared at her for a second before saying, "The chances of us being out here, in an infinite universe, alone is crazy. If there is one of us, then there are more of them. Now they may not be human, they may just be bacteria for all we know. But there is no way that we are alone." and it was something to those lines according to which I base all of my evidence on.

Like someone mentioned above, too many sightings. Too many stories, myths, legends. Too many lies.

I believe, because I believe its ignorant to even imagine us being alone. Look how short, in comparison to the universe, it took us Human's to evolve. Claiming that we didnt just come of nothing. [[Which in certain religions may have been the case]] Now with that time frame in mind, add the infinite years the universe has on it + the infinite amount of possibilites and ten million + big bangs that could have occured and bing = something has been bound to happen...


Sincerely,
CM

[edit on 6-10-2008 by ConMi27]

As I read the replys to this thread, I am forced to ponder: Why do we all assume the life outside our bluish-green speck has to be intelligent? We seem to be discussing life in terms of intelligence and ability to comprehend on a level equal to ours.

Yes, there may be other intelligent life (I personally believe there is), but isn't it possible that the first life we encounter 'out there' will be nothing more complicated then phytoplankton? Would we even recognize or classify it as life?

Furthermore, would we recognize intelligence, another self-aware entity, when we meet it? There seems to be the assumption that sentient lifeforms must adhere to our understanding of 'intelligence'; our understanding of biochemical construction.

Then it brings me to another thought: What if we explore vast expanses of our universe and never find any life? Do we assume that there is no other life, or do we concede to the notion that perhaps, rather than looking in the wrong location, perhaps we are looking on the wrong scale?

Assume for a moment that individual cells are sentient beings. Would the cells which make up your lungs understand the greater whole in which they exist?

Or the life which they make possible?

[edit on 10/6/0808 by spines]

[edit on 10/6/0808 by spines]

[edit on 10/6/0808 by spines]

Here we are trying to grasp something that is utterly mind boggling. Yet we have not even discovered about 95% of the ocean's depth. We will always look and find new perspectives in life. Theories change as new creatures and planetary objects are discovered. We will always learn new things and new approaches to everything.

I believe we are not alone. Somewhere out there lies a civilization like, more primitive or even greater then us.

Beautiful pictures!

It is absolutely unintelligent to think that we're the only thing in this universe. It's inconceivably big, so why would we have reasons to think that there wouldn't be any other form of intelligent life? In my opinion, we're obviously a little bit behind intelligence- and technology- wise compared to what is or could be out there.

Simply It would be highly arrogant to think that we are the only ones in the entire unknown universe. Also those pictures are beautiful. I hope to one day to see them first hand.