Statistics say aliens exist. But would you want to make contact with the human race?

Here's a snippet from an interesting article I found about the SETI-based odds of alien existence, and the possible reasons why we have yet to make official contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.

Source: Is There Anybody Out There?

Official guesstimates suggest around 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) stars accompany our own sun in the Milky Way galaxy.

Of those, we now know, ours is the tiny, insignificant one out there on the edge of the spiral, some 50,000 light years from the galactic centre and a staggering 2,000,000 (2 million) light years from our nearest ‘spiral-galaxy’ neighbour, Andromeda—which, incidentally, contains a massive 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) stars.

And that’s just our own backyard; there’s an unimaginable infinity out there...

The article goes on to cite the Drake Equation, which calculates that around 1000 planets in our galaxy alone are likely to support intelligent life. Extrapolating that to include the entire universe, we arrive at the absurdly astronomical figure of 100,000 billion planets with the possible conditions for intelligent life.

Clearly you'd get better odds on JFK being shot by a lone gunman than on us humans being the only conscious apes in town.

The article's author Jon King goes on to propose that maybe the reason ET is yet to make himself known to us is more to do with our belligerent mentality than our technological inadequacies, a point I tend to think is very valid.

As King concludes:

Until we start acting like a race worth knowing can we truly expect that anyone should want to know us?

Source: Conscious Ape

Personally I think that if we ever truly desire contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, we should ponder this point very carefully.

What does anybody else think? Could ET contact depend more on our perceived attitude than our technological capability???

Given the sheer numbers of galaxies, solar systems and planets out there, I think it's pretty dumbass crazy to think we are the only life forms in the universe. I think the verse must be teeming with life, some at least as evolved as our own.

I think NASA and the government probably know a bit more about this than we do!

I totally agree, Templar777, but the point is, given our warlike, greed/fear/control-based nature, would you want to make contact with us?

If your civlization was evolved enough that it could travel light years across space and pinpoint our insignificant little solar system with our insignificant little planet and civlization, would you want to make contact with us knowing that we would most likely greet you with a nuclear handshake?

Yup your right, I've echoed your sentiments in multiple threads over the past couple of days.

We are simply a very young species, with a long way to go. We aren't behind in any way of our evolution, but were not ahead of the curve either, which is where we should want to be.

I think however, disclosure and contact will happen at the individual level, slowly growing until more people simply have a general consensus of it being real.

Not everybody needs to be convinced or to see an alien ship, only the majority do.

~Keeper

I made a thread few days back, it's been lost in the oblivion that is ATS boards.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Should give it a read then come back and post your thoughts.

I totally agree, Templar777, but the point is, given our warlike, greed/fear/control-based nature, would you want to make contact with us?

I kind of like the sentiment expressed in the source article, that maybe we should change our attitude towards ET contact.

Like the author says, there's an awful lot to say that we've been visited before and that alien civilizations might still be watching us. They could easily have technology that by our standards would seem 'other-dimensional', like the ability to bend spacetime, travel through wormholes and generally dip in and out of dimensions by penetrating space fabric. They could be here just waiting for us to evolve to a more 'peaceful' level of consciousness before showing themselves, is you see what I mean.

If your civilization was evolved enough that it could travel light years across space and pinpoint our insignificant little solar system with our insignificant little planet and civilization, would you want to make contact with us knowing that we would most likely greet you with a nuclear handshake?

Exactly my point. Interplanetary relations are built on the same principles as any other relationship, trust, respect and mutual tolerance. Don't see too much of that aimed at ET

Originally posted by winston_boy
If your civlization was evolved enough that it could travel light years across space and pinpoint our insignificant little solar system with our insignificant little planet and civlization, would you want to make contact with us knowing that we would most likely greet you with a nuclear handshake?

Yes.

Because I fail to see how our insignificant little planet and civilization could do a "nuclear handshake" that would cause any harm whatsoever on a an alien civilization across the galaxy

I'm sure they could find a couple of volonteers that's willing to risk their lives in first contact. Sort of like in the era of great explorers. Its not like the entire kingdom of Spain was depopulated and shipped across the sea without knowing if they will die or not.

See, the thing about the Drake Equation is that if any single one of the variables equals zero (not including us), then the whole equation equals zero.

Here's my analogy again: If you have a box with a red balloon in it, and you have absolutely no idea how that balloon got there, how is it logical to assume that if you have an even bigger box, there will automatically be another red balloon in it somewhere?

That's what were talking about when we say that the universe is so large that there just HAS to be other life in it somewhere. Until we figure out exactly how life on this planet came to be -- and at the moment we have NO CLUE AT ALL -- then we really have no way of knowing the probability of life happening anywhere else. It might turn out that life is such an incredible fluke that it never happened anywhere else, ever.

Some people call that notion "arrogant." Others might consider the prospect "sad." But it's really not one thing or another.

reply to post by Nohup


Haha, i never thought of it like that.

Check my signature

What you said does make loads of sense actually.

I thought I'd give you a star

Love&Light.

Jacob

Originally posted by winston_boy
I totally agree, Templar777, but the point is, given our warlike, greed/fear/control-based nature, would you want to make contact with us?

If your civlization was evolved enough that it could travel light years across space and pinpoint our insignificant little solar system with our insignificant little planet and civlization, would you want to make contact with us knowing that we would most likely greet you with a nuclear handshake?

Considering that High-Tech Wars, according to some of the oldest scriptures in History, was fought by Aliens before Man did, I doubt that the visitors would let something like that decide whether to make official contact or not. If they could tame Humanity in the past, they can probably do it again. And maybe they should.

Undoubtly, they would also have the intelligence to realise that not all Individuals are the same, after having followed this Worlds History.

reply to post by templar777


I don't put much stock into the whole idea that the reason that advanced extraterrestrial entity's don't communicate with us or "make themselves known" is because we are violent, not worthy or we have not evolved as a loving timid race.

Its in our nature as humans to be destructive and it will never change. What makes you think they are not as destructive as us?

Taking note of the varieties of life on Earth itself and how hard some viruses and bacteria are to kill I think it is safer to assume the universe is full of life not billions of light years of nothing. I am sure they will discover microscopic organisms or fossils thereof on every planet regardless of it's classification.

Posted by Merka ... Yes, Because I fail to see how our insignificant little planet and civilization could do a "nuclear handshake" that would cause any harm whatsoever on a an alien civilization across the galaxy

A nuclear handshake is a nuclear handshake is a nuclear handshake baby, wherever you come from. Life is sustained on the nuclear energy created by our sun, just as life anywhere else in the universe would be similarly sustained. Don't mess with 'nuclear', even if you're 'alien'. It burns, and it burns bad!

Posted by Nohup ... Here's my analogy again: If you have a box with a red balloon in it, and you have absolutely no idea how that balloon got there, how is it logical to assume that if you have an even bigger box, there will automatically be another red balloon in it somewhere? ...That's what were talking about when we say that the universe is so large that there just HAS to be other life in it somewhere.

Not quite. But taking your analogy as it is, there would be every reason to predict you would find more red balloons in the bigger box, just as you might predict there would be people living in China based solely on the fact that there is someone living in America. The prediction might turn out to be wrong, but the odds would be hugely in favour of it proving correct.

And you're wrong also, in my opinion, to base your analogy on the misunderstanding that we have no idea about how life evolved on this planet. We have a very good idea of how life evolved here and of how it might evolve elsewhere. Though we may well find one or two mutational diversions have occurred here and there, the building blocks for life are more or less the same throughout this flesh-blood-and-bone dimension in which we find ourselves. That life has evolved in this little pocket of the universe says loud and clear that the odds of life evolving elsewhere are enormous.

Also, the fact that we DO have such a good idea about how life evolved alters the context of this discussion, and means that your analogy must allow for the fact that, actually, we DO have a good idea of how the red balloon came to be in the box, which in turn means that we can predict far more accurately whether or not we would expect the bigger box to contain other red balloons.

I think the argument that intelligent life probably exists elsewhere in the universe based solely on the fact that it 'allegedly' exists on earth is a sound one.

Originally posted by winston_boy
Here's a snippet from an interesting article I found about the SETI-based odds of alien existence, and the possible reasons why we have yet to make official contact with extraterrestrial intelligence.

Source: Is There Anybody Out There?

Official guesstimates suggest around 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) stars accompany our own sun in the Milky Way galaxy.

Of those, we now know, ours is the tiny, insignificant one out there on the edge of the spiral, some 50,000 light years from the galactic centre and a staggering 2,000,000 (2 million) light years from our nearest ‘spiral-galaxy’ neighbour, Andromeda—which, incidentally, contains a massive 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) stars.

And that’s just our own backyard; there’s an unimaginable infinity out there...

The article goes on to cite the Drake Equation, which calculates that around 1000 planets in our galaxy alone are likely to support intelligent life. Extrapolating that to include the entire universe, we arrive at the absurdly astronomical figure of 100,000 billion planets with the possible conditions for intelligent life.

Clearly you'd get better odds on JFK being shot by a lone gunman than on us humans being the only conscious apes in town.

The article's author Jon King goes on to propose that maybe the reason ET is yet to make himself known to us is more to do with our belligerent mentality than our technological inadequacies, a point I tend to think is very valid.

As King concludes:

Until we start acting like a race worth knowing can we truly expect that anyone should want to know us?

Source: Conscious Ape

Personally I think that if we ever truly desire contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, we should ponder this point very carefully.

What does anybody else think? Could ET contact depend more on our perceived attitude than our technological capability???

Of course, the human race is worth visiting. First of all to monitor and make sure that weapons of mass destruction aren't allowed to go off. To monitor the behaviour of the inhabitants. Being that they have done this for a millennia +; they have monitored man's progression through time, to discern when to make first contact to the whole world and not a few selected people. They need to be aware if there will be any hostilities towards their appearance. Also, the Earth, like any other planet in the universe is worth investigating; whether the inhabitants are primitive, or highly advanced.

It's a nice thought, that aliens are watching over us with a view to saving us from ourselves, preventing us from hitting the WMD button and so on. But if they really are here to make sure we don't self-destruct then why did they allow us to make the goddam WMD in the first place?

Whatever, I do agree we should start to look at the whole search for extraterrestrial intelligence a bit differently, like in terms of consciousness and spirituality rather than just scientifically. I think aliens are from another dimension, as well as from another place. Or at least they could be. I know it sounds maybe fluffy but if you think beyond the ceiling it’s not really that out there. If they are from another dimension then where we’re at dimensionally, in our evolution and in our consciousness, will blatantly make a difference as to whether they choose to say hello. That’s what I think anyways.

I wouldn't want to bother with a race like ours unless I knew there was a critical mass number of people 'spiritually' ready for contact. I think that’s what any alien race is probably waiting for.

Originally posted by winston_boy
The article goes on to cite the Drake Equation....

I've often wondered about the "drake equation" ever since Carl Sagan explained it in his "cosmos" series.

What if life needed something quite individual to start it? All the right chemical ingredients there but no catalyst.

What about a moon (gravitational pull)?

What about a certain heat scale?

What about a certain length of daylight (earth's rotation)?

What about a certain magnetic field and electrical currents?

etc, etc....

If we knew how life started here on earth and could account for all the neccessary elements and conditions, I think a new "drake's equation" would need a few more (lot more) things taken into consideration when doing the calculation.

And seeing as the very essence of "life" seems to have some kind of survival method built into it's instinct, do we REALLY want to find it? Not good to find out we're NOT alone, just to be made extinct or to make extinct and end up back at square one.

Just a thought.

I would not want to meet the human race until they have made themselves more ORDERLY.. and less jungle-ish.

I would, however, come down and offer a helping hand if say... some were evolving into something more than human, and they needed a little encouragement HINT HINT

or if say.. their planet was about to go berzerk and they needed a place to chill until the planet's crust settled down.

(i'd only take the nice ones though).


humanity needs to evolve, period.

we're way too stuck in OLD ways of behavior.

-

the same way human scientists study animals: mostly stay hidden and observe, occasionally capture a few for measurements. Don't forget that our scientists have monkeys rabbits and rats in labs where they are injected with toxins exposed to radiation and eventually killed, sometimes vivisected, all in the name of "progress". we feel entitled to do it because we are so "advanced" compared to "animals". there's no reason that at least some alien species wouldn't look at us the same way. technologically advanced does not necessarily go with morally advanced, as the behavior of the US government amply shows.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
Yup your right, I've echoed your sentiments in multiple threads over the past couple of days.

We are simply a very young species, with a long way to go. We aren't behind in any way of our evolution, but were not ahead of the curve either, which is where we should want to be.

So how do you think we could get there? Remember that we're talking about moral and spiritual evolution here, not technological evolution, as it is the former that determines the truest "greatness" of a Civilization in my mind, and it is also this that the original poster was referring to.

If we're talking about advanced space-faring alien life while taking into account that there's a thread already on this site saying that (advanced space faring) ALIENS ARE DEMONS, I would have to say......

No.




Alien life exists. You'd have to be crazy to think otherwise.
Drake.

[edit on 20-5-2009 by bloodline]