The Boring Isolation Theory

Very few people will like this because it isn't fun, interesting, cool, or scary, but here goes. It's worth sharing and comes with its own set of implications to consider that, in my opinion, are indeed very interesting to consider. I call it the boring isolation theory.

1) There isn't life anywhere in the universe, whatsoever, except planet Earth. If there is, it's incredibly basic; microscopic with few cells. This hypothesis would be based on the fact that up to now, no concrete evidence of any kind has been officially found, and we can only go off of what's official, otherwise aliens exist because someone says they were visited, abducted, talk to them, etc. Granted we haven't visited a planet except Mars with rovers, and there's billions of them, I'm not denying that. It's just that when I see our planet from outerspace, it has nice blue and green colors, it looks alive. Every picture of other planets is just a giant barren marble, or something trippy like Saturn, Jupiter, etc that clearly isn't "alive", just has an atmosphere of different chemicals and weather literally out of this world. That's because we're in the sweet spot of our solar system and Earth is made of the perfect stuff for life to form on, I know. There's equations for how many likely Earth-like planets there could be in the universe too, but that doesn't mean it's true. Can someone make an acceptable equation for how many of those planets would have the PERFECT conditions and elements, not just within a generic range? What about out of those that had life, how many would have species evolve that became self-aware and intelligent? How do they even know if we're not a fluke? More on that below.

2) If there is mammal, reptillian, amphibian etc life of some kind spread here and there, albiet extremely rarely to the point that you could visit solar systems your entire lifetime in your starship and never find it (It's fast but it's not THAT fast. Come on, humans made it), it probably isn't self-aware and intelligent. Follow me here. Planet Earth has had life on it for how long? I don't want to look it up but we can agree that's a long time. In that time, dinosaurs came and went, several eras of creatures, all kinds and species in fact. Amazing examples of evolution. Then, for some reason, apes and only apes out of EVERY species that EVER existed evolved to have some intelligence and a unique social structure, the interaction of which caused a sort of exponential effect on their further evolution as I understand it. Then there was some sort of genetic mutation which led to the evolution of homo sapiens? I'm sorry, I haven't read up on it in quite a while, please excuse me. Regardless, homo sapiens became the only species that ever existed on planet Earth to evolve to this level of intelligence as we put it out of simplicity. We are leaps and bounds ahead of everything on the planet and everything that's ever been on this planet, indigenous of course. SO far ahead that if you look at it the right way, we stick out like a sore thumb. How could this even be possible? Dogs have social structure, packs, hierarchy, interaction. That species never took a next step. You'd think even now especially with all of the human social interaction that they get and the HEAVY breeding would spark something, anything, but nope. We have how many ethnicities that look different because their dna is slightly different? Well, what about K-9's. They'd have the equivalent of hundreds and hundreds of drasticly different ethnicites. None of that matters either. What makes anyone think that on a distant planet that has conditions for life, one single, special species, or more than one for that matter, would even evolve if you consider the freak occurence that is us?

Your thoughts?

a reply to: r0xor


Either I am having Deja Vu or you already posted this before. I have read this exact post word for word.


And as far as point 1-- Mars is not the only planet we have landed on. We landed on Venus with the Venera Lander


As far as point 2- there is zero evidence of evolution in the sense of a single cell organism evolving into every species on earth. There is zero evidence in the fossil record of one species evolving into another- ZERO. Now adaptation within a species is a very real thing, so evolution within a species is a real thing. Not to mention for evolution to happen from a single cell organism to every species on earth is mathematically impossible and not enough time has passed in the universe let alone earth for it to have happened . Keep in mind just 250 million years ago during the Permian-Triassic extinction event something like 96% of everything was wiped out on earth, so that makes it an impossibility for evolution as it is pushed upon us to have happened. But again adaptation within a species is a very real thing.

originally posted by: norhoc
a reply to: r0xor


Either I am having Deja Vu or you already posted this before. I have read this exact post word for word.


And as far as point 1-- Mars is not the only planet we have landed on. We landed on Venus with the Viking Lander

Correct me if i am wrong, but we never landed on Venus. Upon entering the atmosphere, the craft was destroyed.

a reply to: theatreboy

If memory serves correct the lander lasted 20 minutes, or maybe it was 2 hours?

More missions being planned though where a lander would collect atmospheric samples before surviving for what is an incredibly long day on the backwards spinning planet.

a reply to: theatreboy


www.space.com...

My bad, I said Viking and it was called Venera

a reply to: theatreboy


www.space.com...

My bad, I said Viking and it was called Venera

a reply to: theatreboy


www.space.com...

My bad, I said Viking and it was called Venera

a reply to: theatreboy


www.space.com...

Sorry something is wrong with ATS it did multiple posts.

a reply to: Illumimasontruth


Yeah the atmosphere killed the lander , highly sulfuric and inhospitable

It may truly be that we are the only game in town, regardless that there are untold billions of other space rocks out there in the incomprehensible vastness. We can hypothesize all day, but hypothetical life on other worlds is by nature non-existent.

Maybe we'll find ET life someday. Maybe not. Maybe reality is not that simple.

originally posted by: norhoc
a reply to: Illumimasontruth


Yeah the atmosphere killed the lander , highly sulfuric and inhospitable

www.google.com...://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/ask/44-Has-a-spacecraft-ever-landed-on-Venus-&ved=2ahUKEwjBqob z7OjdAhXiyoMKHS7-AAwQFjABegQIDBAE&usg=AOvVaw3oOAiIA4dMh5O59w6AeJ15

On December 15, 1970 an unmanned Soviet spacecraft, Venera 7, became the first spacecraft to land on another planet. It measured the temperature of the atmosphere on Venus. ... In March 1982 two more Soviet spacecraft landed on Venus - Venera 13 and Venera 14. They sent back images and studied soil.

a reply to: r0xor

This:

en.wikipedia.org...

I'ts something like 20 years old in the modern formulation.

However the 'old formulation' namely the original monotheism
said life only existed on Earth too. And that theory is thousands
of years old.

Of course both old religions (such as Hindu forms) and even some
new forms (such as LDS) postulate many inhabited worlds.

I find the argument for no real life out there besides us quite compelling..
and I find the argument for other life out there plausible.

If life were to tend to be super predatory to survive, then perhaps
only one advanced lifeform per galaxy or universe is what you'd get..
as the hungry devouring wave of self-replication machines and waves
of colonization would eventually fill up most of the observable
universe.

In Asimov's "Robots of Dawn" series.. the super advanced robot
caretakers changed all the time streams, so that only humans
existed.. as they were programmed not to allow harm to come
to a human.. so they eradicated all other life in all realities.

Just a fun example there.

Kev

I don't quite buy the isolation theory. However, it's a question of when and where, and in terms of it happening to coincide with our own existence in time, taking into account the sheer amount of trouble and incredible LUCK required to reach our stage of technological sophistication. The odds of contact (in the traditional sense) with an even luckier (ie reaching intergalactic sophistication) alien civilisation at this point in time and existence within the unimaginable vastness of space, are potentially negligible.

Which is why we have the Inter-Dimensional Hypothesis to cling onto. Yay.

a reply to: ConfusedBrit

Actually the IDH is on the way out..

the even more impossible to understand "Information Theory"
is the next one coming down the pike.

a reply to: r0xor

An opposable thumb is a pretty big evolutionary advantage over everything else. Weapons rule.

originally posted by: r0xor
What makes anyone think that on a distant planet that has conditions for life, one single, special species, or more than one for that matter, would even evolve if you consider the freak occurrence that is us?

It all comes down to probability theory. If you buy enough lottery tickets at some point you will win. The more interesting evolution is not human evolution but the creation of single cell life. The study of abiogenesis is much more fascinating to me. If you take trillions of bubbles with primordial proteins over billions of years eventually you get a winning lottery ticket.

I imagine winning lottery tickets occur on billions of planets. I don't think there is any reason to think our bubbles have any higher probability for abiogenesis than any other planets. I don't think we are freak occurrence once you appreciate the probability math involved.

Once you have one cell, the rest is easy. And who is to say we are not done evolving. At some point we may have additional lobes of the brain capable of experiencing the Universe in other dimensions of thought and self-awareness.

a reply to: dfnj2015



"
Once you have one cell, the rest is easy"

Not true. to go from single cell to advanced multi-cellular, let alone the diversity of species we have is mathematically impossible

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Ah, nice to read you!

Another possibility is the Dark Forest Hypothesis ... which is dark indeed!

Basically, it's: 1) Limited resources/space exist in this universe 2) When another sentient life form is discovered, then the logical action is to kill it as fast as they are discovered in a "worst case" scenario, since, eventually, as species spread and grow, resources will run out so why not secure a longer time with enough resources by eliminating competition... immediately?

The possible nuking of Mars can be seen in another light, when using this theoretical model of logical xenophobia.

Frankly, I'd rather go extinct than follow such a plan, but admittedly, that is a very subjective, human, illogical reaction.

Either way, we should likely shut up and hope we aren't discovered by something "other."

Logic can be depressing.

a reply to: r0xor

I agree with you and norhoc. If we didn't evolve, the other logical theory is we were created. If we were created, then by whom?

Many of us believe by God as said in the Bible. Those who don't believe in God may say aliens. That is why people look to the heavens for other life forms.

Those who can not believe either, but contemplate how life began fall back to evolution.

a reply to: Baddogma

Well 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
of the Universe is fatal to human life.

Hardly 'tuned for human life'.

Always nice to see you post.

Kev