chances of intelligent life on another planet

I cannot imagine mankind as being the only sentient species in the universe. It would lead to only one of two possibilities, either we matter above everything else, or we don't matter at all. Either thought is sickening.

From what we know of our own small world, life exists wherever it can exist. I have no doubt that applies to the universe we live in.

We are not alone.

It seems that every time the subject is discussed, we are presented with this laundry list of "requirements" for Life and, more specifically, for "intelligent" Life.

However, as we can see right here on the Earth, Life can exist anywhere — from sub-zero conditions deep within polar ice caps to 800° volcanic vents in the ocean depths to solid rock a mile underground. It's obvious that Life adapts to more diverse environments than we can even imagine. Oxygen is not necessary, sunlight is not necessary, even water isn't necessary for Life to evolve and thrive.

Our laundry list of requirements for Life reflects, once again, our Earth-centric bias and limited understanding of Nature and the universe. I'm always kind of horrified when I hear that we are searching for extra-solar planets that will naturally support human life — I mean, we're making plans for invading other worlds, essentially. It's like the worst-case science fiction horror story, and we are the monsters. See, we're not interested in discovering new Life (I believe we can find Life anywhere)...we're only interested in finding new real estate for ourselves.

And I'm convinced that we're not interested in "making contact" with truly alien intelligence, either.

I think it's a foregone conclusion that any aliens we encounter are going to be more technically advanced than us — because we're hundreds of years away from simple interstellar travel, they are going to have to come to us, if they're out there. They will have to solve the communications problem, because we can't — We can't even communicate with the millions of other species right here on our own planet, nevermind an offworld species.

This already places us at a serious disadvantage...and then what if they have all the compassion of a nest of pissed-off scorpions? No, we don't want to contact a truly alien species, we want to contact another group of humans whom we can second-guess and screw-over. Again, Earth-centric bias.

As this pertains to the topic at hand, I'd say that the chances are infinitesimally low that we will ever encounter an intelligent species that meets our biased criteria. We want humans — it's okay if they have prosthetic foreheads and bright orange contact lenses, but they by God better be human in every other respect. Otherwise, we're going to be totally lost and at their mercy.

— Doc Velocity

Have you ever heard of Dr. James Lovelock and "The Gaia Hypothesis"... you might find it very interesting.

no i have not what is it?? I will google it.

Originally posted by redseal
The chances that their ISNT intelligent life out their, is worse than ever single one of us winning the lottery!

The shear numbers alone prove that!

No, they don't. Life isn't like flipping a coin, where it's either going to land heads or tails. It doesn't matter if there are 127 billion galaxies or 127 million billion galaxies.

Somehow various chemicals and chemical compounds have to "find themselves" or randomly collide and stick together in a combination that can sustain itself and replicate with variations. Chemicals are not conscious. They have no innate desire to form living organisms. Yet, somehow, they have. Dead chemicals have become living, conscious organisms. We still have absolutely no idea how that can happen.

And so far, we can only be sure it happened once in all the universe. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

Originally posted by TheBadge

Have you ever heard of Dr. James Lovelock and "The Gaia Hypothesis"... you might find it very interesting.

no i have not what is it?? I will google it.

Even Solaris(The book and the 1972 Soviet Film;the 2002 movie sucks IMO) would be interesting to you..

The church wouldn't like it if life on other planets was found.

The Gaia Hypothesis suggests that earth is a self regulating system; that all life on earth works in an interconnected way to maintain the conditions favorable for life on earth and as such can be viewed as a single organism.

***********************
Large moon to block asteroids
***********************

Are you saying that if a planet has a large moon then no asteroids can hit said planet? I may have to disagree with that.

***********************
Must have a way to create and travel through a wormhole...
***********************

The title of this post is "chances of intelligent life on another planet"
Are you saying that if a species has not created a way to create and travel through a wormhole that it cannot be classified as an intteligent race?

So, are saying Humans are not an intelligent race then?

I would say the human race is not very intelligent, but for different reasons.

Hey, man. Look, all I know when I was in the Seti@home project, I fount something. As any decent ridin' along for the ride hacker that's ever been on this frame can tell you.

Two computer systems later, with absolutely no Warranty given, or -re-offered: They just don't want to know. A lot of money looking for, though.

Start your own program. There Out There.

Hey, man. Look, all I know when I was in the Seti@home project, I fount something. As any decent ridin' along for the ride hacker that's ever been on this frame can tell you.

Two computer systems later, with absolutely no Warranty given, or -re-offered: They just don't want to know. A lot of money looking for, though.

Start your own program. There Out There.


***Thanks key wiz--now we're all dealing with a double post. U SN 2X.


[edit on 4/18/2007 by bothered]

A conservative estimation:

The universe was created in the Big Bang event 12 to 15 billion years ago. Let's call it 12 billion years.

The best guess for the start of life on Earth is around 4 billion years ago. So, some regions of the universe have had up to 4 times longer to form life than earth has.

The Hubble Space Telescope site estimates there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. A recent German super-computer simulation estimates that the number may be as high as 500 billion! Let's split the difference and say 250 million galaxies in the Universe.

It's estimated that there could be 100 million Earth-like planets in our Galaxy alone. Out of 100 million let's say that there could be 5% that are capable of supporting life long enough and in a habitable environment for evolution to reach our mark of mankind. So, that's 5 million Earth-like planets in our galaxy.

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.

Beautiful posts Tyranny22 & Doc Velocity. You 2 make the most sense among these "unintelligent" beings inhabiting the forum. Lol

I honestly think you're either mad/self involved to not even consider that there is other intelligent life out there.

I don't even consider human beings as the most intelligent on this Earth. In a scientific & technological way, yes we are...but as far as everything else goes, we're far from it. Why do the most intelligent species on earth live the most pathetic, pitiful lives?

Not too long ago, scientist discovered an entire new species of fish. I wouldn't be too surprised to learn 10 years, or even tomorrow, that there's something on this very planet that we can consider smarter than monkeys & much more of a threat that AIDS. The ocean is what?...10% explored?!? What happens with the other 90%?

Well look at earth it is abundant with intelligent animals. As long as the conditions allow for advanced life, there is a 100% chance for intelligent life. Life is amazing and we are not the only intelligent beings in this universe. Even though our religious organizations and government's would like us to believe we are.

Originally posted by tyranny22


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.

That's what i think but.....
In the first place we should going to meet those who are already here.

Nice one tyranny22.

We'd be pretty selfish and pompous to think as a race we're the only intelligent ones out there in this vast universe. Not to mention the non-intelligent life which is obviously far more vast, using our planet as a model.

The probability screams in my ear "YES, LIFE EXISTS IN ABUNDANCE" and I'm content with believing so.

Now, that doesn't mean we should go off and believing every single UFO case.

As one of the people who posted a "laundry list" of "requirements" for life on other planets, I'd like to respond and clarify what I meant.

As I believe I stated in my post, I was operating under the assumption that we're talking about life similar to what can be found on Earth. At least on my part, this assumption was deliberate. I actually think there's all kinds of life out there, most of which we probably wouldn't recognize even if we were to land right in the middle of it! But as I remember reading somewhere else (I think maybe on some other ATS thread, even) someone pointed out that it does little good to wildly speculate about conditions for life for which we have no frame of reference and about which we cannot conceive. Yeah, maybe some star system has two red giants orbiting a black hole and life developed on the edge of the event horizon due to specific ideal conditions - but since we have no evidence of such life and no information from which to draw conclusions on the genesis of such life, we're essentially just engaging in sci-fi worldbuilding.

I think scientists who search for ET life look for Earth-like life because, hey, you gotta start somewhere, so why not start with what you know? With Earth-like life, at least we know what we're looking for.

Originally posted by Donoso


Now, that doesn't mean we should go off and believing every single UFO case.

Absolutely true !
Neither people who claims to be contactees et similia.

@OP
I did the drake equation again a week or so ago.

The result was 365 (coincidence) civilizations with interstellar communication in the milky way, based on the dimmest estimates, some still from Drake and others mostly from NASA.
Of course this was for fun. But it shows with the sheer magnitude of the universe even you make the chance ridiculously small, you still get a universe teaming with life.

I think life is pretty common.

If you like I can put the equation I did on here, just for fun.
Maybe redo it for the known universe with the number of galaxies you said.

ah well

I'll read the thread comments tomorrow.

[edit on 18/4/2007 by David2012]

Originally posted by NineSquared
...
conceive. Yeah, maybe some star system has two red giants orbiting a black hole and life developed on the edge of the event horizon due to specific ideal conditions - but since we have no evidence of such life and no information from which to draw conclusions on the genesis of such life, we're essentially just engaging in sci-fi worldbuilding.
...

Well, in coinciding with the theory that life evolved on this planet due to an infested, I mean organic molecule bearing comet; I'd say if we originate from the area you describe, Massive-Overbearing-Heavy Weighted materials would be derived.

This could explain why when one whisks about bio-genetic material in a test tube, centrifugally. Jokes, aside we can learn a lot about plotting our own makeup. We defined the genome, and some fervently try and distribute the information. There's probability aglore in defining lively hoods.

What if?...You were to ask of embodiment of spiritual forms. Not necessarily ghosts, but whatever you choose for yourself, later. The energy blasts we get that affect our delic-electronics could just be someone trying to say:

"HELLO World!"