Poll of the Day > Potd: Do you believe that intelligent life exists outside of Earth?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Are we certain that there is intelligent life on earth in the first place?

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Probably, but it hasn't come to Earth and anyone who thinks it has should probably see a therapist.

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Was gonna say i'm still looking for proof of it on earth, but you beat me to it.

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I don't even think it exists on... oh, never mind.
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Yeah. The universe is an inconceivably big place.

There are intelligent life on earth. Outside of earth, I think there are possibly intelligent lives.

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Yeah but I think it might be so radically different than us that we couldnt even recognize it as life.

Or what if there are other intelligent civilizations here on earth with us but theyre so microscopic or smaller that we would never know about them? I mean if we somehow discovered that our entire observable universe was just a single molecule of a much larger world of intelligent species, it isnt like there is anything we could do with that information.

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Yes, and I believe they routinely interact with society and get into such adventures as hunting for ghosts or time travelers.

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PK_Spam posted...

Yes, and I believe they routinely interact with society and get into such adventures as hunting for ghosts or time travelers.

So are you implying that alien life existing is as realistic as ghosts being a real thing?

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Yes, it is a big universe out there. As for the "you say that like there's intelligent life here" people, do consider that this planet is home to more than a single species, though you do well to prove the one species you were thinking of does tend to not be very bright.

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Mead posted...

So are you implying that alien life existing is as realistic as ghosts being a real thing?

Youre missing the point, man. Its not about finding the ghosts. Its about trying to find the ghosts.

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I don't doubt for a second that there is life in some form or another in the universe, that's just math.

With intelligent life, I think there are two major barriers.

The first being cataclysm, be it their star going nova, an x-class flare, or self-imposed by something like nuclear holocaust.

The second being, the seeming FTL ban on travel weighed against the expansion of the universe.

With our current understanding of the expansion of the universe, past a certain distance the expansion of the universe exceeds the rate if slower than light travel.

If Greys/Saurians/Nords/Reptilians/Draconians, etc exist...it's almost more likely they're trans-dimentional than they are from other rocks in our own universe.

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PK_Spam posted...

Youre missing the point, man. Its not about finding the ghosts. Its about trying to find the ghosts.

Missing the point is an understatement. I have no idea what you are talking about at all.

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FourthDimension posted...

Yeah. The universe is an inconceivably big place.

Shadowbird_RH posted...

Yes, it is a big universe out there.

LuciferSage posted...

I don't doubt for a second that there is life in some form or another in the universe, that's just math.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

Size doesn't necessarily equate to probability. Especially once you start factoring in the timeline (ie, even if intelligent life evolves somewhere else, it doesn't necessarily exist now). And especially when you differentiate between "life", "sentient life", and "sapient life".

We could easily be looking at a scenario where sapient life evolved elsewhere, but has already gone extinct. Or where it WILL evolve, but not for millions of years - 14 billion years seems like a long time to US, but our current scientific understanding suggests we might be living in a fairly young universe (no matter how many species evolve, one HAS to be the first - and it could just as easily be us as anyone else).

Which is not to say that life CAN'T exist elsewhere, or that it DOESN'T, but the size of the universe doesn't even remotely guarantee it does.
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Zangulus posted...

If its just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

Not if we're the total improbable occurrence.

There may be millions of societies at our level from one end of this universe to the other just based on pure chance, but how many of those civilizations would ever meet face-to-face given the rate of expansion in the universe?

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

Size doesn't necessarily equate to probability. Especially once you start factoring in the timeline (ie, even if intelligent life evolves somewhere else, it doesn't necessarily exist now). And especially when you differentiate between "life", "sentient life", and "sapient life".

We could easily be looking at a scenario where sapient life evolved elsewhere, but has already gone extinct. Or where it WILL evolve, but not for millions of years - 14 billion years seems like a long time to US, but our current scientific understanding suggests we might be living in a fairly young universe (no matter how many species evolve, one HAS to be the first - and it could just as easily be us as anyone else).

Which is not to say that life CAN'T exist elsewhere, or that it DOESN'T, but the size of the universe doesn't even remotely guarantee it does.

I don't agree or disagree with this tbh. Both options are equally valid, and the thought of first contact is just as terrifying to me as the thought that we're alone.

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LuciferSage posted...

Not if we're the total improbable occurrence.

"If there are a billion possible worlds that are perfect for the genesis of life, but the odds of life ever arising on one of those worlds is something like 1-in-1 trillion, that would make it incredibly improbable that WE exist, let alone anyone else."

Ultimately, the size of the universe and the number of life-bearing planets in it are kind of meaningless factors unless we know what the odds of life ARE (and the odds of it ever surviving and evolving to the point where it would develop meaningful awareness). And we have absolutely no idea. Even things like the oft-quoted Drake Equation is mostly just pulling numbers out of one's ass and blindly guessing. It's about as reliable and accurate as asking a Magic 8-Ball whether or not there's advanced life out there.



LuciferSage posted...

but how many of those civilizations would ever meet face-to-face given the rate of expansion in the universe?

This is the other thing most people never really consider, especially since very few people truly comprehend just how VAST the empty spaces in the universe ARE, and how far apart everything is.

Worse, the standard assumption that radio waves travel "forever" has sort of been proven false, and the current understanding is that radio waves probably won't propagate beyond 100 light years or so before they degrade to what is essentially random noise (meaning the outer edge of our transmissions are already effectively "static"). So no one out there is ever going to find us (and we'll likely never find them) unless they're already in our backyard for some reason. Which is utterly statistically unlikely because of the aforementioned size of the universe thing.

It's the equivalent of a scenario where the end of the world happens and there are only two humans left on Earth, with no means of communicating long-distance, with no idea of where the other person is, and with one starting in Los Angeles while the other starts in London. And then trying to figure out how likely it is that they'll ever find each other if they travel the world and occasionally shout at the top of their voice in the hopes that someone else will hear there.

Humans basically WANT intelligent alien life to be out there and aware of us because we're existentially terrified of being alone. But the entirety of human history is basically an eyeblink in the lifetime of the Earth (let alone the universe), and we're like one drop of water in an ocean the size of the solar system. Even if we survive for another million years (which we almost certainly won't), odds are no one else is ever going to find us, and we're never going to find anyone else.

(And that's assuming we should even WANT to be found, and that potential aliens out there aren't marauding reavers or self-constructing Von Neumann war machines that harvest and destroy everything they encounter, or the space equivalent of Europeans discovering the Americas.)
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LuciferSage posted...

I don't agree or disagree with this tbh. Both options are equally valid, and the thought of first contact is just as terrifying to me as the thought that we're alone.

"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

--- Arthur C. Clarke



"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door."

--- Fredric Brown
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I don't even think it exists on... oh, never mind.

I know, right? That was totally unfair of him to use that pun as an opening to the topic.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

Size doesn't necessarily equate to probability. Especially once you start factoring in the timeline (ie, even if intelligent life evolves somewhere else, it doesn't necessarily exist now). And especially when you differentiate between "life", "sentient life", and "sapient life".

We could easily be looking at a scenario where sapient life evolved elsewhere, but has already gone extinct. Or where it WILL evolve, but not for millions of years - 14 billion years seems like a long time to US, but our current scientific understanding suggests we might be living in a fairly young universe (no matter how many species evolve, one HAS to be the first - and it could just as easily be us as anyone else).

Which is not to say that life CAN'T exist elsewhere, or that it DOESN'T, but the size of the universe doesn't even remotely guarantee it does.

Pretty much came in to say this as well.

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Doubtful. It barely exists on earth.

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Shadowbird_RH posted...

As for the "you say that like there's intelligent life here" people, do consider that this planet is home to more than a single species, though you do well to prove the one species you were thinking of does tend to not be very bright.

There's clearly no other intelligent life on Earth. Why, not one species has even invented digital watches!
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

"Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."

--- Arthur C. Clarke

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door."

--- Fredric Brown

Yes, totally.

But remember also that the Saurians ruled this world for 2 billion years before the mammals even got past voles.

This world has an apparently special reason to produce at least sapient life. Even if Hominids dropped dead as a species tomorrow, elephants, dolphins, and octopodians still exist. And the Hominids have hung out here for a relative second and we've already set foot on Luna.

And this is just one rock of many orbiting a less than average star in a cosmic backwater.

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LuciferSage posted...

But remember also that the Saurians ruled this world for 2 billion years before the mammals even got past voles.

Yeah, but that goes back to my eyeblink comment earlier. Humans basically evolved overnight in a geological sense, and countless other species were here waaaay longer than we were and never managed even a fraction of the stumbling towards sapience that we managed. From our own personal perspective and evidence, an argument could easily be made that there's something unique about humans (or primates in general) that never applied to any previous species.

Which in turn could suggest that the ability to transcend mere "life" to achieve "identity" is incredibly rare, and thus, not necessarily guaranteed for any other hypothetical alien life that might evolve, if it ever makes it past the cellular level in the first place.

Again, each step on the ladder that life on Earth took seems inevitable to us, because we're looking backwards from the end of the book and seeing how the plot led us to now. But we have no idea how likely any of those steps actually WERE in the moment, or how many millions or billions or even trillions of other runners in the race stumbled at an earlier step for some reason.

Sci-fi always loves the idea that if dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out they'd have spent the last 65 million years evolving into something approximating intelligence and civilization, but they were around for almost 200 million years and in that time never managed to even remotely manage the same degree of change we pulled off in less than 4 million. It's just as likely that, if the dinosaurs had survived and remained the dominant force on Earth post-Cretaceous we'd just have gotten a fourth age (Triassic/Jurassic/Cretaceous/?) where they mostly stayed pretty much exactly the same with only minor changes.



LuciferSage posted...

This world has an apparently special reason to produce at least sapient life.

Not really, we're the only sapient species that has ever existed here, as far as we know. At BEST, you might be able to extend it to a handful of close primate species, but even then it's questionable.

"Sentient Life" implies awareness and an ability to feel, but "Sapient Life" implies awareness of self-identity. Many animals would count as sentient, but not necessarily meet the criteria we think of for "intelligent" life (ie, civilization-building, language, etc). The word literally means "wisdom", and implies the divide between "animal" and "person".

If we travel to an alien world and find nothing but alien plants, we really aren't going to give much of a shit about their "rights". Even if we find a world of exotic alien animals, we're going to look at them more as potential resources or pests than we are anything that we actually need to respect. We're generally going to draw the line of distinction at whether or not whatever species we might find are using tools, building habitats, shaping their world, attempting to communicate with us, and generally being "people" instead of "beasts". THAT'S sapience. And that's what most people mean when they talk about "intelligent life" out there.

Pigs and dolphins and cats and dogs and the like are all theoretically sentient, but not sapient.
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Yeah. It's gotta. I hope they come here and straighten this place out.

LuciferSage posted...

And this is just one rock of many orbiting a less than average star in a cosmic backwater.

That was Sagan's argument, but not every astronomer agreed with him even then. We literally have no idea whether or not some aspect of our world is so utterly unlikely and rare that it makes life far more likely here than anywhere else. We could be one of the most common dirt-balls in the universe, or there could be something about Earth that is a massive cosmic accident that makes us utterly unique.

We'll never really know for sure until we can actually get out there and start exploring other worlds, comparing ourselves to them, and generally looking for signs of life. Just observing from Earth really isn't sufficient for that.

Even finding worlds that are similar to Earth that can support life doesn't mean much, because being capable of supporting life is not the same thing as capable of forming organic matter from inorganic matter and evolving it to the point of self-sufficiency. Even on Earth, there were probably any number of points where life could easily have been wiped out completely with no real hope of recovery.

Again, our problem is that we're basically looking at a case study of exactly ONE example and trying to generalize universal principles and concepts out of it. Which really isn't a great way to come up with accurate answers.

Basically, we could be anything from one out of a billion billion races in the universe RIGHT NOW, or we could be a massive cosmic accident that shouldn't even exist in the first place, and will be alone from now until the end of time because there will never be anyone else. We have no real way of knowing.

So everything's basically prefence, hope, and blind faith. Extraterrestrial life is basically the religion of the modern age.
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Raddest_Chad posted...

Yeah. It's gotta. I hope they come here and straighten this place out.

What if it turns out that Trump was actually an alien, and he came here to save us from ourselves, but we rejected him?

It would explain why he's orange. And the hair. And why he often kind of sounds like the aliens from Mars Attacks when he speaks.
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There is sentient life out there, perhaps in varying stages of their cycles of life. The ones as advanced as us are also as fucked up as we are. The ones more advanced than us are either dead already or simply too far away for lightspeed travel to do any worthwhile good (be it trade or conquest). So I wouldn't expect, realistically, to meet any life out there unless proper, stable wormholes become a thing, which is not all too likely as far as I am aware.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

What if it turns out that Trump was actually an alien, and he came here to save us from ourselves, but we rejected him?

It would explain why he's orange. And the hair. And why he often kind of sounds like the aliens from Mars Attacks when he speaks.

Has anyone tried playing some Slim Whitman for the man? <_<

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Probably. The universe is just so absurdly vast that it seems unlikely that it didn't evolve somewhere else too.

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The shear size of the universe basically makes it impossible for life to have not been created on other planets in the past, be on them now, and be created on them in the future.

Off the top of my head I think it's about 100billion solar systems in our galaxy and 2 trillion galaxies in our universe. There may be many ways for life to evolve in conditions other than that on earth that we don't know about, but the general conditions of earth, a temp that has water in a liquid state for instance, steady source of head, perhaps a moon for tides, would have to be at least fairly common (I mean we honestly have 3 planets in this system alone that could qualify for that, and a few moons).

I do believe it's highly likely travel at speeds faster than light is impossible, and that prevents long distance travel, even between solar systems, let alone galaxies, except with a few exceptions where solar systems are unually close together etc.

As far as intelligent life, there are different levels of intelligence and honestly the use of tools comes down to if those tools are needed by a species with enough intelligence to use them. Dinos sadly were not/did not evolve in a way that made using tools something they could easily do, therefore, if they didn't go instinct they would probably be much the same as they were right now.

As fast as humans evolved there could certainly be species, especially in far harsher environments, who evolved way faster. I would certainly say that it is FAR more likely that other life exists in the universe, and very likely that other intelligent life that can use tools exists, and has existed for longer than humanity has been around.

We are, over all, a very aggressive and potentially dangerous race, which in the long run will probably destroy itself and possible the planet around us. There are many other types of animals that might have evolved, even on our own planet, which are not so warlike, and while they might take FAR longer to evolve and advance technology (just because war often spurs technological advancements), they would easily have the time, because you know, they were not trying to kill each other.

Honestly if aliens did pop by, I wouldn't be surprised that they observed how we treated each other, and decided they wanted nothing to do with our race, found any instances of an ore or material that allows for faster than light space travel and took it with them, leaving us alone in our own solar system until we eventually die out. I don't even blame them if that is what they did, cause honestly, I think they were probably right.

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fishy071 posted...

There are intelligent life on earth. Outside of earth, I think there are possibly intelligent lives.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

What if it turns out that Trump was actually an alien, and he came here to save us from ourselves, but we rejected him?

It would explain why he's orange. And the hair. And why he often kind of sounds like the aliens from Mars Attacks when he speaks.

That's almost as dumb of a plan as the aliens from signs.

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Playsaver - when I read the topic title, I immediately thought of the same thing.

I've even asked myself, "Why do we look for intelligent life outside of Earth, when we have not even found intelligent life on Earth?"

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Yes. Most humans aren't intelligent enough to interact with it.

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Gaawa_chan posted...

Probably, but it hasn't come to Earth and anyone who thinks it has should probably see a therapist.

if it has come to earth it probably ran back to wherever it was from thinking everyone on earth should see a therapist.

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I believe so but unless they come to us I can't see humans ever interacting with them. Our own galaxy (Milky Way) is pretty big even by galactic standards and then our sister galaxy (Andromeda) is much bigger still. But I can't ever see us travelling around the galaxy nevermind intergalactic travel. The best bet to find life is inside our own Solar System and it wouldn't shock me if something was there. This is the only system we know with life in it and some other bodies are relatively hospitable with oceans etc. I'm not even talking mere microbes, you could have proper aquatic lifeforms on Europa or something. But as for human level stuff forget about it.

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I believe it's highly probable.

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Somewhere in the universe, certainly.

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