` Out of the question, and if it does exist, meaningless - by virtue of the circumstance that it is impossible either for us to know of it's existence, or for this hypothetical "extraterrestrial life" to know of ours. .
OK, but if it exists and is older than us, it could be widespread in space--it may have solved some of the technological problems that keep us earthbound.
Killjoy: Do you really, honestly believe that we know right now all we will ever know about physics and technology? Just because we cant do interstellar travel now doesnt mean it isnt possible. P.S.: Take quantum mechanics for example... this some freaky ass shit. since it treats ALL matter like waves (or you can think of all matter in that way)... There is some potential barrier you yourself can hit and not all of you will reflect back... does that make any sense? Thats like hitting a brick wall and everything reflects back except your right arm which passes through the wall. And some dude on my campus built a device which takes an electron, and splits it up through diffraction (wave-particle duality), turns these two parts head on.... you know what happens? the waves cancel out! an electron cancels itself out.... it literally ceases to exist. figure that one out.
it seems like an awful waste of space. for the human race, who can not even reach our hands out and grasp yet.
it is not meaningless because if we can't go on space travels ourselves, we can send radio signals. taking in consideration the amount of space there is to cover, even radio travels very slowly, but you have to consider the possibility that civilizations much older than ours could have been sending signals all over the galaxy for billions of years and that eventually something will reach us... that is if we can manage not to destroy ourselves until then
` We're not earthbound... Heck, we've already managed to toss a gizmo clear out of the solar system. It implies that one day we'll go further & faster, but does it mean that someone/thing else is out there thinking they have to get out into the Void and seek out... Well, anything. To me, this is an example of the expectation that the Universe must conform to a certain preconception of it. In spite of a pet belief that Hesienberg's Uncertainty Principle is, in fact, the ultimate revelation of physics (you can't ever really know where anything actually is, being my somewhat facetious interpretation of it), I certainly don't think we have learned all we ever will of the Universe, and while it seems to me a long shot, perhaps practical interstellar travel might even be possible at some point. Now even given the wherewithall to go where one might with starships, it seems to me the likelyhood of stumbling upon alien life should it exist would be remote, to say the least. I mean, even if they are intelligent, or older than humanity, they still have to be either coincidentally or intentionally doing something which will result in their being found... but why ? Why would they ? Why presume that they would develop technology at all. Without some clue like our own TV signals (reason enough to give us a wide berth), or an intentional "Hi There" beam, it's the same needle in a haystack search that Earth-like planets would be. I understand the concept of matter as waves, though this notion of a potential barrier escapes me for the moment. Do you mean that, say, if one were to travel by starship, that some speed threshold would result in the disintegration of the traveller's body due to the existence of this barrier ? This would seem a distinct disuasive aspect of attempting it. In any case, the quite genuine freakiness of the Universal machinery in action would seem to provide no further likelyhood that anyone waits to greet us should we manage to one day to traipse thru it as though on holiday, nor anyone zipping about it with the intent of finding anyone else. But why would they want to send signals? WE want to, because we are who or what we are. What would prompt some entirely alien species to behave as we have in the same situation ? It's wishful thinking to presume that extraterrestrials must surely be so brimming with the same curiosity we have about what the devil it's all about in this man's Universe that they would make the same sort of effort to get out into space & find out. Next you'll all be saying they'll look like us, too... .
From what I've read recently, it appears that life arose on this planet twice. A few remnants of the first wave can be found deep in the earth and deep in the sea, places so inhospitable and devoid of nutrients that the more robust second wave hasn't gotten around to out-competing it yet. If life isn't quite as "unique" as we in our hubris imagined, it seems far more likely than we used to think that it could just as easily have arisen on other planets. And there are plenty of other planets in our galaxy. They keep finding new ones all the time. There are a hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, so there are certainly millions of planets. A lot of them don't have the right characteristics to support life even in extreme fantasy, but we've already found one that could, so there are certainly at least a few thousand more right here in our neighborhood. The number of galaxies in the universe has not been estimated so precisely but everyone seems to agree that it has at least eight zeros. And there's no reason so far to think they're a whole lot different from ours. So to shave these numbers conservatively, in all likelihood there are still billions of planets in the universe that could support life if it arose there. This is one of those planets and it arose here twice so what does that make the chances of it arising on one of those other planets? One in a thousand? One in a million? Okay, even in that case there are still probably thousands of other planets bearing lifeforms. Whether we'll ever stumble onto one, or whether the life there develops self-awareness and intelligence and civilization and radio wave transmitters so we can at least detect their existence--well, that's anybody's guess. But if the question is merely whether life exists somewhere else in the universe, I'd say the odds in favor of yes are, well, astronomical. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There is just no evidence of life beyond the earth yet, and so people who believe in it do so based purely on their own convictions - pretty much the same as those believing in God. A lot of people look at the almost unimaginable vastness of the numbers used in describing the universe, and decide that there must be life out there - but until we know more about what life is and how it actually started we might as well just flip a coin Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
also, the odds of extraterrestrial life being in technological lockstep with us even by 50,000 years are extremely low. most life is either: 1. extremely simple, still in a monocellular state. or 2. so far surpassed anything we can imagine. its just logical deduction of numbers, i think.
according to the recent discovery that belief in a god is hardwired into our brain makes it rational http://washingtontimes.com/world/20041114-111404-8087r.htm
-------------------------------------------------- .of.course.there.is.life.on.other.planets. --------------------------------------------------
That's an interesting statement Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Which one do you find to be logical? And based upon what?
Yeah theres life on other planets...maybe even comets...take moon Titan for example or Europa...the best candidates for life so far. Titan has a huge ethane ocean, so thats the source of hydrocarbons for life...possibly...Europa moon has water ice and volcanic activity...so there must be liquid water there... Yeah I am sure there are lotsa bacteria on many planets, but life as we know it on Earth...not much...not much at all...
thousands of people said they have been kidnaped by et. tey must exist. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
people want to believe, they believe in it...People believe in aliens, then they make up stories of aliens, or explain their fears or the unexplained with the aliens phenomena...
