Question Aliens...Do you think they exist?

[Keatah]

Bringing the topic back on topic (!). You can very safely assume that even if a real galactic empire existed - and I'm sure it does - they could rule 250,000 galaxies and not even be aware of planet Earth. "Space" is just too damned big!

Folks, The true nature of the universe is akin to a fly buzzing around and getting sucked into a turbofan. WTF just happened it says - as it goes through the bypass fan and out with the airstream. How does it tell its other fly-buddies what it flew through?

Does the fly understand the engineering behind the engine? Or the navigation and gps systems in the plane? Can it ever understand that? What about if we send the fly to school? Does it have the capacity to pick up the material? Does it know of the corporate mandates and economic forces that affect the route of the aircraft? Does it care?

Well, that comparison doesn't even begin to allude to the complexity of the universe. And humans don't (and never will) have the capacity to learn the real nature of the aether out of which known spacetime is built. Perhaps with bigger brains and genetic engineering we might come a mark closer. But how realistic is that?

Today's theoretical physicists are just as dumb and stupid as the fly. In the scale of things, probably a lot dumber! Not from lack of trying or anything; but from inherent handicaps and being trapped inside a 3D organic brain.

The fly flies like an airplane, at least it has that going for it. A modern-day scientist is clouded and confused by everyday distractions and the field of study is a thousandfold (or more) more complex.

 

[n72.75]

When I see one, I'll believe.

 

[Grover]

short answer: yes of course

long answer:
there are so many planets out there, that at least a few thousand/million much have met the correct conditions to support life. and there must be at least a handful of those that could/have produced one or more intelligent race(s), the problems are:
there are too many planets around for us to find each other easily
they are also so far away that it would take at least 8 years to make a round trip to their planet (assuming we can reach SoL travel), and thats if they lived next door, if they lived on the far side of the galaxy, it would take thousands of years to make a round trip, by which time' we'd have forgotten why we went over there anyway

so, of course there's life out there, but we'll likely never make an impression, because theres not much chance of us ever working together (unless we develop FTL travel)

 

[Pyromaniac605]

I think they exist, if you ask me it's nearly impossible that there hasn't been any other life evolved on any planets that exist now or have existed previously, as for whether or not these aliens are anywhere near us or know of our existence, who can say except the aliens themselves?

Also I hate the terms "habitable planet," "habitable zone" or anything similar, as there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that planets have to have this kind of atmosphere, this kind of temperature, these kinds of chemicals etc. to support life, it's a load of utter IMHO.

 

[_Designer_]

Well, there was "Planet-X" back in '98 I forgot the name of the planet though; said to be twice the size of Jupiter and earth atmospheric. However the planet is beyond the kuiper belt and I don't think any probes made it that far back, I know the one that made it to pluto but I don't think it made it or got through the belt.

 

[DaveS]

Well, there was "Planet-X" back in '98 I forgot the name of the planet though; said to be twice the size of Jupiter and earth atmospheric. However the planet is beyond the kuiper belt and I don't think any probes made it that far back, I know the one that made it to pluto but I don't think it made it or got through the belt.

Planet X do not exist. It's just a load of unscientific garbage. See this website for more information: http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/

---------- Post added at 09:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:25 AM ----------

Another thing: The spacecraft that is farthest away right now is Voyager 1: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1"]Voyager 1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

No spacecraft has yet studied any Kuiper Belt Objects(KBOs) up close. The hope is that the New Horizons spacecraft will be able to do that after its Pluto flyby in 2015.

 

[Wally]

Yes, I know there are lots and lots of star systems, planets, and so on.

But just imagine, how it would be if our civilization would be the first sentient and rational life form in the entire universe? That would make us the oldest civilization in the whole universe. Chances are very low, but there is a possibility. In any case, somebody must be the first one, so what if we are the first ones? What if every species we discover are inferior to us, from an evolutionary point of view? (with a nervous system to little complicated to support conscience). What if we are the greatest species that lives or lived in this Universe, since its creation?

 

[Tommy]

As far as they look, they will not share our characteristic (in theory I think they big bang destroyed our previous universe and we are a branch of surviving galactic cells that survived the blast, and space conditions. Those particular cells are what possibly created us). Have you noticed, all creatures have a pair of eyes, ears, nipples, arms, legs, nostrils and bodily exits.

Should an alien have those particular features, we in theory are descended from them. depending on our technology they could be ascending from us and other alien races dropped our previous ancestors off planet-to-planet as a part of experimental development of populatio, politics, war/peace etc.

damn, I noticed I sound VERY paranoid on this stuff

There's a couple flaws in your argument. For one, all creatures do NOT have two eyes (some have no eyes, some spiders have eight, etc), ears (again, not all creatures have them), nipples (only mammals have nipples), arms and legs (snakes and some lizards have no appendages, some creatures have fins or wings, etc), and some creatures (mostly microbes) have NO orifices, but semipermeable membranes instead.

Certain features like eyes and auditory organs (like ears) are common because they are excellent survival tools (as is some form of locomotion) Since most - possibly all - life on earth evolved from the same precursor it's no surprise that we share so many features.

Also, just because life from some other planet shares some or even many of the same features as us does NOT mean that we share any common ancestry. Humans, for instance, evolved the way we did partly because of the conditions of our world. But Darwinism suggests that ANY intelligent species would have the same survival needs as we do - the ability to sense and interact with our environment, If a species were to evolve on a planet even remotely earthlike (a gaseous atmosphere, liquid water, and available sunlight) would likely develop visual and auditory senses in order to survive. Some sort of dextrous appendage would also be required for tool use.

Humans evolved into our current form because it works. It provided better survivability than other forms (which died out). It's far from impossible for an intelligent species to develop similar survival features even if there is no connection to us. You would expect some differences, of course, but unless aliens show up with DNA markers that match our own almost exactly then I would assume parallel evolution - not common descent.

It's also possible that there can be alien life, even intelligent life, that bears so little resemblance to humans that we wouldn't even recognize it as life. This would be likely if that life came about on a planet we currently consider "uninhabitable". Only simple human hubris says that certain conditions (such as liquid water, oxygen, etc) are required for life. For life as we know it, perhaps. But there is a lot more that we don't know than there is that we do know.

 

[garyw]

Do aliens exist? Yes.

Have they evolved to being space fairing creatures? Nope.

When we finally go out to the worlds even in our own solar system I have no doubt that we'll find all sorts of weird life on Mars, Europa, Titan, etc but I do believe that we are the first species to evolve to the point of being able to build spacecraft.

We live in a nice quiet part of a very hostile galaxy. We are lucky.

 

[Codz]

Do aliens exist? Yes.

Have they evolved to being space fairing creatures? Nope.

When we finally go out to the worlds even in our own solar system I have no doubt that we'll find all sorts of weird life on Mars, Europa, Titan, etc but I do believe that we are the first species to evolve to the point of being able to build spacecraft.

We live in a nice quiet part of a very hostile galaxy. We are lucky.

How are you sure of this?

 

[PennyBlack]

[Mild humour] Imagine if I was an alien with an once of grey matter, which would be a suprise. I would aviod humanity like the plague really. The human zoo is for viewing, a novelty and any interaction can be as dangerous as jumping into the lions den. I would snatch a few for a personal exibit though, to amuse my friends from Globulon Prime, by probing them with extremly old fashioned silver instruments. I'd cover my existence spraying dark matter around the universe to prevent the light of my activity from, coming to light. Leaving the little non entities in the age of darkness and giveing them a sense of being totally alone. I'd change myself, molding myself to their image and walk amongst them, spouting insane and ilogical nonsence and then sit back and watch the repercussions. I'd treat them as toys untill they reached a minor technological standard compard to my own, then set the Yellowstone volcano off so they have to start all over again, whilst recording it to show to those Globulon friends as a holiday/disaster video. [End of mild humour]

On a serious note, I believe in alien life. From the microbe upwards. It's going to be an exciting run, when we get off crawling on the floor.

 

[garyw]

How are you sure of this?

I'm not hence the words 'I do believe'. Like a lot of comments in this thread it is based on a personal interpetation of that available information.

 

[Codz]

I'm not hence the words 'I do believe'. Like a lot of comments in this thread it is based on a personal interpetation of that available information.

Okay, how did you come to that belief?

 

[garyw]

Okay, how did you come to that belief?

Based on information that I've read up on such as the excess acetylene in Titans atmosphere, the ALH rock from Mars and subsequent discovery of extremophiles and the signature of organic particles in comets.

On the flip side of that there is absolutely no evidence for intelligent alien life.

 

[Tychonaut]

It seems unlikely that in the entire vast universe, or even our entire vast galaxy, ours would be the only world with life, or the only one with intelligent life. However, our current sample size is one (1), so any conclusions beyond "we have one sample, there could be more" are pure speculation. Claims that a certain number of intelligent species must exist because of the size of the universe are nothing but religion dressed up as science. There is no evidence to support them, just faith.
I suggest bracing for the worst, though. If they exist, our alien counterparts may be so far away we can never hope to find or communicate with them. Or we may very possibly be alone.
Should we ever find evidence of alien life, it is unlikely to be a monolith or an alien ship braking into the solar system. Rather more likely is spectroscopic evidence of an alien world with a lot of free oxygen in its atmosphere, or something of that sort.

 

[Wally]

On the flip side of that there is absolutely no evidence for intelligent alien life.

I concur, but how do you think an alien civilization could (indirectly) find life on Earth, from another solar system? (not saying galaxy, that would be way to far away). Radio-TV waves? Neutrinos from nuclear reactors? Artificial satellites around our planet? Artifacts on Moon, Mars, around Saturn and so on?

We did not find (yet) any (recognizable) evidence of intelligent alien life near us, but how do you imagine "others" can find us?

 

[Codz]

On the flip side of that there is absolutely no evidence for intelligent alien life.

Thats probably because we've yet to really go beyond our tiny corner of the galaxy.

 

[PennyBlack]

I think aliens may "stumble" or have "stumbled" upon us more in the same way we may with life in or around our system. Like, I go for a walk and kick over a rock and see something new. I suppose it's the same thing.
Our give away life signs like radio, microwave ect that give a certain intelligence away, have only travelled around hundred light years so unless there's an alien in the area, they may not be aware.

 

[garyw]

Thats probably because we've yet to really go beyond our tiny corner of the galaxy.

nope. assuming that there was intelligent life all across the galaxy you should expect at least one species to become very technogically advanced. yet we don't see any changes in the stars. Not a single star shows any sign of a dyson ring or other such stellar engineering construct.

 

[PennyBlack]

Not a single star shows any sign of a dyson ring or other such stellar engineering construct.

It may also be a case that the light has yet to travel to us, to show us that there is intelligent life to build one. They may be thousands, if not millions of light years away. We've just managed to invent the light bulb, showing the city patterns on the darkside of our world, so it will be a while before our light gets any where of relevence.

They may have also sprayed dark matter to hide themselves too. :shifty: