Question Aliens...Do you think they exist?

[Mojave]

Scotty, Beam me to that klingon ship.


No bud, aliens only exist in movies.

 

[PeriapsisPrograde]

"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

 

[T.Neo]

"I don't think aliens exist, because none of them seem to have done what I imagine they would do."

That argument makes absolutely no sense, because it relies on a preconcieved notion of what an "advanced civilisation" would be like.

We don't know what an "advanced civilisation" would look like. There are some ideas on the matter, but they are just that: ideas.

It is really silly, to insist that aliens or advanced civilisations would build things like "dyson rings" and whatnot. Such things are just purely theoretical, not to mention not required for an "advanced civilisation" (though the definition of which, is pretty wide-ranging- from a certain point of view, we could fit that description).

An advanced civilisation could be doing some pretty alarming things and still be relatively inconspicuous- at least to observers who wouldn't really know what to look for (like us).

And that also does not rule out intelligent life- intelligent life that is quite technologically advanced, being quite abundant. We are relatively technologically advanced, and we are "space faring" to a degree, yet we ourselves would have immense trouble picking ourselves out of the cosmos.

Nor does it rule out abundant complex life, which could be pretty common even if you assume relatively "pessimistic" numbers. Again, assertions that complex life is so rare that Earth contains the only instance of it, relies on a whole lot of assumptions, some of which are dubiously valid.

We are just yet learning how to observe and categorise the natural events in our universe. And we are suddenly supposed to be experts at discovering alien activity as well? Makes no sense to me whatsoever.

That said, I believe that "advanced civilisations" are relatively rare, and that there is a "pyramid of complexity"- simple life being most common, followed by a smaller abundance of complex life, of which a small percentage exhibits sapience, of which only some examples develop technologically (based on biological, geological or geographical circumstance). And then, only a few of those might colonise space considerably.

But "I can't see what I think I should see, therefore it surely doesn't exist" is not a good argument.

Absence of evidence is also not a good argument- At one point in history there was no evidence for the existence of the Americas, but that does not mean that they didn't exist. People just didn't know about them yet.

 

[PennyBlack]

No bud, aliens only exist in movies.

And so do good presidents.

 

[Pyromaniac605]

Scotty, Beam me to that klingon ship.


No bud, aliens only exist in movies.

And how do you know this exactly?

 

[garyw]

That argument makes absolutely no sense, because it relies on a preconcieved notion of what an "advanced civilisation" would be like.

We don't know what an "advanced civilisation" would look like. There are some ideas on the matter, but they are just that: ideas.

This is not strictly true. There is one thing any advanced alien race would take into consideration - cost. That is the expenditure in materials, time, resources, etc to achieve a goal.

It's better explained in this article.

 

[Mojave]

Sir, I just believe this. I can't say for certain that aliens don't exist because nobody really knows. But if I had to bet my life, I would say NO aliens most defenately do not exist. And if they do exist they are exactly like humans, and they don't have tentacles coming out of their heads. That's just me.



SE

 

[T.Neo]

This is not strictly true. There is one thing any advanced alien race would take into consideration - cost. That is the expenditure in materials, time, resources, etc to achieve a goal.

As valid as the issue of cost and resource expenditure is, I don't particularly see how it has anything to do with my argument.

But if I had to bet my life, I would say NO aliens most defenately do not exist.

What makes you say that?

And if they do exist they are exactly like humans,

:beathead:

Would make no scientific sense.

There are millions of different species on Earth. How many of them are exactly like humans?

they don't have tentacles coming out of their heads.

Ok, humans with rubber tentacles coming out of their heads don't make much sense either... :hmm:



Also, I keep misreading the title of this thread as "Atlas... to you think it exists?"

Heck yeah.

 

[garyw]

As valid as the issue of cost and resource expenditure is, I don't particularly see how it has anything to do with my argument.

You said that it's impossible to understand how alleged aliens would behave and I'm pointing out that we can make best guesses based on certain things such as resources.

 

[T.Neo]

Yes, but that still does not mean that they will act the way some people think they would. Many of the theories are no "best guesses", they are still just "aliens have to do this, because we think they do this".

In fact, it is more a reason against such absurd things as Dyson spheres. You could capture exawatts of energy from a star without a Dyson sphere. And even a single exawatt is a huge amount of energy.

And even then, a Dyson sphere might not look like what people think they would look like. For one, it most likely wouldn't be an impossible solid sphere structure, but rather an array of seperate collectors.

 

[garyw]

True but if you read the article it points out that 75% of G type stars in this galaxy are older than Sol. This means that if aliens exist somewhere there would be evidence be it in the form of a Dyson ring or an interstellar beacon.

 

[T.Neo]

The only reason "Dyson rings" or "interstellar beacons" enter the discussion is because you insist that they would be built by advanced civilisations.

Consider this: maybe the absence of such things, means that nobody bothers to build them, at least not often, for various reasons.

It only means the absence of advanced civilisations when advanced civilisations and such concepts are intrinsically married to eachother, and there is no reason to insist that this is so.

 

[garyw]

The only reason "Dyson rings" or "interstellar beacons" enter the discussion is because you insist that they would be built by advanced civilisations.

No, I don't. Read the article.

Consider this: maybe the absence of such things, means that nobody bothers to build them, at least not often, for various reasons.

Quite possibly and until any evidence is presented either way its safe to say that advanced aliens don't exist.

 

[T.Neo]

No, I don't. Read the article.

Oh... ok. So aliens are definitely going to do something, because that something was written about in an article on the internet. :facepalm:

Quite possibly and until any evidence is presented either way its safe to say that advanced aliens don't exist.

Wrong. It is most definitely not 'safe' to say that they do not exist... especially not because they do not act in the way that some people suppose they should.

A lot of the "best guesses" for advanced civilisation behaviour sound more like a storyline in a science fiction novel. Their absence could very well rather mean that there are entities out there, but they just don't pursue them. Sticking to something that doesn't fit the evidence and then insisting that your preferred explanation is the proper one, is not scientific when other possibilities exist.

If people continued to assert that the only way the Sun could glow was by being made of burning coal, we would still be wondering why the big ball of burning coal exhibits a nature more akin to a ball of hydrogen and helium gas radiating energy released by nuclear fusion occuring at its core.

 

[garyw]

Oh... ok. So aliens are definitely going to do something, because that something was written about in an article on the

T.Neo, I'm not getting into an argument with you about this. I was posting the article because I found it interesting and as an explanation to why I don't believe that intelligent life exists.

I am now out of this thread.

 

[agentgonzo]

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.

If a Dyson ring/sphere was constructed around a star, it would capture all the energy from the star, making it invisible to us, so we wouldn't even know it was there.

 

[T.Neo]

I was posting the article because I found it interesting and as an explanation to why I don't believe that intelligent life exists.

Well, that is nice. I am just saying, it is not a very good explanation.

If a Dyson ring/sphere was constructed around a star, it would capture all the energy from the star, making it invisible to us, so we wouldn't even know it was there.

Not exactly- the sphere would re-radiate that energy at a lower wavelength, no?

A "Dyson net" or "Dyson bubble", which are more technically feasible variations of the Dyson sphere would let some starlight escape, but still obviously appear different to a star not encompassed by such a construct.

Perhaps such an array could appear similar to a star enveloped in a dust disk...

 

[_Designer_]

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.

THAT (characteristics) I was not thinking about, lizards not having appendages I never heard of (cool to know ).

You make a good point, as evolution went on whether there is no air, water, etc. evolution find it's way to survive and it does make sense too. As we humans are carbon based, who knows martians do exist perhaps, same goes with venusians who knows, all it takes is the right base for nature/evolution to evolve and live on.

 

[Scruce]

:lol:​

Ancient Aliens (origin of this image) in my opinion, is a little to far fetched to be believable.

I think that aliens do exist and may have visited us, but I also think that many phenomena both explainable and unknown are often passed off as aliens, almost like a scapegoat in a way.

Also, if there are aliens, it will never turn out the way it does in Science Fiction. On another planet, live will evolve much differently, maybe not even evolve to a point past the mental capacity of Green Jelly?

At the moment, we just do not know, and I think it's going to take a long time to find out.

 

[Keatah]

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.

Well.. the aliens themselves may or not know of us! Perhaps not even they can say!

And "habitable planet" or "habitable zone" -- that could mean anything, those scientists will surely get their panties bunched up when they find a liquid boron lifeform, or perhaps something silicon based.

Habitable zone - for carbon/oxygen life, yeh. Who said it has to be based on that??