Are We Alone?

[Jimmy]

Let’s assume that existence has always been here and that space is infinite. One would think that in all that ‘time’ and space life formed from abiogenesis not only here but in other places. Also one would think that some of these ‘other’ life forms would be way ahead of us in evolution and technology. What I find weird is that we have not been contacted in any way. Go figure.

 

[Vinayaka]

Let’s assume that existence has always been here and that space is infinite. One would think that in all that ‘time’ and space life formed from abiogenesis not only here but in other places. Also one would think that some of these ‘other’ life forms would be way ahead of us in evolution and technology. What I find weird is that we have not been contacted in any way. Go figure.

The huge times and distances make the practicality of that nigh impossible in the physical realm.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

First, I am one of those who thinks that life exists abundantly throught the universe, although spread so thin that it would look incredibly sparse.

However, given the nature of the universe, and the vast, vast distances between those sparse pockets of life (along with the possibility that only some, or very few, achieve the intelligence to communicate beyond their locale), I would be immensely suprised if we have been contacted.

So while we are likely not alone in the universe, we are very much alone in that we can't visit or talk to the other lives in it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Let’s assume that existence has always been here and that space is infinite. One would think that in all that ‘time’ and space life formed from abiogenesis not only here but in other places. Also one would think that some of these ‘other’ life forms would be way ahead of us in evolution and technology. What I find weird is that we have not been contacted in any way. Go figure.

The great distances and difficulties and challenges of space travel might make such travel impossible without fundamentally altering the fabric of time-space itself. This is because the distances are so great that a species would need a life span of many centuries to even feasibly make the attempt.

 

[Jimmy]

The great distances and difficulties and challenges of space travel might make such travel impossible without fundamentally altering the fabric of time-space itself. This is because the distances are so great that a species would need a life span of many centuries to even feasibly make the attempt.

That's why technology would be better suited

 

[Jimmy]

First, I am one of those who thinks that life exists abundantly throught the universe, although spread so thin that it would look incredibly sparse.

However, given the nature of the universe, and the vast, vast distances between those sparse pockets of life (along with the possibility that only some, or very few, achieve the intelligence to communicate beyond their locale), I would be immensely suprised if we have been contacted.

So while we are likely not alone in the universe, we are very much alone in that we can't visit or talk to the other lives in it.

Ya think they would send out probes to detect life. Maybe they're all like us and limited.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Ya think they would send out probes to detect life. Maybe they're all like us and limited.

Maybe they have -- and maybe, in several billion years, they'll reach us. Until then...???

 

[Jimmy]

Maybe they have -- and maybe, in several billion years, they'll reach us. Until then...???

Well given all the time they've had so far it doesn't look promising

 

[Ella S.]

Ah, the Fermi Paradox. It is an interesting question, isn't it?

Personally, I think we've accurately identified a number of planets that could house complex life. They're not incredibly common, but the galaxy is large enough that there are a few near us. There are a few hypothetical issues with establishing contact, even if these planets are inhabited.

1.) Who's to say that sapient life evolved on them at all? Earth existed for billions of years without sapient hominids.

2.) Who's to say that, if such life did evolve on them, it isn't extinct now? Humanity itself has had some close calls with near-extinction events, and we haven't really been around that long. Written history starts only about 10,000 years ago. If this other intelligent species evolved before us, then they could have wiped themselves out thousands or millions of years before we even invented the wheel.

3.) What if there is a limit or a plateau to our technological development? Many isolated human communities ended up stuck in about the same level of technology for centuries, if not millennia. Who's to say that wouldn't happen on a planetary scale to us or them? Maybe, for instance, travelling between star systems is an infeasible and difficult problem to solve.

4.) What if they're around the same level of development as us? They might not even be able to see our star, because Sol is rather dim and drowned out by the brighter stars around us. We also wouldn't receive their radiowaves for another several centuries at least, because of the time it takes to travel in the vastness of space. They could even be behind us in technological development, such as being stuck in a hunter-gather society, which we have again seen on this planet, too.

5.) What if life does not inevitably develop on every solar body that can support it, and there's some element of chance conditions that need to be met first? Such as a very precise strike of lightning. It might be that only a quarter of planets that could support life ever do.

6.) What if they just don't want to contact us? Again, we are relatively invisible on the cosmic scale, so they might not even be aware that we exist. Even if they are, they might not share humanity's curiosity or might even be afraid of reaching out.

I think when you combine these with the relatively low number of earth-like planets near us capable of sustaining life, it drastically reduces the chance of us hearing from anyone any time soon. At the same time, there are places within our solar system that might already have life, such as Europa, and if this is the case it is almost certainly not sapient life. That would make the 1st point I made potentially have a lot more weight to it; only a single species on this planet has ever developed a space program, so what are the odds that a similar species would evolve on other planets?

Not non-zero. There's almost certainly quite a few planets where convergent evolution has lead to human-like species and societies. However, life itself is already uncommon, and human-like life is potentially vastly rarer, so that alone could really strangle our hopes of ever reaching out to them.

ETA: And, taking into account technological plateaus, perhaps even rarer that they would develop the technology to communicate with us at all

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Well given all the time they've had so far it doesn't look promising

You are not taking into account the vastness of the universe. In our little galaxy alone, it would take nearly 53,000 years to go from one side to the other -- if we could reach the speed of light. So far, we've gotten to less than 0.0037% of that speed at the fastest we've ever travelled. To travel to the next galaxy (among the hundreds of billions of them) would take tens of thousands of times that. Try to picture the scale. Then you'll be less surprised.

 

[Stevicus]

That's why technology would be better suited

We need better technology. If we had ships that could go warp 8, we could be at Alpha Centauri in about 3 days.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Not non-zero. There's almost certainly quite a few planets where convergent evolution has lead to human-like species and societies. However, life itself is already uncommon, and human-like life is potentially vastly rarer, so that alone could really strangle our hopes of ever reaching out to them.

I personally believe they wouldn't be human like as human like is a part of a Darwinian/Earthly evolution line, specifically of apes. Alien life, they'd have different elements and different environments as they evolve, and it's very doubtful they'd have apes.
If we are to ever make contact, our technology may even be so radically different than math and science are the only shared commonalities.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You are not taking into account the vastness of the universe. In our little galaxy alone, it would take nearly 53,000 years to go from one side to the other -- if we could reach the speed of light. So far, we've gotten to less than 0.0037% of that speed at the fastest we've ever travelled. To travel to the next galaxy (among the hundreds of billions of them) would take tens of thousands of times that. Try to picture the scale. Then you'll be less surprised.

I don't see any possible way to get past this without wormholes, bending space-time or other hypotheticals of theoretical sciences. Even just the same galaxy is just too big amd would require extreme leaps in space travel technology just to travel a local area.
I don't think such technology is possible, however I'm confident it would require a master level understanding of the Laws of Nature (or at least unraveled a far greater intimate understanding than we have) in order to go from cosmic canoes (and that's very generous for our current abilities) to better than the cosmic Condors necessary for such a feat.

 

[Jimmy]

You are not taking into account the vastness of the universe. In our little galaxy alone, it would take nearly 53,000 years to go from one side to the other -- if we could reach the speed of light. So far, we've gotten to less than 0.0037% of that speed at the fastest we've ever travelled. To travel to the next galaxy (among the hundreds of billions of them) would take tens of thousands of times that. Try to picture the scale. Then you'll be less surprised.

Right it's a big place. One would only think that someone out there has developed tech to reach us. Like I said if it hasn't happened yet it probably won't.

 

[Jimmy]

Ah, the Fermi Paradox. It is an interesting question, isn't it?

Personally, I think we've accurately identified a number of planets that could house complex life. They're not incredibly common, but the galaxy is large enough that there are a few near us. There are a few hypothetical issues with establishing contact, even if these planets are inhabited.

1.) Who's to say that sapient life evolved on them at all? Earth existed for billions of years without sapient hominids.

2.) Who's to say that, if such life did evolve on them, it isn't extinct now? Humanity itself has had some close calls with near-extinction events, and we haven't really been around that long. Written history starts only about 10,000 years ago. If this other intelligent species evolved before us, then they could have wiped themselves out thousands or millions of years before we even invented the wheel.

3.) What if there is a limit or a plateau to our technological development? Many isolated human communities ended up stuck in about the same level of technology for centuries, if not millennia. Who's to say that wouldn't happen on a planetary scale to us or them? Maybe, for instance, travelling between star systems is an infeasible and difficult problem to solve.

4.) What if they're around the same level of development as us? They might not even be able to see our star, because Sol is rather dim and drowned out by the brighter stars around us. We also wouldn't receive their radiowaves for another several centuries at least, because of the time it takes to travel in the vastness of space. They could even be behind us in technological development, such as being stuck in a hunter-gather society, which we have again seen on this planet, too.

5.) What if life does not inevitably develop on every solar body that can support it, and there's some element of chance conditions that need to be met first? Such as a very precise strike of lightning. It might be that only a quarter of planets that could support life ever do.

6.) What if they just don't want to contact us? Again, we are relatively invisible on the cosmic scale, so they might not even be aware that we exist. Even if they are, they might not share humanity's curiosity or might even be afraid of reaching out.

I think when you combine these with the relatively low number of earth-like planets near us capable of sustaining life, it drastically reduces the chance of us hearing from anyone any time soon. At the same time, there are places within our solar system that might already have life, such as Europa, and if this is the case it is almost certainly not sapient life. That would make the 1st point I made potentially have a lot more weight to it; only a single species on this planet has ever developed a space program, so what are the odds that a similar species would evolve on other planets?

Not non-zero. There's almost certainly quite a few planets where convergent evolution has lead to human-like species and societies. However, life itself is already uncommon, and human-like life is potentially vastly rarer, so that alone could really strangle our hopes of ever reaching out to them.

ETA: And, taking into account technological plateaus, perhaps even rarer that they would develop the technology to communicate with us at all

It's a big place with a lot of time. One would think anything could've happened but at this rate I doubt it ever will

 

[Ella S.]

It's a big place with a lot of time. One would think anything could've happened but at this rate I doubt it ever will

There's a difference between the chance something happened on the scale of a galaxy or the universe as a whole and the chance that something happened with a specific, small portion of that space.

Think of it this way. I have a die. What are the chances that I roll a 6 on my first cast? They're very low, about 1 in 6. What are the chances that I will eventually roll a 6 if I keep rolling it? Almost certain.

Our local area is just one die roll of countless rolls across the universe. Since nature is predictable and deterministic on the scale we're talking about, that metaphorical die was rolled all the way back during the formation of our galaxy. We won't get another one. We're just watching the consequences of the initial formation of our galaxy play out now.

ETA: And it could be the case that the chance of aliens from outside of our galaxy developing technology to reach us is as impossible as rolling a 7 on a 6-sided die. It might not matter how many times you roll it. It will never happen.

 

[Nimos]

Let’s assume that existence has always been here and that space is infinite. One would think that in all that ‘time’ and space life formed from abiogenesis not only here but in other places. Also one would think that some of these ‘other’ life forms would be way ahead of us in evolution and technology. What I find weird is that we have not been contacted in any way. Go figure.

I think it depends on the success rate of early intelligence and their survival rate

I would think that humans are in that category we have already developed weapons that can kill everyone and are already ruining our planet in that short amount of time and very little is being done to expand humanity to outer space, compared to what could be done. Depending on how long it takes to get "established" I do think that intelligent life will reach a point where extinction is extremely unlikely. Meaning that we for instance have spread to several solar systems.

The big question is how easy that is and whether intelligent life tends to go extinct before reaching that stage. Also, the distance and rarity of intelligent being like us might be extremely rare whereas life, in general, might be very common, it obviously requires us to find some first and see under which conditions they can survive.

But it would be awesome if some friendly ones would come to visit us soon and teach us how to travel in space because then I'll be the first one on a spaceship going out there to have a look

 

[ChristineM]

Let’s assume that existence has always been here and that space is infinite. One would think that in all that ‘time’ and space life formed from abiogenesis not only here but in other places. Also one would think that some of these ‘other’ life forms would be way ahead of us in evolution and technology. What I find weird is that we have not been contacted in any way. Go figure.

The universe is big. You think walking to the shops is a long way, its nothing compared to the size of the universe. The universe holds a couple of trillion galaxies each with somewhere between 100 and 400 billion stars. It appears that most of those stars have planets. That is an awful lot of planets and it also appears that a few percent of them are habitable. So if on all of those possibly trillions of habitable planets there is no intelligent life then the universe is one huge waste of space.

If life exists out there, and if it is intelligent enough to be transmitting signals that we can detect the problem is distance. The very first radio signals from earth have only travelled 119 light years, that's means the first signals have reached about 60,000 stars. Just a very tiny fraction of all stars. But assume there is life close to one of those stars and they want to signal back, to say hello, we may have to wait up to 119 years for their message to reach us.

A couple of points. It seems life can not develop until entropy reaches a certain stage, that would be fairly constant across the universe so if life were to develop on other planets it will have started around the same time abiogenesis occurred on earth.

According to Einstein even if life evolved quickly and produced transmission technology they are limited to the speed of light.


Btw, earlier this year a radio signal from 9 billion miles away has been detected. Transmitted much to early in the life of the universe for it to be life though.

Radio signal from 9 billion light-years away from Earth captured

 

[Valjean]

Ya think they would send out probes to detect life. Maybe they're all like us and limited.

Where would they aim the probes?
Would anyone remember these probes when their initial reports were received 100,000 years after launch?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Let’s assume that existence has always been here and that space is infinite. One would think that in all that ‘time’ and space life formed from abiogenesis not only here but in other places.

I consider that quite likely.
Considering the unfathomable size of the universe, the sheer amount of stars and orbiting planets "out there", it seems inconceivable to me that whatever happened on earth to produce life didn't also happen elsewhere.

I think life is "rare" in the sense of "take a random planet and see if it has life", is going to have a very low chance of being succesful.
However, if say 1 in 100 million planets has life.... then there are / were / will be millions, if not billions, of planets with life on it.

So... "rare" for individual planets. But not so rare throughout the universe, in the bigger picture of things.

Also one would think that some of these ‘other’ life forms would be way ahead of us in evolution and technology.

It sure is possible. Although there I that "intelligent life" in that sense will be rather rare.
Take earth as a blueprint on that.

It took around 4 billion years of evolution, +80% of which involved only one-cellular life, for ONE species to achieve such.
And it remains to be seen if we'll be around to explore further into space.

Civilization / tech building, even in its most rudimentary forms, is only a couple 10s of thousands years old. That's NOTHING compared to the vast history of life on earth. It's barely a blib.

What I find weird is that we have not been contacted in any way. Go figure.

Let's just assume that there is a civilization out there that has managed to become more advanced then us.
How would they know where to look for us?
And if they found us and studied us, would we even know?
Would they even be interested in us? Forget hollywood movies where everybody speaks english and can "just" breath the air on other planets. Think in practice. How would that go, such a contact?

And how would they get here? Advanced or not, they are still bound by the same physics.

Even if we allow for such civilizations "out there", these would still be millions of light years away.
It think it's extremely naive to think that
- such civilization exist
- they know about us and thus know where to go
- would be interested to come here
- would be capable to come here
- ...

and assume all that as if it is a "given". So much so even that you would even require a special explanation for why these aliens have NOT yet come.

It's very strange to me.

From my perspective, even if I would assume that a galactic civilization exists, I'ld find it more reasonable to assume that they simply don't know about us.