Assume for a Minute that We Are Not Alone in the Universe

In your assumptions you are also assuming that said other intelligent civilizations have the ability to contact us or travel to us at will. I think that is a bigger assumption than saying their is life out there.

I think you will find that many scientists feel intelligent life exists in the universe. The real question is due to such great distances and the laws of physics, if we could ever travel to or communicate with said life.

On a more serious note, just look what happened to primitive societies when Europe poked their heads into their lives. Everyone of them was devastated, not by being pillaged, but by infecting their culture with a new culture and technology.

I am sure that we would be a very interesting curiosity, but any technology advanced enough to cross the gulfs of space would understand the lessons burned in my first paragraph all too well.

Our first sign of intelligence in the form of RF waves is just a tiny 100 light years in radius; rippling outward in a universe that is billions and billions (sorry Carl, I know you never said that) of lightyears across (approximately 46 billion LY).

We have barely made a raindrop's splash in the ocean and the likelihood of discovery by another civilization at this point is virtually zero.

Fortunately, we still have Hollywood and we can create our own monsters, demons, and space invaders to entertain our imaginations and that will probably have to suffice for a long time to come.

the likelihood of discovery by another civilization at this point is virtually zero
I'm not so sure about that. Another civilization could be many millions (or hundreds of millions) of years more advanced. Much of life on earth was "reset" 65 million years ago.
Even if we only consider 1 million years. Based on our advancement over the last 200 years, 1 million years from now we will probably look like an alien society.
Or maybe just a wasted ball of rock.

OK, consider this hypothetical possibility.

10 million years ago, a species 1 million years more advanced than we are today, and 100 light years away, began looking. Using spectroscopy, they found candidate worlds in habitable zones, which contained water, oxygen, etc. This scanning is not restrained by the burden of time. It is giving information that is 100 years old, but who cares. Being 1 million years more advanced than us, they might have pretty good propulsion techniques. In the 10 million years since we were discovered as a candidate planet, probes reach us.

Maybe science fiction. We have become what we are from sub-species in 65 million years. Had we not been "reset" where would we be now. The above scenario could have been entirely possible, and may be in our future.

Shades of 2001 a Space Odyssey.

Not impossible. However, it is probably statistically small.

"Using spectroscopy, they found candidate worlds in habitable zones, which contained water, oxygen, etc."

Let's hope they've evolved beyond using spectrographic analysis.

What if water and oxygen are poisions to "them"?

Maybe they have a life form dependent on elements not yet discovered by us "fleas"?

Good point lyn...conjecture albeit.

I would love to know.

"...consider this hypothetical possibility..... 10 million years ago, a species 1 million years more advanced .....began looking....'

Stripping away the distance and the specific technology used, your statement becomes less hypothesis and more historical fact.

First evidence of alligators is dated to around 37 million years ago. This species is so advanced that no environmental pressures has been sufficient to force major adaptive changes even to the present.

Things that might barely pass as 'humans' might have been seen as far back as 8 million years ago and our form continues to adapt to this very day. Alligators can easily be considered 10's of millions of years more advanced via a couple different perspectives.

...Alligators have been looking for us taste morsels as long as we have been splashing around in waterways....

On a more serious note, we haven't been able to advance beyond the most rudimentary communication with the other fairly intelligent species on this planet....what makes you think we could communicate effectively with something that has so little experience in common?

We don't even do a great job of communicating with all the groups that actually are in our same species...

Good points.

I didn't actually cover communication however, only probes.

It wasn't just cultural infection - there was also medical infection. Smallpox wiped out huge number of South (and I presume North) America's existing populations. [Note: can't say "First Peoples" as the Aztecs surely weren't...]

Who knows what sort of space bugs the "little green men" will bring with them? The full NBC suits they'll wear won't just be for their protection.

As many as 512 or more stars of spectral class G (not including white dwarf stellar remnants) are currently believed to be located within 100 light-years or (or 30.7 parsecs) of Sol -- including Sol itself (spectral class GV). Only around 64 are located within 50 light-years (ly), while some 448 are estimated to lie between 50 and 100 light-years -- a volume of space that is eight times larger than the inner sphere within 50 ly of Sol. A comparison of the density of G-type stars between the two volumes of space indicates that the outer spherical shell has around 92 percent of the spatial density of known G-type stars as the inner spherical volume, which suggests that astronomers have identified the great majority of the G-type stars that are actually located within 100 ly of Sol.

Now these are just the G-type stars. There are many more stars in within 100 ly of us. Not only, but to date a total of 691 exoplanets have been discovered.

All have been bathed in our radio waves.

Interesting.

<...All have been bathed in our radio waves....>

OK, so multiply by the fraction that have the possibility of life forms at a similar stage of development given the projected age of those systems and multiply that by the fraction that are able to receive and decode any intelligence within those radio waves. Can someone please put some numbers to it?

Look up the Drake Equation and plug in the numbers you think are realistic and you can get an idea for yourself.

Of course, some of the values for those variables are a little fuzzy. :)

That's new here. Thanks!

"... life forms at a similar stage of development ..."

Which means in a few years we'll be watching Season 1 of their version of The Honeymooners.

Bog help us all.

They might 'visit us' much in the same way as we have 'visited them', with our radio transmissions. At radio wavelengths, Earth is brighter than the Sun.

n a more serious note, just look what happened to primitive societies when Europe poked their heads into their lives. Everyone of them was devastated, not by being pillaged, but by infecting their culture with a new culture and technology.

Are you saying that Cortez didn't pillage? Give me a break!

Huh? Where did you pull that "gem" from?

I never said that and the quote you provided obviously did state that.

Huh? Post 3 is yours, and it's still there to read (1st paragraph). (Cortez was from Europe)

Ah! I see what you mean. Sorry, poorly worded on my part. The intend was to exclude the pillaging that took place - that was obviously destructive behavior.

The reason it was excluded was to demonstrate that even benevolent intent leads to disaster when two very dissimilar cultures meet. It doesn't take an army to poison the culture of another.

He didn't say that the Europeans didn't pillage, he said that the culture effect was the most devastating, and not just in SA.

"Do we own this planet or we just tennants?" Does a flea own his dog?

If there are other intelligent civilizations out there, they will just consider us a primative species that will wipe itself out with greed and pettiness and steer clear us us.

What do we have to offer? Lawyers? Accountants? Doctors? Enron? Bernie Madoff. Not much as I see it.

"Does a flea own his dog?"

Well if he runs a successful circus he might save up enough to buy his own spot....

What if (I know this is a large what if, but let us imagine)... What is we, explorers from Earth, were the discoverers of an extraterrestrial civilization? With our wisdom of the ages and our history of patience over impetuous action, would we stay in the shadows and monitor this civilization, absorb their video and audio broadcasts, count their orbital mechanisms and determine their purposes... Discovering their lawyers, and executives, revealing the depths of their greed and pettiness.

After all of this, decide that no contact is the best plan?

Curiosity killed the cat. ^{(Sorry, Del. I didn't see you over there)}

Given our track record here on earth, with newly discovered civilizations, I'd say the universe is doomed if we're the discoverers.

The good news, you and I won't be around, unless it happens soon.

If you found a primitive civilization on an alien planet (assuming the technology existed to do that), are you saying that you would have no sense of curiosity about that civilization or its history?

Do you think that your total lack of curiosity is a universal trait of all sentient beings?

You may see us as pathological, but I am still fascinated by the introspection of our own existence and the opportunity to explore an alien civilization, regardless of its status, would be priceless!

Not at all. I would hope that we would be advanced enough to proceed in a cautious, thoughtful way to establish contact at some level. I do not fear the unknown.

I'm more curious about things over which I can exercise some control, or at least understand. My grass needs to be cut, I understand that.

I'll leave the pondering of things esoteric to those of you who are better equipped for such musings.

My response was to your post #4, where you stated that any advanced civilization would steer clear of because we are not worth their time.

My point was that I believe they would not. Now, whether they establish formal contact or simply observe us is another matter.

My #4 doesn't seem in conflict with your #1.

How will we ever know?

On the other hand, maybe they already have.

• The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) - IMDb

What do we have to offer? Lawyers? Accountants? Doctors? Enron? Bernie Madoff. Not much as I see it.

We are, after all, merely descendents of the passengers on the 'B' ship.

Mother Theresa, Gandhi, others who while not having been recognized yet, might be in the future.

The smallest light can break the darkness but the largest darkness cannot extinguish the smallest light.

I think you are over pessimistic friend.

Sorry, those people you mention are more than cancelled out by Lawyers? Accountants? Doctors? Enron? Bernie Madoff and the rest of the human flotsam and jetsam of our times.

I prefer to think of myself as a realist.

The only way to follow that is to lower the tone...

I find it hard to believe that we would have any idea how to communicate with another civilization. We clearly can't communicate very well with other species right here on our own planet. However, it seems that some species of dogs are pretty good at understanding what we are talking about, within certain limits of course. We are just recognizing that other species on our planet have the ability to communicate yet we assume they don't have much to say. That is pretty backwards.

Our electromagnetic bombardment of the stars may go unnoticed simply because another civilization has dropped that technology as obsolete. Therefore, it is nothing more than a shot in the dark, which always depends on luck anyway. Hopefully the electromagnetic radiation won't misinterpreted.

I'm not too sure that we have nothing to offer. Certainly, we won't have anything near the advancements that another civilization would have if they had the ability to travel such distances. E-mail just wouldn't cut the mustard with over 100 years required to reach its destination. Any contact would have to be facilitated with something like the ability to create or open a wormhole in order to cheat time.

It does not seem likely that we will have made the same mistakes or advancements as other civilizations. But what ever we do have, may not be important or interesting. Certainly, we can make no assumptions as to a sence of values or whether it is shared. We have that problem right here on this planet.

It seems that we would be seen as dangerous animals who occupy this rock and we are just too widespread and random to mess with. I guess this thought process is where so many of the sci-fi stories originate.

"It seems that we would be seen as dangerous animals who occupy this rock and we are just too widespread and random to mess with. I guess this thought process is where so many of the sci-fi stories originate."

I agree, we just are not worth the risk to mess with. The risk being more along the lines of disease and infection rather than military action considering how weak we would probably be compared to the visitors. First contact would probably be as much of a "first contact" as you have with ants in your driveway and pesticide - ridding them before they become a problem.

There's really just about nothing that can't be found elsewhere in the universe. Just about all minerals are readily available for scooping out of Jupiter's rings or something. Maybe alien teenagers joyriding through the universe accidentally finding us?

Or maybe there won't be a first contact at all, and we just get wiped out by alien made self replicating robots making their sweep through the universe!

Or the planet anihilated to make way for an intergalatic motorway?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(film)

Watch and learn.....

I never assumed we were alone. Rather I figure they found us first and went into hiding.

Wouldn't you ?

Yep.

"Don't touch that. You don't know where it's been" - Anon.

Look out, Mars....

our own so called "advanced cultures" has always precieved less advanced cutures as people to be enslaved be eliminated.

inviting, or revealing our location to extraterrestrials? with the capibility to communicate or traveling to this planet is as foolish as giving the chiness access to or military secrets.

Radio is only a century old on Earth, and I find it odd that we assume other intelligence would be using it. And the signal to noise ratio would drown out any distant signals, anyway. If ET is out there, I think they would be chatting with some technology we can only imagine. Something highly directional and FTL (entanglement?) And I suspect someone has been watching us for a very long time. BEMs in ships made of dark matter and powered by dark energy could be circling the globe right now. But probably not. In any case, I can't imagine we have much that would interest an interstellar intelligence. And I don't think we're going to discover them until they choose to let us. Maybe once we have proven we can survive long enough to routinely travel amongst the stars, then they will reveal themselves to us.

if yo're correct, then wy are we spending millions of dollars on radio astronomy?

Assuming that postulate is true, there would at the least be a phase where an advancing civilization would make use of the electromagnetic spectrum before graduating to other forms (whatever that may be).

It is not unreasonable to try to capture evidence of that period of a civilization sense we are producing that spectrum of noise ourselves. Seems like an excellent place to start.

Also, any civilization wishing to announce themselves (just as we have done and continue to do) would do so using the broadest stroke you could find. The EM spectrum is a perfect place to do that. It is easily decoded and does not require exotic technology.

There is no reason to believe that the EM spectrum would be the only mechanism used, but likely one of many to possibly strike up a conversation.

durtieduck haven't you ever sat at the top of the stairs and tried to listen in on the adults conversation? That's why: I want to know what they are saying.

Dragon

Please explain your TLAs

"TLA"?

Acrónimo de tres letras, itself a 4LA.

Acronym: Alphabetic Co-location for Reducing Or Numbing Your Memory.

Precisely my point.

Thank you.

FTL: faster than light

BEM: bug-eyed monster

After we finish all the beer here then we can look across the street.

Or that we've moved here from somewhere else. And that we'll move elsewhere soon.

I'm sure we are being observed, and possibly manipulated on some level.

There are alot of very clear UFO reports by very credible witnesses. Far too many to dismiss as mistakes for whatever reasons.

The reason this is not generally accepted is because the government or some element of the military conducted a very thurough, persistent and enduring coverup campaign. Take your pick of motives.

The scientist's objection to extraterestrial origins for UFOs comes down to the single idea that the speed of lite cannot be exceeded.

That is very easily dismissed.

1. They obviously have a greater understanding of physics than us and may have found a way to exceed or bypass the limit.

2. They may not have had to travel very far.

3. They would certainly have found many ways to endure a very long journey. A variety of immortality methods that we are already approaching, suspended animation, artificial life, etc. They could have come from milions of liteyears away and the time it took was not a barrier.

As many of you have pointed out, the likely reason they haven't come out and said 'people of Earth! here we are!' is because we are too stupid and dangerous.

The non-interference thing is also very likely, but who says they are not interfering? It's not like they would tell us!

What if, at this point in the life of the universe, we are the most intelligent beings around?

Alternatively (and this is my personal favourite) what if we and everything we can perceive are just a high school science experiment? Gone rogue over the long vacation....

"What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?" - Woody Allen

Nice summary.

To expand your No.4: We do live at the edge of our galaxy....out on the spiral arm.

You are right! About 28 thousand lightyears from galactic center and 20 lightyears from the galactic plane in the Orion spiral arm.

While we are located in a spiral arm, the Milky Way is about 100,000 light years in diameter, so while many of us live on the "edge" as individuals, collectively as a planet we are more in the middle. :)

From: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/solarsystem/where.shtml

As far as the huge distances, I wasn't aware that we completely ruled out the possibility of life with in our own solar system. Including what might be considered intelligent life.

And according to one scientist I've heard, we would most likely be visited by some sort of probe rather than any beings. That sounds about right.

Then again, considering the new entanglement stuff, we might already be under surveillance. Something like H.G. Wells "The Crystal Egg".

Concerning your point about other intelligences existing within our own solar system, that possibility is extremely remote (virtually zero).

We have no other signatures of life in our own solar system. Intelligent life would consume energy (as does all life) and you would expect to see by-products of that presence in many forms.

Clearly there is nothing in the EM radiation spectrum that gives us a clue. No heat. No debris, or evidence of life contained on meteors. Nothing.

You can make a case for special conditions that a civilization could exist without a trace, but that just makes the odds even more remote. Not only would such a civilization have to live without creating a signature, but they would also have to totally clean up any past "footprints" to erase their own history. Why would they do that?

That idea seems very unlikely as well.

Well for one thing I've read that there should be more carbon monoxide in the atmosphere of Venus than there is. But for the most part I agree with you. In fact, I'm amazed at what science is able to tell us about our neighbors not to mention the rest of what's out there. It makes you wonder how they figure some of this stuff out.

I really do believe it would be quite a coincidence if life were to exist on one of our solar system's planets (at least evolved). But it does astound me the amount of intelligent people that I've talked to that have a hard time believing that life is out there. Especially when you consider the size of our universe, and the fact that we're here.

I don't think any kind of life exists on the surface of Venus, let alone intelligent.

The surface atmospheric pressure is just too high (about 90 atmospheres) and that results in extreme heat (average is about 850°F).

It would not surprise me to find evidence of some form of bacterial (or otherwise) life somewhere in our solar system, but virtually zero chance of anything remotely intelligent.

<...don't think any kind of life exists on the surface of Venus...>

Indeed. Steam tables give the answer. Known life depends upon liquid water. Were H₂O to exist at the surface of Venus, 90barg and 850degF represents about 270Fdeg of superheat, i.e. it is dry steam. Therefore no liquid H₂O can be present on the surface, and therefore known life cannot exist there at this time.

Just a thought: We have the technology right now to terraform Venus. It could be habitable, at least at the poles, in about two hundred years, far sooner than Mars.

Dragon

Another possibility is that life elsewhere has evolved to the point where it is independent of massive matter and does not need to be based upon a planetary body in orbit around a star.

"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it" - Dr. McCoy.

"Why have they taken a "hands off" approach to us?"

"They" are here. All around us. We just can't feel their hands. Their presence is far beyond the limitations of our senses.

Yes we are just tenants in a mere parenthesis of eternity; space-ing-from no/where to now/here back to no/where.

You wrote, ""They" are here. All around us. We just can't feel their hands. Their presence is far beyond the limitations of our senses."

And the credible proof of that is where?

I also wrote "Their presence is far beyond the limitations of our senses" The proof is incredible.

If the proof is so incredible, where is it?

Or are you saying the proof has no credibility?

However, since you made the claim, please back it up.

Do you posses some ethereal power that allows you to see, "them"? He asks, cringing with skepticism.

Come on. Let's keep it mostly believable.

This is becoming religious. What else is belief in the unknowable and undetectable.

M-theory postulates an infinitude of multiple universes, each (apart from our own) undetectable even in principle. Certain interpretations of Quantum Mechanics (Hugh Everett's 'Many-Worlds' interpretation, for example) does the same, all without introducing religion.

Just sayin'

Multiple universes may be undetectable, but, if our physics leads us there, not unknowable.

M-Theory does not postulate multiple universes, it just does not rule them out as impossible.

As we all want to look out there for something beyond our view. We might take a moment and look inwardly and see that as societies progress we seem to take the ones that are to be called trash and the non-conforming individuals and send them to a far-away land where we will not be obligated or wish to have any contact period. We picked up this idea somewhere,it could have been instilled from being cast to the outer limits of the universe.

I like the theory that we are just history repeating itself. I watched a program on the Discovery Channel about this. I find it interesting the Biblical implications that support extraterrestial life:

1. Ancient painting showing artificial insemination taking place and a spaceship in the back ground, giving a foundation for a virgin birth.

2. Noah'a Arc couldn't possibly house two of each species of animals and be able to store enough food and fresh to last 40 days, however a DNA Bank would accommodate.

3. Chariots of Fire flying through the air and manned, depicted in both the Scriptures and ancient paintings.

4. Sodam and Gammorah, they've found places that show evidence of explosions as that could only have been created by something as great as a nuclear blast.

5. Evolution - We're still looking for missing links. What if we were transplanted here to colonize this planet? Yes we're subjected to micro-evolutionary changes, like skin color, general appearances but despite these changes, we are still able to breed with one another and produce offspring that are also capable of reproduction. If our species tried reproducing with neanderthals the offspring would most likely be sterile like mules or Ligers.

So who's to say. We're to this day looking to the stars. Maybe there is an internal compass within us that keeps pointing us to home.

I think it is totally arogant of the Government to keep information from us concerning any real extraterrestrial evidence if there is any. Who the hell are they to think they are better capable of handling that kind of information? I know, if I was introduced to alien life I wouldn't panic, so I can say not many others would panic either. There's not a politician in office that is in any position to patronize me.

You wrote, "Evolution - We're still looking for missing links."

I think all the links have been found now. That is 1960s stuff.

Check the latest issue of Scientific American. There are plenty of missing links in our family tree.

They don't invalidate the story. Even if there are a few pieces missing from the jigsaw puzzle, the picture is quite clear.

Larry, Laaaaaarry. Laaaarrrrrrryyyyyyy,

What are you thinking????????????????

Mama don't allow no preachin' roun' here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"We are the best civilization out here because" we had the biggest guns and knew how to smite people better than anybody else. That's why "we are the best civizilation out here". Boy!