A Renewed Look At Extraterrestrial Civilizations

Sure we should be looking. I think that our assumption that life will most likely exist only on earth like planets is a little silly, but I guess we have to look somewhere.

To me, the notion that earth is the only place in the universe where life exists, is scarier and far less plausible than believing that life exists elsewhere. Who knows if we will ever find it, much less communicate with it?

Holy crap, are you tied into CR4 central? I just posted this thread. I usually don't get anything back from my IP till about 10:30 pm eastern time.

The odds of another intelligent life existing while we mere earthlings exist is very high according to the Drake equation. I agree it would be scary if we were alone. Communication with extraterrestrials may be many generations away but then..

No. I just happened to pop on right after you posted. CR4 central would be the ones that ripped it off the front page within minutes.

Crazy as it sounds, I also wonder about the possibility of other universes that exist along with our own, in the same space, but in other dimensions that we aren't aware of. If alien life had developed the capability to slip back and fourth between universes, it would help explain why there are so many thousands of UFO sightings every year, but we never see anything coming from space.

It might not be that crazy. I'm pretty sure quantum physicists have touched on this concept.

What happens if we find signs of alien life? What good does it do? The military-industrial complex will love it of course. Unless Albert Einstein is very wrong, actual conversation will be very long drawn out; you may send a question, your son may receive the answer and answer a question from them, your grandson may receive their response.....

If the answer comes too quickly, the world goes into panic mode, these people know stuff that we don't.

The knowledge means nothing, we shouldn't waste time and money on it. I joined the Planetary Society because Carl Sagan wanted me to and I admired him, but I jumped ship when I saw that it was just SETI.

It is quite likely that if we were contacted by aliens they would be more advanced than us. After all, we have only had the ability to send electromagnetic waves for just 100 years or so. If technical civilizations can exist for a million years, They would be more advanced by simple time factors. There are many who think we already have been contacted and may even be the seeds of some very intelligent alien force.

Personally, I would be happy to just know we are not alone. I would even be happy if we were able to find some other life form animal or vegetable or microbiological. It would be proof of life elsewhere. I am not sure we would panic as in Orson Welles famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast. We are so connected today, that up to date info would be instantly available. Your right about the communication issue but who knows if some advanced life would somehow shorten that bottleneck. If humans can somehow survive as a civilization for the next million years, we too may have better capabilities. The odds are not in our favour, I think. Of course there would be risks in contacting an alien if they were less than friendly or had different objectives.

Well for one thing, if any planets do contain intelligent life, they will probably be so different that communication would be nearly impossible because of the myriad of factors that exist, for instance they may not be humanoid at all, they may communicate differently, chemically or mentally, they might be distrustful of aliens, the distance may have a time lag of 100's of years using RF....The odds of them being humanoid, communicating verbally, being roughly equivalent to us technologically, being a benevolent people, well those are long odds indeed...Even if we were in striking distance, so to say, we could not interact with them, the possibility of biological contamination would be too great....There is also the possibility that they might be a war like people, like us, but without the conscience, who's goal is conquering other planets...Their whole purpose in life might be planetary conquest...It may be their only means of survival...Sending out greeting cards is a foolish practice imo...Search, find, study, yes, but clandestinely...

Of course intelligent life is to be found elsewhere in the galaxy. It has used this planet as its loony bin!

Using history as an example, a similar question was asked in the 1400's. Specifically, was there anything beyond the horizon? Or was the Earth flat?

Well, now that we know the answer to that question, we have to ponder what might have happened if things had been less than friendly. I think we owe it to ourselves to ask some more advanced questions based on an assumption that other intelligent civilizations may be all around us. Such as:

What do we have to offer that would make us worthy of contact? And what would keep them from just helping themselves to it anyway?

Do they just want to invite us for dinner? (as the main course?)

Why are waiting around for a slap in the face to get us motivated about dealing with the more important questions like who owns the asteroid belt and its massive resources? Or are we too late? What is our strategic capacity for protecting what we have? Perhaps this is why ignorance is bliss!

I think the time is better spent assuming that we are not alone. Now what? Could religion really survive in the wake of such a realization? The Pope thinks so! I'm not so sure. Maybe the Pope was told that we are just an experiment......not going so well at the moment.

We could be the first civilization, but what are the odds of that? Kind of like winning the lottery? We are more likely to be the "new kids on the block" and we have no idea just how big that block is. What if we are just considered to be an infestation like the dinosaurs, only smarter.......marginally.

Maybe we need a new thread. I think I'll give it a whirl.

But you can still join the Flat Earth Society.

Before writing this post, I already assumed that we are not alone. I am just waiting for the real proof and feel it is only a matter of time. If Einstein's limit to travel remain the same (likely) for even very advanced societies on alien planets, that may explain the limits to communication. A simple conversation, as already stated, may take several generations. However, that may not be a problem for some intelligent aliens that have discovered longevity and are not concerned with time as we earthlings. We still have not discovered thought communication but Scifi writers enjoy the possibility. Thought transmission and panspermia were main themes in Arthur C. Clarke's book and movie 2001.

Whenever man has run up against barriers that defy easy explanation, some religious explanation was created. You know, throw the young virgins into the volcano to appease the gods as an attitude. Evoking fear of gods to control tribes. These early thoughts on religion were the beginnings of all religions (but that is only my opinion). The Catholic church has accepted all the science but they do not let that deter or distract from a faith in god. Darwinism and a 4.5 billion year old planet are easily encompassed in a god created universe. One of the articles posted in my opening tries to explain the faith in god belief. The analogy was to accept the big bang as scientific fact or near fact but to imagine a higher intelligence that seeded the universe(s) with big bang starts not unlike planting seeds in a garden. It is a hard wall to criticize and allows the freedom for religions like the Catholic church to have a lot of leeway to accept science and still remain faithful to god.

Finding another intelligent life would or should create close allies and not enemies. How many other galaxy neighbours do you know? I hope they are not hungry and if they are I hope they are vegetarian. I will assume if they are intelligent enough to communicate with us, they know how to feed themselves.

In my opinion, the recent assessments of 'earth-like' planets are not at all promising, for intelligent life within the distance constraints of a likely contact. Not to say there is no other life out there, but remote would be the operative word.

Also, consider that our own civilization only exists because of an apparent climate stability anomaly during the last 10,000 years. Even if there were really good matches for earth-like environments favouring life, if Earth is a good example of climate dynamics, it seems there are really very short windows, for intelligent life to develop society, advanced technology, or an interest in other planets. Also consider that our own technical heyday depends on having literally populated the whole globe - without this large population and 'surplus value' economics, we would never have developed the present technologies that are designed to reach other planets. It is a very special set of circumstances, for that civilization to flourish. Without denying that necessity is the mother of invention, dire need and extremity also mitigates against it, to an extent. We don't see a flourishing civilization on Mars - which is more 'earth-like' than most of the so-called similar planets recently found. The seeds of life are here in our solar system - if there is no advanced life form on Mars or Europa or... etc. then we should take it under advisement, that advanced life forms do not develop unless an unusual combination of propitious circumstances are available.

Meanwhile, the people of the earth continue to narrate the tragedy of our inability to comprehend, accept, or deal with the 'outliers' of our own bell curve - wherever that bell falls.

Interesting thoughts but remember there is an estimated 400 billion stars in our galaxy (many many more in the universe). Some think most stars have a planetary system and there may be as many as 80 billion planets in a potential habitable zone (Wikipedia). So far we only have very distant observations of 800 planets. Most of the early findings are of course uninhabitable giants as they are the easiest to observe. The potential for many of the so called habitable zone smaller planets to contain life of some sort is also high. A technically advanced society developing on one of these planets keeps getting smaller but the Drake equation still can estimate a high value of 20,000 ET inhabited planets at the same time as earth. Human civilization has only been technically advanced to even attempt communication with ETs for only the past 100 years. Hardly time to send and receive signals from a distant star. An ET does not necessary need an earth like climate or atmosphere. It would seem some form of carbonaceous vegetation would be necessary to support animal type of life.

The earth is indeed the exception and we do need to take care of it for a long time to come. One thing is certain, our climate will change and another ice age will be coming before we have the ability to space travel. If we earthlings can withstand the ebbs and flows of the climate changes and remain civilized, then we may have a chance to actually expand our horizons. A better question is whether or not we can survive long enough to have a long distance contact with an ET. It would seem to me, that we must be good husbands (frugal managers) of the earth for the next 100,000 years or so before we actually escape. Now that is going to be a daunting task for us humans for many generations. Based on today's population growth and our consumption of everything, it seems impossible. Earthlings are likely to be just a fleeting civilization. Some other more advanced neo-Humanoids may develop and look upon us present day humans similarly as we look upon Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon humans. I fear history will not be kind to any humans as we know them today. Perhaps we should redefine technically advanced society with a qualifier of time and 10,000 years may be justified. Mother nature is also a good healer if we really fail.

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