[Naeem]

Hey guys,

Since you gave some really good feedback on my last post on a dream, here's a question on aliens.

Do you guys believe that there are aliens? Not the sci-fi aliens where they're green, drooling everywhere, ugly, and want to destroy earth. But just aliens that are perhaps like us.

Perhaps their legs and bodies are shaped differently due to their planets' gravity/the way they had to survive in their history. Their eyes may be different because of the spectrum they may see/because of their star.

Just, do you think there is SOMEONE out there which can think and may be as intelligent as us if not more?

[Sumaleth]

This is a much more difficult question. With dreams we have all those years of personal experience to work with, but on the subject of aliens it's more like the toss of a coin.

Let's see: given how early life popped up here, and how well it's gone, and how large the universe is, I'd guess that there is likely to be life elsewhere in the universe.

Intelligent, conscient life? That's a difficult one.

I'll guess yes, just to pick one.
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[Gort]

annisahmad - you're fast becoming the "postmeister".

Sumaleth - yeah - that's about how I feel as well. I believe the possibilties are as infinite as the known universe itself.
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"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Drunken Monkey]

With billions of galaxies each containing billions of stars, some being orbited by planets... i am no statistician but i'd say there is a pretty good chance. I mean what is life really? A string of molecules that acquired an ability to build copies of itself. Kind of like crystals. What are the chances that out of infinite number of planets out there one of them had primordial soup in which primitive DNA could have formed? When you just look at earth alone - it seems impossible.. a miracle. What are the odds? God must have intervened. No not really...

They say that if an infinite number of monkeys type on infinite number of typewriters - one of them will eventually produce complete works of Shakespeare. I think thats bullshit, but early DNA was probably nowhere as complex as single page of Shakespeare. Look at some viruses - their genome is equivalent to a 5kb text document - which is just about 5 times larger than all the text in this post. And thats after thousands of years of evolution, of taking on useful information.

I think there is a whole gamut of life out there - way less and way more intelligent than us.
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[Godwin]

Personally I say no, if of course you're referring to sentient life on the level of man. Unless, of course, if you count angels, the devil, and God... you can probably tell where I'm coming from. I'm no fanatic or whatever, it's just my belief.
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[Max]

As long as we don't know if the universe is infinite (which we simply don't know, and never will) we have to accept the posibility that it is. This however means that there ia an endless amount of beings out there. Now if the universe isn't endless it's at least pretty big. My awnser is YES, for sure, there are other life forms. The whole thing is called biodiversity. Why should there be just one little planet with billions of species while there's whole lot more space out there. Imagine a asteroid in passing would just destroy the earht. BOOM. Then there's no life in the universe anymore? yeah,..

Intelligence? Hm, now please define that. I think it's not possible/intelligent (huh) to compare forms of intelligence. Our intelligence is influenced by logic mostly. Logic on the other hand is just one way of intelligence. There's social intelligence, et cetera...I am sure there's something more complex than intelligence which we simply can't imagine. Anyway. I would even consider that some other human beeings are out there. Some day one of our rocket sondes will crash with one of the others and we get some new friends.

By the way, most of our own planet isn't explored. Who knows what kind of stuff lives deep in the see. Arielle?

[Sumaleth]

[Impaler]

Well, there's Olber's Paradox, which states that if the universe were infinite, there would be no darkness, since an infinite amount of stars creates an infinite amount of light.

As for life out there in the universe? Oh, you can count on a diatribe from me. Just not tonight. Me tired.
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QED, sort of.

[Capt. Fred]

impaler,

if the speed of light is finite, which is generally accepted, then it would take an infinite amount of time for the light from an infinte universe to reach us. since we have been present for only a finite amount of time that light would be invisible to us.

That finite speed of light, I would have thought, would explain the universe appearing to age as we look farther away. That is only because the outer reaches of the visible universe are so far away that it takes light say a million years to get to us and thus it looks a million years old. if we were at that location, so that the light from these distant galaxies was only a few minutes old (like the light of our sun) then we would see them up-to-date. And earth would be appear million years older than the one we know.

I guess.. I think..

I would imagine that alien intelligence would be just as likely to take the form of a rock or a bear or a funghi or gas cloud as it would mammal. Given that not all life need be carbon based. You could have silicon based lifem that would there fore not breate oxeygen, but - i don't have a perdiodic table to hand! - erm, sulphur or something. That fact that I don;t have enough imagination or intelligence to suppose how these life-forms could sustain a rich society shouldn't lead me to believe that it is impossible.

and yes, of course, the infinite monkeys will write everything that has ever been written and can ever be written, in the time it takes a monkey to type one character on his type writer (including the monkeys whose type-writers mis-strike the page).

[Max]

Sumaleth: I just have to agree with Capt. Fred on this. AND as we know (or believe) you can't seperate time and space. That's abit too difficult to dicuss here (I don't get it quite myself). These indications can't tell you if the universe is or is not infinite cause it yould age and get bigger forever. We can't look so far though, and what we see is not always the way it really is.
Another strange thing is that we are in the center of the universe. Everything (stars, galaxies etc) is moving away from us (not with us), in every possible direction. This though is the same from every point in the universe. It doesn't matter where you are, the universe will expand from your point of view. It's like a point of view in geometry. You are this point of view with the exeption that the lines (paths for the movement of galaxies, stars,..) arise from this point no matter where this point is centered in the universe. Anyway, That's kinda out of topic and maybe too difficult for my english to explain correctly, hope it makes any sense
On thing is very clear though. We will never know if it is infinite because we would have to live forever, and even after that time we wouldn't know it, because we will never be at that point at the end of the infiniteness. Paradox...

Impaler: I have to agree with Fred here too. If one element is infinite there are others which keep the whole thing in balance.

Infinite is paradox and has nothing to do with our logical system.
It's just something we can't use to describe nature. I can't understand how it is used in Mathematics without getting wrong results...it doesn't make any sense.

[Impaler]

If the universe is infinite, then it would be infinitely old. This means that light could travel at 2 miles per hour and we would still see trillions of trilions of parsecs out, as opposed to the 16 biillion light-years (out AND back) that we can see now.

I sort of believe that the universe is just another smaller, finite piece of an unimaginably large system, on a scale that's outside of current empirical thinking. You have to understand that even galaxies weren't truly "discovered" until the 20th century. Before that, we KNEW that the Milky Way was infinite, and that everything we saw around us was part of one system. Edward Hubble came around and expanded our entire scale of cosmological thinking. Suddenly, there were billions of entire OTHER galaxies, many bigger than our own, each with their own 200 billion stars. You can even trace human development back through our own concept of scale. Before galactic cosmology, there was geo-centricism, where the sun, the moon, the stars all rotated around the earth as independent (though very adjacent) bodies. Before that, we saw the sun and the stars as perforations on the celestial sphere, a very solid object that rotated around the earth just above the clouds. Entire chunks of the human population didn't know that each other existed until the 1500's.

So, when you say that the universe is absolutely, unquestionably infinite just because we don't know any better seems to just be a cop-out.

Is intelligent life out there? Yeah, absolutely.

Drake's Equation

N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

N = number of intelligent, communicating civilizations

N* = number of stars in a galaxy

fp = fraction of these stars that have planets rotating around them

ne = number of planets per star that are capable of supporting life

fl = number of these planets where life actually evolves

fi = fraction of planets where intelligent live evolves

fc = fraction of these intelligent civilizations that communicate

fL = fraction of the planet's life during which these communicating civilizations live

200 billion x (1% of these stars have planets) x (1 planet can support life per star) x (50% of these planets actually evolve life) x (20% of this life is intelligent) x (20% of this actually can communicate with other life) x (10,000 years of communication, or 1/1,000,000th of Earth's lifespan) = 400 intelligent civilizations in our own galaxy

Multiply that by whatever number of galaxies you want to get a very rough and theoretical estimate of how much intelligent life there is in the universe
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QED, sort of.

[Capt. Fred]

I was only contradicting the argument to prove the concept, not the concept itself.
I am in no position to agree or disagree with the finite/infinite thing!

btw, where did you get those values for the equation?

[Impaler]

They're just figurative values. You can plug in pretty much whatever values you want. Mine were more pessimistic and conservative. I'm sure that more than 1% of the stars in our galaxy have planets orbiting them, that the average for Ne is higher than 1, etc.
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QED, sort of.

[gLitterbug]

After reading this thread and assuming this is intelligent talk in here, I�d much rather have unintelligent life out there. At least you could have some lighthearted fun with those guys then and not worry about some clever alien race blasting our planet to pieces because their mathematical calculations prove that the chance we are hostile is just too high to take any risks.

You all should think about what Impaler said though, we all too intelligent humans are always so SURE of our knowledge, battling with each other over things for no reason other than to defend our point of view. Actually it doesn�t matter at all if the statistics say there is or is not intelligent life out there. The only thing those statistics and calculations do is make us feel better, give us a reason and make us think we are in control.

Do I think we should explore space? Yes. Do I think there�s an alien race out there? Probably. Are they hostile? I dunno, but I�d rather have a big fucking gun on my spaceship in case they are, no matter what the statistics claim.

[Diruo]

As an amateur astronomer I'd have to say, of cooourse! What impaler said, multiply that number (which I think might be a bit low) with the number of galaxies in the universe. Just to give you an idea, this is an image from a tiny piece of the sky (~a needlehead held at the sky). Yes, those are galaxies.

Godwin, what is god if not an Alien? I mean, angles, devils.. those suggest a people. And they will have to have had people to instruct them in being Angles and Devils too.

If a jewish/christian god exists and the bible isn't just a load of bollocks then I find it more likely that "God" is really an Alien race come to sort us out, or something . Really, pale-skinned "angles" coming down from the sky on their "wings"? Jesus doing all sorts of crazy miracles, and lets not forget his "departure" when they come to pick him up.

I never really thought there was any possibility of Aliens being here and I thought all the conspiracy people were pretty unimaginative to think the aliens looked like us, with two eyes, two legs, two arms, nose, mouth.. etc. I thought that, until I read "God created man in his own image."

I'm not saying God exists or aliens are here, but if what is written in the Bible is true (and I'm not saying it is), then I'd rather believe in the alien theory than some bearded dude sitting on a cloud.

[Ragnarok]

Impaler, I think your numbers are too high in that equation. I mean, you just said that 50% of the planets capable of having life have it. That's too high imho, because we don't know how life generates and one of the commonly accepted ideas is it's just an accident.
Also 20% of intelligence seems too high. Look at the percent of species in this planet that have intelligence and how much it took to evolve.
I agree there are much more planets that can support life and much more planets in general, but you are being too optimistic imho with the rest of numbers.
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[Max]

[Diruo]

Max Kulich, that is what I've always believed and believe still. I'm just saying, if it ISN'T, and its storys are NOT metaphores.. then I'd prefer to think that "God" isn't some omnipotent and omniscient superbeing, living on some other plane or something, but simply a collection of beings with a few thousands years of evolution on us..

Had to go and look up what Genesis said and this is what raises my eyebrows a bit: "We shall make men in our image, like us.". Our image? Like us? Who is he talking to? The angles?

Making lame people walk and blind people see might have seemed a miracle 2000 years ago, but would we today? Will we in a 100 years?

Anyway, I'm undecided. It's just that reading the bible, mentally replacing "The Lord" with "The E.T's" made some of the things in it make sense to me AND made it faaaar more exciting at the same time! War of the Worlds my arse.. I give you: The Bible.

The high-point of the book was when The E.Ts destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with a massive rain of sulfur and fire from the sky.. that was really awesome, I thought.

[Sumaleth]

Capt. Fred/Max Kulich:

Maybe I didn't understand what you meant by "infinite universe"?

Is that idea compatible with Big Bang theory? Is it possible to have an infinite universe that started 13.7billion years ago as (something like) a singularity and then began expanding?

I can imagine how space might wrap back on itself -- keep going in one direction (faster than the speed of light to get past the expansion) long enough and you come back to where you start, but I kinda assumed the idea of a "true" infinite universe died with the development and growing proof of the big bang.

[oDD]

[Max]

Diruo: Alright! I think I just missunderstood you. Sorry. We think the same way after all. Not sure about relation between God and E.T. though


Sumaleth: I think there are two ways to decribe the infinite universue.

A: With the word "infinitely" you can describe the possibility of a progress going further and further forever. Example: One can indicate a successor to each number (0, 1, 2, 3,...n), therefore there is an infinite amount of numbers. With this viewpoint though you describe just finite objects (the numbers)

B: The other way is to assume that there is an infinitely large quantity actually in its whole. Example: You describe the quantity of all numbers.

Same works with the universe. A is easy to imagine. B is unimaginable but nor impossible...

[Diruo]

Not sure if I agree with that, Max. Talking of gods in general, maybe I would. But the christian god certainly manifests himself all over the place in the bible. He isn't described as being simply "in our minds". Angels are running around on earth doing all sorts of crazy things. I distinctly remember two Angles being invited into some guy's house at one time.. because they were chased by an angry mob who wanted to sleep with them. The Bible is crazeh!

Another example: "When men became numerous on Earth and they had daughters, the God-beings saw that they were beautiful and the ones they liked best they took for their wives." Genesis 6:2. (translated to english from the swedish translation from 2000). There's loads of weird passages like this that doesn't make any sense what so ever if God is simply an idea or a concept. God is constantly described through out the Bible as having human-like properties. You'd be surprised, I think.

And it DOES say: "We shall make men in our image, like us". Doesn't that make him/them humanoid at least?

Anyway.. I don't pretend to know anything about anything. It's much safer that way. I'm just relating what the Bible says.. made-up stories or not.

[Sumaleth]

[Max]

Diruo|Sumaleth: Well I have to admit that I just know of the basic stories which are written in the bible. But as I said, these are images. There is many ways to think about it and christians (I am cristian by the way) start to go in different directions in theri believe.
There's people who believe in those stories word for word. And those who see them as metaphores. Its not just made up though. These stories describe the big miracles|problems|occurrences the human being has to deal with and put them into "imges". The question if these are real or not is irelevant. Same with god. He exists for those who believe in him. He does not for those who have never heard about him or simply don't understand. What you don't know doesn't exist for you. People who believe in god can't explain their believe. It's like you would try to explain a blind person how the sun looks like.

It simply doesn't matter if something is real or not because we will never be able to define the absolut reality. This is paradox again,...

[Diruo]

Ugh.. you're starting to sound like Nietzsche now. I've never bought into the whole "god belief is a part of humanity and is born into us". I think God, in general, is just created to explain certain things. And as these things get explained by other means, the use for a God diminishes.

[Max]

[gLitterbug]

@Max - I didn�t say it�s bad to have a discussion going and argue about the different possiblities. But we didn�t get out of stoneage because we were sure of things, but because of those people who doubted things and tried new stuff. You gave the best example yourself, do I believe the earth is a sphere? Well they say so and I won�t doubt it, simply because it wouldn�t matter to me even if it was not.

It didn�t matter for Galileo either that our planet is a sphere, simply because the people in power were so SURE about the fact that it was flat.

[Chris]

I think there are aliens out there. It isn't too hard to comprehend. I mean in 60 so years we have sent countless satellites to distant planets.

What will happen in the next 60?

Also the notion of god being alien probably isn't true, but the logic of god could've came from an alien race. 2000 years ago people couldn't comprehend space travel, nor what was outside their atmosphere. I mean a 20,000 - 30,000 feet flying machine back then could've easily flew around w/o anyone even knowing.

What if aliens planted the god seed in our heads and now here we are. Now a days they probably wouldn't dare to come back because we have the technology to detect them. But back then, who knows...
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[Godwin]

You're taking a very.... secular/liberal view on things...by saying that "God" actually ends somewhere (because by convention in Western society, God ususally refers to "the Christian" God, well... it used to anyway), perhaps you should broadly define it as "religion" rather than a single entity when talking about man's dependency and need for it.

That is why I was afraid of being labelled a fanatic of sorts, but even if I were, I don't care. True believers (speaking from a Christian point of view) believe that God is REAL, and it doesn't matter if you can't see Him, because you just know. It's faith, it's Truth, and many people use that to refute the basis of the faith, saying that God doesn't exist because they can't see Him.
Coming from there, I cannot say for sure if God created other worlds or other beings (save for, of course, the Heavens, as recorded in the book of Genesis), I just know that he put man on this earth as supreme over all life, and he sinned. The whole idea of Christianity is based on the concept that Christ offers salvation to all from this bondage of sin.

I really do not want to turn this into a religious debate, but understand that these are my beliefs when I said what I said.
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[Chris]

well it could never be proven...but what if an alien race artificially impregnated virgin mary?

I mean in today's medical procedures this can be done very easily. Could knock a woman out, impregnate her and she could be a virgin (technically).

Then they could've just talked to Jesus with easy technology walkie talkies in bushes and fires and said it was his father (technically they were his father if they produced him)

I mean it could all go one way or the other. only problem is both ways can't be proven now. unless we find out about other life forms out there, which I doubt we will in my lifetime.
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