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> Humans have, to date, seen no sign of any extraterrestrial civilization. We do not know that and it may very well be false. Yeast was known of and observed

> Humans have, to date, seen no sign of any extraterrestrial civilization. We do not know that and it may very well be false. Yeast was known of and observed for thousands of years, but was not discovered to be life until the 1800s. The signs of life were there, but were not recognized. It is just our human bias to envision complexity as only occurring on earth-like planets, on human-like time and size scales, communicating over the EM spectrum, formed of baryonic matter... We don't ask what Great Filter prevents the aliens from speaking English. But we might if English was the only language known on Earth. What languages other than DNA are spoken in the universe?

caf 8y ago
It is just our human bias to envision complexity as only occurring on earth-like planets, on human-like time and size scales, communicating over the EM spectrum, formed of baryonic matter... The argument works just as well if you stipulate that it covers only sufficiently human-like complex life. The speculated existence of life composed of galaxy-scale non-baryonic matter or something doesn't affect at all the question of where all the other more prosaic life is.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  I vaguely recall an article describing reasons why really exotic (e.g. galaxy scale) life doesn't make a whole lot of sense. One problem is that no matter how it is organized or what it is made of, light speed prevents it from communicating rapidly. If it doesn't communicate rapidly within itself, it can't develop or evolve much in the lifespan of the universe, at least so far. You can deduce various constraints on "intelligent life" without making simplistic assumptions a priori that humans are normal, but rather starting with what we know about physics.
  - mysterypie 8y ago
    Since we're on the topic of really exotic, how about a complex proton arrangement inside a star having all the properties of intelligent life? This wouldn't suffer from light speed constraints. Would it violate other constraints from fundamental physics?
    - bullosB 8y ago
      It reminds me of the Boltzmann brain hypothesis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain. It's indeed really exotic and I'm not sure how long this intelligence could exist.
    - plushpuffin 8y ago
      Frederik Pohl wrote a novel about just such a creature. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_the_End_of_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_the_End_of_Time
wefarrell 8y ago
Right, and the author glosses over UFOs but the evidence is undeniable.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  Do me a favor and stop right here before going further and defend this position.
  - wefarrell 8y ago
    I didn't say they were aliens. Militaries have released footage UFOs and physicists have poured over the footage and ruled out every other possible explanation.
    - namarie 8y ago
      Do you have any sources for that?
      - wefarrell 8y ago
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-encountering-ufos-why-doesnt-the-pentagon-care/2018/03/09/242c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-en... http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sightings-seriously https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sigh... https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/ufos-fact-or-fiction https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/ufos-fact...
      - gattilorenz 8y ago
        Credible sources, if I may add. As in, what is the scientific consensus?
        wefarrell 8y ago
        I am often asked by friends and colleagues, “Why don’t astronomers see UFOs?” The fact is that they do. In 1977, Peter Sturrock, a professor of space science and astrophysics at Stanford University, mailed 2,611 questionnaires about UFO sightings to members of the American Astronomical Society. He received 1,356 responses from which 62 astronomers – 4.6 percent – reported witnessing or recording inexplicable aerial phenomena. This rate is similar to the approximately 5 percent of UFO sightings that are never explained. As expected, Sturrock found that astronomers who witnessed UFOs were more likely to be night sky observers. Over 80 percent of Sturrock’s respondents were willing to study the UFO phenomenon if there was a way to do so. More than half of them felt that the topic deserves to be studied versus 20 percent who felt that it should not. The survey also revealed that younger scientists were more likely to support the study of UFOs. https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sightings-seriously https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sigh...
golergka 8y ago
What if intelligent life exists all around us, but operates on vastly different time scale? For example, being thousand of time slower or faster? It would be almost impossible for us to notice each other either way.
- BLKNSLVR 8y ago
  Time lapse photography can make plant behaviour seem intelligent. The way pea plants put out fronds that 'reach out' to attach to nearby structures in order to stabilise the plant as it grows taller. I think of time lapse photography sequences as how a tree might see the world. The movement of animals too fast for it to react to in a similar, but larger-scale, way that flies are usually too fast and agile for humans to catch or swat.
  - simonh 8y ago
    In one of Terry Pratchett's books an intelligent tree wonders why the sky keeps flickering.
jonathankoren 8y ago
There’s a lot wrong with this “maybe they’re all ascended beings that we can’t detect” line of thought. Firat, the EM spectrum is radiative energy. Simple as that. It’s everywhere, and postulate that it isn’t detected because the Ascended Ones have moved to woo[0] technology, assume ms that woo tech doesn’t radiate anything in the EM spectrum, not even heat. That’s an even bigger lift. Furthermore, this transition to woo technology occurred far enough into the past, that no evidence of pre-woo technology exists in the light cone[1] visible to Earth. Keep in mind, even Bronze Age development can be detect in atmospheric samples.[2] Second, “formed from baryonic matter”? Are you postulating noncoporeal life? If so, I’m running a subscription service to educate people how to communicate these noncoporeal living beings. I take cash and Venmo. [0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-ye...
- fouc 8y ago
  You projected this "ascended beings"/ghosts interpretation onto parent post which said nothing of the sort. All parent was saying is that there could be life that look unlike anything that we currently know to be life. There could be organisms that are the size of solar systems, operating on such long time scales that we might not recognize it for life. Anyways non-baryonic matter includes: neutrinos and free electrons, dark matter, supersymmetric particles, axions, and black holes. Suppose there's a life form based on dark matter or black holes.
  - jonathankoren 8y ago
    Neutrinos pretty much don’t interact with anything, including other neutrinos. Black holes are singularities, which arent intelligent, nor meet any definition of life. Dark matter... well given that we can’t even describe what it is, I’ll pencil that in as “maybe.” Regardless, all of this is pointless speculation with no evidence to support, nor even inform this line of thought. One might as well be arguing about a pinhead’s carrying capacity of noncoporeal entities, the nutrient value of unicorn meat[0], or flat earth geography. [0] While the meat itself is superficially similar to horse meat, it’s unfortunately poisonous due to the Unicorns’ Unfortunately, there’s none, due unusual biochemistry involving arsenic, lead, and polonium.

caf 8y ago

It is just our human bias to envision complexity as only occurring on earth-like planets, on human-like time and size scales, communicating over the EM spectrum, formed of baryonic matter... The argument works just as well if you stipulate that it covers only sufficiently human-like complex life. The speculated existence of life composed of galaxy-scale non-baryonic matter or something doesn't affect at all the question of where all the other more prosaic life is.

perl4ever 8y ago
I vaguely recall an article describing reasons why really exotic (e.g. galaxy scale) life doesn't make a whole lot of sense. One problem is that no matter how it is organized or what it is made of, light speed prevents it from communicating rapidly. If it doesn't communicate rapidly within itself, it can't develop or evolve much in the lifespan of the universe, at least so far. You can deduce various constraints on "intelligent life" without making simplistic assumptions a priori that humans are normal, but rather starting with what we know about physics.
- mysterypie 8y ago
  Since we're on the topic of really exotic, how about a complex proton arrangement inside a star having all the properties of intelligent life? This wouldn't suffer from light speed constraints. Would it violate other constraints from fundamental physics?
  - bullosB 8y ago
    It reminds me of the Boltzmann brain hypothesis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain. It's indeed really exotic and I'm not sure how long this intelligence could exist.
  - plushpuffin 8y ago
    Frederik Pohl wrote a novel about just such a creature. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_the_End_of_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_the_End_of_Time

wefarrell 8y ago

Right, and the author glosses over UFOs but the evidence is undeniable.

michaelmrose 8y ago
Do me a favor and stop right here before going further and defend this position.
- wefarrell 8y ago
  I didn't say they were aliens. Militaries have released footage UFOs and physicists have poured over the footage and ruled out every other possible explanation.
  - namarie 8y ago
    Do you have any sources for that?
    - wefarrell 8y ago
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-encountering-ufos-why-doesnt-the-pentagon-care/2018/03/09/242c125c-22ee-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-military-keeps-en... http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ufos/ https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sightings-seriously https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sigh... https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/ufos-fact-or-fiction https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/ufos-fact...
    - gattilorenz 8y ago
      Credible sources, if I may add. As in, what is the scientific consensus?
      - wefarrell 8y ago
        I am often asked by friends and colleagues, “Why don’t astronomers see UFOs?” The fact is that they do. In 1977, Peter Sturrock, a professor of space science and astrophysics at Stanford University, mailed 2,611 questionnaires about UFO sightings to members of the American Astronomical Society. He received 1,356 responses from which 62 astronomers – 4.6 percent – reported witnessing or recording inexplicable aerial phenomena. This rate is similar to the approximately 5 percent of UFO sightings that are never explained. As expected, Sturrock found that astronomers who witnessed UFOs were more likely to be night sky observers. Over 80 percent of Sturrock’s respondents were willing to study the UFO phenomenon if there was a way to do so. More than half of them felt that the topic deserves to be studied versus 20 percent who felt that it should not. The survey also revealed that younger scientists were more likely to support the study of UFOs. https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sightings-seriously https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/why-we-should-take-ufo-sigh...

golergka 8y ago

What if intelligent life exists all around us, but operates on vastly different time scale? For example, being thousand of time slower or faster? It would be almost impossible for us to notice each other either way.

BLKNSLVR 8y ago
Time lapse photography can make plant behaviour seem intelligent. The way pea plants put out fronds that 'reach out' to attach to nearby structures in order to stabilise the plant as it grows taller. I think of time lapse photography sequences as how a tree might see the world. The movement of animals too fast for it to react to in a similar, but larger-scale, way that flies are usually too fast and agile for humans to catch or swat.
- simonh 8y ago
  In one of Terry Pratchett's books an intelligent tree wonders why the sky keeps flickering.

jonathankoren 8y ago

There’s a lot wrong with this “maybe they’re all ascended beings that we can’t detect” line of thought. Firat, the EM spectrum is radiative energy. Simple as that. It’s everywhere, and postulate that it isn’t detected because the Ascended Ones have moved to woo[0] technology, assume ms that woo tech doesn’t radiate anything in the EM spectrum, not even heat. That’s an even bigger lift. Furthermore, this transition to woo technology occurred far enough into the past, that no evidence of pre-woo technology exists in the light cone[1] visible to Earth. Keep in mind, even Bronze Age development can be detect in atmospheric samples.[2] Second, “formed from baryonic matter”? Are you postulating noncoporeal life? If so, I’m running a subscription service to educate people how to communicate these noncoporeal living beings. I take cash and Venmo. [0] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone [2] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-ye...

fouc 8y ago
You projected this "ascended beings"/ghosts interpretation onto parent post which said nothing of the sort. All parent was saying is that there could be life that look unlike anything that we currently know to be life. There could be organisms that are the size of solar systems, operating on such long time scales that we might not recognize it for life. Anyways non-baryonic matter includes: neutrinos and free electrons, dark matter, supersymmetric particles, axions, and black holes. Suppose there's a life form based on dark matter or black holes.
- jonathankoren 8y ago
  Neutrinos pretty much don’t interact with anything, including other neutrinos. Black holes are singularities, which arent intelligent, nor meet any definition of life. Dark matter... well given that we can’t even describe what it is, I’ll pencil that in as “maybe.” Regardless, all of this is pointless speculation with no evidence to support, nor even inform this line of thought. One might as well be arguing about a pinhead’s carrying capacity of noncoporeal entities, the nutrient value of unicorn meat[0], or flat earth geography. [0] While the meat itself is superficially similar to horse meat, it’s unfortunately poisonous due to the Unicorns’ Unfortunately, there’s none, due unusual biochemistry involving arsenic, lead, and polonium.