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I think it is the height on human ignorance to believe that intelligent life could have only evolved on this tiny dirt ball. I am convinced it has to exist some

I think it is the height on human ignorance to believe that intelligent life could have only evolved on this tiny dirt ball. I am convinced it has to exist somewhere at sometime.

mrspeaker 6y ago
I'm convinced too - somewhere in the near-infinity of space, sometime in the near-infinity of time. But the chances of intersection just seem so staggeringly low... even if both parties were actively looking! As for evidence: I just needs something as tangible as the covid vaccines... some proof that makes it believable it's not just some company trying to get research dollars. I remember being really excited 25 (25!) years ago when a very intelligent professor I knew convinced me that evidence was plentiful (verified by high-ranking military) but it had to be kept under wraps as not to cause a public panic: they'd dole the information out slowly. That's a tired story now. So I'd just need evidence more than just "trust us, we're high-ranking".
- OJFord 6y ago
  The denominator is certainly staggeringly large, but to conclude the chance is staggeringly low, don't we need also to know that incidence is relatively-staggeringly low? I don't know if that's (known to be) the case? i.e. time and space can be as large as you like if life's everywhere you look.
- postalrat 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox What explanation do you think is most likely to explain the fermi paradox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_explanations_for_the_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_exp...
  - andreareina 6y ago
    My guess is that radiated transmissions are to weak to pick up. If I'm reading [1] right it would take 10^21 Watts for a transmission from proxima centauri to reach us with the same rx power as gps signals[2], which are already way below the noise floor. [1] http://gpsinformation.net/main/gpspower.htm http://gpsinformation.net/main/gpspower.htm [2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500W+*+%28distance+to+proxima+centauri+%2F+21000km%29%5E2 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500W+*+%28distance+to+...
  - imtringued 6y ago
    Interstellar travel is extremely difficult.
    - postalrat 6y ago
      How long do you think it will be until people get a probe to a nearby star system? 1000 years? 10000 years? Never? I think we will sooner than most people expect. And once we can do that we may also be able to start building a remote factory to build other probes and expand farther. Then it's only a matter of a few million years and we will have expanded to most stars in the Milky Way.
- factorialboy 6y ago
  Before I can suggest required proof for intersection, let's define what we mean by intersection. Is it: 1. Us finding relics on earth or else where of a long dead alien civilization? 2. Us being monitored by an advanced race of ET? 3. Them living amongst us? 4. Them influencing us, dealing with world governments? I guess each scenario will require different types of proof. I'm not sure how to proceed without defining scope.
logicslave 6y ago
Yeah, I'd need evidence of God himself to believe we are the only intelligent things in the universe
- chub500 6y ago
  The existence of God does not preclude the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Even the Bible itself references intelligent non-human beings in Genesis. Read the Space Trilogy by CS Lewis.
briga 6y ago
Agreed, especially when you consider that the same basic elements that make up our solar system are widespread throughout the universe. My guess is that microbial life isn't even particularly rare in other solar systems, we just haven't evolved enough to have noticed yet. The search for intelligent life seems to be predicated on the fact that intelligence is basically the same as what homo sapiens does, circa 2020 AD. I'm sure there's a vast array of other types of intelligence out there that we can't even grasp, and thus haven't been looking for.
ivanb 6y ago
Proponents of anthropic principle would argue that there are too many coincidences that made existence of matter possible, existence of life possible and evolution fast enough to make intelligent life possible. Out of myriads of parallel universes it was our dirt ball that pulled all the lucky numbers and we are just suffering survivorship bias. There could be aliens, just not in our universe.
uniqueid 6y ago
The universe is so large, that I'm sure there are millions of planets out there with life. However, since we've had decent tools to look for signs of life for decades and found nothing, for any one person to say they secretly made contact years ago is an 'extraordinary claim'. I suspect that the universe, as a whole, only became hospitable to life recently. Probably many planets spawned organisms around the same time Earth did. That means nearly all of them are too many light years away for signs of their intelligent life to have reached us.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

I think it is the height on human ignorance to believe that intelligent life could have only evolved on this tiny dirt ball. I am convinced it has to exist somewhere at sometime.

mrspeaker 6y ago

I'm convinced too - somewhere in the near-infinity of space, sometime in the near-infinity of time. But the chances of intersection just seem so staggeringly low... even if both parties were actively looking! As for evidence: I just needs something as tangible as the covid vaccines... some proof that makes it believable it's not just some company trying to get research dollars. I remember being really excited 25 (25!) years ago when a very intelligent professor I knew convinced me that evidence was plentiful (verified by high-ranking military) but it had to be kept under wraps as not to cause a public panic: they'd dole the information out slowly. That's a tired story now. So I'd just need evidence more than just "trust us, we're high-ranking".

OJFord 6y ago
The denominator is certainly staggeringly large, but to conclude the chance is staggeringly low, don't we need also to know that incidence is relatively-staggeringly low? I don't know if that's (known to be) the case? i.e. time and space can be as large as you like if life's everywhere you look.
postalrat 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox What explanation do you think is most likely to explain the fermi paradox? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_explanations_for_the_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_exp...
- andreareina 6y ago
  My guess is that radiated transmissions are to weak to pick up. If I'm reading [1] right it would take 10^21 Watts for a transmission from proxima centauri to reach us with the same rx power as gps signals[2], which are already way below the noise floor. [1] http://gpsinformation.net/main/gpspower.htm http://gpsinformation.net/main/gpspower.htm [2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500W+*+%28distance+to+proxima+centauri+%2F+21000km%29%5E2 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=500W+*+%28distance+to+...
- imtringued 6y ago
  Interstellar travel is extremely difficult.
  - postalrat 6y ago
    How long do you think it will be until people get a probe to a nearby star system? 1000 years? 10000 years? Never? I think we will sooner than most people expect. And once we can do that we may also be able to start building a remote factory to build other probes and expand farther. Then it's only a matter of a few million years and we will have expanded to most stars in the Milky Way.
factorialboy 6y ago
Before I can suggest required proof for intersection, let's define what we mean by intersection. Is it: 1. Us finding relics on earth or else where of a long dead alien civilization? 2. Us being monitored by an advanced race of ET? 3. Them living amongst us? 4. Them influencing us, dealing with world governments? I guess each scenario will require different types of proof. I'm not sure how to proceed without defining scope.

logicslave 6y ago

Yeah, I'd need evidence of God himself to believe we are the only intelligent things in the universe

chub500 6y ago
The existence of God does not preclude the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Even the Bible itself references intelligent non-human beings in Genesis. Read the Space Trilogy by CS Lewis.

briga 6y ago

Agreed, especially when you consider that the same basic elements that make up our solar system are widespread throughout the universe. My guess is that microbial life isn't even particularly rare in other solar systems, we just haven't evolved enough to have noticed yet. The search for intelligent life seems to be predicated on the fact that intelligence is basically the same as what homo sapiens does, circa 2020 AD. I'm sure there's a vast array of other types of intelligence out there that we can't even grasp, and thus haven't been looking for.

ivanb 6y ago

Proponents of anthropic principle would argue that there are too many coincidences that made existence of matter possible, existence of life possible and evolution fast enough to make intelligent life possible. Out of myriads of parallel universes it was our dirt ball that pulled all the lucky numbers and we are just suffering survivorship bias. There could be aliens, just not in our universe.

uniqueid 6y ago

The universe is so large, that I'm sure there are millions of planets out there with life. However, since we've had decent tools to look for signs of life for decades and found nothing, for any one person to say they secretly made contact years ago is an 'extraordinary claim'. I suspect that the universe, as a whole, only became hospitable to life recently. Probably many planets spawned organisms around the same time Earth did. That means nearly all of them are too many light years away for signs of their intelligent life to have reached us.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]