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The universe is so vast; you can't confidently say that we are the only ones living here. Maybe we're not up to a point in time in which we can explore the worl

The universe is so vast; you can't confidently say that we are the only ones living here. Maybe we're not up to a point in time in which we can explore the worlds outside of the Earth, especially we don't have the equipment to last long and withstand extreme temperatures of other planets. There is so much out there, it may not be in our time, but there will be a big chance our future generations can truly meet and interact with extraterrestrials.

awb 5y ago
Maybe. Things are still very far apart relative to our current lifespan. We might be 1,000 years or more away from fully colonizing our own solar system before it’s worth a long, dangerous journey to another star.
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  Due to time dilation, the journey might not be that long.
  - monkeynotes 5y ago
    But reporting back to your home world would be almost irrelevant since thousands of years would have passed there, right?
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  Everyone always thinks along the lines of current biological limitations when talking about space travel while ignoring the huge advances that are being made in biotechnology. Given another 100 years I think we’ll be pretty good at customizing our biology to suit our needs. Hell, we probably have the required technical ability right now, we just lack the theoretical understanding.
BulgarianIdiot 5y ago
Technically we can confidently say we're the only ones living here, because we've defined the word "life" and what it means. And we tend to define life in a very terrestrially and DNA-specific way, despite we don't mention it explicitly. My favorite are the pointless arguments about whether viruses are alive or not. As if "it's alive" is some objective property of a thing. It's not. It's a word we made up. Maybe the Moon is conscious for all we know. We know almost nothing. As for effective communication and interaction with aliens, it'll most likely require cybernetics and genetic engineering. The idea humans will colonize the universe is very naive. We're Earthlings. We're extremely fragile outside very specific conditions on this very specific planet. To live successfully outside we'll have to change a lot. Sure, technically whatever that ends up being we can still call "humans" but it won't look like humans do right now, that's for sure.
- mekkkkkk 5y ago
  I don't know which definition of life you go by, but most of them seems to be pretty lenient. Not sure how you can be confident about earthlings being the only ones living up to those (pun intended).
  - Aeronwen 5y ago
    It's easy. If aliens turn up, everyone will be too busy worrying about aliens to care about some prediction being wrong.
  - BulgarianIdiot 5y ago
    Maybe you can tell me which definition of life you go by that's "lenient". What I see is bunch of arbitrary capabilities, that we decided sum up to being life. "the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death." Technically if we decide to INTERPET this leniently, then phenomena like crystals and fire would qualify as life. So would viruses. Yet, it also says "the condition that distinguishes from inorganic matter", and those are not "organic matter". And what is organic matter? Well... that happens to be defined as carbon-based DNA/RNA coded proteins. That's QUITE specific to earthlings.

awb 5y ago

Maybe. Things are still very far apart relative to our current lifespan. We might be 1,000 years or more away from fully colonizing our own solar system before it’s worth a long, dangerous journey to another star.

bufferoverflow 5y ago
Due to time dilation, the journey might not be that long.
- monkeynotes 5y ago
  But reporting back to your home world would be almost irrelevant since thousands of years would have passed there, right?
throwaway316943 5y ago
Everyone always thinks along the lines of current biological limitations when talking about space travel while ignoring the huge advances that are being made in biotechnology. Given another 100 years I think we’ll be pretty good at customizing our biology to suit our needs. Hell, we probably have the required technical ability right now, we just lack the theoretical understanding.

BulgarianIdiot 5y ago

Technically we can confidently say we're the only ones living here, because we've defined the word "life" and what it means. And we tend to define life in a very terrestrially and DNA-specific way, despite we don't mention it explicitly. My favorite are the pointless arguments about whether viruses are alive or not. As if "it's alive" is some objective property of a thing. It's not. It's a word we made up. Maybe the Moon is conscious for all we know. We know almost nothing. As for effective communication and interaction with aliens, it'll most likely require cybernetics and genetic engineering. The idea humans will colonize the universe is very naive. We're Earthlings. We're extremely fragile outside very specific conditions on this very specific planet. To live successfully outside we'll have to change a lot. Sure, technically whatever that ends up being we can still call "humans" but it won't look like humans do right now, that's for sure.

mekkkkkk 5y ago
I don't know which definition of life you go by, but most of them seems to be pretty lenient. Not sure how you can be confident about earthlings being the only ones living up to those (pun intended).
- Aeronwen 5y ago
  It's easy. If aliens turn up, everyone will be too busy worrying about aliens to care about some prediction being wrong.
- BulgarianIdiot 5y ago
  Maybe you can tell me which definition of life you go by that's "lenient". What I see is bunch of arbitrary capabilities, that we decided sum up to being life. "the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death." Technically if we decide to INTERPET this leniently, then phenomena like crystals and fire would qualify as life. So would viruses. Yet, it also says "the condition that distinguishes from inorganic matter", and those are not "organic matter". And what is organic matter? Well... that happens to be defined as carbon-based DNA/RNA coded proteins. That's QUITE specific to earthlings.