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Do you believe there's extraterrestrial life out there?

When it comes to the "life out there" question I'm of the opinion that it would be a shame if there isn't. But I also think that if there is, they likely have never come to Earth. I think any space fairing society would be advanced to the point that they'd look at Earth and just keep going. Because the alternative to ignoring would very likely be just to come here and harvest the planet for resources, sentient apes be damned. Doubtful we'd be able to put up any fight.

I like the idea that was presented in the book series that 3 Body Problem was based on. The idea of the dark forest where the reason we don't encounter intelligent life or signs of intelligent life is because every smart civilization is hiding from more advanced space fairing predator races.

Another idea that I heard once was to do with timelines. That basically the reason that we haven't encountered signs of other life is because we just don't live during the same time period. The universe is billions of years old, plenty of time for civilizations to evolve, have their time in space, and have subsequently gone extinct. On the given timeline of the universe the chances of two species from different planets both having the capacity to communicate on the interstellar level at the same time because next to zero.

I really do hope that if there is life out there that it does turn out to be friendly and that it does officially introduce itself to use during my lifetime.
 
JayLapointe said:
I like the idea that was presented in the book series that 3 Body Problem was based on. The idea of the dark forest where the reason we don't encounter intelligent life or signs of intelligent life is because every smart civilization is hiding from more advanced space fairing predator races.
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We have been advertising our presence, making a lot of cosmic noise, blasting radio waves for > 100 years now.
 
JayLapointe said:
Another idea that I heard once was to do with timelines. That basically the reason that we haven't encountered signs of other life is because we just don't live during the same time period. The universe is billions of years old, plenty of time for civilizations to evolve, have their time in space, and have subsequently gone extinct. On the given timeline of the universe the chances of two species from different planets both having the capacity to communicate on the interstellar level at the same time because next to zero.
Click to expand...
this is an interesting idea that's actually tackled in "Lost in Space" (Netflix) where our closest biological alien neighbour (trillions of light years away) became extinct millions of years ago but left behind artificial intelligence robots that evolved on their own ultimately developing a hyperdrive engine capable of blasting worm holes in the space/time fabric ultimately reaching earth.

In the current paradigm, the greys (aliens that abduct people) are also supposed to be some type of robot as well. Artificial intelligence can potentially bridge immense distances of space and time even if their biological creators vanished long ago.
 
Cyber said:
We have been advertising our presence, making a lot of cosmic noise, blasting radio waves for > 100 years now.
Click to expand...
Our communications are low-wattage, but those nuclear tests made huge, distinct spikes. "Clever but not smart beings here!!"
 
Shevek said:
Our communications are low-wattage, but those nuclear tests made huge, distinct spikes. "Clever but not smart beings here!!"
Click to expand...

Yep. The kind that can't be hidden from prying eyes, ears or technologies.

LOL...since we have such things, it seems easy to assume that they do as well. :oops:
 
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Neil De Grasse Tyson has become a prominent sceptic and some of his ideas are worth entertaining.
He points out the closest planet hosting possible intelligent life ( K2-18b) is 124 light years away. According to Tyson this would mean it would take our only interstellar probe Voyager-I approx 2 million years to reach the solar system of K2-18b). (Actually De Grasse Tyson commonly uses Andromeda (our closest Galaxy) which is even further, 2.5 million light years, Voyager 1 would take 44 billion years to reach).

Given the vastness of space, even if an equivalent intelligent life form to humans existed in K2-18b right now (Let alone Andromeda) both they and us will be extinct by the time voyager gets there.

I think this type of thinking is meant to wipe away any thought of entertaining possible alien civilisations traversing long distances. But doesn't take into account wormholes or interdimensional doorways, our own knowledge of physics predicts these exist.
 
Judge said:
Yep. The kind that can't be hidden from prying eyes, ears or technologies.

LOL...since we have such things, it seems easy to assume that they do as well. :oops:
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Yes, even our current primitive technology we can detect earth like planets hundred of light years away. I am sure they know we are here.
 
Cyber said:
Yes, even our current primitive technology we can detect earth like planets hundred of light years away. I am sure they know we are here.
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The information something hundreds of LY away has access to is hundreds of years old.

The manmade electromagnetic radiation from e.g. 200 years ago wasn't zero, but it wasn't much.
Maybe the amount radiated from a 2025 small town.

BTW: do you have a link to an article on how they identify an "earth-like" planet.
I suspect it's done by looking for a planet a similar size and distance from the local sun, which just means "potentially warm enough" and similar gravity.

I'd be equally interested to learn about how much water a, exoplanet has, and even if it has a relatively large moon nearby (suspected to be very unusual, but I doubt there's much hard evidence for that yet.
 
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Cyber said:
Neil De Grasse Tyson has become a prominent sceptic and some of his ideas are worth entertaining.
He points out the closest planet hosting possible intelligent life ( K2-18b) is 124 light years away. According to Tyson this would mean it would take our only interstellar probe Voyager-I approx 2 million years to reach the solar system of K2-18b). (Actually De Grasse Tyson commonly uses Andromeda (our closest Galaxy) which is even further, 2.5 million light years, Voyager 1 would take 44 billion years to reach).

Given the vastness of space, even if an equivalent intelligent life form to humans existed in K2-18b right now (Let alone Andromeda) both they and us will be extinct by the time voyager gets there.

I think this type of thinking is meant to wipe away any thought of entertaining possible alien civilisations traversing long distances. But doesn't take into account wormholes or interdimensional doorways, our own knowledge of physics predicts these exist.
Click to expand...
The descriptions of UFOs never suggest that they use chemical rockets like ours. They seem able to ignore both momentum and gravity. Our stuff must look incredibly primitive. We have gone from the Victrola to ear buds in just a few generations. I'm sure that there is a long way to go in space travel. Pun gratuitous.
 
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