Are we alone in the universe?

[Untouchable1]

YES i love topics like this. the simple answer i would give to some non-believing infadel would be, "why not?"

 

now its time to go off on one of my large semi-theoretical posts. whose to say our is the only planet in out solar system to support life? i understand they can find bacteria on mars and that counts as life right? and who's to say that oxygan and water are the only way to support life. thats just people limiting themselves to earthly relativeness.

 

given the infinate chances there may be a race out there capable of unassisted interplanitary migration and would kill to find a good place like uh Jupiter cus that may be exactly what they need.

 

and there may be a race who has been spying on us for ever, maybe even since the beginning of our humble little earth. unwilling to lend their god-like assistance because theyd much rather observe the evolutionary process and now every little crevice of human society. who's to say these beings dont know every language and culture that has passed on this pitiful rock, and even may have adapted a few of our cutoms. the ideas of say something like marriage my not have been a part of their society until they thought, "well that looks to be working well down there, we may have to try that" until lately of course. they may even be able to tap into this very forum and read what the intelligent or the ignorant have to think about this idea.

 

oh man you probly have no idea how long i dwell on the infinate possibilities of the uni-(really? uni?)-verse. ill definately be on tap if this thread goes the distance.

 

...awesome...

 

edit - ok Maquissar got his pot in probly right after i got started, but for people who dont know. when he says pessimistic im pretty sure hes not talking about a disgruntled mode of communicating his 'findings' (42, lol) but rather an attitude that we shouldnt get excited when dealing with these numbers and we should assume maybe we are slightly more fortunate than we think we are to be in existance. at least i think thats what he means by that...

[Fishystick]

It is strange how many scientists and many who believe there are no "aliens" say that it is because there isn't any suitable living conditions anywhere. I mean, what are "suitable conditions"? Maybe there is a planet somewhere that has living beings that have no need for a sun? Maybe they aren't coal based. Maybe, they only need enough space to evolve. Then again, even if an alien was standing right next to me, it isn't sure that I would spot it. They may be built like a thin line. They may be invisible. So, back to the real question, I do believe there are other living beings in space. As many have stated before me, there are many planets, and there may be many worlds like ours. If this planet was supposed to host life like this, it would be kinda dumb to actually make one planet out of all there is. If it was an accident, the chances are, we are the only ones.

[MDRud216]

I am one of those christians who is very faithful in his religeon, yet never goes to church.... I am 13, and have been very interested in leanring as much as i can about my religeon... but I am confortable speaking from a purely scientific veiw

 

If the universe was created suddenly, whether this was its first or second or billionth time (closed universe theory) and eventually the planets were formed, roughly the same time i would imagine, also I think the elements would be evenly distributed throughout the universe if it was suddenly formed by a "big bang" scenerio.

 

So if there was life, maybe on the other side of the universe, it would have been created, sparked and evolved about the same time and rate as us. I think it would have taken no longer for single cellualr organisims to evolve into more complex organisms here than on the other side of the universe if that is true, and therefore the rest of evolution would continue at still about the same rate.

 

If there are other 'intelligent' lifeforms in the galaxy wouldn't they be at the same evolutionary stage as we are, or within a few hundred years give or take?

 

I strongly beleive that there are other lifeforms out there, but even if there were I do not beleive we would make contact with them until both our races are technologically advanced to a high enough level to travel through large areas of space, maybe meeting somewhere in the middle of Earth and whatever planet they evolved on.

 

Of course there are thousands of variables that would effect the course of evolution, so the space between us may very well be a thousand years if not more, but that could be less advanced than us or more advanced.

 

Imagine the universe as a circular object, which it is if the big bang is true and I think it was proven anyway... but if we were somewhere on one side and a second intelligent life form at the other side and each race is advancing relativly steadily at about the same rate as the other. From the home planet they and we begin expanding outward, radially... depending on the technological and evolutionary level the two would meet somewhere in the middle, unless one race was far more advanced, then the meeting place would be closer to the more primitive planet.

 

If we were the more primitive planet (assuming my theory is completely wrong) then the more advanced race would be slowely apraocing us as they explore (radially) from their own planet. Or maybe they have already found us, maybe through advanced science they were to pinpoint another planet capable of life so they went straight to us... our own sciences are not to far from that, we have guesses on which stars may have planets able to support life.

 

But either way if another or multiple alien races exist it is only a matter of time until we meet, or maybe we already have. It is litterally a ticking eggtimer until our races meet somewhere in the middle.

 

slightly off topic i know but it is an important part of the topic.

[valdir]

Big post concluding with the answer of 42.

Despite the fact that I comprehend little of what you said, I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks.

 

:spam:

 

~Valdir

[Alexander the Great]

There are definately other beings out there. Duh. I am one, shouldnt you know.

 

On a more serious note. There should be. In our universe, there are so many different planets that all have different enviroments. Some othere planet, other then our own, has to have had a fair chance of creating some type of life. WHo knows if they still exist, but there should be. Maybe they are like us. probably not. But still. Good luck in finding out. If you do have definite evidence, message me.

[surian]

I really think that we limit ourselves when we think about what life could be on other planets. We only think about it in narrow terms such as what we see on our own planet. Our prerequisites for life are water and warmth.

 

There is a really good short story from Arthur C. Clark where he explores this issue a little bit. In his story there is a planet on the edge of the solar system that has an atmosphere of liquid helium (I think it was helium). Anyway, the surface was a conductor of electricity and it was supercooled to nearly absolute zero thus making it a really good potential computer. That's exactly what happened. The planet's surface eventually organized itself into a system that resembles what we know today as a computer's CPU. Again, over millions of years it evolved into a concious entity and began to construct offspring which it sent out to the far reaches of the universe to explore. The end of the story is that the computer reaches other planets that have "invented" computers and decides that they are a threat so it starts destroying the stars in their system... eventually reaching earth.

 

The point is though, we shouldn't really be thinking so narrowly about where to look for life. Life will thrive wherever it can, and we only see a tiny fraction of where life could thrive. There's another story from Arthur C. Clark where there is intelligent life near the core of our planet, and the reason we have never seen it is because we never looked for it there (and they never looked for us either because they thought the same way we did about life).

[Icefiddell]

I think as a race we dont want to find intelligent life out there, as a race anyway. As individuals we are open minded and willing to try new things out and so forth. But as a whole i believe people would shun the idea of finding new life.

 

The reason for this being we would finally realise how insignificant we really are, we'd finally see that we are not the centre of the universe and that everything doesn't revolves around us. We as a whole aren't ready yet i think, because right now people are happy believing that we are alone and that we are the only intelligent life.

 

Also imagine that an Alien ship did land and Alien race far more intelligent than us just randomly dropped by one day. As individuals we'd be calm but as groups and crowds there'd be wide spread panic.

 

IMO we aren't ready for such an encounter, who knows the consequneces for such a thing. And possibly there is an Alien race watching us and they already know the possible consequences of making themselves known to us, so they dont.

 

I mean there is substantial evidence from Ancient Civilzations of encounters and so on (ok maybe not substantial) but it does make you think. How did those ancient people do the things they did and even from wall paintings, some show figures that look like there wearing spaces suits and so on......so who knows.

[Hir_Nesta]

Keep off the religion please, Dark0ne's orders!

Oh well...

then I have no possibility to explain my thoughts?

 

Well

 

answer is: 42 (But what was the question exactly??) ;)

 

or to be honest: No, i think there are no others, i think we are the only ones.

[Darnoc]

@Maquissar: You make some good points, but you forgot some things which are rather important in order for life to come into being:

 

 

- As you said, binary systems are not possible to hold any live, since the radiation is to great. When you are far enough that radiation does no longer matter, you're too far away already, it is to cold for the chemical reactions which cause life. About 70% of all star systems are binary systems.

 

- Even when you get a starsystem with only one star, this has to be a special kind of star. It can't be a red giant, nor a white dwarf, nor a Pulsar nor a black hole. And of the normal stars which are in their medium lifetime, the star has to be in a similar class like our own sun, else the star is too hot or too cold.

 

- If you are lucky to get such a star-class, it has to be a second generation star, because when it is a first-generation star it would only consist of hydrogen and helium, while second generation stars consist also of higher elements.

 

- The starsystem has to have planets. Not only this, the planet has to be in a certain distance, either it is too cold or too hot. Then the planet has to be not too big and not too small. When it is too big, the gravity is too great to hold live, when it is too small, the gravity is too low (like our moon or Mercur). Exception only when it is a satellite of a greater planet (like the satellites of Jupiter). The planet must have a certain own velocity, not too fast and not too slow. The planet must have its own rotation, but also this not too slow or too fast (because then the corriolis force would be too great) and it the sides which face the sun must not always be the same (like on Venus).

 

- There must be a dense enough atmosphere, temperatures must not be too cold or too hot, the chemical reactions producing live only happen under very precise and delicate circumstances. Also the atmosphere mustn't hold oxygene.

 

- Even when protein molecules form, this doesn't necessarily lead to live. If it does, it very unlikely that the circumstances are good enough for development, the lifeform may be unmade pretty fast unless it is not hold under very precise circumstances.

 

- Who says that evolution must lead in the end towards an intelligent being? Or how long it takes for such a being to evolve? Our earth was the ideal place and it is very unlikely that anywhere in the universe you find exactly these circumstances which lead to intelligent live like on our planet. Earth was just the perfect hit, one you'll never get again in this universe. Mathematical looked at, a place like our earth and a development like on our earth mustn't exist, it is so unlikely to happen, that is impossible, mathematical speaking. So our earth shouldn't exist, theoretically. But it does. Think about that.

[Switch]

That's assuming that every world and sector will work like ours. I mean, it's scientists who say that life evolves when it requires adaptation. Who says a species who can survive in a gravity 100x that of our world can't exist? Who says that a species couldn't evolve that can survive extreme radiation? How do we know that the chemical reactions that caused life on this planet can't happen under different circumstances on other worlds? :P We haven't even gone out further than Mars yet. We're just assuming that our physics apply to everywhere.

 

Seems like an awful lot of assumation there. Of course, you could say I'm assuming a lot too. But really, a 1 hit wonder out of a universe of quadrillions of stars? I don't think that's very likely.

 

My 2 cents anyway. :P