Have aliens visited earth?

[Alobar]

Was curious what OOT thought (a group of mostly well educated people)

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[Alobar]

I think its pretty foolish to think we are the only life forms in the entire universe

I am unsure if any said life form has visited earth tho. I know there are tons of limitations that many argue make it impossible, but I also know we dont know all there is to know, so I definately think it could be possible. Im undecided tho, It wouldnt suprise me if it had happened, but I think pretty much all "crop circles" and "ufo sightings" and "governement coverups" are bogus. I think if aliens did come to earth, theyd have the technology to make it so that we never saw them.

[TheMainEvent]

IMO, it would have been better if the first question specified "intelligent" life. It seems really, really unlikely that no form of life whatsoever has ever developed on another planet.

[xadrez]

Considering the alien's obsession with SIIHP, I think its possible to assert that they are browsing OOT as we speak.

[xadrez]

[ QUOTE ]
IMO, it would have been better if the first question specified "intelligent" life. It seems really, really unlikely that no form of life whatsoever has ever developed on another planet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, there is intelligent life on earth? Whoa.

[kenberman]

some people (intelligent ones!) think all life on Earth was created by simple cell's organisms that arrived on Earth via meteors or other galactic explosions.

does that count?

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

[ QUOTE ]
I think its pretty foolish to think we are the only life forms in the entire universe

I am unsure if any said life form has visited earth tho. I know there are tons of limitations that many argue make it impossible, but I also know we dont know all there is to know, so I definately think it could be possible. Im undecided tho, It wouldnt suprise me if it had happened, but I think pretty much all "crop circles" and "ufo sightings" and "governement coverups" are bogus. I think if aliens did come to earth, theyd have the technology to make it so that we never saw them.

[/ QUOTE ]

it is certainly possible to travel insane distances in space. However to do said traveling would require much much more advanced technology and many resources.

If aliens did visit earth, why wouldnt they want to greet us? also if they were here, i wouldnt think the gov't would have the power to stop them or hide them.

[RunDownHouse]

It doesn't seem almost equally unlikely that no form of intelligent life has ever formed on another planet?

Let's define "intelligence" as chimp-smart, just for laughs.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[/ QUOTE ]

even if its uncommon tho, the incredibly vast number of other stars/planets in the universe means its pretty likely its happened elsewhere.

[TheMainEvent]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't seem almost equally unlikely that no form of intelligent life has ever formed on another planet?

Let's define "intelligence" as chimp-smart, just for laughs.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thinking was that simple organisms could live in a much more hostile environment/atmosphere than ours. It's like how people say if we have a nuclear holocaust, mammals would die but cockroaches would survive.

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

[ QUOTE ]


Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe.

[/ QUOTE ]

while this may be true, the universe is extremely large and we really dont know that much about it relativley speaking.

[asofel]

[ QUOTE ]
Considering the alien's obsession with SIIHP, I think its possible to assert that they are browsing OOT as we speak.

[/ QUOTE ]

BIMO

It's almost a statistical certainty that some sort of intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe. That's a lot of planets out there, and that's just in our galaxy.

I don't care what those fools down in Roswell say. They got hoodwinked by the federales. You'd think we would have been contacted by an alien species before we were visited by one. They speak english, right?

ScottieK

[B Dids]

Given how much is out there we don't know, it's really hard to say what "life" even is.

It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[HopeydaFish]

[ QUOTE ]
I think if aliens did come to earth, theyd have the technology to make it so that we never saw them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard people make this argument before, and I've always wondered what it would matter to them if we saw them? It's not like we'd be any sort of threat to them.

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[/ QUOTE ]

As the previous poster said, the number are just too big not for it to have happened elsewhere. 100 billion (10^11) stars in the Milky Way alone, probably 100 biliion galaxys. There are four worlds where life may originiate in our system alone (Earth, Mars, Europa, Titan). Say 25% of all systems have planets, so you've got 100 billion planets in the Milky Way where it has been/will be possible, 10^22 in the universe.

One could be vast orders of magitude off on probablity estimates and still have almost uncountable intelligent civilizations in the universe, let alone planets where there is mere life.

[MonkeeMan]

duh

http://www.tvparty.com/vgifs6/martain2a.gif http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/mork.jpg
http://user.tninet.se/~djv504e/alf/talf005.jpg http://users.telenet.be/neral/B_Thirdrock_WEB.jpg http://www.clubdesmonstres.com/killerklowns05.jpg

[astroglide]

star trek seems to find no shortage of class m planets. agree to disagree!

[imported_anacardo]

[ QUOTE ]
It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[/ QUOTE ]

even if its uncommon tho, the incredibly vast number of other stars/planets in the universe means its pretty likely its happened elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't make sense. If it's uncommon it's not likely to have happened. Moreover the probability of a planet supporting life can be so small that even given the vast number of planets in the universe the expected number of planets supporting life can still be small. Say for example there the probability that planet supports life is 10^-15 and there are 10^9 planets in the universe. It doesn't matter how close these numbers are to the actual numbers the point is this: the expected number of planets supporting life is 10^-15 * 10^9 = 10^-6 = 1/1000000.

[MonkeeMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Moreover the probability of a planet supporting life can be so small

[/ QUOTE ]

Human life, or like, alien life?

[Morrek]

I don't understand why so many people seem to believe that just because a planet doesn't have A)water and B)exactly the same temperature as earth they automatically come to the conclusion that life there is impossible, of any kind. Who's to say "aliens" can't live in extremely hot or cold(both very relative words to use aswell) enviroment, or be drinking something other than water? Or even need to drink at all? Maybe some of them are living purely off of gas or whatever, how the heck could we know?

As to the other question, I really believe we are "being watched/visited" if that's how you wish to describe it, and "they" just don't feel like we're ready to start communicating with them on a "public" level. And I really don't blame them, our society is very poorly developed in all kinds of ways, I mean, we're still killing eachother all over the world all year around, who's to say we wouldn't (sooner or later) attempt to kill "aliens" if they entered our world?

[Leaky Eye]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is another book called Probability 1 that makes the exact opposite argument. Both arguments are flawed by probabilistic calculations that ultimately contain a complete guess somewhere in their formulas.

[Benal]

This article certainly made me wonder, especially when considering a person "in the know", the former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister, seems to believe.

(excerpt)"OTTAWA, CANADA (PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics -- relations with “ETs.”

By “ETs,” Mr. Hellyer and these organizations mean ethical, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that may now be visiting Earth.

On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head."

Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something."

Hellyer revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop."

Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide."

Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, "The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today."(end excerpt)


The article goes on to talk about the implications of weaponizing space, and a possible space-weapon-ban treaty, and then concludes:


(excerpt)"...In early November 2005, the Canadian Senate wrote ICIS, indicating the Senate Committee could not hold hearings on ETs in 2005, because of their already crowded schedule.

“That does not deter us,” one spokesperson for the Non-governmental organizations said, “We are going ahead with our request to Prime Minister Paul Martin and the official opposition leaders in the House of Commons now, and we will re-apply with the Senate of Canada in early 2006.

“Time is on the side of open disclosure that there are ethical Extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth,” The spokesperson stated. “Our Canadian government needs to openly address these important issues of the possible deployment of weapons in outer war plans against ethical ET societies.”(end excerpt)

I for one don't see how we could win a war with extraterrestrials If ETs have the technology to travel here over light-years of space-time, we very likely would have no chance of defeating them and their highly advanced technologies if it should ever come to intergalactic war.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/11/inktomi314382.php

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think if aliens did come to earth, theyd have the technology to make it so that we never saw them.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've heard people make this argument before, and I've always wondered what it would matter to them if we saw them? It's not like we'd be any sort of threat to them.

[/ QUOTE ]

probably because if we did see them, it would be the most significant event in human history. If there was undeniable proof that intelligent life was visiting this planet, it would cuase an uproar like nothing thats ever happened before.

If there is someone "watching" us it would make sense that they wouldnt want to be seen, because it would be traumatic and alter our course of history. I guess they might not care about that, but it just seems semi logical they would

[JonPKibble]

http://www.xfroadrunners.com/epimages/season6/biogenesis/cap068.jpg

[InchoateHand]

Many times, brother, many times.

[Luv2DriveTT]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
id say its probable for other intelligent life to exist somewhere. getting here is highly unlikely.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[/ QUOTE ]

even if its uncommon tho, the incredibly vast number of other stars/planets in the universe means its pretty likely its happened elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't make sense. If it's uncommon it's not likely to have happened. Moreover the probability of a planet supporting life can be so small that even given the vast number of planets in the universe the expected number of planets supporting life can still be small. Say for example there the probability that planet supports life is 10^-15 and there are 10^9 planets in the universe. It doesn't matter how close these numbers are to the actual numbers the point is this: the expected number of planets supporting life is 10^-15 * 10^9 = 10^-6 = 1/1000000.

[/ QUOTE ]

I met an alien once, his name was Pablo. Therefore you must be wrong.

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

[InchoateHand]

And I take serious contention with your characterization of OOT as "mostly well educated."

Nineteen year old kids failing out of college while meeting moderate success at p*ker hardly counts as "well-educated."

[uw_madtown]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Our own advances in science would seem to indicate it's very unlikely aliens have ever visited Earth.

For this to have happened, basic life must have evolved on another planet. Then it must have survived, and evolved into "intelligent" life. That life must then go through accumulating the massive amount of knowledge and technology necessary for light-speed space travel. It would then need to actually TRAVEL here, which would take a varying degrees of time depending on galaxy of origin -- but even within the Milky Way, it'd be a long trip. That's assuming they had a reason to come to Earth first, which they wouldn't as they'd have no way of knowing life existed here.

It seems to me that the barrier of traveling at light-speed alone almost ensures we have not been visited.

[man]

[ QUOTE ]
Moreover the probability of a planet supporting life can be so small that even given the vast number of planets in the universe the expected number of planets supporting life can still be small. Say for example there the probability that planet supports life is 10^-15 and there are 10^9 planets in the universe. It doesn't matter how close these numbers are to the actual numbers the point is this: the expected number of planets supporting life is 10^-15 * 10^9 = 10^-6 = 1/1000000.

[/ QUOTE ]
actually I don't think this is right. it's

1 - [probability of life not existing on all 10^9 planets]

which is
1 - (99999999999999/100000000000000)^9

and my calculator can't seem to handle that business. I think it's smaller than your estimate though.

[man]

edit to my last post: it's actually

1- (99999999999999/100000000000000)^(10^9)

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
And I take serious contention with your characterization of OOT as "mostly well educated."

Nineteen year old kids failing out of college while meeting moderate success at p*ker hardly counts as "well-educated."

[/ QUOTE ]

there are tons of smart mother [censored] around here, many with degrees in physics and stuff like that. The ones who arent, are pursuing a degree.....I think that qualifies as mostly well educated when compared to the normal trailor park american. Which is what inspired this poll, I was watching a show and it said half of all americans believe in UFOs, I wondered how the smart people felt about it, not jeb and skeeter over in arkansas

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Our own advances in science would seem to indicate it's very unlikely aliens have ever visited Earth.

For this to have happened, basic life must have evolved on another planet. Then it must have survived, and evolved into "intelligent" life. That life must then go through accumulating the massive amount of knowledge and technology necessary for light-speed space travel. It would then need to actually TRAVEL here, which would take a varying degrees of time depending on galaxy of origin -- but even within the Milky Way, it'd be a long trip. That's assuming they had a reason to come to Earth first, which they wouldn't as they'd have no way of knowing life existed here.

It seems to me that the barrier of traveling at light-speed alone almost ensures we have not been visited.

[/ QUOTE ]

That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.

[Morrek]

[ QUOTE ]

That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some claim this is proof that "aliens" infact have been/are here, indicating that they helped us progress scientifically a hundred-or-so years ago so that we could progress faster for whatever reason.

Considering planets could very well be many millions(billions? I'm not sure) of years old I don't see how people can believe that other planets/lifeforms haven't had time to develop into highly evolved beings a very long time ago... And to believe that we are at the top of this kind of evolution is being very naive IMO, and just another sign of that we have a long way to go before we can even imagine it.

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]
That seems like an odd statement to me. There was very little in the way of changes from the year 0 to, oh about 1900. Other than a few things like gunpowder, and such. And then about 60 years after we stop plowing fields with horses, we are on the moon. I contend something had to have happened, I have no idea what it is though. I think that we are geometrically improving scientifcally, rather than the linear progression we were on until the early 20 century. But, this is just my random thought while stoned.

[/ QUOTE ]

The reason for the discrepancy for the increase in thechnology in the time periods x-1900 and 1900-2005 is because of a few significant discoveries in technology.

For example, the knowledge of how to produce a computer as powerful as the one you're on right now was around in the 1950's, but until the further development of transistors and microtransistors they were not able to be produced. Once transistors became smaller and smaller, it became (relitively) simple to make more powerful computers.

[JaBlue]

my views are similar to others here;

probabilistically it seems like aliens should exist somewhere else in the univerese. As to whether or not they have visitted earth or not, I am going to assume that they haven't until I'm presented with compelling evidence (not stonehenge)

[Jeebus]

this follows along with Da vinci's inventions as well as many of the ideas of the ancient Greek Scholars and others. They had the write idea on how to do things (like fly) but did not have the necessary materials to make it happen.

I actually (to a degree) subscribe to the idea that there may have been a degree of influence placed on human development by an outside source (like aliens). I see the two main examples being the shift between Neanderthals and [censored] Sapians as well as the almost overnight (historically speaking) growth of advanced civilizations from purely nomadic peoples. Think the things that happened in the fertile crescent or on the Ganges, etc.
I've read a few things on this years ago, the idea can be well supported if you assume descriptions of Gods and Crazy Miraculous things are actually attempts to explain modern things such as airplanes based on an absolute lack of experience in the technology. Think of the effect a team of missionaries has on a tribe living in the heart of the amazon. they arrive by helicopter (big flying bird) dressed in synthetics instead of furs and carrying medicine (miraculous healing). Looking at architecture and artwork can also help to affirm this idea.

[w_alloy]

With the barrier of the speed of light, it is extremely unlikely (effectively impossible) we have been visited.

I think there is a chance that this barrier can be broken with space travel, but it is very unlikely (almost impossible) that this is the case. I think this is the key mistake most of the 26% who voted yes on Q2 are making, because if you think the barrier cant be broken I cant see how any logical person could say its remotely likely we've been visited.

[UncleRemus]

To everyone who hasn't seen Cosmos,

it's a brilliant mini series from Carl Sagan done 25 some odd years ago. I recommend seeing all 13 episodes, but there is one in particular, "Encyclopedia Galactica" I believe, that deals with this subject. Even today, it's extremely informative and a great watch. This episode even goes into the probability theories.

Check it out,
Ross

[The Truth]

[ QUOTE ]
With the barrier of the speed of light, it is extremely unlikely (effectively impossible) we have been visited.

I think there is a chance that this barrier can be broken with space travel, but it is very unlikely (almost impossible) that this is the case. I think this is the key mistake most of the 26% who voted yes on Q2 are making, because if you think the barrier cant be broken I cant see how any logical person could say its remotely likely we've been visited.

[/ QUOTE ]

Until we have a greater understanding of these topics, human speculation on light travel is just silly.

[The Truth]

I think it is fairly silly to argue about which planets are inhabitable by intelligent life, the mechanisms of evolution would suggests that many plants that would seem uninhabitable to us, would simply develop life forms that are able to survive in the extreme conditions.

Once again, I don't think we have the knowledge available to us to speculate on the extent to which life can mutate and develop under conditions outside of our atmosphere.

[The Truth]

The scientific and intellectual capability of our society is growing exponentially. I am not sure if this is directly related to size of world population, or speed of communication.... It could be related to a number of factors in conjunction. Either way, our scientific growth seems to be gaining momentum not losing momentum, and it is logical to conclude that we will continue to develop at this ever increasing exponential rate forever, barring mass death or extincition.

That said, I expect to be able to speculate intelligently on not just weather life exists on other planets, but instead on the characteristics and mechanisms of the development of life on other planets in my lifetime.

This should coincide with a more in depth understanding of space-time and light travel.

blake

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]
With the barrier of the speed of light, it is extremely unlikely (effectively impossible) we have been visited.

I think there is a chance that this barrier can be broken with space travel, but it is very unlikely (almost impossible) that this is the case. I think this is the key mistake most of the 26% who voted yes on Q2 are making, because if you think the barrier cant be broken I cant see how any logical person could say its remotely likely we've been visited.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who is to say the speed of light must be exeeded? For all we know, in the event that there is life on another planet, they might have a lifespan of several hundred thousand years. Crazy, yes, but so is any of this talk.

[Morrek]

I think the real question is, what does being visited "look like"? And has -that- happened?

Besides, we already know things traveling faster than the speed of light, it's just not very well known yet and we have no way of using it (atleast consciously) at this time... I don't remember the details very well, but physisists have known for quite some time that a part of the atom(electron? or whatever I don't remember) is impossible to say exactly where it is, you can only say there's a chance it is at a certain place at a certain time. The thing is, this doesn't have to be anywhere near the atom's "centre" at all. There's a chance that it is on the other side of the universe in a split second while it was "here" right before, thus it "travels" extremely fast. So if you could find a way to manipulate this, you could effectively communicate with someone on the other side of the universe, more or less instantly.

Forgive me for not knowing all the details on this nor all the english words for it, but my brother majored or whatever it's called in physics and has explained this a couple times to me, and I've read a couple articles and parts of a book on the subject, although the articles were in swedish so I'm not sure about all the words.

I don't claim to understand much of this but it seems that the conclusion about using it as a way of communication is something we are working on right now, and maybe in x years we can use it for more than just communication, but also for traveling using the same technique, who knows? And who's to say "aliens" haven't been using this for thousands of (earthly) years?

[tonypaladino]

Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[imported_anacardo]

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, our hubris is so adorable.

[Morrek]

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's very interesting...

[The Truth]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the real question is, what does being visited "look like"? And has -that- happened?

Besides, we already know things traveling faster than the speed of light, it's just not very well known yet and we have no way of using it (atleast consciously) at this time... I don't remember the details very well, but physisists have known for quite some time that a part of the atom(electron? or whatever I don't remember) is impossible to say exactly where it is, you can only say there's a chance it is at a certain place at a certain time. The thing is, this doesn't have to be anywhere near the atom's "centre" at all. There's a chance that it is on the other side of the universe in a split second while it was "here" right before, thus it "travels" extremely fast. So if you could find a way to manipulate this, you could effectively communicate with someone on the other side of the universe, more or less instantly.

Forgive me for not knowing all the details on this nor all the english words for it, but my brother majored or whatever it's called in physics and has explained this a couple times to me, and I've read a couple articles and parts of a book on the subject, although the articles were in swedish so I'm not sure about all the words.

I don't claim to understand much of this but it seems that the conclusion about using it as a way of communication is something we are working on right now, and maybe in x years we can use it for more than just communication, but also for traveling using the same technique, who knows? And who's to say "aliens" haven't been using this for thousands of (earthly) years?

[/ QUOTE ]


good post.

This is the quantum eraser experiement it explains some of the ideas if anyone is intersted:

http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-scully/kim-scully-web.htm

blake

[daveymck]

The thing about humanity is we seem to think that we are the biggest and best most intelligent being to hit the universe, we can barely get off the planet and back without dying and yet with utmost certainity people say there is/isnt life out there or that it wouldnt be clever enough to hide itself from us if it was here.

Its not that long ago that most of the scientists of the day thought the earth was flat and we would fall off the end of it, I realise science and understanding has moved on but who knows in the many millions of years before the first caveman came along what life and civilisation has developed on other planets round the universe and how far advanced than us they could be.

I think a lot of ancient civilizations have stories and pictures of vistors in strange headgear, could that be alien visitors, is it people form the future travelling through time, are other dimensions possible, who knows.

I guess in our lifetime the chances are we will not know, I think its interesting that most cultures worshipped gods from primitive times through to now, even our more modern beleifs of God point to either another dimension (ie where heaven or hell is) or higher beings with great powers out there.

Imagine if earth was just some reality tv show for some higher species in the way we keep ant farms or watch big brother. Those that belive god watches over us in effect are saying it is.

I think most people can see that there have been ufo's spotted in recent times, the ones over Belgiuim where jets were scrambled for example, whether any of these are visitors is another matter entirely.

If life was found elsewhere then that to a point could well make all our religions redundant, if intelligent life was found even more so, would the government or say a large organization with scientists working for it like the Vatican ever tell us if they did find it anyway? or would they protect their own beliefs and church. What effect would it have on the economy or world order if it was true and known.

I did read or see somthing one time that suggested films like Close Encounters were preparing us for revelations of other life visiting us (supposedly Speilberg got a lot of army input for that film,), seems like they backed out of telling us if that was true.

I am throwing a few things into the discussion I am not saying I beleive anything that I wrote.

[4_2_it]

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

So the Pentagon watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and mimicked that plan? I feel much better now.

As an additional precaution, I made all members of my family memorize the phrase that will prevent Gort from destroying our planet in case the Pentagon's plan somehow fails. Klaatu Barata Nikto............

[andyfox]

There are probably 100,000,000,000 galaxies, each containing an average of 100,000,000,000 stars. Yet a cathedral with three grains of sand in it is more densely packed than the universe.

I'll let others do the math.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

So the Pentagon watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and mimicked that plan? I feel much better now.

As an additional precaution, I made all members of my family memorize the phrase that will prevent Gort from destroying our planet in case the Pentagon's plan somehow fails. Klaatu Barata Nikto............

[/ QUOTE ]

ahahaahah

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't seem almost equally unlikely that no form of intelligent life has ever formed on another planet?

Let's define "intelligence" as chimp-smart, just for laughs.

[/ QUOTE ]

The whole problem with any question like this is insufficient sample size (one is a pretty small sample) but, currently on earth, we have several species approximately chimp-smart. I would put the other great apes (gorillas, bonobos, orngutans) as roughly chimp smart, and elephants dolphins and whales are in approximately that range, too. OTOH, it appears that life developed (or migrated) to earth pretty quickly after conditins became suitable, but it took four or five billion years to evolve a technological species, assuming that there wasn't an intelligent donosaur or something of which all traces have vanished. It seems that life might be pretty common, but intelligence sufficient for interstellar travel (which we haven't achieved yet, and maybe never will), or for that matter even industrial technology and radio communication, might be quite rare.

[Benal]

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

So basically, no one would ever hear about it, and any "witness" would either silenced or made out to be some crazyman. Hmmmmmm

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope this is wrong. If it is true, our first response to any visit by extraterrestrial intelligence would be an act of war. If this is correct, we have some incredibly stupid people in the military. Not that that's exactly a shock. If the aliens do visit, we'd better hope that it's a lone scout ship and that there's not a mother ship lurking nearby with the kind of weapons that a civilization capable of interstellar travel is likely to be able to produce.

[MonkeeMan]

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry for the skepticism, but you're saying the pentagon would give juristicion to the [censored] FBI? NFW the military brass is buying into that one.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope this is wrong. If it is true, our first response to any visit by extraterrestrial intelligence would be an act of war. If this is correct, we have some incredibly stupid people in the military. Not that that's exactly a shock. If the aliens do visit, we'd better hope that it's a lone scout ship and that there's not a mother ship lurking nearby with the kind of weapons that a civilization capable of interstellar travel is likely to be able to produce.

[/ QUOTE ]

id be willing to bet that even one alien scout ship could bring down the entirely military of planet earth.

Think about what would happen if you took a M1A1 tank back even only a couple hundred years and used that bitch in the revultionary war or something. I can see the difference between alien technology and our current military being even greater than that

[ QUOTE ]
Just an FYI-
The pentagon does have detailed plans on what the initial response would be if aliens ever land on US soil. It was in an issue of Discover or Scientific American a while back.

Basically, if some sort of ship touches down the immediate area is evacuated. Juristicion goes to the FBI and the Nuclear Incident Response Team. Any beings on the ship are immediatly taken into custody by the FBI, and the NIR Team takes possesion of the spacecraft.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suppose this is marginally better than releasing a dove.

ScottieK

[CCass]

Of course they have been here before. Who do you htink built the pyramids?

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course they have been here before. Who do you think killed the dinosaurs?

[/ QUOTE ]

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
To everyone who hasn't seen Cosmos,

it's a brilliant mini series from Carl Sagan done 25 some odd years ago. I recommend seeing all 13 episodes, but there is one in particular, "Encyclopedia Galactica" I believe, that deals with this subject. Even today, it's extremely informative and a great watch. This episode even goes into the probability theories.

Check it out,
Ross

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I loved these shows when I was a kid.

The key variable in that probability, the assumption that makes all the difference, was "how long would a civilization last after it developed the capacity to destroy itself?"

[ChipWrecked]

Project Serpo (http://serpo.org)

Not only have they visited, we did an exchange program with them.

(jk, but this is good reading if you like sf.... physics don't work right on Serpo, oh well.... /images/graemlins/smile.gif)

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, the conditions for life to exist are extremely rare. Life as we know it is extremely fragile and it appears, based on probabilistic arguments, that the conditions for life to exist are not that common in the universe. Microbes quite likely exist in abundance but complex life not. This argument was first set forth in the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have not read this book but I am aware of the argument. The problem is we really do only have a sample size of one for a lot of the assumptions being made. Many of the conditions for complex life they consider unlikely may not be so unlikely at all, and many of the conditions for complex life they consider necessary may not be so necessary at all.

[mrkilla]

Also it's possible the speed of light has been reached By another being. Yes I understand very well E=MC2 thank you. However the fact remains there could possibly be a being that would be able to trancend this limitation [ Mass increasing as speed increases for all wondering why we can't reach it], either via force field or some other "alien" method.

Just because we can't doesnt mean they can't.

If they were able to do this theres a good chance that they'd have an undectable stealth tech as well.

[MonkeeMan]

Even if you didn't like Men In Black, just look around...they're everywhere man.

[TimM]

But how would they find us?

If complex life is common enough for highly advanced civilizations to be nearby, there would be many more planets with civilizations not as advanced, such as our own, also nearby. Many of these will be closer to them than we are.

If not, well, our own radio transmissions haven't gotten far enough from Earth yet to be received by anyone advanced enough to reach us. We've only been transmitting for less than a century, and 100 light years is not very far - 0.1% of the diameter of our galaxy.

Either way, finding us is like finding the proverbial a needle in a haystack. The only question is, are we one of many needles in a small haystack, or one of a few in a very big one.

[wacki]

murchinson meteorite

chiral proteins

CO2 cycle on mars. indicates life

Posted a million times.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html

Not going to explain more. DOne it million times.

Oh, jason_t = full of [censored].

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
murchinson meteorite

chiral proteins

CO2 cycle on mars. indicates life

Posted a million times.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_050216.html

Not going to explain more. DOne it million times.

Oh, jason_t = full of [censored].

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, we're talking about complex, intelligent life here. Good luck.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi, we're talking about complex, intelligent life here. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, universe is gigantor and we've likely got life on 2 planets in this solar system and some people think more.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
There are probably 100,000,000,000 galaxies, each containing an average of 100,000,000,000 stars. Yet a cathedral with three grains of sand in it is more densely packed than the universe.

I'll let others do the math.

[/ QUOTE ]

* For 1,000,000 civilizations in the galaxy
o the average distance between them will be ~ 150 ly!!!
o two-way communication will take at least 300 years!
* If the lifetime of a technical civilization is less than 3000 years
o Average distance is so large that civilizations will die, on average, before two-way communications can be established!

http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/lec35.htm

[tonypaladino]

[ QUOTE ]


Hi, universe is gigantor

[/ QUOTE ]

Gigaaaaaannnnttoooooorrrrrr (http://www.alphalink.com.au/~roglen/gigantor.wav)

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hi, we're talking about complex, intelligent life here. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, universe is gigantor and we've likely got life on 2 planets in this solar system and some people think more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi, and evolution needs to happen just so for complex life forms to develop. It's a parlay, and a pretty crazy one.

[Leaky Eye]

For all we know it could always happen given the right conditions.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
For all we know it could always happen given the right conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution is random.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For all we know it could always happen given the right conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution is random.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mutations are random, yes, but if you do something randomly for a long enough time, you eventually cover a lot of the possibilities.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For all we know it could always happen given the right conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution is random.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mutations are random, yes, but if you do something randomly for a long enough time, you eventually cover a lot of the possibilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not when the search space is as large as it is. There is an insane number of DNA combinations. Most of them are junk. Hitting upon ones that lead to complex life is rare.

[Leaky Eye]

Evolution is not random, it is precisely guided by the environment. Mutation is what is random.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
Evolution is not random, it is precisely guided by the environment. Mutation is what is random.

[/ QUOTE ]

omg why is everyone such a [censored] nit?

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Not when the search space is as large as it is. There is an insane number of DNA combinations. Most of them are junk. Hitting upon ones that lead to complex life is rare.

[/ QUOTE ]

I used to think this. Then I started doing radiation work in a wetlab. Given the right conditions, evolution occurs with amazing speed.

Ugh... been through this a dozen times before. If it was anyone but you I wouldn't be posting at all.

[[censored]]

Hi,it seems like more than a few people have based their opinion on a line from the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
For all we know it could always happen given the right conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Evolution is random.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mutations are random, yes, but if you do something randomly for a long enough time, you eventually cover a lot of the possibilities.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not when the search space is as large as it is. There is an insane number of DNA combinations. Most of them are junk. Hitting upon ones that lead to complex life is rare.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its like the monkeys pounding on the typewriter thing. If you have enough monkeys randomly punching keys on a typewriter, eventually one of them will punch out the complete works of william shakespear. So even if intelligent life is "OMG so super super rare" The universe is just so big that its going to happen, and more than oce. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on our ENTIRE planet, thats a whole hell of a lot of chances for life to evolve into intelligence

[WDC]

We came a long time ago and we settled in Ireland.

[Sponger15SB]

Dear Jason_t,


John McLaughlin: Wrong! There is life after death. The soul does not ascend to heaven but rather rests in a limbo state that varies depending on the karma of the spirit. Issue number 4: Intellegent beings on other planets, yes or no? Pat Buchanan!

Pat Buchanan: I would think so.

John McLaughlin: Eleanor Clift!

Eleanor Clift: Don't know.

John McLaughlin: Jack Germonde!

Jack Germonde: Me, either.

John McLaughlin: Mortontown!

Morton Kondracke: Well, no one really knows..

John McLaughlin: Wrong! There is intellegent life in the 11th galaxy on the planet Neptar, which will conquer Earth in the year 5482, utilizing us for slave labor in their Chellonian salt mines. Issue number 5: what number am I thinking of? Pat Buchanan!



Regards,
Sponger

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]

Its like the monkeys pounding on the typewriter thing. If you have enough monkeys randomly punching keys on a typewriter, eventually one of them will punch out the complete works of william shakespear. So even if intelligent life is "OMG so super super rare" The universe is just so big that its going to happen, and more than oce. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on our ENTIRE planet, thats a whole hell of a lot of chances for life to evolve into intelligence

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think you realize how vast the search space is.

Let's take a Shakespearian sonnet.

as an unperfect actor on the stage
who with his fear is put besides his part
or some fierce thing replete with too much rage
whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart
so I for fear of trust forget to say
the perfect ceremony of loves rite
and in mine own loves strength seem to decay
oercharged with burden of mine own loves might
o let my books be then the eloquence
and dumb presagers of my speaking breast
who plead for love and look for recompense
more than that tongue that more hath more expressd
o learn to read what silent love hath writ
to hear with eyes belongs to loves fine wit

Ignoring punctuation and capitalization, there are 596 characters in that sonnet. Assume our typewriters have 28 keys---26 letters, one space and one line feed/carriage return.

Let's take a monkey and make him hit 596 keys and stop. If it's the above sonnet he gets a banana otherwise we continue starving the poor bastard and he has to keep typing. The number of 596 character-long blocks of text is 28^596. Let's estimate

28^596 ~ 27^596 = (3^3)^596 = 3^1788 = (3^2)^894 ~ 10^894.

So there are 10^894 blocks of text. Let's assume our little monkey can crank out 100 characters in one minute. So approximately every 6 minutes he'll crank out a 596 character block and thus approximately 10 every hour, 240 every day and 87600 in a year. Let's just say 87600 ~ 10^5 so that the approximate number of years for the monkey to produce the above sonnet is 10^889. There are only 10^80 electrons in the universe so at most 10^80 monkeys. With this many monkeys we're producting approximately 10^86 character blocks of length 596 in one year and the approximate number of years until the Shakespeare sonnet is produced is 10^808. The sun will have expanded and swallowed the Earth long before that.

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think you realize how vast the search space is.

Let's take a Shakespearian sonnet.

as an unperfect actor on the stage
who with his fear is put besides his part
or some fierce thing replete with too much rage
whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart
so I for fear of trust forget to say
the perfect ceremony of loves rite
and in mine own loves strength seem to decay
oercharged with burden of mine own loves might
o let my books be then the eloquence
and dumb presagers of my speaking breast
who plead for love and look for recompense
more than that tongue that more hath more expressd
o learn to read what silent love hath writ
to hear with eyes belongs to loves fine wit

Ignoring punctuation and capitalization, there are 596 characters in that sonnet. Assume our typewriters have 28 keys---26 letters, one space and one line feed/carriage return.

Let's take a monkey and make him hit 596 keys and stop. If it's the above sonnet he gets a banana otherwise we continue starving the poor bastard and he has to keep typing. The number of 596 character-long blocks of text is 28^596. Let's estimate

28^596 ~ 27^596 = (3^3)^596 = 3^1788 = (3^2)^894 ~ 10^894.

So there are 10^894 blocks of text. Let's assume our little monkey can crank out 100 characters in one minute. So approximately every 6 minutes he'll crank out a 596 character block and thus approximately 10 every hour, 240 every day and 87600 in a year. Let's just say 87600 ~ 10^5 so that the approximate number of years for the monkey to produce the above sonnet is 10^889. There are only 10^80 electrons in the universe so at most 10^80 monkeys. With this many monkeys we're producting approximately 10^86 character blocks of length 596 in one year and the approximate number of years until the Shakespeare sonnet is produced is 10^808. The sun will have expanded and swallowed the Earth long before that.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is exactly what I was going to say, but you beat me to it.



...and if you believe me, I'll give you a banana.

[Alobar]

Id argue that you missed my point, but im sure youd argue that I missed yours

[diebitter]

The monkeys pounding on typewriters thing as a comparison to evolution is horse [censored]. IF the bottom 10% of monkeys that produced the least-like-Shakespearean text were shot, and the remainder allowed to breed to replace em every couple of years, that would be a fair comparison.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
Id argue that you missed my point, but im sure youd argue that I missed yours

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly.

[MonkeeMan]

[ QUOTE ]
The monkeys pounding on typewriters thing as a comparison to evolution is horse [censored]. IF the bottom 10% of monkeys that produced the least-like-Shakespearean text were shot, and the remainder allowed to breed to replace em every couple of years, that would be a fair comparison.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shootin's to good for the scurvy curs. Make 'em walk the plank, arrrrrr.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The monkeys pounding on typewriters thing as a comparison to evolution is horse [censored]. IF the bottom 10% of monkeys that produced the least-like-Shakespearean text were shot, and the remainder allowed to breed to replace em every couple of years, that would be a fair comparison.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shootin's to good for the scurvy curs. Make 'em walk the plank, arrrrrr.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ayyyy! Spoken like a matey who understands the nature of salty seamen! Arr!

An why be it always monkeys 'n' typewriters, me hearty? Why can't it be pussies? They be nicer for work that be needin' delicate fingerin'.... arrr!

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Its like the monkeys pounding on the typewriter thing. If you have enough monkeys randomly punching keys on a typewriter, eventually one of them will punch out the complete works of william shakespear. So even if intelligent life is "OMG so super super rare" The universe is just so big that its going to happen, and more than oce. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on our ENTIRE planet, thats a whole hell of a lot of chances for life to evolve into intelligence

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a bad analogy really.

We are not trying to produce a specific text, just a good enough one.

And we are not working purely randomly.

Just as an example, we know things like eyes evolved independently in many different lineages. So you can't say something like "If that one mutation that led to the eye did not happen, we wouldn't be here" because obviously there are many ways to get to eyes.

So we are not just blundering about the search space hoping to come across the right answer. Evolution is a feedback mechanism that is attracted to good things (like eyes).

[TimM]

jason,

Rather than argue with you, how about a deal? I will read Rare Earth and you can read Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel C. Dennett (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068482471X). It's actually very good and I think you would like it anyway.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
jason,

Rather than argue with you, how about a deal? I will read Rare Earth and you can read Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel C. Dennett (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/068482471X). It's actually very good and I think you would like it anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Tim but I've already read that book. If you have another suggestion I'd be happy to take you up on your offer otherwise I could reread it (it's been about 4 years).

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Its like the monkeys pounding on the typewriter thing. If you have enough monkeys randomly punching keys on a typewriter, eventually one of them will punch out the complete works of william shakespear. So even if intelligent life is "OMG so super super rare" The universe is just so big that its going to happen, and more than oce. There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on our ENTIRE planet, thats a whole hell of a lot of chances for life to evolve into intelligence

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a bad analogy really.

We are not trying to produce a specific text, just a good enough one.

And we are not working purely randomly.

Just as an example, we know things like eyes evolved independently in many different lineages. So you can't say something like "If that one mutation that led to the eye did not happen, we wouldn't be here" because obviously there are many ways to get to eyes.



[/ QUOTE ]

Which has happened in (approximately) 15 different ways.

[Alobar]

so I was sitting here reading this very thread and I looked out my window and snapped this pic.....guess now we have proof


http://photobucket.com/albums/y62/dan1378/alien.jpg

[MonkeeMan]

Awesome, he's flashing the intergalactic "we love your kind" sign! (I'm jealous, it's cloudy here)

In the 60s my Gran saw a UFO. It was a metallic spinning top shaped object that had an orange glow coming from inside. This was in broad daylight on a clear day maybe 100m from her.

[ZeroPointMachine]

Arguements that Physics does not allow for faster than light travel hold very little weight when are current "understanding" of the universe is based on vast assumptions/guesses regarding dark matter and dark energy. To say we understand the universe, but we're not sure what 75-90% of it is, seems a little silly.

[Morrek]

[ QUOTE ]
Arguements that Physics does not allow for faster than light travel hold very little weight when are current "understanding" of the universe is based on vast assumptions/guesses regarding dark matter and dark energy. To say we understand the universe, but we're not sure what 75-90% of it is, seems a little silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I really don't think we're close to understand even half of the universe mysteries/secrets

[surfinillini]

You people need to read Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

He goes into detail about space/light and in essence TIME TRAVEL...

awesome book

Physics do actually allow faster than light travel. In fact, there are several particles travelling at a speed faster than light.

Dumle

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks Tim but I've already read that book. If you have another suggestion I'd be happy to take you up on your offer otherwise I could reread it (it's been about 4 years).

[/ QUOTE ]

That's OK, I just thought he had some good points that pertain to this thread. I will take a look at Rare Earth and see what I think. I will probably be going in looking for ways to refute each point they make, but who knows, maybe I will be swayed.

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
Physics do actually allow faster than light travel. In fact, there are several particles travelling at a speed faster than light.

Dumle

[/ QUOTE ]

You must know something the rest of us don't. Do tell.

When I am drunk, I randomly post stupid posts.

Dumle

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]


I don't think you realize how vast the search space is.

Let's take a Shakespearian sonnet.

as an unperfect actor on the stage
who with his fear is put besides his part
or some fierce thing replete with too much rage
whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart
so I for fear of trust forget to say
the perfect ceremony of loves rite
and in mine own loves strength seem to decay
oercharged with burden of mine own loves might
o let my books be then the eloquence
and dumb presagers of my speaking breast
who plead for love and look for recompense
more than that tongue that more hath more expressd
o learn to read what silent love hath writ
to hear with eyes belongs to loves fine wit

Ignoring punctuation and capitalization, there are 596 characters in that sonnet. Assume our typewriters have 28 keys---26 letters, one space and one line feed/carriage return.

Let's take a monkey and make him hit 596 keys and stop. If it's the above sonnet he gets a banana otherwise we continue starving the poor bastard and he has to keep typing. The number of 596 character-long blocks of text is 28^596. Let's estimate

28^596 ~ 27^596 = (3^3)^596 = 3^1788 = (3^2)^894 ~ 10^894.

So there are 10^894 blocks of text. Let's assume our little monkey can crank out 100 characters in one minute. So approximately every 6 minutes he'll crank out a 596 character block and thus approximately 10 every hour, 240 every day and 87600 in a year. Let's just say 87600 ~ 10^5 so that the approximate number of years for the monkey to produce the above sonnet is 10^889. There are only 10^80 electrons in the universe so at most 10^80 monkeys. With this many monkeys we're producting approximately 10^86 character blocks of length 596 in one year and the approximate number of years until the Shakespeare sonnet is produced is 10^808. The sun will have expanded and swallowed the Earth long before that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like almost like an intelligent design arguement.

Is that why antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria can evolve in 15 minutes thanks to a little ultraviolet light?

Is that why entire new families of PCB digesting enzymes evolve in the soil in 90 days?

Is that why viruses have developed compression algorythms for their own DNA?

Your math is flawed. It's not about random permutations of ATCG's. It's about folding and charges.

TACHYONS RULE

[ChipWrecked]

[ QUOTE ]
You people need to read Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

He goes into detail about space/light and in essence TIME TRAVEL...

awesome book

[/ QUOTE ]

http://fusionanomaly.net/repomanmillerandotto.jpg

"If you think about it, there had to be a time before people, right? So, where did all these people come from? Yeah.... you got it..... time machines."

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like almost like an intelligent design arguement.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am an athiest.

[istewart]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like almost like an intelligent design arguement.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am obviously not an English major .

[/ QUOTE ]

FYP

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You people need to read Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

He goes into detail about space/light and in essence TIME TRAVEL...

awesome book

[/ QUOTE ]

http://fusionanomaly.net/repomanmillerandotto.jpg

"If you think about it, there had to be a time before people, right? So, where did all these people come from? Yeah.... you got it..... time machines."

[/ QUOTE ]
http://www.goerie.com/menuguide/MKT-m-shrimp.jpg

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
Is that why antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria can evolve in 15 minutes thanks to a little ultraviolet light?

Is that why entire new families of PCB digesting enzymes evolve in the soil in 90 days?

Is that why viruses have developed compression algorythms for their own DNA?

Your math is flawed. It's not about random permutations of ATCG's. It's about folding and charges.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not taking either side here, but none of this says anything about complex multi-cellular life, the conditions which may or may not be required for it, and the abundance or lack of planets and other bodies meeting these conditions.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like almost like an intelligent design arguement.


[/ QUOTE ]

I am an athiest.

[/ QUOTE ]

That part was a joke.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is that why antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria can evolve in 15 minutes thanks to a little ultraviolet light?

Is that why entire new families of PCB digesting enzymes evolve in the soil in 90 days?

Is that why viruses have developed compression algorythms for their own DNA?

Your math is flawed. It's not about random permutations of ATCG's. It's about folding and charges.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not taking either side here, but none of this says anything about complex multi-cellular life, the conditions which may or may not be required for it, and the abundance or lack of planets and other bodies meeting these conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]

The facts I provided, combined with a google search, will provide more than enough proof that jason_t's math doesn't apply.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
The facts I provided, combined with a google search, will provide more than enough proof that jason_t's math doesn't apply.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes but we already knew that. What do we have against the real stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is that why antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria can evolve in 15 minutes thanks to a little ultraviolet light?

Is that why entire new families of PCB digesting enzymes evolve in the soil in 90 days?

Is that why viruses have developed compression algorythms for their own DNA?

Your math is flawed. It's not about random permutations of ATCG's. It's about folding and charges.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not taking either side here, but none of this says anything about complex multi-cellular life, the conditions which may or may not be required for it, and the abundance or lack of planets and other bodies meeting these conditions.

[/ QUOTE ]

The facts I provided, combined with a google search, will provide more than enough proof that jason_t's math doesn't apply.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think you got the point of my math.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think you got the point of my math.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you say so. All I know is what I see and this evolution [censored] happens quick!

[Skip Brutale]

Read "The Day After Roswell". By the former head of CIA research and development. He says aliens crashed and he was given the wreckage to reverse engineer the technology. But I guess he is lying.

[ChipWrecked]

Aliens crashed at Roswell? Holy [censored] batman!

[Skip Brutale]

[ QUOTE ]
Aliens crashed at Roswell? Holy [censored] batman!

[/ QUOTE ]

Props on a useless post.

[StacysMom]

I think there must be other inteligent life with the size of space.

The most interesting theroy as to UFO sightings for me has been that they are not from other planets, but humans traveling from the future.

I dont know the science of it. From what I understand physists have theorized time travel is possible. And with light speed limitations it is almost more plausible that we are being visited from out own planet.

This idea seems to answer alot of questions related to UFO's.

Why would a superior being feel the need to hide from us? Don't want to alter the future by disturning the past.

Why do they have similar body structures?
With all the possibilities of life, why woul alien sitings being in huminoid form.

Why are they here? Seems like a highly advanced being would ahve no use for us. With such superior technoligy, I cannot imagine we have anything they need. Time travelers, may be changing a few things to prevent disasters.

Movement of UFOs. Reported to be skipping across the sky. TIme travel seems to account for that.

Im not a science person, merely a law student. Not saying I believe in the above, just that I find it very interesting.

[MonkeeMan]

Time travelers makes a lot of sense when you consider that in the future free porn will be history.

[tubalkain]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just how confident do you feel about this statement? I think you underestimate just how awesomely unpredictable the effects of advances in science and technology tend to be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Our own advances in science would seem to indicate it's very unlikely aliens have ever visited Earth.

For this to have happened, basic life must have evolved on another planet. Then it must have survived, and evolved into "intelligent" life. That life must then go through accumulating the massive amount of knowledge and technology necessary for light-speed space travel. It would then need to actually TRAVEL here, which would take a varying degrees of time depending on galaxy of origin -- but even within the Milky Way, it'd be a long trip. That's assuming they had a reason to come to Earth first, which they wouldn't as they'd have no way of knowing life existed here.

It seems to me that the barrier of traveling at light-speed alone almost ensures we have not been visited.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the aliens have the technology to come here, what makes you think they also wouldn't have developed a stardrive that goes faster than light?

[Danenania]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The facts I provided, combined with a google search, will provide more than enough proof that jason_t's math doesn't apply.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes but we already knew that. What do we have against the real stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

[/ QUOTE ]

"The rare Earth hypothesis is a response to the Fermi paradox which explains why we might expect a planet such as Earth to be very rare. Combined with the additional assumption that an Earth-like planet is a prerequisite for the development of advanced life , this offers an explanation for the current lack of evidence of extraterrestrial civilisations."

This seems like the absurd part.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

[/ QUOTE ]

"The rare Earth hypothesis is a response to the Fermi paradox which explains why we might expect a planet such as Earth to be very rare. Combined with the additional assumption that an Earth-like planet is a prerequisite for the development of advanced life, this offers an explanation for the current lack of evidence of extraterrestrial civilisations."

This seems like the absurd part.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still need to read the book, but "assumption" is definitely the wrong word here. They look at several aspects of our planet and its history and give reasons why those aspects are, in their opinion, necessary for complex life. On top of this they try to show that for a planet to have all of these aspects in combination would be very rare. Once I get this book I'd like to go over each point they make and see if it holds up.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis

[/ QUOTE ]

"The rare Earth hypothesis is a response to the Fermi paradox which explains why we might expect a planet such as Earth to be very rare. Combined with the additional assumption that an Earth-like planet is a prerequisite for the development of advanced life, this offers an explanation for the current lack of evidence of extraterrestrial civilisations."

This seems like the absurd part.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still need to read the book, but "assumption" is definitely the wrong word here. They look at several aspects of our planet and its history and give reasons why those aspects are, in their opinion, necessary for complex life. On top of this they try to show that for a planet to have all of these aspects in combination would be very rare. Once I get this book I'd like to go over each point they make and see if it holds up.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes.

[TimM]

I've finished the book, and will post an ongoing review and critique in this thread in Science, Math, and Philosophy (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4292262). (I hope moving it there was not a mistake).

[ibankonu]

[ QUOTE ]
It does seem kinda vain to think that we're the only populated planet in the universe, but it seems highly unlikely that we'll ever see any evidence to the contrary.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is exactly how i feel. I "know" there is intelligent life out there, but i doubt we will be around long enough to find out.