Are we alone? Thread

Are we alone?

Righteo folks, just to get this forum rolling along, I wanted to start a discussion about the universe and, basically, whether you believe that we are alone, or believe that there is something out there, something that we have not yet found (or have found, but not revealed to the public...but that's an entire different topic).

I believe that there is something out there. I think that the universe, space, is just too BIG for us humans to be the only ones who are occupying it. Think about it, the world is huge, but how big is it compared to what's outside it? It's not even a grain of salt. Astronomers have been trying to find out whether there is anything else out there for years, but have thus far failed to discover anything that looks real promising. One theory of how life began on earth is that a meteor with bacteria hit the planet. With our perfect environment for life, it slowly and surely evolved. Could this be the only meteor that hit a planet with some sort of life living on it? I doubt it. Having said that, life on other planets might not have started via a meteor, but thru some other means. I mean they say that the environment here on earth is perfect for life...and yes, it is, but it's perfect for our life. We have adapted to the environment, thus, evolving into what we are now. On other planets that are light years away, life might take on a totally different look, a look that we couldn't even begin to imagine. Thus, a different environment that would devestate humans, might be exactly what other life forms have adapted to.

If there is something out there, I think that on other planets, there might be some life forms that are just starting out, but some that are much, much more evolved than us. I mean imagine that, imagine there was some other form of life, aliens if you will, that were more advanced than us. I couldn't even begin to wonder what they might have invented. I mean here we are with our microwaves, computers, TV's, cars, planes, etc, but they could be livin life on other planets with some other funky things, methods, ways of life, that we couldn't begin to contemplate. I think it's just mind boggling just to think about what's out there in this huge universe. I mean does it ever end? Imagine the sheer size of the universe. I can't even imagine it - how can you thing of something that just doesn't end? Surely life on earth wasn't just a one off...well, I hope it wasn't anyways.

I'm hoping that when I'm still alive, we do find some sort of life outside our planet. I think it will be sensational to know that there is for certain something out there. Maybe we won't, maybe something will discover us? Astronomers are sending radio signals throughout the universe, hoping for a response. I can't remember the exact figures of how far they are sending these signals, but they say that if aliens do hear our signals, and if they respond today, it will take like 50 years (not sure on correct timeframe, but it's damn long, that's what I know) for those signals to reach us, so it's an amazingly slow, yet very exciting, process.

Greg

This is just to sorta counter what you said in the last part and just my own 2 cents:

I don't believe in any sort of other life. I think we were the only "accident" I think we were just that one in a billion thing. I think even if there were life it would be impossible to find it. Our solar system has no life except on Earth. Even if we accomplished the speed of light the nearest star is years and years away even with light speed. It's almost impossible to travel that far because humans just can't be in space that long.

So we try to send a probe into space that rides on the sun's current or whatever but how long will that last? How about in those many many years it finally reaches the nearest star? Wouldn't it take years and years to transmit iformation back to earth? Isn't there a point where it just can't no longer transmit information back to earth because it's too far? or just stopped working? We wouldn't be able to go to the probe and fix it because it's too far. So I just simply think we leave space alone and focus on more possible and important things like cures and "world peace" and solving pollution and all that other crap that will affect future generations.

BTW, Even if there was another form of life it would probably just be some bacteria or something. I don't think it would walk on twos like humans. I don't think it would be far more advanced then humans. I think those alien sightings, abductions, crop circles are all bullshit. If aliens could come to earth it would've been much much faster then the speed of light and how would they survive being in space so long? Wouldn't they present themselves to earth? Why do they just supposedly float around earth then dissapear? Why don't they just attack earth? What are they waiting for? I'm asking too many questions in this thread but I totally think ufos are BS. So is Area 51. I think it was a military craft that crashed. It was probably too top secret to reviel to the public and still is.

- Edited By Some1_Call_911 On Thu 15th, Aug 2002 @ 11:55pm

I believe that there has to be other intelligent life out there, becuase like Greg said, the universe is just TOO big for us to be the only species.

And just because we don't know about it, or that they're too far away or something dosen't mean they don't exist. Who knows? Maybe most other life is clustered away on the other side of the universe and we humans are just a runaway.

And yeah, I think that they're not all uber-technologic way beyond us crap. My theory is that we're probly inbetween of the technology tree. That there's a lot of species below of us in tech, but lots above us too.

Ok first off on a non serious note, you have watched K-Pax and that Conspiracies Show waaaay to much

My take on this? Well with the universe been such an immensly huuuuge thingy and there been solar systems other than the one we exist in, surely we cannot be so ignorant in thinking we are along? I mean why would there not be another planet just like earth in one of the millions of starsystems around? Surely there is the issue, that a perfect balance must be obtained to promote growth which earth ironically has (i.e. if earth was any closer to the sun, we'd fry and if it were any further we'd freeze) I cannot really believe. I mean mars is much futher from the sun and if it can supposedly house bacteria? then why can't another planet? Maybe that is why Aliens are different because they have had to adjust to differing conditions?

/me closes another chapter in the unexplained

Aliens eh liquid?

Sure the universe may be big and empty (like your brain j/k ), but what makes you think there is extra-terrestial life-forms? So simply put, you are saying that because there is a lot of space, there must be life-forms...

I don't believe there are other life-forms out there, and what makes my argument more convincing than yours is the fact that no other lifeform has been found. I have 100% fact, you have 100% speculation.

Cheers
M@t

Well I have to agree with Liquid, our universe is to big to not have something else out there. There are a lot of unexplaind things out there, like the faces on mars and the whole thing about actually going to the moon. Thats not the topic at hand though, so I must be straightforward in saying that we are not alone, and it would be foolish to assume that we are the only mistake out there(no pun intended)

in response to M@t, there have been frozen bacteria and microbs found in rock samples brought back from mars and what not

- Edited By JadeDingo On Fri 16th, Aug 2002 @ 11:38am

Some1_Call_911 wrote:
So I just simply think we leave space alone and focus on more possible and important things like cures and "world peace" and solving pollution and all that other crap that will affect future generations.

I do not agree that we should totally scratch space exploration of our agenda, as we on Earth are part of a much larger system, and we just cannot ignore that. We have to try and find out what exactly is out there and try and get a better understanding of space. But yes, I do agree that we should strongly focus on world peace and reducing the pollution problem, they are very important, no doubt about it. There are many issues that the world has to deal with and it's all about deciding what's important and what to really concentrate on, but saying that, you can't forget about all the others, it's a matter of balancing the resources and priorities.

Neurowave wrote:
Maybe most other life is clustered away on the other side of the universe and we humans are just a runaway.

Exactly, you just never know. There might be another solar system so far away that we might never discover it that has like five planets, all neighbours, with life-forms all mixing and communicating with each other like a happy family.

M@t wrote:
Sure the universe may be big and empty (like your brain j/k ), but what makes you think there is extra-terrestial life-forms?

Well, the universe is very big my friend, but it surely ain't empty. That is the exact thing that makes me believe that there is life out there - that the universe so huge, we couldn't even begin to fathom what lies outside our limits of exploration.

M@t wrote:
I don't believe there are other life-forms out there, and what makes my argument more convincing than yours is the fact that no other lifeform has been found. I have 100% fact, you have 100% speculation.

Just because something has not been found, doesn't mean it does not exist. This is where you are totally wrong my friend. I'm afraid that my argument is much more convincing that yours, simply due to the fact that you have not proved that aliens don't exist. Now, if you tell me, we have explored exactly 85% of the universe (if it does end somewhere) and have found no life, I would say, "righteo, the chances of life outside our own planet, is very, very slim." But, as I have said, you, and anyone else, have not yet done that, so don't start talking about your argument being more convincing, cos it clearly ain't. When Australia had not yet been discovered, that did not mean it didn't exist, now did it Matty?

Greg

m@t wrote: I don't believe there are other life-forms out there. What makes my argument more convincing than yours is the fact that no other lifeform has been found. I have 100% fact, you have 100% speculation.

You pose a convincing arguement I must say m@t, however lets not forget the eye-witness accounts of about 10,000 deranged individuals

I mean you gotta watch more x-files, futurama and startrek... clearly they portray reality and that is the existence of many ETs! None of this speculation. I think I am too easily influenced by media and various propaganda and my arguements should really be taken with a grain of salt, however I just cannot accept the fact that we are alone. I mean our sun is just one of a billion stars which provides the heat and other conditions required to create life

liquid, I know you are a gambler and you'd say odds of 1 in 1 million is stiff... hence applying these odds and assuming there is 5billion stars (rough guess I havn't counted)

leaves us with the existence of 5000 ETs somewhere out there... Now I mean how can you dispute 1337 maths work like that?

I respect somebody that believes in aliens. But, if you are those types that believe in UFOs and aliens that travel to earth then you need help.

I don't totally think we should just abandon space exploration. I sort of worded that wrong. I just mean companies like NASA make billions and recieve billions of money yearly. It's usually blown on some space suit for another astronaught(sp?) and for what? So we can get Joe Blow floating around in space for 10 minutes than come back to earth? I just think we need to keep exploration at a low for now with all these problems (i.e: Terrorism, abductions, murders, etc.) I think space exploration should be a slow process. If not, a process with all countries interested in it (space exploration) combined. If we had USA, Canada, and Russia make one space company im sure we would have achieved more with less money.

EDIT: I realize the economy is in a slump so space exploration/NASA isn't really "hogging" up the money like i've mentioned. But usually they do recieve lots and lots of money when the economy is good.

- Edited By Some1_Call_911 On Sun 18th, Aug 2002 @ 12:33pm

actually i do have to comment on that, space exploration is a good thing! But what about the Earth, there are still many things here that have not been explored throughly. What im getting at is that we should be exploring our oceans rather than constant space exploration. There are many things still within the ocean that we can not reach due to limited dive technology

With one of the main problems facing any sort of expansion/research/development type projects today being of a fiscal matter (urgh), it very quickly becomes difficult to justify.

Sure, aliens may have technology we don't have and that might be worth all the funding in the world, but if you ask me, I'd say that chances are that any alien life that has any sort of sentience or technology is going to have such a different perception of the universe than we do that we're gunna have a hard time absorbing anything. Then of course there's going to be some idiots who reckon that it'd be really interesting to cut up an alien and see what's inside (I'm yet to meet a human with true respect for the cultures and beliefs of others. We are currently an arrogant and primitive race).
Whilst I find the concept of space travel and exploration really interesting, and potentially beneficial for mankind, I have little faith in those who are unwilling to be meticulous in their search for knowledge. There's quite a fair bit of unknown stuff down here on the old blue and green that is likely to be just as interesting. It's a big question of philosophy and beliefs really.

Back on the concept of funding, perhaps once we start realising the futility of wars and conflicts of that manner, we will find that everyone will have a lot more spare cash lying around (everyone should know the amount of money wasted on armed forces. I know I should, but I don't know if I can count that high). There's a lot of people on this planet who could benefit from help rather than destruction. I'm not very proud that most of us live in a class based society where poverty is accepted and war is acceptable (my personal perception is that war is just organised terrorism).

Perhaps once we come to terms with ourselves as a race we will be better equipped to deal with the rest of the universe. I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want some random bastard making first contact with intelligent alien life. Especially not the sort of random bastard who thinks that his penis size is going to be verified by starting an interplanetary or intergalactic war (this is also applicable if you scale it down to international relations).

So for the moment, I'm rather hoping that we don't discover any races who are as agressive as ourselves. Perhaps meeting some nice aliens who are patient and wise enough to see that there might be potential for our race (who knows, maybe there isn't. The fact that I can name more than a few who are deserving of being blown out of existance points towards the fact that I myself am not really as worthy of being here as I'd like to think).

I'm inclined to remain sceptical about actual sightings etc. Until I see proof myself, I'm probably not going to believe.

As for whether or not alien life exists, a person's answer will normally spring from thier religious nature and belief structure rather than any real perception of the universe.

If you think of odds, and give our existance over to random chance (as I do), then it's not unlikely that life will have evolved elsewhere. When looking at the course of life on this planet, we are often biased by viewing things from hindsight's perspective, and not paying enough attention to all the different possible branchings that never got a chance to occur. Life (at least on this planet) seems to be rather resilliant and resourceful, so based on current evidence and trend projection, I'm certainly not ruling extra-terrestrial life out.

I'd like to think there's other life, but while I'm not willing to admit I'm wrong, I'm more than willing to admit I really don't know.

true. why waste money searching for extra-terrestrial life-forms. Let them find and make contact with us. If there are any out there. If there was and we confronted them, we would get our butts kicked for sure. Just like in that great movie..."Mars Attacks"

Why don't we get our own planet sorted out first? Get everyone fed, sheltered and self-sufficient, find cures for cancer, and AIDs.

well thinking that there is no other life in the ever expanding universe is a tad naive i feel. remember that you only need a single cell to have "life"....

Right but "a cell" doesn't come out of nowhere...
Earth was a very odd accident. We are very lucky to exist. The universe is huge but the universe does use large numbers. Maybe one planet with life is more then enough for the universe, who knows. Maybe there's more then one universes, who knows. What I basically think is that even if life does exist im very sure we will never find it.

- Edited By Some1_Call_911 On Mon 19th, Aug 2002 @ 11:11pm

Got a point there. If you want to take it by statistics, and you take the assumpion that space is infinite, then given that we know that certain areas of space are unpopulated, the enitre population (given that anything divided by infinity is as close to zero as makes no difference) of the universe should effectively be none.

That gives you some idea of how much random chance cares about statistics.

If you want to believe that there's a creator or something, then there's a good reason for life to exist elsewhere.

You need less than a cell for life to exist, or aren't viruses alive?

And according to scientists who spend all their time playing around with the proverbial primordial cordial, life isn't really that hard to come up with.

- Edited By Cheeseness On Tue 20th, Aug 2002 @ 4:22am

Firstly, I just like to say, I really like the points you have mentioned Cheeseness. We can't just think about other life-forms out there, but how we react when we find them.

Cheeseness wrote:
So for the moment, I'm rather hoping that we don't discover any races who are as agressive as ourselves.

I agree with you there as well. We have to think about how we will react to other life-forms, I'm pretty sure, as you have said, we would like to find out as much as possible about them and try god knows what to find out, which might not be friendly towards them.

But, is the human race gonna get more patient and less-aggressive to situations like this in the future? I somehow don't think so. If anything, it will get worse, so maybe the sooner the better? I dunno. If we do find something serious, I don't think the public will be informed straight away. They'll be doing tests and what-not. You really gotta wonder what is going on amongst the high-ranks of the world leaders and what they actually know.

Some1_Call_911 wrote:
Maybe there's more then one universes, who knows. What I basically think is that even if life does exist im very sure we will never find it.

Yeah, that's exactly true. We don't really know what is out there. We have explored a lot - a lot according to the size of earth, but, in terms of the size of what's out there, we haven't even begun to explore anything significant. As Some1_Call_911 said, there might even be more then one universe. For all we know, there might be an infinite amount. They might be exactly like planets, round and full of stars/planets/... It might be a never-ending circle of planets and universes in universes that get bigger and bigger!!

Who's gonna prove me wrong? We haven't explored that far, so who knows - anything is possible.

why are we searching for life anyway. Say we find a single cell on mars, we get it, and bring it to earth. Even in the most controlled environment, there is a chance that the cell could have a virus. Human beings aren't adept to handle such a virus, and an outbreak will occur, wiping out humanity. What's the point in that?

And anyway, if we can't keep our own planet in shape, what right do we have to go to another planet with life and settle there?

M@t

Thanks liquid

Another thought to ponder on. Suppose that some form of sentient life exists which has a huge technology base and we do make some form of contact.

Suppose also that they are not shielded from various radiations in the same ways that we are, and perhaps our own communication and 'scanning' equipment causes harm and distress.

In dealing with unknown lifeforms, there are so many uncontrolled variables that it can very quickly become a touchy situation. One hopes that any spacefaring people of the universe understand this as well, and are able to maturely act on this.

Of course there's possibly going to be those who have not achieved a level of technology or 'cultural maturity' (like we have, pffft), who we may make contact with. I hope we have some sort of policy about leaving our hand out of most of the things in the universe until we 100% know wtf is going on. But it's entirely possible that we could land and begin to colonise another species' world, bringing us to tie neatly in with m@t's comments.

Do we have the right to land and explore other planets which have life on them? Do we have the right to even contaminate uninhabited planets?
Do we have the right to step off this watery lump of rock which we may or may not have been alocated?

Again, as I have said in the other thread in this topic, I would like to see us become a truly spacefaring race and leave the earth behind. Other than setting right some inbalances, I'd like to see us never set foot on the earth to live or gain resources.

Space (thankfully) is pretty vast and empty (though not totally empty), and has a lot of potential for hosting the human race, though we currently do not posess the technology to safeguard ourselves against zero g, an environment which wreaks havoc with our internal systems, causes muscle and bone decay, and floods the brain with all sorts of fluids.

By the way, I watched an interesting TV show last night (I borrowed my girlfriend's TV if anyone wants to make an issue out of it) on the nano-biology found on the Mars metiorite, and its relation to similar Earth bound organisms which a fellow Australian has discovered in rock samples from around the world in various different and surprising environmental conditions. It was called (rather melodramatically) Alien Underworld.

M@t wrote: why are we searching for life anyway. Say we find a single cell on mars, we get it, and bring it to earth. Even in the most controlled environment, there is a chance that the cell could have a virus. Human beings aren't adept to handle such a virus, and an outbreak will occur, wiping out humanity. What's the point in that?

And anyway, if we can't keep our own planet in shape, what right do we have to go to another planet with life and settle there?

It's progress, inevitable and impossible to stop - why do we continually speed up computers if they achieve our objectives (sorry poor example but i am sure there are better ones)

My viewpoint on all of this is rather ignorant, I mean there is absolutly no hope of life existing unless you travel a few lightyears. At this stage achieving such a travelling speed, is not even so much as a dream of every person in the world and in all my wisdom I cannot see that situation changing anytime soon (even in my lifetime). But hell if we do ever figure out travelling at lightspeed, I would like to think we are resourceful enough to retifiy all we have done on Earth, even though it probably is irreversable...

Meh I dun even know what I am arguing now, just adding in a lil discussion soz about that please continue!

We may not have to travel a few lightyears

With this 'nanobiology' I sat up watching discussions on the other night, not only is there possiblity of life on Mars, but it also suggests the higher liklihood of bacterial life existing in space between the stars.

i still can't believe that you believe that since space is so empty, that there must be life out there.

it is just like religion this.. i mean it is such an unknown which may always go unanswered, but us humans like to believe various crap and for me while i believe in very lil, i do reckon there are lil green fellas with long fingers and huuuuge eyes :o walking around somewhere

M@t wrote: i still can't believe that you believe that since space is so empty, that there must be life out there.

I still can't believe that you are 100% certain that there isn't. Have you or anyone else proved that in the whole universe, there is absolutely no life, except that on earth? If no one has proved that, there is always a chance.

INtense! wrote: it is just like religion this.. i mean it is such an unknown which may always go unanswered

That's a mighty good analogy - I like it!! It's true, we may never know. All I hope, is that when we find out something amazing, I'm still alive to witness it.

If you can't live without conspiracies - check this out:
Alienpress.com

Greg

INtense! wrote: it is just like religion this..

That's what I said earlier about the answer normally corresponding to one's belief systesms and religious affiliations.

Given the absolute bounty of life that's here on earth that we've been rather slow in discovering (I have some pretty sound hunches that there's quite a lot more we haven't discovered), the possibility of space prooving to be a little more interesting than most people think is higher that most might think.

Besides, space isn't THAT empty. There's a reasonably high amount to particle matter floating around when compared to an absolute vacuum

liquid wrote:

M@t wrote: i still can't believe that you believe that since space is so empty, that there must be life out there.

I still can't believe that you are 100% certain that there isn't. Have you or anyone else proved that in the whole universe, there is absolutely no life, except that on earth? If no one has proved that, there is always a chance.

well, certain conditions must be met. One for instance is distance from the sun. Earth is perfect in that it is at the right distance from the sun. Not too hot, not too cold.

Has there been another sun-like object discovered yet? And how certain can this be?