Are We Alone?

[werecow]

(forgive me' date=' but I've got a masters in experimental physiscs, so I'm quite a critic about these things)[/quote']

 

be interesting to hear some of your thoughts in the thread we have going on about solar sails....

[BorisP]

On topic: Just looking at the number of stars out there' date=' should convince just about anyone that we are NOT alone. What I do question however is wether we will ever meet another sentient being because the distances in the universe are so immense, .[/quote']

 

 

This all depends on what you beleive reality is.

 

One of the best shows about reality I have seen is one of the new outer limits episodes.

 

A spaceship crashes somewhere. It is damaged and the guys need to go outside and fix it. When they look outside, there are these creatures running around. Bug looking things about as big as a cocker spaniel. One of the guys volunteers to go outside.

 

He goes outside and is going to repair the problem. I think the guys tell him one of the bugs is getting close to him. Then of course something happens. The story gets confusing here and is hard to understand. The men go out to help the injured first guy, then you see a flashback to when the mission started.

 

There is one guy who is the hero. He is flashbacking to when the mission started all the time. In the flashback, he sees his wife and kids. He has been rescued from the crash and is receiving a medal for bringing the medicine the planet needed. Then we go back to the crashed spaceship. He is injured and talking to his injured buddy about what is happening. His injured buddy tells him he is going crazy and they need to fix the ship and get out of their.

 

This confusion goes on until the end of the show. Sort of like life or this thread. People bouncing from one idea to the other, not really knowing what it is that is going on. Then we get to the final scene.

 

In the final scene the guy is in the spaceship and they are going to do some fancy manuever to launch the ship. They launch the ship and they hear a rescue ship calling them on the radio. The guy sees his wife and kids and receives the medal for saving the planet.

 

Then we go back to where the spaceship crashed. Each crew member is laying outside or inside of the ship. Each one has one of the bugs on top of him and it has feelers going into his brain. Everything that we have watched up to this point was a hallucination induced by the bugs.

 

------

 

You say you look at the sky and see all the stars and that it must be obvious that we are not alone.

 

What if those are not stars? What if they are your imagination? If the earth was a big laboratory, and people were the subject of an experiment, any kind of data that you can provide as proof that we live in a galaxy or universe would all be part of the simulation. You could claim "We look at starts light years away and all the observations match what physics predict". Well they would if the computer simulation was a good one, wouldn't they? You would have free will to carry out the experiment, but the people running the experiment know what you are thinking and doing so they counter it. Sort of like the Star Trek premiere show.

 

I think the stars are not germane. I think that people are supposed to evolve into some higher mental being like the Psi Corp on Babylon 5. You don't want to build spaceships and go looking for superior alien life. You want to develop your own brain so that it becomes strong enough that one day you will gain access to the world of superior mental beings. It is only a matter of work, desire and time.

[sebs]

science dictates that we are not possibly alone lol for every star ya can see theres another million lol so the chance of life elsewhere is grand , all them stars if just 1 in 1 million has a planet capable of supporting life then theres still a great chance , however i dont believe its possible to travel to distant stars no way not even at the speed of light lol, life will exist elsewhere but whats saying that those civilizations have bothered developing radio technology or maybe theyve all destroyed them selves as we almost did with h bombs and nukes, nobody can say there aint life. there is no way that we are the only life in existence (we aint that special) we will never even talk to em a signal would take around 26 years to get to the nearest star at present technology and then 26 years to get back lol (so lets say we asked em a question lol it would be like 52 years minimum before we got an answer) lol , but we are not alone and no i dont believe in alien abductions lol thats crapp, flying saucers are government air crafts , all started by adolf hitler wich he never perfected , the usa stole this technology and the scientists working on it also russia got there hands on some scientists too so id say ya flying saucers are crapp and government crafts.

[magpie1509]

If we were to think that we were alone then we are a very narrow minded violent species. The Universe is to big to be empty, life continues in many forms from atoms to light to gravity. I believe we are on the threshold of this discovery - so keep watching the sky

[Guest c4evap]

all kidding and fantasy aside. do you' date=' in your heart of hearts, believe mankind is alone in the universe?[/quote']

 

The sheer magnitude of our galaxy in itself suggests we are not alone. I mean, geez...there's gotta be something else out there.

 

c4evap B)

[coolcat13]

OK I played Devils advocate here and voted that we are alone .In purely the context that the odds of life bieng produced on another planet is probably as astronomical as the number of planets that are out there . That bieng said I would say it really is a crap shoot

 

here is what I will say

it is very likely that there is life else where but very unlikely that it will develop to the point of scentiant existence .

it would unlikely be aware of anything other than its base instincts .

even life here on this planet is tenative ...subject to annihilation by some cosmic disturbance in a split second .To believe that we will some day contact other life is pure fantasy .

It is however imagination and determination which drives our existence so we will always believe that there is more out there and some greater purpose .

[XSeti]

WE are the aliens!

 

Thats very true, When the solar system was young, The sun was alot hotter, Earth was just molten rock, Mars was just right for life back then ohhh... 17 billion years ago, but as the sun cooled down Mars just died.. Given life can take hold in so many conditions even rocks from Mars found here, We are aliens as life first started there.

[TetsuoShima]

...To believe that we will some day contact other life is pure fantasy...

 

I'm with ya on a lot of points you're saying, but I wouldn't call coming in contact with extraterrestral beings pure fantasy. I believe it is possible, but the likelyhood of such contact only increases once we manage to succesfully travel beyond our own solar system. Which of course won't be for a very long time. But if you'd say we won't come in contact with such in the next, say 500 years, I'd fully support you.

[Soulreaper]

Looked back at Scifi recently?

 

A variety of Scifi movies / series / books give different perspective of how things may or may not be.

 

B5

 

Asimov

 

2001 by Arthur C Clarke

 

Star Trek

 

Star Wars

 

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (though I find it unlikely)

 

In addition to this we can also include what we "know" and what different Religions / Spiritualists are trying to tell us through books, actions etc.

 

Anyone finding a median-path where all seems to fit-in?

 

Perhaps bits and pieces of all of these are correct? Just like with religion vs. religion and the simile about the Elephant and the Wise men; perhaps Roddenberry saw "this" and Lucas saw "that" and perhaps both are.

 

Keep thinking

[aftnium]

I hope we are not alone.

[S0V13T]

Looked back at Scifi recently?

 

A variety of Scifi movies / series / books give different perspective of how things may or may not be.

 

Um.... you do realize, of course that the "fi" part for sci-fi, stands for "fiction", eh? They're all lovely dreams, and much of it is based in scientific truth (as we understand it now)... but in the long run, its all just for fun, and not really to be taken as something that can and will happen.

 

I havn;t read this entire thread, so I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned the Drake Equasion yet.

 

Drake Equasion

[Soulreaper]

I was hoping my last post wouldn't need simplification or explanation...

 

...and I'll be damned if I'll do it (again).

[S0V13T]

I just like to be difficult :)

[Soulreaper]

I have many friends like that too - it's good, keeps me on my toes

 

:mad: :stare:

 

but I'll decline the challenge... at least for today ;)

[rcazant]

I do very much believe that there are other lifeforms throughout the galaxy, however I do think that they do not necessaraly have to be humanoid.

 

The chance of more planets in the galaxy being capable of supporting life is very big, but for a species to undergo a similar evolution proces is far more remote.

 

Remember Intelligent Lifeforms do not have to be humanoid. And we will never be able to communicate with other species.

[Beawulf]

I wonder how many people accidentally voted "yes" thinking they were answering "does alien life exist?"

 

:cyclops:

[GorunNova]

I don't think we're alone... but other intelligent races that are somewhat close to us in development are probably so far away that we may as well be.

 

... but 'may as well be alone' isn't alone! ^_^

[guitarman]

We,mankind have a certain arrogance which will taint our view of all things.How wonderful that all life must come from a planet or moon.Why did not life begin in the depth of space itself.Once you concieve of basic single cell life able to exist in the cold almost vacuum like conditions life evolves to suit whatever conditions on whatever celestial body is to hand.The evolution of the cells may well be a lottery,but that life exists is undeniable.As a foot note I would recommend looking at "THE NASA TAPES,the smoking gun"

[Doric]

In a field of wheat it is foolish to expect only one ear of corn to grow. I believe we are not alone in this universe and that others are out there or will be out there. The big question, as already published, is are they hostile.The only two things that might safeguard us is the distances involved, why travel all this way to invade us for our women, and secondly the hostile environment. What we like to think of as a balmy day might be raging typhoon to them. Watch the sky’s they are coming. B)

[Detor]

"We have made the best three-dimensional map of the Universe to date, mapping over 200,000 galaxies up to two billion light years away over six percent of the sky", said another lead author of the study, Michael Blanton from New York University. The gravitational clustering patterns in this map reveal the makeup of the Universe from its gravitational effects and, by combining their measurements with that from WMAP, the SDSS team measured the cosmic matter to consist of 70 percent dark energy, 25 percent dark matter and five percent ordinary matter.

says the Astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)

This is a kind of a map trying to show our universe.

It is been revealed now that the universe is more dark energy and anti-matter. Only little percentage of the universe is the mass as we know it. In addition to that there sub-universes that had not been opened in this one we live in.

We tend to limit ourselves with the boundaries of our knowledge. Let's think of a life form composed of anti-matter. What do you say to that?

I really don't think that we are alone in this universe and in other universes.