Do you believe extraterrestrial life is possible?

[Faustus]

Not possible, but likely.

[Alan69]

[quote="gshelley61"]

There is order and purpose in the natural world. Even what appears to be chaotic and unplanned on the surface (fires, eruptions, catastrophic weather, etc.) turns out to be something useful or needed.

This is pure circular 'lack of' reasoning though. These things happen on their own basis, and things that evolved along with them evolved to use them where an advantage could be gained. These events also cause statistically pure harm when they interact with species that didn't evolve with them. Examining them fully including in other contexts directly supports evolution. All it takes to understand that is to not stop thinking at a halfway point.

Of course there's life out there, lots of it. Our own signals have travelled less than 100 light years, and we've only sent one or two objects outside our local system. Independent contacts are likely exceedingly rare due to the vast distances involved. Work out the odds and even with a hundred billion civilizations in the universe it's only 1 or 2 per galaxy, extremely unlikely we'd ever make contact unless it's far higher than that huge number.

Most people stop thinking in correct relative terms with any large numbers. To even consider no other intelligent life requires not getting the vastness of the numbers involved. It's roughly equal to picking up a grain of sand on the beach, then stating that there's clearly no other grain of sand on any of the Earth's beaches that has even a similar size and shape. While it could remotely possibly be true even with the huge numbers, it's still a silly thing to expect to be true.

Alan

[indolikaa]

[quote="Alan69"]

There is order and purpose in the natural world. Even what appears to be chaotic and unplanned on the surface (fires, eruptions, catastrophic weather, etc.) turns out to be something useful or needed.

This is pure circular 'lack of' reasoning though. These things happen on their own basis, and things that evolved along with them evolved to use them where an advantage could be gained. These events also cause statistically pure harm when they interact with species that didn't evolve with them. Examining them fully including in other contexts directly supports evolution. All it takes to understand that is to not stop thinking at a halfway point.

Of course there's life out there, lots of it. Our own signals have travelled less than 100 light years, and we've only sent one or two objects outside our local system. Independent contacts are likely exceedingly rare due to the vast distances involved. Work out the odds and even with a hundred billion civilizations in the universe it's only 1 or 2 per galaxy, extremely unlikely we'd ever make contact unless it's far higher than that huge number.

Most people stop thinking in correct relative terms with any large numbers. To even consider no other intelligent life requires not getting the vastness of the numbers involved. It's roughly equal to picking up a grain of sand on the beach, then stating that there's clearly no other grain of sand on any of the Earth's beaches that has even a similar size and shape. While it could remotely possibly be true even with the huge numbers, it's still a silly thing to expect to be true.

Alan

That is WAY TOO DEEP to have been written at 11:35 PM at night.



(And by 'deep' I don't mean horseshit, either. I mean 'makes you think about it' deep.)

[housepig]

There is order and purpose in the natural world. Even what appears to be chaotic and unplanned on the surface (fires, eruptions, catastrophic weather, etc.) turns out to be something useful or needed.

(italics mine)

two words for you - male nipples.

useful or needed for what, exactly?

I don't deny that patterns exist in nature - but the pattern seeker sees not only existing patterns, but ones that he imposes on unrelated phenomena.

a cloudbank might look like an elephant to me, but it's not because the clouds are magically forming the shape of an elephant, it's because I see certain shapes that suggest an elephant, and my mind / pattern seeking does the rest. you may look at the same cloud and see a Ferrari - that's your mind imposing a pattern.

[gshelley61]

two words for you - male nipples

Now that made me laugh out loud. Don't know why - sounds funny I guess.

:P :P

[vitualis]

the breeze doesn't imply intention. neither does birdshit.

No, not intentional by a human being. But certainly intentional as part of how the ecosystem (and the one who created it) gets the job of planting trees done. I mean, who/what plants more trees... humans - or the natural systems in place before we ever existed?

There is order and purpose in the natural world. Even what appears to be chaotic and unplanned on the surface (fires, eruptions, catastrophic weather, etc.) turns out to be something useful or needed.

Sorry, but that simply anthropomorphism.

You can explain absolutely everything with that sort of double think.

If a rock just so happened to be in THIS position, then it turns out to have xyz use. If it happens to be in THAT position, it turns out to have zyx use... etc., ad absurdum.

You are justifying observation from a purely arbitary human perspective.

There is order and purpose in the universe but that is not justification for a Christian God or any god. Indeed, the very "order" is questionable. There is only order from the observations understandable from the human experience (i.e., things of a certain size, type and time). "Order" is purely subjective from the perspective or our species.

As for "purpose". That is completely a human justification. The simple fact is, for everything you find a "purpose" you can probably just as easily interpret it in another way such that the "purpose" would be illogical. Hence was there any true independent purpose to it at all??

For example: the "purpose" for this rock being here is so that it provides shade to a growing plant. But wait! If the rock was over there, it could have provided shade for another plant that could have grown, but instead the young plant simply died in the sunlight. Etc.

The "purpose" you are describing is simply a human response to the external environment. It gives our analytical brains a reason for things being the way they are even if there is absolutely no basis for the reason at all. It is perhaps much more logical and reasonable to see things "are" because that "are".

As for "entropy", please people, don't start spouting pseudoscience if you don't understand the principle.

The Big Bang theory can't get past entropy... order does not come from disorder. Disorder tends to become more disorderly. It's like blowing up a letter factory and expecting a dictionary to somehow be the result.

In the time immediately after the big bang, the universe is supremely ordered -- energy density extremely high thoughout the entire universe fairly homogenous. As time progresses, it became more disordered as matter condensed and energy densities fluctuated wildly in different parts of the universe.

Or how about a flask of boiling water. Very disordered with molecules flying about all over the place. Leave it alone and gradually it cools and becomes STILL WATER. Shock! Disorder --> Order!

You need to learn more about entropy and actually what we mean by "disorder" and "order" rather than your naive vernacular understanding.

As for complexity from simplicity, if you put energy into it, it can definitely happen. Creator not required.

Have you ever read "Chaos" by Gleik? One simple algorithm. Feedback the result into algorithm over and over again (i.e., "energy"). The result? Immensely detailed and complex structures that look like it can only be designed (indeed, can be damned biological looking). Just looking at the result you would think that immense information and "intellegence" would be required to make such a complex object. But the underlying processes are so simple you could do it with pen and paper...

Regards.

[yoda313]

Hello,
Thanks all for writing!! I thought I might get a few responses but nothing like this!!

I appreciate the thought that went into SOME of the responses! Well it's nice to know alot of people are open minded enough to consider other possibilities.

There is so much we don't know that you can't dismiss possibilities easily. As they say the TRUTH IS WEIRDER THAN SCIENCE FICTION many times.

Kevin
P.S. 20-30 years ago who knew life existed in underwater volcanos with temperatures at hundreds of degrees farenheit???(could somebody convert that to celsius for me? - sorry, a little American joke there, we're still avoiding the METRIC system and PROUD OF IT! )

[gshelley61]

the breeze doesn't imply intention. neither does birdshit.

No, not intentional by a human being. But certainly intentional as part of how the ecosystem (and the one who created it) gets the job of planting trees done. I mean, who/what plants more trees... humans - or the natural systems in place before we ever existed?

There is order and purpose in the natural world. Even what appears to be chaotic and unplanned on the surface (fires, eruptions, catastrophic weather, etc.) turns out to be something useful or needed.

Sorry, but that simply anthropomorphism.

You can explain absolutely everything with that sort of double think.

If a rock just so happened to be in THIS position, then it turns out to have xyz use. If it happens to be in THAT position, it turns out to have zyx use... etc., ad absurdum.

You are justifying observation from a purely arbitary human perspective.

There is order and purpose in the universe but that is not justification for a Christian God or any god. Indeed, the very "order" is questionable. There is only order from the observations understandable from the human experience (i.e., things of a certain size, type and time). "Order" is purely subjective from the perspective or our species.

As for "purpose". That is completely a human justification. The simple fact is, for everything you find a "purpose" you can probably just as easily interpret it in another way such that the "purpose" would be illogical. Hence was there any true independent purpose to it at all??

For example: the "purpose" for this rock being here is so that it provides shade to a growing plant. But wait! If the rock was over there, it could have provided shade for another plant that could have grown, but instead the young plant simply died in the sunlight. Etc.

The "purpose" you are describing is simply a human response to the external environment. It gives our analytical brains a reason for things being the way they are even if there is absolutely no basis for the reason at all. It is perhaps much more logical and reasonable to see things "are" because that "are".

As for "entropy", please people, don't start spouting pseudoscience if you don't understand the principle.

The Big Bang theory can't get past entropy... order does not come from disorder. Disorder tends to become more disorderly. It's like blowing up a letter factory and expecting a dictionary to somehow be the result.

In the time immediately after the big bang, the universe is supremely ordered -- energy density extremely high thoughout the entire universe fairly homogenous. As time progresses, it became more disordered as matter condensed and energy densities fluctuated wildly in different parts of the universe.

Or how about a flask of boiling water. Very disordered with molecules flying about all over the place. Leave it alone and gradually it cools and becomes STILL WATER. Shock! Disorder --> Order!

You need to learn more about entropy and actually what we mean by "disorder" and "order" rather than your naive vernacular understanding.

As for complexity from simplicity, if you put energy into it, it can definitely happen. Creator not required.

Have you ever read "Chaos" by Gleik? One simple algorithm. Feedback the result into algorithm over and over again (i.e., "energy"). The result? Immensely detailed and complex structures that look like it can only be designed (indeed, can be damned biological looking). Just looking at the result you would think that immense information and "intellegence" would be required to make such a complex object. But the underlying processes are so simple you could do it with pen and paper...

Regards.

True, but those examples you gave required some kind of work or energy to be applied first (the boiling water, etc.). By who or what? Same with the Big Bang... who or what applied all that energy to start with? The algorithm example.... it has to be applied over and over - how?

In the end, I think we don't know very much at all, so the possibility of a creator or designer is neither provable or unprovable at this point. It comes down to a matter of personal belief, I guess.

[yoda313]

Hello,

gshelley61-In the end, I think we don't know very much at all, so the possibility of a creator or designer is neither provable or unprovable at this point. It comes down to a matter of personal belief, I guess.

Bingo! I think most of us can agree that we don't know enough to rule out one theory over another (except maybe that "the moon is made of cheese", that's a no-brainer - ie not true ). As long as we respect each other and allow for the unknowable to be open to debate we'll be ok.

Kevin

[Doramius]

You guys want DEEP, ask your wives and girlfriends what I did with them last night. J/K

Here's a Joke for everyone. Not the funniest, but might give a few people a smile.

-Several years into the future, scientists of the earth get together and to choose one of themselves to go and speak to god stating that man no longer needs one. This one scientist states to god that man has discovered biology, genetics, physics, mathematics, and all the necessary sciences to create their own worlds, physical intelligent beings and animals from silicone, carbon, and all sorts of different elements at the smallest levels.
-God looks at the scientist and says, "Fair enough. Create a man out of dirt and show me what you have learned."
-The scientist then bends down and grabs a couple handfulls of dirt. God leans towards the scientist and says, "That's my dirt. You have to make man out of your own."

[Capmaster]

That's a Doramius joke

[Alan69]

True, but those examples you gave required some kind of work or energy to be applied first (the boiling water, etc.). By who or what? Same with the Big Bang... who or what applied all that energy to start with? The algorithm example.... it has to be applied over and over - how?

In the end, I think we don't know very much at all, so the possibility of a creator or designer is neither provable or unprovable at this point. It comes down to a matter of personal belief, I guess.

A tree fell in the forest 65 million years ago. Does that mean an omnipotent intelligent dinosaurian pushed it over? No, it just fell for whatever reason. The idea that there had to be something intelligent there to apply energy at the big bang is fairly rediculous, events happen on a continuous basis without any outside intervention. And the Sun applies energy to the Earth on an ongoing basis, since when does that mean there's a magical fairy around making it supply energy? Crap happening doesn't denote that there was any intelligence behind it.


Far far more sensible that WE created this universe. We have a heavily vested interest in this universe existing. And not only that, we have a vested interest in not allowing this universe to expand out and become a cold dead place, but use it's extra energy to refocus it in on itself back to a point, and cause the next universe to happen. Not only that, but it sure would be nice to preorder all the events in the next universe, to make sure that we'll all re-exist and get back to the point of ensure our ability to keep the universes going. It would be irresponsible to allow the wonderful random event of an initial big bang to result in only one universe, instead of an infinite series of universes. Shorten the immediate universe's lifetime in order to have an infinite series instead of a single instance.

And exactly, the real answer is no one knows. But the vast majority of human beings have a tough time leaving an answer as 'completely unknown' and need mental crutches. They'd much rather tell themselves they have the real answers, even when they know they're wrong they feel more comfortable. Zeus and thunderbolts, and all things similar. I for one can handle things like 'no one knows' and 'when you die you very likely just plain die', so tend to be a lot better at thinking through things since I am not trying to prove my rightness. The one thing I'm *sure* I'm right about is correctly treating all supposed possibiltiies as equally unlikely to be the right answer, instead of trying to complete an agenda.

Basically if you just plain laugh out loud at everyone's idea of what the answer is, you're almost guaranteed to be right. There are only around 6 billion of us, versus an infinite array of actual possibilities. So not just some of us but all of us together are nearly guaranteed to be wrong.

Alan

[flaninacupboard]

the big bang was no random event. we're spotting more super massive blackholes at the centre of galaxies all the time - if every galaxy has one it's only a matter of time until we hit a big crunch. when those strings get so compacted they stop oscillating they have to snap. think of the engine in your car suddenly seizing at 90mph, that mofo is gonna go through the bonnet.

I think these snapped strings would have an infinite length, all pushing away from each other causing inflation. as soon as the end points of the snapped strings are far enough from an end point of another snapped string they reform at that point and continue osicillating and moving apart.

There you go, that must be how warp drive works too

As for alien life? i think anyone who denies it is mad. i really doubt we'll ever meet any or that we'd even know it if we did, but i shan't deny the possibility.

[Faustus]

I'm hardly educated on the subject. But I dont have any problems with the concept of how it began. This is because just as my mind can understand the concept of infinite forward, it can also understand infinite backwards.

Just like the tides, just like the seasons, there is no reason we are not involved in process that just is, and it will ebb and flow irreguardless of what we know about it.

There is a big difference between a beginning and our perception of a beginning.

[hudsonf]

I think it's very possible that there is intelligent life on other planets. The universe is to large for me to believe Earth is the only planet with intelligent life. When it comes to the subject of creation or evolution I think it's a combination of the two. The world and all life on it have been changing ever since the world started. As for UFOs all though it's possible I don't think they're from outer space. I believe they are experimental aircraft that the governments are testing and don't want to tell us about..

[mastersmurfie]

Out of the millions of systems out there, there must be some that have been as fortunate as we have - just the right distance from the Sun and the right conditions to give life the spark it needs.

I think there are probably other beings thinking precisely what we are right now. Too bad we probably will never meet.

Cobra

My thoughts almost exactly!

Could it be that we (humans on earth) are so arrogant that we (the collective) believe that we are the only intelligent beings ever? Just because we (most of us) have never encountered a being that is more intellectually advanced than we are, does that mean there are none? How could (in these things that we call universes and galaxies) we even entertain the thought that there is no one else similar to us? There are many different "galaxies" and "systems" out there, which may or may not have similar conditions to our "Earth". Why could those places not have similar "evolutions" or "creations"...

mastersmurfie

[vitualis]

As to the original of the universe, there are numerous hypotheses including "brane theory" (i.e., the creation of the universe resulted from the collision of two branes). However, most of these hypotheses are currently untestable but the simple fact is that they exist and they don't require the leap of faith (i.e., "I don't care that it is untestable and I don't care that it doesn't fit the evidence but I think it is right anyway") that most creation myths require.

The fact that we can't particularly comprehend an existence outside of our universe (i.e., "before" Big Bang) is hardly an indication that such an existence cannot exist.

Regards.

[thor300]

The way the question is asked i have to say yes. Everything is more or less possible i guess. I personally think the chance of intelligent life is small, considering how dangerous the universe is to live in. For example the meteor impact in the mexican gulf some million years ago, almost wiped out all life, supernovas that turns into black holes can possible produce enough gamma rays to wipe out all life in entire galaxies. So whats the chance for a planet to survive long enough for intelligent life to evolve?

[shelbyGT]

obviously pretty good, we're here.

Someone already stated if you took the billions of galaxies in our universe and even said just a bit of a fraction had life... youd be assured of having smart beings.

And just think... that's one universe, what if there were more.... what if our universe was just one of many...... that'd be even more of a guarantee.... etc.

[thor300]

Yes we are here, and its because we been extremely lucky. If a supernova goes boom in this galaxy, it could very well be big enough for the core to collapse into a black hole, the gamma rays would wipe the galaxy for life. It doesnt happen that often, but for intelligent life to evolve we are talking millons and millions of years in a best case scenario. Then in addition we have to live with the local dangers, like meteors and comets and who knows what else. Its possible someone else been as lucky as we have, i just think the chance is small.

[housepig]

it is also just as likely that there are other life forms that are just starting to develop, and others that are already well past our development.

the question then becomes, will we overlap in our development enough to make communication possible? we're not trying to communicate with single-celled organisms - and what of other cultures that may be as far ahead of us as we are ahead of bacteria?

[Capmaster]

One of my favorite theories (for amusement value) is the one where we are on a planet orbiting the sun, as are other planets orbiting the sun.

If we could look close enough we would also see that atoms have "planets" orbiting a "sun". The atoms around us are like a universe of atoms.

If we look closer, would we see that those "planets" have people living on them, who have also noticed that when they smash their atoms, or flow electricity, they prove the existence of "planets" there too.

Are we living on an electron, in an atom named the solar system, as part of a fingernail called the Milky Way, of a larger being who is also looking out at his "universe" and wondering "what is the meaning of it all?"

[yoda313]

Hello,

and what of other cultures that may be as far ahead of us as we are ahead of bacteria?

Oh, you mean like the Q continuum from Star Trek??? Why would they want to bother with us unless they're bored or on a bilogical history expidition?

Kevin

[Capmaster]

Hello,

and what of other cultures that may be as far ahead of us as we are ahead of bacteria?

Oh, you mean like the Q continuum from Star Trek??? Why would they want to bother with us unless they're bored or on a bilogical history expidition?

Kevin

Maybe there are beings like Q and we are ants under a magnifying glass to them

[yoda313]

Hello,

Maybe there are beings like Q and we are ants under a magnifying glass to them

So that explains spontainous Human combustion!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin

[Capmaster]

Hello,

Maybe there are beings like Q and we are ants under a magnifying glass to them

So that explains spontainous Human combustion!!!!!!!!!!

Kevin

Yep

[housepig]

Oh, you mean like the Q continuum from Star Trek???

not a Trek fan, you lost me.

Why would they want to bother with us unless they're bored or on a bilogical history expidition?

ding ding ding! exactly my point - there needs to be a certain level of overlap between species trying to communicate. if they are to us as we are to bacteria, there's not going to be enough common ground to even recognize a communication attempt, if one was even made.

[4smiley20]

To think that there is not more intelligent life forms than ours is extremely naive and shows the stupidity of our intelligence as a whole. Let me try and explain by example. We obviously know of the existence of much lesser intelligent life that is here on earth. Take an ant for example. We are much more intelligent than an ant or similar form of life will ever be. We know of its existence and characteristics of how they live. Now the question to ask is how would an ant, or anything similar, be able to know or understand our existence as humans. Even if we wanted to explain our existance as humans or communicate to them how would that ever be possible.

I think this example could fit very well with life that is much more intelligent and advanced than our own. I think that the possibility of there being intelligent life equivalent to our own or there being other intelligent life that we could have the ability to communicate with is very small.

The bottom line is that we know nothing when it comes down to the existence in which we live. This will never change because we don't have the ability to understand what all is out there.

Although this idea is pretty abstract, hard to fathom, and impossible for us to prove. I believe our solar systems and galaxies are the building blocks for a whole different level of existence. Aside from an enormous amount of size how much of a difference is there between these and the atoms that make up our own existence. If our solar system was shrunk down to a size similar to an atom would the sun look like a small positive charged center? Would planets even be able to be seen due to the amount of speed they are traveling around the sun? Aren't the mass ratios of suns to planets and nucleus of atoms to electrons very similar?

Anyway that shit is way out there and it took a lot of drugs to reach that level of thinking, but I figured I'd through in my two cents.

[Doramius]

Oh, you mean like the Q continuum from Star Trek???

not a Trek fan, you lost me.

Why would they want to bother with us unless they're bored or on a bilogical history expidition?

ding ding ding! exactly my point - there needs to be a certain level of overlap between species trying to communicate. if they are to us as we are to bacteria, there's not going to be enough common ground to even recognize a communication attempt, if one was even made.

Then again, our brains run on an electrical impulse. If you were to match impulses of language together, you could work out a language translation. That leads back to mathmatics. We use the word SUN, the Spanish use SOL. It's still the same Star, just called different things. If a solar system to them is our fingernail. There's the translation. You just got to match the similarities. Anyone can make up their own language now just using mathmathics. They did it when the game 'MYST' was made. It's called D'ni and was broadened when RIVEN and the novels were made. Check out the CYAN web site and a bunch of their links to guilds that actually use this completely made up language. http://www.cyan.com/

[4smiley20]

**** i guess i spent too long typing that one and just reiterated what everyone said.