When you think of the likelihood of communicating with an alien species, you have to think 4 dimensionally. Everyone thinks of up, down left right... basic co-ordinates, but everyone neglects time. Not only does the civilization have to exist, it has to exist pretty much in a time frame, the size of a grain of sand laid next to a football field next to our grain of sand which is our moment in time as well.
There have likely been thousands or millions of species and civilizations that have risen and fallen over the lifespan of the universe, but how long did they exist in a form that could communicate in a way we could identify? Humans have had the capability for 100 years +/-, on the scale of the universe, it wouldn't even be 1/10th of a second on a 24 hour day. There could have been a civilization 2 billion years ago, that lasted for 10 million years, but were they wiped out by disease? War? A cosmic event like a Gamma ray burst or super nova... the possibilities are endless. Did they eventually evolve to a form of life so far advanced from us, and already encountered other species but we are a brutally primitive species to them no different than a fruit fly is to us, and not even worth their time? Perhaps they know of millions of inter universal species, and to them, we are nothing.
Not only do the physical and technological properties have to match, the time frame in which the civilizations exist must as well. And that will likely be the biggest hurdle to finding sentient, intelligent life.
Not to mention when you are looking at something 100,000 light years away, it was from 100,000 years ago.
We sent our first signal into space during the 1936 games. Travelling at the speed of light, it has only traveled 80 light years, which is really not that far given the scope of the universe.
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Humanity could colonize the galaxy (over thousands of years) using self replicating robots that expand exponentially like a virus. If we make for a few hundred more years, this is likely a possibility. Perhaps one day we could find evidence of an alien race doing the same thing.
Humanity could colonize the galaxy (over thousands of years) using self replicating robots that expand exponentially like a virus. If we make for a few hundred more years, this is likely a possibility. Perhaps one day we could find evidence of an alien race doing the same thing.
The paradox with space travel is that in theory we could always send out faster ships later that travel quicker than previous iterations. Basically ships 200 years from now could overtake ships that we sent out now etc. So at what point do we send out interstellar space robots/ships etc..
It is likely that within the not too distant future we have space ships that overtake and pass voyager for instance.
The paradox with space travel is that in theory we could always send out faster ships later that travel quicker than previous iterations. Basically ships 200 years from now could overtake ships that we sent out now etc. So at what point do we send out interstellar space robots/ships etc..
It is likely that within the not too distant future we have space ships that overtake and pass voyager for instance.
I think the main idea is that we want to get humanity off the planet as soon as possible so that if we destroy earth, there will be some form of us left in a different solar system.
The videos I posted didn't have anything to do with people actually sitting on space ships or anything, just an idea about a way to colonize the galaxy over thousands of years. I brought it up because we're possibly not that far off from being able to do it for real, and if we can do it, another intelligence could possibly do it also, which would be much easier for us to detect, or us to come in contact with. If another intelligence is spreading exponentially, maybe they'll just show up in our solar system one day.
But yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I think for us as a people, it's better to get off earth sooner rather than later.
I think the main idea is that we want to get humanity off the planet as soon as possible so that if we destroy earth, there will be some form of us left in a different solar system.
The videos I posted didn't have anything to do with people actually sitting on space ships or anything, just an idea about a way to colonize the galaxy over thousands of years. I brought it up because we're possibly not that far off from being able to do it for real, and if we can do it, another intelligence could possibly do it also, which would be much easier for us to detect, or us to come in contact with. If another intelligence is spreading exponentially, maybe they'll just show up in our solar system one day.
But yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I think for us as a people, it's better to get off earth sooner rather than later.
Best bet then would be for us to figure out a way to live on the moon/mars/jovian moons semi-comfortably.
If there is lots of accessible water in a more temperate climate on Mars that is one step. Would need to live mostly underground (cosmic radiation) and figure out how to live in weaker gravity or create artificial gravity.
Knowing how to mine Asteroids and Comets for water and metals would go a long way to help as well.
NASA’s Mars rovers are banned from investigating that liquid water
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NASA’s Curiosity rover is about 50 kilometres from the site that scientists suspect holds liquid Martian water, but thanks to an international treaty signed in 1967, it’s not allowed to go anywhere near it.
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every country on Earth is bound by the stipulations of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which forbids "anyone from sending a mission, robot or human, close to a water source in the fear of contaminating it with life from Earth".
When you think of the likelihood of communicating with an alien species, you have to think 4 dimensionally. Everyone thinks of up, down left right... basic co-ordinates, but everyone neglects time. Not only does the civilization have to exist, it has to exist pretty much in a time frame, the size of a grain of sand laid next to a football field next to our grain of sand which is our moment in time as well.
There have likely been thousands or millions of species and civilizations that have risen and fallen over the lifespan of the universe, but how long did they exist in a form that could communicate in a way we could identify? Humans have had the capability for 100 years +/-, on the scale of the universe, it wouldn't even be 1/10th of a second on a 24 hour day. There could have been a civilization 2 billion years ago, that lasted for 10 million years, but were they wiped out by disease? War? A cosmic event like a Gamma ray burst or super nova... the possibilities are endless. Did they eventually evolve to a form of life so far advanced from us, and already encountered other species but we are a brutally primitive species to them no different than a fruit fly is to us, and not even worth their time? Perhaps they know of millions of inter universal species, and to them, we are nothing.
Not only do the physical and technological properties have to match, the time frame in which the civilizations exist must as well. And that will likely be the biggest hurdle to finding sentient, intelligent life.
Solid post. I personally think the universe is full of life. But we'll never get the chance to ever communicate with them. A galaxy the size of our own and we have only ever sent radio signals ~80 light years out. Only 92,000 more light years to go. And that's just our one single galaxy out of billions.
Nope, even if life exists outside our own galaxy, we'll never get the chance to find out.
Last edited by Huntingwhale; 09-30-2015 at 03:18 PM.
I tend to be more on the side of things that discovery of intelligent life would be a fluke, and probably more or less undesirable. Humans have enough trouble understanding ourselves. We are our own aliens!
I tend to be more on the side of things that discovery of intelligent life would be a fluke, and probably more or less undesirable. Humans have enough trouble understanding ourselves. We are our own aliens!
Yeah, all our base would belong to them in a heartbeat if they so desired.
When you consider the great points that've come up on this thread, to me, the biggest hurdle has always been the whole size of the universe + relatively
Short lifespan of dominant civilizations + chances of life developing nearby, during the same approximate timespans.
That's something we definitely didn't consider when we began blasting signals into space.
In the 80 years since, look at the advancements we've seen. I remember reading an article, I believe it was on the law of accelerating returns, for technology, and it made me think. . If a species were in the "scouring this little backyard of ours for life" stage of their existence 80 years ago, or let's say they're 80 light years away and just now received our first signals .. What they could be capable of would likely be terrifying/astounding .. Or life would probably be so primitive that they wouldn't ever get the signal.
Unless the universe is literally crawling with intelligence life in every system (I believe there is life almost everywhere; complex life such as plants and animals being far less common, and intelligent life such as humans-questionable, I know-being much more rare, and likely snuffing itself out regularly ala the Fermi paradox), odds of a civilization existing at near the same technological level at tbe same time are practically 0.
Hate thinking about all of this. The Fermi paradox is really cool/scary as hell.. Makes a lot ky sense that species snuff themselves out before crossing certain thresholds. The idea that we have crossed that line and are the top dogs of the universe would be disappointing though. I wanna see crazy all powerful aliens
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For all we know, a giant battle cruiser is already on it's way. And our base is already belong to them.
This is gonna sound weird, but at my age now, given the choice of living another 30 or 40 years of my mundane reality, or getting the chance to see a hostile alien species show up, and decimate the Earth and take me with it, I'd take the latter. I think seeing their amazing technology, and whatever amazing form they came in would be worth it to know we weren't alone.... even though we'd ultimately be wiped out.
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For all we know, a giant battle cruiser is already on it's way. And our base is already belong to them.
This is gonna sound weird, but at my age now, given the choice of living another 30 or 40 years of my mundane reality, or getting the chance to see a hostile alien species show up, and decimate the Earth and take me with it, I'd take the latter. I think seeing their amazing technology, and whatever amazing form they came in would be worth it to know we weren't alone.... even though we'd ultimately be wiped out.
Not quite at your level but I would love to be alive to see either aliens or the introduction of artificial super intelligence... Even if that leads to our extinction.
Of course that opinion will probably change when I have kids
How dense does one have to be not think that the discovery of water on a (very) near by planet is not in the least bit interesting?
It is discoveries such as this that push mankind ahead.
This announcement makes me feel sleepy. Wake me up if they find life, and not bacteria or something, but cool stuff like a space cowboy or a space rhino.
I've always believed the evolutionary filter argument.
Assuming Earth is the model of success for life.
Single cellular organisms existed for hundreds of millions of years comfortable without photosynthesis.
After that life lived on comfortable for Hundreds of millions of years before multicellular organisms formed.
Hundreds of millions of years again before animals. Sentient, complex, moving, thinking, multi-organelle systems.
Hundreds of millions of years again before language.
Maybe math or writing or scientific method are all equal difficult barriers that came easier to us because of the trajectory we are on.
So I look at it this way, if there are 1B systems in milky way that have formed life, and every one of those filters only has a 5% success rate, so 95% of life does not reach the next filter before catastrophe
Planets with Life 1B
A way of storing energy from a star 50M (photosynthesis)
Multi Cellular organisms 2.5M
Animals 125K
Language 6.25K
Writing/Math/Science 312
Assuming we survive the rest of our suns life we will have been detectable for what equates 1/3 of the current history of the universe. 104
The odds are even if most systems have life there could vary easily as few as 100 life forms that have reached the level of interplanetary communication, and then you have to assume the communicate in a way we can comprehend
I thought that, mathematically speaking, with the galaxy basically being infinite that not only are the chances of there being intelligent life out there quite possible, but odds dictate that it's possible that what is happening on our planet everywhere with everyone right now is happening on another planet. That's exactly like ours in every way.
Now what are the odds of another life bearing planet with advanced life forms being close enough to us that we may actually meet before our sun goes supernova or we destroy ourselves?
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Even though he says he only wanted steak and potatoes, he was aware of all the rapes.
Now what are the odds of another life bearing planet with advanced life forms being close enough to us that we may actually meet before our sun goes supernova or we destroy ourselves?
1) Our sun is too small to go supernova
2) It will run out of hydrogen and possibly become a red giant in about 6 billion years.
3) Every Billion years the Sun gets 10% hotter
4) In 3 billion years our planet will be so hot our oceans will boil away.
5) Not a chance we last long enough to worry about it.
5b) Just my opinion, but physics as seen in the universe say that it's impossible for anyone to travel the distances needed to meet an alien, if somehow we find away to beat the speed of light .. we wouldn't be able to live threw it.
At the rate of technological advances, we could be intergalactic travelers within 100-500 years.
If other advanced life follows a even remotely similar path of rapid technology in advance, that we have gone from cavemen to where we are now in just 250,000 years, would suggest intelligent life in habitable zones could be pretty common.
So much of this is guesswork though, ultimately I think once we figure out a way to travel beyond our tiny bit of space within our Solar system, we will find a Universe teaming with life, and run into various species of varying evolution from primitive to very advanced.
