KinkyKiwi

hmmm...its funny how some people on this thread are so serious about it and some (including me) are making weird wisecracks..randomness i guess

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Lak

In an infinite universe? True indeed. In this universe? No.
Personally I like to think that the space we call the universe is spherical in some 4th spatial dimension, making it loop back on itself in our 3 dimensions. Like walking on a 3D sphere, if you go in a straight line for long enough you'll come back to where you were. Coupled with it's being unfathomably massive, it might as well be infinite for intents and purposes, but really its not.

Lak

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d*d

The universe is SOOO big there must be life somewhere else, yeah and the sun moves across our sky it MUST be revolving around us

Giant Hamburger

This conversation needs the Drake Equation.

Found here (and many other places): http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious..._equation.html

The Drake Equation was developed by Frank Drake in 1961 as a way to focus on the factors which determine how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in our galaxy. The Drake Equation is:
N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

The equation can really be looked at as a number of questions:

N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy

Question: How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy?
Answer: Current estimates are 100 billion.

fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them

Question: What percentage of stars have planetary systems?
Answer: Current estimates range from 20% to 50%.

ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life

Question: For each star that does have a planetary system, how many planets are capable of sustaining life?
Answer: Current estimates range from 1 to 5.

fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves

Question: On what percentage of the planets that are capable of sustaining life does life actually evolve?
Answer: Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%.

fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves

Question: On the planets where life does evolve, what percentage evolves intelligent life?
Answer: Estimates range from 100% (intelligence is such a survival advantage that it will certainly evolve) down to near 0%.

fc is the fraction of fi that communicate

Question: What percentage of intelligent races have the means and the desire to communicate?
Answer: 10% to 20%

fL is fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live

Question: For each civilization that does communicate, for what fraction of the planet's life does the civilization survive?
Answer: This is the toughest of the questions. If we take Earth as an example, the expected lifetime of our Sun and the Earth is roughly 10 billion years. So far we've been communicating with radio waves for less than 100 years. How long will our civilization survive? Will we destroy ourselves in a few years like some predict or will we overcome our problems and survive for millennia? If we were destroyed tomorrow the answer to this question would be 1/100,000,000th. If we survive for 10,000 years the answer will be 1/1,000,000th.

When all of these variables are multiplied together when come up with:

N, the number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy.

The real value of the Drake Equation is not in the answer itself, but the questions that are prompted when attempting to come up with an answer. Obviously there is a tremendous amount of guess work involved when filling in the variables. As we learn more from astronomy, biology, and other sciences, we'll be able to better estimate the answers to the above questions. Many of these questions will be addressed in depth in future issues of Enigma.


It answers nothing put breaks down the question into its scientific components.
It's not about little green men as much as it is about a set of conditions in a solar system that could sustain life of any sort and the likelihood of those conditions occuring.

bookerV

I happen to think there is some life out there. Now I have no idea what form this life would take. Developing in a totally different environment this could be a lifeform that we could not comprehend at all. They could have a totally different means of communications that we are not able to receive. So who knows, someone could be out there trying to contact us but using means we do not comprehend. Just like we could be contacting an alien race with radiowaves that they have no means of detecting. Anything is possible. It's also possible that the only other life in the universe is bacteria or animals, or creatures without advanced communications abilities. All I know is that it is a bit scary to think that humans are the most advanced civilization in the universe...

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SiNai

I was JUST heading off to google to find the Drake Equation, or at least the version Carl Sagan had in Cosmos.. doh..

Anyway, I subscribe to the scientific approach given by this equation, and as Giant Hamburger said, the problem now is.. what values do we assign the variables?

Life on the planet Earth could easily be wiped out if our orbit was moved even a miniscule amount towards or away from the sun. Now, perhaps life on Earth could exist if it's orbit was a little closer/further from the sun (Given the chain reaction that produced all our pretty water and carbon still happened), but obviously it would be quite a bit different from what it is today. Species of animals would evolve differently, different ones would die out instead of others, etc. If every planet that can harbor life needs such an intricate balance of organic substance and distance from it's star (as in, basically an exact replica of the Earth, or any Earth based on organic compounds), then it follows that the amount of planets harboring life in the rest of the universe is very small. What I'm trying to say is, what is it that life definitely needs? A star that is in the same period of life as our own?A moon to regulate tides? Does life need heat? Does life need a certain proportion of organic compounds? Maybe, maybe not. Are viruses alive? What if there's a planet of super-intelligent virus-like things swimming around in some primordial goo playing lazer-tag (I'm at a loss on imagination here..)? What we know of life we only know given life that has evolved on Earth. Given different circumstances, there could be entirely different things out there. Not the difference between humans and wookies, but life forms that we cannot even fathom, since we simply do not know the possibilities yet.

Any number of intelligent life forms are possible in my mind. There is simply too little known about the universe at this point in time to say, but even if you fidget around with the numbers, given any number of stars, I think scientific evidence is strongly supportive of life on other planets, possibly even in the galaxy.

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ObieX

Well for one let me say that it really isnt that difficult to create the building blocks of life. Aminoacids and peptides can be created by simple things like meteor impacts and such (the simple act of the impact). And, in fact, the odds are pretty good that one day we will discover life here in our own solar system. Many of the moons of the larger planets lay unexplored and very much DO contain the conditions to create and support forms of life. Hell under the surface ice of Europa is believed to be a liquid ocean, just imagine the abundance of life that could be sustained.

Life, even on Earth, can and has existed in regions and circumstances that people would never imagine anything could live through. Some of these places, for example: Near active volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean. Some of these microbes reproduce BEST at temperatures over 200 degrees F. and live in waters smothered in sulfur and other elements/chemicals that are dangerous/deadly to other forms of life. Microbes have even been proven to survive SPACE EXPOSURE (meaning not only sub-freezing, extremely cold temperatures, but also constant solar radiation bombardment, and not to mention lack of atmosphere, over YEARS, not just minutes.. YEARS). Scientists have also discovered microbes that live deep deep deep inside the earth in small pockets of water that have remained undisturbed for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years. These microbes gather enough energy to reporoduce once every FEW THOUSAND YEARS. Imagine living that long just to reproduce once.

Life is also very good at surviving. Imagine what life on Earth had to deal with when coming into existance. At that time the earth was under constant bombardment form space rocks, constant volcanic activity, radically fluctuating temperatures and environmental conditions, and god only knows what else.

The building blocks of life are EVERYWHERE. To think that they are confined to one tiny speck in the massive universe is naive.

We, as humans, also missed out on BILLIONS of years of the past. Billions of years where many civilizations could have sprung up on other planets, done this that and the other, and died out. Billions of years where life could have stewed on other plenets, even in or very own solar system, and could simply no longer be supported and died out. Just look at Mars. A few million years ago there was/could have been giant oceans, just like here on Earth. It's hard to support ocean life, however, if that ocean dries up. Some life forms may be left on Mars even today, but we'll never know until we get a good look. And that goes for the rest of the planets and moons in our own back yard.

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onewolf

I don't think the odds of life are so astronomical - you figure all that's required is a planet with an atmosphere and water that orbits a star long enough to have cyclical temperatures over a few hundred million years. Just look at all the various life forms on this planet - if it were so astonomically unlikely for life to be generated, then wouldn't we have just a very small number of species?

d*d

No - given the astronomical odds that life has actually occured here - a planet with an atmosphere and water that orbits a star long enough to have cyclical temperatures over a few hundred million years. It seems fair enough to assume that once these conditions have been met live will flourish. It is as possible that these conditions will not occur anywhere else as it is that they will, even given the huge finite size of our universe

bookiebye

The question asks whether we are alone in the universe, did other planets produce life? The question should be ''are we ready to encounter other beings"? We can not definitively prove or disprove life on other planets. So why not take the logical course of action and prepare for all possibilities. In general our society views ET life as probably hostile and wanting to invade and overtake the planet when they arrive. With our inherent fear of the unknown and the desire to control rather than understand the new and unknown, I believe that putting Earth humans and a alien race together would no doubt be dangerous. We are a child race who believes we are more prepared and capable than we actually are. Accepting this will advance us in our understanding and dealings with the unknown as situtations are presented.

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ObieX

Absolutely. And even if we were to discover an inteligent race, i doubt many of us would even recognize their intelligence. For example, who's to say ants arent intelligent? They produce and sustain massive underground structures (relative to tehir size atleast) and civilizations. If one day we were to discover intelligent space ants chances are good we would just blow them off as a new kind of insect and move on.

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abscondo

Somebody was said something to the effect of "Either we are or we aren't alone in the universe -- and either possibility is incredible." That's pretty much how I feel about it.

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