Thread: Extra-terrestrials?

Originally Posted by Bruno

Instead, I am on a message board, replying to a rapidly balding man

Dude, that's rough...lol.

Sure it's a possibility (other intelligent life forms, not scantily clad women willing to do your bidding). I'm going to pull my American card here and say that as humans, we're the best it gets as far as intelligent life forms. I have no reasons except that I get tired of hearing about the aliens that must be better than us at everything. Now to go order around my scantily clad women...

To quote Ried Fleming, the World's Toughest Milkman, "I'm not bald! I get my hair cut this way."

so what if the other beings that are out there didn't have same emotions or way of thinking that we do? that would be stretch eh? considering they are from a different galaxy or universe. without the same level of emotions that humans have, would things not go much smoother, obviously we would need the same amount of intelligence, if not more. but without emotional attachments to food, spouses, death, success, etc. technology would probably evolve much faster. or was it emotion that started the need for technology in the first place?

there are too many variables as far as the evolution of a species goes, so to assume that the species would be a more advanced version of humans is kind of ridiculous isn't it?

the universe is large enough that we can describe it as infinite. we don't even understand everything on our own planet, so to say whether another race can possibly have traveled here is a bit of a stretch. i have no idea, i want to believe that its possible, but who knows. not me.

One way to think of the Universe is like soup. If you stir the pot and dip your spoon down into the soup, you'll pull up, let's say some carrots and a piece of chicken. Dip the spoon in again and more than likely you will get more of the same ingredients. You wouldn't expect to pull out some wildly different ingredient not normally found in your soup.

There is a vast diversity of life forms right here on earth. Some that live under what we would consider hospitable, others living under definitely inhospitable conditions. If I'm not mistaken, the current knowledge of the Universe is that it is fairly uniform. If you look at deep space photos of galaxies, they are fairly general in morphology. It seems that there are patterns, from micro to macro.

It's not a far reach to assume that what is going on in our part of the universe, is being repeated in other parts. I could be wrong.


Scott

The human mind is prone to delusion and hallucinations which always take the form of the culturally relevant mythology. The highly pious will 'see' the virgin Mary hovering in the sky, Hindus will 'see' Krishna, since the 1950's people in the west have 'seen' flying saucers. Using Ockham's Razor, the simplest answer is likely true, rather than supernatural sightings changing by time and place to suit the viewer, it is far more likely that such sightings are the results of delusion. I had such a delusion myself as a boy. I 'saw' a flying saucer outside my bedroom window. From what I now understand of the natural world, I accept this event as delusion or an hallucination.

As for the likelihood of alien life;

The Hubble telescope Deep Field image taken over the course of eleven days in 2004 reveals 10,000 galaxies in a small and formerly completely unremarkable patch of sky. How small? You'll need almost 13 million such images to cover the entire sky! Taken as an average, our galaxy is estimated to have between 500 billion and a trillion stars, which would indicate that there are something in the neighbourhood of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000, 10 sextillion, or 10 billion billion stars in the known universe!

The universe is expanding, but not only that, it is accelerating. At only 14 billion years old, but 75 million light years wide, the light from the centre galaxies will likely never be able to reach those on the outer rim.

Compounding this unfathomable size is the fact that all of the matter and energy in the known universe, all of the elements on the periodic table and all of the energy which is detectable to us, comprises only 5% of the mass and energy of the universe, the rest being dark matter and dark energy, so named because we yet know nothing about them.

With literally astronomical figures like these it is a virtual certainty that there is life and even intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. In fact there may be more worlds with civilisations than grains of sand on a beach, but in all likelihood, as others have said, "You can't get there from here".

X

Originally Posted by Bladerunner

Now how can that be when we all know that Rush Limbaugh is Jabba the Hut?

But Jabba had Princess Leia....

The LIBS? Princess Pelossi.

What is will be! What is not, NEVER WILL l

Well, it depends on your definition of the Universe. Then it is just simple maths.

1. Universe is Infinite:

We know there is life on Earth, so clearly there is a non-zero probability of *any* life in the Universe. If the Universe is infinite, then to maintain the non-zero probability of life there must be other life out there. In an infinite population you cannot have a non-zero probability on a single point mass. Alternatively, if you believe the Universe is infinite and there is not other life out there, then mathematically we have zero probability of existing here on Earth.

2. Universe is Finite, or Countably Infinite:

Is is mathematically plausible in this case that we are the only life in the planet, from a probability point of view.

James.

Definitely believe in UFOs, not sure if they are interstellar space craft but there are definitely things in our air space we cannot explain.

On the alien cover up front, if you think about it, the gov't isn't really so much covering it up as they are creating dis and mis information to confuse and cause skepticism. That's all they need.

There have been too many credible people, (airforce, astronauts, ex gov't employees, law enforcement, private citizens etc) who have sworn to seeing anything from dead alien bodies to reverse engineered alien spacecraft to just dismiss it. There have been enough incidents like Roswll, the lights over Phoenix, the crash in Western PA or Long Island that the government didn't really cover up. They simply created doubt either in the origin of the debris and accidents or the veracity of the witnesses.

The aliens next door assure me there is NOTHING "unidentified" about their flying vehicle.

Seriously though, while I do not know for sure if there is or is not extra terrestrial life, but I think it would be silly to think it is not possible. We have learned in other debates that no matter the probability against something occuring, theorists will justify it by adding either unlimited amounts of time or infinite opportunities for it to occur (abiogenesis anyone?). Why not just add more zeros to this one, to make it too possible.
I think if we are to believe there is extra terrestrial life, we cannot assume then, that it is (of course!) going to only be one-celled organisms, etc etc. We are kidding ourselves. I think this goes back to the belief that there can be no greater intelligence than our own. There is no basis for this.

So...while I have not met any extra terrestrials (for sure....anyway) I believe it is completely possible they exist. Nothing I've seen in theory (or even, for that matter, Biblically, if one wishes to bring the religious aspect in) discounts the possibility of it occuring.
Just add in an infinite number of planets...don't think it's possible yet? add in a few million more galaxies, the odds keep getting better...

I do believe the government could keep a big secret like this, incidentally. Abu Ghraib was mentioned earlier, but is a poor example, because it is not an example of a government secret, but the exact opposite.
Illegal activities were happening, and when some of the perpetrators decided to email photographs of their "festivities" the recipients then decided (oh so responsibly) not to involve the authorities, but the media instead. Of course, it was the story of the decade and these bright stars and their "fun" got America dragged repetitively through the dirt for years. The government, if not exactly happy about the events there, did not keep it or the trial a secret, either. The military attempt at openness was used against them to imply such things were commonplace, etc etc and the insurgency (and the media who fed on it) grew in boldness, as did those seeking to be elected by presenting the current system as a "failure" in any way possible. It's politics 101. Doesn't make it nice.

Fact is, there are secrets that are specifically military/national defense related but of neutral political value, and these typically are well kept (Area-51/the "box"/ the "container"/Groom lake facility.....exists yet no one REALLY knows what it is or is not even if many have *theories*)

and then there are some that can be used for political gain by one party or another, and in rare cases by individual politicians. The more serious secrets are limited to a few people, and if leaked it would be simple to find the traitor. Others, however....seem to be leaked at the earliest politically advantageous moment without regard to losses.
Stealth technology was kept secret for decades. Nuclear weapons? a decade. Sometimes nations even help their *enemies* keep secrets when it seems advantageous.

The Soviets and Chinese were shooting each other as late as the 1980's, but to hear it here in the U.S. they were both anxious to unload hundreds of ICBMs into small town USA and march in the paratroops, arm in arm as they took over. Likewise, while GI's reported contact with Soviet soldiers in Korea (fighter pilots) and Vietnam (radio intercept types) our government as well as theirs denied this happened. Saves that whole "why don't we fight the Soviets?" debate-something we prepared for but neither side REALLY wanted to happen outright.....and now, the Russians have confirmed both cases were true.

Quite a long time to keep a secret. So yes. I think it's possible. So long as one party or the other cannot make political gain by it, or a reporter a name for himself....and not everyone knows it.

John P.