Posted on 10/13/2009 8:14:47 PM PDT by Michael Barnes
Found the link on DIGG, thought it would be interesting reading here..
Good stuff....
>>We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and so very far away we’ll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a practical sense at least.
Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely undetectable by our instruments.
Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.<<
False trichotomy.
There is also (D) E/Ts exist but reason so differently than us we can’t fathom why they don’t contact us. No matter how hard we try, we will always frame everything in terms of Homo Sapiens. We may get creative but can never be truly “alien” in our thinking. The idea they should be detectable is a simple example of the arrogance of the H/S-centricity.
The Bard was the closest in his analysis: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
I love these speculative cosmology analyses. Excellent, interesting post to the exceedingly tiny group of serious techno-nerds like myself.
I would add a “C1” corollary to Rebecca Sato and Casey Kazan’ “C” option:
Interstellar travel is impossible due to an as yet unidentified property of Dark Matter.
Try to answer this question: If an advanced civilization exists for N years, what are the odds it will still be around after another N years?
Our ancestors were living in caves about 15,000 or so years ago. (If we ignore the towel headed twits living in caves today), we are no longer living in caves.) Yet just a few years ago people were predicting we would wipe out all life on earth in a nuclear exchange withing about 10 or 20 years. When I look around today, I seem many more crazy people with nuclear weapons and seeking those weapons than had them 30 years ago. My guess is that any advanced civilization that may have existed has probably been annihilated by bad actors in that civilization.
just plug that Drake equation into an excel spreadsheet .... life in other galaxies? definitely outside our area code.
Who writes this stuff?
The basic premise of the whole article is nonsense. Every star in our corner of the Milky Way could host its own technological civilization and we wouldn’t have the slightest clue. We wouldn’t see them, we have no technology capable of picking up alien cell phone calls and television signals; all such signals would be lost against the background of that civilization’s host star. The only way we would is if:
a) they were more advance than us
b) they wanted to be seen
c) they knew of our existence (see a)
d) they were purposefully trying to contact us using technology that we couldn’t replicate
581 billion a year spent on welfare? nice.
I report, you decide.
These sorts of folks slay me.
They must be sooooooooo far out of the loop as to not even know there is a loop.
or
they are paid disinformation agents.
or
they are terminally stupid.
Amazing.
Thanks for the ping.
The age and evolution of the universe would seem to put constraints on the development of intelligent life.
They would have to have the right kind of second or third generation star thus to have metals for their technology, be in the approximate middle of a spiral galaxy, have abundant amounts of water....
It seems doubtful they could be that much older than us.
The most important question I think they could be asked is, “Do you perceive of a Deity in the universe?”
I don’t accept the argument that if there were extraterrestrial civilization that we necessarily would have detected them.
Quoting HHGTTG: “Space is big... really big... I mean you just wouldn’t believe how mind bogglingly big it is. I mean, you might think it’s a long walk from your house to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
The chances of seeing alien probes or ships is near nothing.
And what about SETI? Even our own signals today would either fail to propagate to other planets, or would look like noise. UWB technologies, frequency hoping, spread spectrum.... it’s also designed to reduce interference. Maybe alien civilizations will see Hitler open the Olympics, but only if they were pointing their antennae at us and listening for that particular moment. With the DTV transition, we can effectively say that a 60 year window has closed. Other civilizations might have had a shorter RF broadcast window. Or perhaps they don’t use RF.... maybe optical? Maybe sub-etha (another Adams reference). I’m just saying that our own planet is going to be RF-quiet soon from millions of light years away. Who is to say we would have any way to detect intelligent life even if it was out there?
Great posts all. Still re-reading a few of them before I post back..
“The Solar System is not at the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy is not in any special position in contrast to the rest of the known universe. From a scientific viewpoint, there is no apparent reason to believe that Earth enjoys some privileged status.”
But the earth is in a privileged status. It’s large moon, it’s oxygen-rich atmosphere, and it’s precise location within the solar system and Milky Way galaxy provide the BEST CONDITIONS FOR SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY and thus the privileged status. = G Gonzalez author of the Privileged Planet who says that our ability to observe and understand the universe from the privileged position that Earth enjoys, points to a deeper truth about purpose and intelligent design within the cosmos.
I'm not convinced there is intelligent life on earth...particularly as of November 2008.
For proposition “B” to be correct would defy all logic. If potentially thousands, or even millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the known universe, then why would all of them, without exception, choose to expand or exist in such a way that they are completely undetectable? It’s conceivable that some might, or perhaps even the majority, but for all of them to be completely undetectable civilizations does not seem likely either.
Perhaps when they reach a certain point they become part of a galatic or universal network which communicates using a technology we have no clue of.
In fact, maybe these are what we know as angels.
There’s always the possibility that we have been intentionally isolated by our Galactic overseers due to a rebellion by our planetary government.
There are quite a few different possibilities, actually.
If you have 50 different possibilities, each of which has only a pretty remote 1.5% chance of being true, there’s still a pretty good chance there’s an explanation in there somewhere.
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