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Scientific Paper: It's Likely We Are Alone In The Observable Universe
https://arxiv.org ^ | June 26, 2018 | Hank Berrien

Posted on 06/26/2018 6:13:36 PM PDT by Para-Ord.45

click here to read article


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To: Moonman62

It’s a Full Moon tonite,,,yes?


101 posted on 06/26/2018 9:00:15 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (UNSCANABLE in an IDIOCRACY!)
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To: The Antiyuppie

“I think that the big variable in the Fermi / Drake analyses is time.”

Just as valid as any other theory. Same with the ‘aggressive predator’ theory’ making only brief windows of any possible communication possible fairly close together. It’s all based on an example of one.

Freegards


102 posted on 06/26/2018 9:00:32 PM PDT by Ransomed
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To: Moonman62

I could be wrong but I don’t think the ratio of biomass to the mass of the earth is a significant factor. The surface and oceans certainly seem to have lots of life, even if they are outweighed by non organic matter even on the surface.


103 posted on 06/26/2018 9:00:40 PM PDT by Williams (Stop tolerating the intolerant.)
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To: doorgunner69
Well aren’t you the arrogant little pissant?

Not at all.

I just recognize the difference between a belief and an understanding; something you are woefully short on.

“Life,” by definition, is self-replicating. Until you get over that hurdle, “cosmology” is just a fancy term to deflect attention away from your ignorance.

104 posted on 06/26/2018 9:01:01 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: Williams

My apologies.

It’s just that all your questions have been answered, but no one pays attention to those answers because it doesn’t support their Gene Roddenberry aspirations.


105 posted on 06/26/2018 9:10:30 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: papertyger

Hmmm, I had to look that up, LOL. I am currently a believer in multi universes. However I think life is fairly common in our universe but intelligent life extremely rare, for the reasons I’ve already stated. It has taken the Earth 4.5 billion years to make us humans. How many planets get 4.5 billion years without a major catastrophic event like a near by super nova or hit with a gamma ray burst? We are very lucky to be here.


106 posted on 06/26/2018 9:40:38 PM PDT by jpsb
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To: papertyger

We have data points regarding many planets circling other stars. That’s just a fact. That they have life? No one knows that yet. When I was younger many articles theorized that no other stars have planets or that it is extremely rare. Even with limited ability, we have detected many other planets. Some are in a “habitable zone” around their star.


107 posted on 06/26/2018 9:49:41 PM PDT by Williams (Stop tolerating the intolerant.)
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To: Para-Ord.45

It seems to be a well-reasoned scientific paper. I find the scenario that we are alone (as intelligent life) in the universe to be an optimistic one. There are so many ways that things could turn out badly for the human race if we encounter other intelligent species, and those many bad possibilities far outweigh the benign possibilities.

For example, those other species might wipe us out for any number of reasons, either intentionally or inadvertently. Or they could restrict us or enslave us or quarantine us. They could be as technologically advanced over us as we are over insects. They could be so mentally superior to us that we’d have no way of competing or controlling our own destiny.

Or they could be peaceful, benevolent, and helpful to us. But if there are many different intelligent species out there, we’d still have to worry about the hostile ones even if they constituted only a tiny percentage. Anyway you slice it, there’s a lot of risk involved in meeting other intelligent species, with a potential downside which includes our extermination.

Intuitively, the question always comes back to the “likelihood” that we are not alone, given the trillions of stars and (probable) planets out there. Why would earth be singled out to have intelligent life, and nowhere else? But this is just an example of “survivorship bias.” If only one planet in the universe happened to develop intelligent life, the members of that species would (by definition) be the only ones around to be asking that question.

Bottom line: I’m somewhat hopeful that we’re alone, but somewhat fearful that we are not.


108 posted on 06/26/2018 9:51:38 PM PDT by dpwiener
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To: canuck_conservative
with all these complicated equations with multiple unknown variables, you can get out whatever result you want depending on how you define the inputs.


109 posted on 06/26/2018 10:04:56 PM PDT by Vlad The Inhaler ("Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats." — P.J. O’Rourke)
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To: Svartalfiar

Thanks for you comments. What you say is certainly true.

But I’m not talking about communications. I’m talking about signals from civilizations 10,000 or 100,000 more advanced than we are. Your point about a signal being in the noise 4 to 5 years out may well be true. But you may be able to increase the transmit pulse arbitrarily high with sources that we may have in 10,000 years.

And as I understand it you can pul a signal out of the noise at a s/n of 0 dB by integrating since the signal is correlated in some fashion while the noise isn’t.


110 posted on 06/26/2018 10:10:11 PM PDT by InterceptPoint (Ted, you finally endorsed. About time)
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To: Para-Ord.45

Yes and the earth is flat./s


111 posted on 06/26/2018 10:11:46 PM PDT by Pirate Ragnar
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To: papertyger
Always good to know who the pompous fools are on FR, not a real long list, but there are a reliable few that seem to hang out to insult and argue. You make the list, never noticed your posts before, will now.

Now, go away, I will make sure to ignore you, little man.

112 posted on 06/26/2018 10:16:52 PM PDT by doorgunner69 (Give me the liberty to take care of my own security..........)
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To: Para-Ord.45

Not one single person in Earth can explain the very tangible reality of their own soul-slash-mind-slash-consciousness. Explain to me how a consciousness is “produced” from a concoction of chemicals mixing around in physical matter. I doubt anyone that reads this will even consider trying to explain that. It’s too difficult. It’s too difficult because your soul is of the spiritual world, made by a supernatural being that is totally beyond human comprehension and requires a person to leap beyond the idea of the physical world as being the “only world”. The reality of man is a meeting between the spiritual world and the physical world.

A person of pure logic as a physicist and/or an atheist can only believe what can be proven logically in the physical world. Yet they cannot explain the logical existence of their very own mind that is busy contemplating a multitude of ideas. Most people of the atheist persuasion will ignore the challenge to logically explain their own mind. Which is ironic. Funny how someone that can’t even put their finger on how to even begin to explain their own mind offers to explain the origin of the universe with a “big bang theory”.

I would say to all scientists and physicists and atheists, explain your own invisible but very tangible soul first, after you figure that out then work on the universe. There’s a lot to explain right here at home. In your own head.


113 posted on 06/26/2018 10:39:49 PM PDT by User901
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To: alloysteel
Have to make an assumption that the expansion of the universe occurred through expansion of space-time itself. That part of the universe continues to recede at an effective velocity greater than the speed of light propagation. That light is losing the race through the intervening space which continues to expand. We would never catch a glimpse of more than only a small part of the extent of the whole universe, thus the expression observable universe.
114 posted on 06/26/2018 11:20:40 PM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: 38special

Thanks, my thinking too...


115 posted on 06/26/2018 11:23:15 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (01/26/18 DJIA 30 stocks $26,616.71 48.794% > open 11/07/16 215.71 from 50% increase 1.2183 yrs..)
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To: Williams

I could be wrong but I don’t think the ratio of biomass to the mass of the earth is a significant factor. The surface and oceans certainly seem to have lots of life, even if they are outweighed by non organic matter even on the surface.

...

It depends on whether you want to be objective or subjective.

To be more objective, the mass of the Sun, Jupiter and the moon should be included, too.


116 posted on 06/27/2018 2:05:34 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Give a man a fish and he'll be a Democrat. Teach a man to fish and he'll be a responsible citizen.)
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To: Big Red Badger

It’s a Full Moon tonite,,,yes?

...

Why would you ask?


117 posted on 06/27/2018 2:06:06 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Give a man a fish and he'll be a Democrat. Teach a man to fish and he'll be a responsible citizen.)
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To: The Antiyuppie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event

...

Any intelligent beings within telescope distance would have known that life was here since the The Great Oxygenation Event, 2.5 billion years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event


118 posted on 06/27/2018 2:13:34 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Give a man a fish and he'll be a Democrat. Teach a man to fish and he'll be a responsible citizen.)
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To: Para-Ord.45; DoughtyOne

I’m so lonely I could cry...


119 posted on 06/27/2018 2:22:33 AM PDT by trebb (Too many "Conservatives" who think their opinions outweigh reality these days...)
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To: The Antiyuppie

OTOH life has been discovered in the strangest, most inhospitable places on Earth; some of it doesn’t even depend on solar power like we do (those creatures that hang around smoker vents in the deep ocean are actually “powered” by the nuclear energy and heat of the Earth’s core).

...

The Last Universal Common Ancestor is now believed to have inhabited this environment based on genetic study.

But if life is so common, why did this evolutionary step occur only once in 4.5 billion years? After all, there is only one Tree Of Life.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/science/last-universal-ancestor.html?_r=0


120 posted on 06/27/2018 2:22:47 AM PDT by Moonman62 (Give a man a fish and he'll be a Democrat. Teach a man to fish and he'll be a responsible citizen.)
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