Do you believe in extraterrestrial life?

[Cullenator]

The entire Drake equation approach is fun but it was never meant to be a predictor of ETI but rather a thought experiment.  Its all probabilistic conjecture.  Take a bunch of variable that you cant know the actual value of but that feel right and come to a conclusion.  Carl Sagan used to love throwing it out in a way that left us tingling with awe and wonder (and it did) but its not for serious estimating.

 

This guy has a great write up on the Fermi Paradox

https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Its a few years old at this point but on a topic such as this I dont think that matters much.  In my more dower and pessimistic moods these days I imagine the Great Filter is that life rarely develops much past where we are and ether destroys itself by exploiting its planet until its unlivable or through its machines of war. Sound familiar?

[CRA]

13 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

One of the things I find most comical about these conversations is the discussion of the possibility of "other intelligent life" as if we automatically qualify. Just because we're the smartest hairless monkeys on our little rock doesn't mean jack poo on a universal scale. Some aliens could be so far beyond us that they wouldn't consider us intelligent life.

 

yeah, if we are visited by "aliens".....we aren't comparable. 

whatever we think the difference is between a man and gorilla?  The gap between us and aliens that traveled here would be even bigger.  

if intelligent life is out there.  We would never want to meet it.  Think Hawkins spoke on that. 

[KatsAzz]

Start with the number of stars in our galaxy, which is conservatively estimated at 100 billion, though is often cited as three times that. Of those 100 billion, from 20% to 50% probably harbor planetary systems, an estimate that becomes more and more reliable as the Kepler Space Telescope and various ground-based observatories detect increasing numbers of exoplanets.

Not all of those exoplanets would be capable of sustaining Earth-like life, so the equation assumes from 1 to 5 in any system could. Of those bio-friendly worlds, from 0% to 100% would actually go on to develop life. And of those world, in turn, from 0% to 100% would develop life forms that we would consider intelligent.

The mere existence of intelligent life forms tells us nothing, however, unless they have the ability to make themselves known, which means to manipulate radio waves and other forms of electromagnetic signaling.

[Cullenator]

The Drake Equation

The Drake equation is:

N = R ∗ ⋅ f p ⋅ n e ⋅ f l ⋅ f i ⋅ f c ⋅ L

where

• N = the number of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy with which communication might be possible (i.e. which are on the current past light cone);

and

• R∗ = the average rate of star formation in our Galaxy
• fp = the fraction of those stars that have planets
• ne = the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
• fl = the fraction of planets that could support life that actually develop life at some point
• fi = the fraction of planets with life that actually go on to develop intelligent life (civilizations)
• fc = the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
• L = the length of time for which such civilizations release detectable signals into space

 

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

Edited June 13, 2023 by Cullenator

[KatsAzz]

7 hours ago, CamWhoaaCam said:

We have 8 planets. We have no idea what's living on those other 7 planets. 

 

Maybe the extraterrestrial life came from one of those planets. 

The enormity of the cosmos confronts us with an existential dilemma: There’s a high statistical likelihood of intelligent life-forms having evolved elsewhere in the universe, but a very low probability that we’ll be able to communicate or interact with them.

[LinvilleGorge]

We just don't know what we don't know. How far back in human history would we have to go for a lot of modern technology to look like outright magic? Maybe 150 years? That's not even the blink of an eye in terms of universal time. Who knows where we could be in another 150 years? Who knows where we could be in another 150 years? 1000 years? Where could another species at our intelligence level be if they're 100,000 years ahead of us? A million years? It's just inconceivable. And again, these time-frames on the universal scale are nothing. The blink of an eye.

 

[LinvilleGorge]

59 minutes ago, CRA said:

yeah, if we are visiting by "aliens".....we aren't comparable. 

whatever we think the difference is between a man and gorilla?  The gap between us and aliens that traveled here would be even bigger.  

if intelligent life is out there.  We would never want to meet it.  Think Hawkins spoke on that. 

I've thought about it in the past. Based on what we know about life on Earth it's a reasonable assumption. But ultimately to make it much past where we currently are in terms of technology I think a species would have to either overcome their natural greed developed from competing for resources to become more cooperative and species minded or they'd have to completely succumb to the greed and develop a completely authoritarian type of culture. I don't completely rule out overcoming it. I mean, we see that in beehives, ant colonies, termite colonies, etc. I just don't know if it's a possibility for a species with a higher level of intelligence or at least a higher level of self awareness. But then again, does intelligence necessarily have to be tied at the hip to self awareness? I'm not sure. Then there's also the distinct possibility that there's "life" out there that is no longer biological. We see our own lives intertwining more and more with AI and that is probably about to accelerate beyond what we could've imagined a few years ago or even now. It's really not inconceivable that a biological species could essentially overcome the limitations of biology as they become sufficiently technologically advanced.

[Davidson Deac II]

I believe it is absurd to not believe that there is life on other worlds.  There are untold numbers of planets in the Universe, to believe that this one is the only one with life on it is ludicrous.

Now do I believe that this planet has been visited?  While I can't say with certainty, probably not.  The distance and all the obstacles involved are daunting.  

 

[OneBadCat]

Yes 100%
 

I think life is probably quite common. And I think we will likely discover it on Saturns moon Enceladus, and or Europa. How intelligent? Not sure but I’m willing to bet there is at least microbial life at its volcanic vents.

Not to mention Mars which was once Earth-like for billions of years. That’s potentially 3-4 bodies that harbored life in one solar system. 

[CamWhoaaCam]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/multiple-witnesses-claim-they-saw-fighter-jets-engage-with-a-ufo-over-michigan/ar-AA1cATgV?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=438c93002b1f488d9dc9ccbc4dc96b71&ei=15

[Captroop]

Human intelligence is a blip in the 2 billion year life of the planet. I believe it's a statistical improbability that two intelligent species would ever intersect. In all likelihood they arrived when dinosaurs walked the earth, or will arrive millions of years after we've nuked ourselves out of existence.

The only exception is if their technology is so advanced that the means in which they travel the cosmos, observe and communicate is beyond our comprehension. And if that's the case, then Spud sitting on his back patio sipping a Coors isn't spotting them.

[Lame Duck]

On 6/13/2023 at 12:43 AM, LinvilleGorge said:

It's just math. There's 100 billion stars just in our own galaxy. Most will have planets orbiting them. Plenty will have planets or moons with the conditions to potentially support life. The odds of us being the most advanced species in our own galaxy is mathematically slim to none. When you extrapolate it to the entire universe it's practically absolute zero. Chances are we're somewhere around average on terms of the dominate species on a planet capable of developing complex life as I'm sure there's plenty of planets out there that only support simple life as in single cellular, bacterial, etc. The more we learn about the universe the more likely it looks like there's very little chance that we're exceptional.

 

Actually, you will be surprise how rare our planet is.  We are a perfect distance away from the sun, size and gravity to retain our atmosphere.  Most of the rocky planets end up either like mars or Venus.

Also, the earth is not as volatile as many other planets.  Which allows life to develop and evolve here.

Edited June 16, 2023 by Lame Duck

[Shocker]

100% and intelligent life at that.  Would be naive to think otherwise 

[LinvilleGorge]

On 6/16/2023 at 10:17 AM, Lame Duck said:

Actually, you will be surprise how rare our planet is.  We are a perfect distance away from the sun, size and gravity to retain our atmosphere.  Most of the rocky planets end up either like mars or Venus.

Also, the earth is not as volatile as many other planets.  Which allows life to develop and evolve here.

The more we learn about our galaxy and the universe, the less rare and special our planet gets. It wasn't long ago that we thought planets were a rarity. Now we know that virtually every star likely has planets orbiting it. Current thought is that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 billion trillion stars in the known universe. Even if the right recipe is "rare" there's still a metric poo ton of plenty out there with the right recipe.