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Human Universe


recceranger

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I like this guy Brian Cox.  He has a way of adding bags of atmospherics to every statement.  However, I must say the thought of the human race being the only intelligence out among the stars is utterly depressing.

His analysis and weighing up of both sides of the argument is about as sound and balanced as you can get, but I for one chose to live in ignorant bliss.

So its LGM all the way for this believer and that's my main wonder when I look up on a clear night.  So come on Brian, what about all those UFO encounters?  They surely cant all be waffling!

post-23944-0-28545600-1413985124.jpg 

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Just watched the final episode on the BBC Player and thought it the best of the three.

It certainly left you with plenty to ponder but IMO Brian's final conclusion that we are alone seems to rank along with the pre-Copernican idea that the earth was the centre of everything. 

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I suspect that we are alone may be correct. There are lots of stars and lots of planets (it would seem) but the probabilities involved are small for each of the conditions required. And the more factors then the lower the chances are. Also it means complex life not sort of single cell slime.

Have a read of: Rare Earth by Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee.

There are some odd things about our planet that we fail to "see". The original oceans were not a nice blue/green, they were red/brown with rust. Probabilities really hit when they say that less water then we have and reduced chance of complex life, more water then we have and the same. So planet earth has to be at the right place and the right amount of water.

Our iron core is bigger owing to the collision that caused the moon, and both moon and core are likely essential to complex life here.

One aspect that has puzzled me is that no-one seems to have identified the star cluster we came from, dispersed by now. But as we have the right chemistry for life it would make some sense that other stars from our cluster had similar chemistry and they would be of the same age as us. Which seems to make them candidates for the potential of life.

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Just watched the final episode on the BBC Player and thought it the best of the three.

There are two more, it's a five part series

I thought last night's was the best of the three so far.  Certainly made me think.

Two things that I found a little irritating though, and not related to the subject of the programme:

1.  When he was trying to talk while scuba-diving.  The constant switching from talk to breathe via his regulator (if that's what he was doing?) put me off completely.  I was wondering what on earth he was doing and not listening to what he was saying. :tongue:

2.  When he was back on the boat and that lady was helping him get his tank off.  She kept walking in front of him while he was talking.  Why not wait 5 mins to do the piece to camera?

Not big things, but they distracted me.  Maybe I should learn to focus...? :p

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I didn't see the show and sadly, in Spain they simply won't put on this kind of intellectual TV but just looking at what Mr. Cox is alleged to have said, it runs into an unsound conclusion.

Charitably, sentience is more than likely a highly improbable accident but if we were to ask how likely it was that of all the atoms in the universe, just that correct number happened to group together here on this tiny bit of rock to form you, who just so happens to be reading this post in this particular language, on this particular forum, at this exact moment in time, to which we must  add all the other simple twists and turns of not only the entire evolutionary story starting back to the Big Bang, but of your and my life, beginning right at the beginning of your and my conception and running down through the trillions of variables to the ultimate circumstance that I am writing these words now and you are reading them, we'd surely conclude that the thing is so nearly impossible that it's pretty much guaranteed never to happen, anywhere, at any time, in any part of the universe. But, here we are  :p

Regardless, in simpler terms the absence of evidence is no evidence of absence.

Arthur C. Clarke - "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." Or better, exhilarating  :grin: 

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To conclude on the basis of the extremely tiny amount we know about the Universe that we are/are not alone seems premature for someone trained as a scientist.

Indeed.

Brian normally does not to bad, but these programs are not doing him any justice at all.

The trouble is, the general public don't know any different, I think he's doing more harm than good.

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Didn't see the programmes but I tend to object when anyone tries to draw any firm conclusions from what little we know. There are so many possibilities. Just to take one: are sub-surface oceans of various moons hospitable conditions for life? If so it's quite conceivable that most life in the universe resides in a very different environment to the one we inhabit.

The good news is that we may be able to make some headway on answering questions like this over the next few decades. There are some intriguing moons waiting to be explored and we've just started looking at the atmospheres of exoplanets.

When I look at the sky I don't know if I'm looking at a beautiful desert or a teeming metropolis; but without question it's a vista full of potential.

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Not seen it yet.  I look forward to it.

It strikes me as odd based on what I've read here that he should ague the probability that we're not the only ones "out there" is low because our existence is owed to a sequence of apparent coincidences when only last week he appeared to be arguing that despite a sequence of apparent coincidences the evolution of sentient life was nigh on inevitable.  The idea that sentient life should evolve exactly once would seem to be the hardest one of all to make.  Perhaps that's misrepresenting his point.

Shan't get to see it tonight though.  Swimming tonight and I want to get as close to 1.5 miles as I can, so I won't be in any state to concentrate when I get back :D

James

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I wonder if the WOW signal was produced by another intelligence ?, transmitted at 21 cm (waterhole), although it's never been seen since.

I found this an interesting article on the probability's of life evolving  -

http://io9.com/have-humans-already-conquered-the-threat-of-extinction-1629240669 utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow 

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I wonder if the WOW signal was produced by another intelligence ?, transmitted at 21 cm (waterhole), although it's never been seen since. 

It is a bit of a tease isn't it lol

The thing is, we are doing all this 24/7 listening on the 21cm frequency/band, yet VERY rarely (if ever) transmit on there to let the universe know of our presence.

If everyone else out there is doing exactly the same (just listening) then we're never going to hear/find each other are we ;)

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Such a tough call, our knowledge of evolution of life on earth is in its infficiency combined with our virtually non existent knowledge of astro physics leaves with jack!. However my view, i think life must exist out there. Yes yes i know about goldilocks this and that and incredibly unlikely random chances for two individual cells to join etc and the moon, the core etc etc. But i just think given the imense numbers involded it seems probable even if intelligent life doesnt evolve at the same time. Of course if the universe is infinite then there must be intelligent life elsewhere.

One thing that does bug me though is our current teaching of evolution. Almost everyone one i ever discuss it with (and perhaps especially the media) have this notion of linear progression which must be removed from teaching. Evolution is not tied to time progression, time does not equal advancement. Evolution simply provides best solutions to problems encountered in a given time frame. If time equals advancement then the dinosaurs would of been colonising other worlds.

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I think that the search for intelligent life should start on this planet first,

Nick.

No Nick, that is a waste of money from start to finish.

As the sayings goes:

Two men looking up at the sky.

Man A: Do you think there is intelligent life up there?

Man B: Sure hope so, there is bu##er all down here!

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I don't think he meant we are the only intelligent life, i think he meant we are the only intelligent life at this time, other life could exist billions of years either side of our time zone, but getting one to match our time zone is asking a lot, after all we have been here a 100 years with radio signals, now in the last 50 we are sending out space craft, with in the next 1000 years or so we will properly cease to exist for one reason or another, so the window to find other life forms is so small you may well have more chance of winning the lottery, well that's my take on the matter...now i'm off to get some fish and chips, while there's still some fish to eat.....:)

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