Human Universe

[Kropster]

Why the desperation to find intelligent aliens?

If they are out there, they are likely as not to be malevolent.... luckily there is virtually zero chance of meeting them.

If they aren't out there, then we have the whole Universe for ourselves!

[Macavity]

So the gist is: We might well be the only life-form capable of exploring the universe - As such,

we are *obliged* to do so. It naturally follows the "science budget" must be increased hugely...

[kirkster501]

Fermi's Paradox:

http://io9.com/11-of-the-weirdest-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox-456850746

and

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

The scariest conclusion why we hear nothing is that those more advanced than us have learned to shut up because there are dangerous predatory civilisations out there.

" There are scary predator civilizations out there, and most intelligent life knows better than to broadcast any outgoing signals and advertise their location. This is an unpleasant concept and would help explain the lack of any signals being received by the SETI satellites. It also means that we might be the super naive newbies who are being unbelievably stupid and risky by ever broadcasting outward signals. There’s a debate going on currently about whether we should engage in METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence—the reverse of SETI) or not, and most people say we should not. Stephen Hawking warns, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.” Even Carl Sagan (a general believer that any civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel would be altruistic, not hostile) called the practice of METI “deeply unwise and immature,” and recommended that “the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.” Scary"

[Kropster]

Even so... we probably have a few tens of millenia before their first probes reach us.... by which time we may be gone!

[Macavity]

There is the other thing... The window of transparent communications may be rendered

even smaller if civilisations are (like us!) forced to encrypt more and more transmissions.

I think it was Steve Wolfram who suggested that aliens might be (chatting) all around us?

But unless you have the encryption key, this will be indistinguishable from natural signals.

Some more interesting stuff, anyway?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/02/astronomers-will-have-scanned-enough-star-systems-by-2040-that-well-have-discovered-alien-produced-electromagnetic-signals-s.html

[Kropster]

Space is sooooooooooooooooooooooooo big, nobody will ever reach us..... and we will never reach them.

Communicate? Possibly, but never close enough to tweak each other's noses.

[Dark Knight Gazer]

I remember reading an article that said 'We humans class ourselves as intelligent, so when we walk past an ant we take no notice. This may be the case for extraterrestrial life...they may well be far more intelligent than us, so would just walk by'

An interesting though?!

[Treeden]

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.....

He mentioned that as one possibility, but then said he didn't believe it was the case.  Instead he seems to believe that any other intelligent species that exist or have ever existed would inevitably explore and populate the galaxy.  He then extends that hypothesis to state that if this were the case we would undoubtedly have evidence to prove it.  He makes two rather sweeping statements:

"if it’s possible in principle, it must have happened"  I don't believe that at all.

"it follows that if such an advanced civilisation had existed…. we’d know about it"  (ie we would have encountered them).  Well, he may be right of course, but for me that is stretching things too far.  The evidence that is offered can be used to make all sorts of interesting theories and ideas about what might happen on other similar Earth type worlds, but we don't really know what is actually out here... not yet.

[Treeden]

... meant to add that I loved that scene where the old sailor holds up a fish tail for the seabird (was it a Frigatebird?) to close in and take gracefully from his outstretched hand. 

[Cath]

Indeed.

We really cannot make any correct assumption about what path life takes out there given the right conditions to live long enough. The chances are that if they find a way to survive then any so called intelligent beings could evolve in ways we simply just cannot comprehend in any way what so ever. We know so very little about what the universe really is or how it came to be etc etc etc. We really are fooling ourselves if we actually think we can convince ourselves we know what really is going on out there, in there and everywhere.

Sending self replicating/repairing probes out across the galaxy, trying to communicate with light speed limited comms across what appears to be vast distances or wanting/needing any kind of comminucation at all with beings such as us may all be the very last thing on their mind.

Atoms have for some unknown reason arranged themselves into what appears to be an incredibly complex form (life). If you try and look past the simplistic way that we normally look at it (chemical process etc), you might start to spot something very strange indeed about what the atoms are actually doing.

We're really not ready to be deciding what's really going on out there.

[Kropster]

If you try and look past the simplistic way that we normally look at it (chemical process etc), you might start to spot something very strange indeed about what the atoms are actually doing.

Not sure what you mean, but the chemical and nuclear processes we know of or have equations for explain exactly how atoms behave.

[kirkster501]

Recall, we cannot properly and truly communicate with intelligent species such as Dolphins, Whales, Chimpanzees, Gorilllas etc even here on our own planet.  

[wheresthetorch?]

So, I've just watched Part 3, and he's been demonstrating a dolphin that can distinguish between 'more' dots and 'less' dots. However, if it was truly intelligent, the dolphin would of course have pointend out that the correct term is 'fewer' dots...

[Tinker1947]

English Dictionary definitions...." Less " a smaller amount (of)...... , "Fewer " used to show that you consider a number to be surprisinglylarge:

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/no-fewer-than?q=Fewer

Copy and paste errors...

[wheresthetorch?]

I respectfully beg to differ:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/less-or-fewer

[Tinker1947]

I respectfully beg to differ:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/less-or-fewer

Argue with the people that write the text, i just done a copy and paste.......

[JamesF]

Excluding the "number on its own" case, the rule I've always known is "fewer for countable things, less for uncountable things".

eg. fewer cars, less traffic;  less beer, fewer drunks; five items or fewer, less queuing.

But who knows...

James

[andrew65]

For weeks I have seen fewer stars I wish there was fewer clouds I should have had less beer ps whats the point in dolphins counting dots on a board

[Scooot]

The dolphin was playing a game, it was just seeing how many times it could get a human to hold up a board with dots on it. -

[andrew65]

Lol they are clever ☺

[Kropster]

So the drama over Tesco having signs for till saying 'five items or less' was over nothing.

Tesco was correct and not the 'fewer' brigade.

[Ptarmigan]

He not only said that we are alone, he said we are the first.
He said that we are on the verge of sending Von Neumann machines out into the universe and that if any intelligent life had evolved anywhere, at any time in the past, they would have done what we are about to do.

Thus we would have seen their Von Neumanns already, but we have not, he said.

I suggest that we have,
they are us.

Terrible thought :- Any self-replicating universal constructor as proposed by Von Neumann would need a self-destruct mechanism in the design in case of flaws creeping in to the blueprint.

We may be on the point of fulfilling that as well !!

[Treeden]

Terrible thought :- Any self-replicating universal constructor as proposed by Von Neumann would need a self-destruct mechanism in the design in case of flaws creeping in to the blueprint.

We may be on the point of fulfilling that as well !!

You mean something like our technological development outpacing it's sociological sibling?  That is to say we're very good at making weapons but not so good at peace?

"The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long... and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy"

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"Ok, who's next?  Cockroaches, what about you lot.....?"

[Ptarmigan]

 very good at making weapons but not so good at peace?

Not only but also !

I used to have tremendous debates with sister-in-law, Gaia proponent.

My view was that by the time we tamed natural greed and evolved a carbon neutral economy, meanwhile continuing coal/oil burning (gas was not a big contender in the '70s), we would be in a right mess if we did not embrace nuclear as a stop gap.

I am pleased to see that Prof. Lovelock now agrees with me

[JamesF]

"The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long... and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy"

One of my favourite films of all time

James