A cool thought :)

[Herzy]

The other night I was processing my image of the two galaxies M81 & M82 and I got to thinking...

What if there is alien life forms imaging us? I mean it would be a wonderful image. Andromeda galaxy right next to the Milky Way; two bright spiral galaxies. It would be a sight to see, so what if some aliens are imaging us? Just a cool thought I had to share!  

What if they are typing in an alien star gazing forum about how someone in the Milky Way could be imaging them? :0

[Alien 13]

My personal view is that there is probably lots of eyes looking back at us you only have to think of the number of different types of creatures on Earth capable of seeing the Andromeda galaxy,  the number capable of imaging though would be much much lower.

Alan

[Dave Lloyd]

20 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

My personal view is that there is probably lots of eyes looking back at us you only have to think of the number of different types of creatures on Earth capable of seeing the Andromeda galaxy,  the number capable of imaging though would be much much lower.

Alan

My personal view is that there is no probably.

[acey]

I've often had the same thought, as have many people. We see M81 and M82 as they appeared roughly 12 million years ago; anyone there now, looking at our galaxy, will see it at a time when there were a lot of mammal species on Earth, but no humans. If people in M81 or M82 have detectors sensitive enough to pick up our radio signals they won't start receiving any until about 12 million years from now.

[Herzy]

1 hour ago, Dave Lloyd said:

My personal view is that there is no probably.

There are approximately 1-9 planets per star, there are billions of stars in a galaxy, there are billions of galaxies in the universe. Taking all of these planets into consideration, there is no way that alien life isn't out there!

Them being capable of astrophotography is a different story, but who knows!

[Dave Lloyd]

The sheer size of the numbers to me make it inevitable. On top of that to assume the universe is essentially sterile when the evidence on Earth shows that life will grab a toehold with ferocious tenacity anywhere is surely misguided.

[Scott]

Me, I feel as sure as I can be with no evidence that there is life out there. Is it "life as we know it Jim"? That I can't begin to speculate. If circumstances arose that we ended up here. whats to say some form of silicon based lifeform isn't present else where. one thing I know for sure (not really) is that a truelly intellegent life form would work out or perhaps evolve in a way that these useless bodies would be unnecessary

[Uranium235]

I had the same thoughts when doing the Virgo supercluster, surely in at least one of those 528 galaxies I captured there must be someone (or something) looking back.... even if its just with the naked eye. Even if that "eye" belonged to a simple lifeform, as you would think an eye would be a necessary offshoot of evolution (ie: required to find food - or avoid being eaten!).

[saac]

Not quite sure I'd describe our bodies as useless, after all they have allowed us to advance to a stage where we can make reasoned descriptions of the workings of the universe itself. I am sure that, unless we do something really stupid, our intelligence will allow us to eventually overcome the biological processes that eventually diminish these very useful bodies.  In the end however, not matter how clever we get, entropy will always have the last laugh; we are on a journey with a known destination.

" What if there is alien life forms imaging us? I mean it would be a wonderful image. Andromeda galaxy right next to the Milky Way; two bright spiral galaxies. It would be a sight to see, so what if some aliens are imaging us? Just a cool thought I had to share!  "

That made me think of the 6 degree of separation theory (we all know someone who knows someone etc who knows Kevin Bacon).  I wonder if we need an interstellar version - maybe like 6 x 10^12 degree of separation. Ok, I'll get my hat and coat on the way out

Jim

[Scott]

22 minutes ago, saac said:

Not quite sure I'd describe our bodies as useless, after all they have allowed us to advance to a stage where we can make reasoned descriptions of the workings of the universe itself. I am sure that, unless we do something really stupid, our intelligence will allow us to eventually overcome the biological processes that eventually diminish these very useful bodies.  In the end however, not matter how clever we get, entropy will always have the last laugh; we are on a journey with a known destination.

" What if there is alien life forms imaging us? I mean it would be a wonderful image. Andromeda galaxy right next to the Milky Way; two bright spiral galaxies. It would be a sight to see, so what if some aliens are imaging us? Just a cool thought I had to share!  "

That made me think of the 6 degree of separation theory (we all know someone who knows someone etc who knows Kevin Bacon).  I wonder if we need an interstellar version - maybe like 6 x 10^12 degree of separation. Ok, I'll get my hat and coat on the way out

Jim

surely it's the intellect that has allowed us to reason and not the body. A body succeptable to disease, injury and wears out usually before the mind does. And even our minds can hardly be described as cutting edge, where the need to push ourselves sometimes at the cost of our bodies in order to exist in many cases. 

[Herzy]

Two of the most prominent chemicals in the universe are hydrogen and oxygen. Our bodies 70% water, and water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. Coincidence? I think not... This shows that we are just a result of the excess amount of "stuff" in the universe. So if we can form from these chemicals, who's to say another life form can't?

"It would be inexcusably egocentric to suggest that we are alone in the cosmos. The chemistry is too rich to declare that - the universe too vast. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand in all the beaches of the world. There are more stars in the universe than all sounds and words ever uttered by all the humans that have ever lived... Life may be an inevitable consequence of complex chemistry." -Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[Dave In Vermont]

Try "Googling" the Drake Equation. SETI is another cool bunch to look into:

https://seti.berkeley.edu/

How well the possibility of alien life out there is thought of, and if it's thought of, is often conditional on the sociological-profile of the culture at large. In the Untied Snakes, for instance, it's undergone major transformation within the last 100 years or so. From one of being taken off to a 'secure-facility' for dangerous mentally ill people, to one where not believing in alien life would get one called an 'imperialist' - a word which itself has changed in it's emotive response.

All being said and done - I personally do believe in "Little Green Men."

Maybe those eyes looking on us are on posts -

Dave

[Tzitzis]

Nice thought. There is definetelly life out there. It's not just the vast numbers of stars and planets, it's the chemistry too. It's possibilities. And alien life is bacteria too allthough we are talking about eyes looking back with intelligence.

I have another thought for you guys. I suppose there are earthlike planets out there. Given that there are same conditions there were here in the past we might have other humans or humanoids in the universe. Of course we wouldn't be the same, we could maybe look alike in a way. But still, isn't it a possibility? Aliens do not have to be green and hostile

To come to an end I am sure there is life out there. It's a matter of evolution, and there will be other forms of life uknown to us in other places of the Universe.

Cheers from Greece

Tzitzis

[saac]

I don't think there is any serious doubt that life could exist elsewhere in the universe.  The likelihood of conditions prevailing to allow that life to evolve to develop intelligence is not as favourable.  Less favourable even further for that intelligence to evolve to a level that would allow its presence to be known/detected in contemporaneous time frame as our own.  The only thing in our favour to improve those odds is the sheer size of the universe.  I'm fairly confident that we will wake up one morning to a contact story.  

 

Jim

[saac]

12 hours ago, Scott said:

surely it's the intellect that has allowed us to reason and not the body. A body succeptable to disease, injury and wears out usually before the mind does. And even our minds can hardly be described as cutting edge, where the need to push ourselves sometimes at the cost of our bodies in order to exist in many cases. 

Scot our minds may well have and do allow us to reason but it is our bodies that feed that curiosity and allow us to act upon it.  From, the dexterity of the human hand with all its sensitivity and positional control, to the functionality of our eyes positioned on our flat faces, the locomotion enabled by our bipedal skeleton.  Without these, I doubt we would have ever walked out of Africa.  The journey that eventually lead us to discover the secrets of flight, escape the planet, unlock the secrets of matter and ponder the very origin of reality itself.  As an engineer, I have often marvelled at the complexity of the human frame; considering its relative fragility it has enabled us to explore every hostile environment we chose to explore.  Not bad at all, and yet to be bettered.  As for our minds not being "cutting edge", I could not disagree more.  The human brain is the most complex entity (biological or otherwise) known.  We are only starting to map the complexities/capabilities of the brain, work which will hopefully help combat some of the most degenerative diseases that afflict it. No, I wouldn't be dismissive of our human frame nor mind, with or without its frailty.

 

Jim

[andrew s]

1 hour ago, saac said:

 I'm fairly confident that we will wake up one morning to a contact story.  

I am not so sure. I am happy to accept they may be life out there but given it takes large instruments just to detect the stars and galaxies it seems unlikely to me we will be able to detect any signal form other life unless they can arrange a sequence of supernova explosions.

Regards Andrew

[Stu]

12 minutes ago, andrew s said:

I am not so sure. I am happy to accept they may be life out there but given it takes large instruments just to detect the stars and galaxies it seems unlikely to me we will be able to detect any signal form other life unless they can arrange a sequence of supernova explosions.

Regards Andrew

I tend to agree with this. I'm convinced there must be life out there, there are just so many opportunities for it to evolve that it must have done at least once somewhere else.

However, the distances and time involved mean that I very much doubt we will ever have contact from, or make contact with other civilisations, unless of course we invent light speed travel/suspended animation/any other technology already invented in films (?) to help us along the way.

[saac]

Well current direction of exo planet research is to look for signatures of life (organic molecules) in the atmosphere of exo planets.  Advances in spectral analysis have started at last to catch up with our ability to detect exo planets themselves.  Evidence of intelligent life I suspect would have to come from such indirect observation. Martin Rees recently gave a interesting perspective of how he believes we should be looking for evidence of technology as an indicator of intelligent life.  The notion of "super structures" - it had been proposed advanced intelligences may build such to harvest energy from their stars - appears a bit far fetched.  But then again, 10 years ago the notion that we would be able to analyse the gas in the atmosphere of an exo planet, never mind detect the exo planet itself was similarly far fetched.  I think if we exist contemporaneous (as light travels) with other intelligent life then we may well be best to look for signs of their activity. It would certainly be some headline to wake up to

 

Jim

[Alien 13]

Intelligence can evolve several ways I have no doubt that the Universe could be full of self replicating machines that extend the reach of their hosts. I also think "first contact" might be with information transmitted at the sub atomic level and its just waiting to be discovered or even in DNA, supernova do a pretty good job at dispersing matter.

Alan

[andrew s]

23 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

I also think "first contact" might be with information transmitted at the sub atomic level and its just waiting to be discovered

Hi can you explain what you mean by this and if possible give an example as I am at a loss to understand it. (Almost certainly a limitation on my part.)

Regards  Andrew

[Alien 13]

1 minute ago, andrew s said:

Hi can you explain what you mean by this and if possible give an example as I am at a loss to understand it. (Almost certainly a limitation on my part.)

Regards  Andrew

It was just a random thought from an Horizon program "how small is the Universe" which concluded that it might be smaller than a sub atomic particle so the speed of light for transmission is not a factor. 

Alan

[Paul M]

Starting right back with the OP, I think it's more likely that we/they are looking at a galaxy where we/they do not yet exist or have already become extinct.

Space = time, time = space. In some sense I believe that time is the greater of the voids that keeps us from knowing each other.

As for the form that life might take, who knows. we are rather biased by our own experience!

I like the idea that intelligence and sentience need not be confined to a discrete being or creature. Perhaps the electrochemical (and perhaps quantum) processes that bring about conscience could exist on scales that we don't recognise as lifeforms. I've seen the idea touched on in SciFi a number of times and find it interesting.

Perhaps  M81 it's very self is scrutinising us across the gulf of space...

[Herzy]

We might invent something that has to do with quantum mechanics. I watched a documentary about it a while back and it talked about how particles can be entangled even though they are across the universe. Maybe we will come up with some sort of teleportation involving quantum mechanics.

[andrew s]

20 minutes ago, Herzy said:

We might invent something that has to do with quantum mechanics. I watched a documentary about it a while back and it talked about how particles can be entangled even though they are across the universe. Maybe we will come up with some sort of teleportation involving quantum mechanics.

Possible but, even the CMB is very efficient at decohereing entangled states - typically a very small fraction of a second. This and other interactions is why we don't see the world as an entangled state.

Regards Andrew

[Paul M]

1 hour ago, andrew s said:

Possible but, even the CMB is very efficient at decohereing entangled states - typically a very small fraction of a second. This and other interactions is why we don't see the world as an entangled state.

Regards Andrew

Oh no! My head is starting to hurt again