Are we alone in the universe?

[maw lod qan]

I've followed along with this thread, and find it very interesting. Though I don't feel qualified to add much to it.

I still like my thought that everything we know and can see in our universe is nothing more than a child's terrarium sitting on his desk.

And perhaps there are several side by side! (Different dimensions)

Radio signals? That was the issue on Star Trek, but an emotionless species figured it out.

"They have been communicating. Just too fast for us to hear them. I've slowed it down!"

Not interesting enough. Again, Star Trek, TNG.

A time/dimensional traveler. 

Talking to Wesley Crusher.

"You haven't met us before because you are just not that interesting!"

Octopus having intelligence and playing a joke?

I saw where a scientist kept coming into his lab to find the crabs he kept in a separate tank gone. Only their shells remaining.

So to solve the mystery, he left a camera running.

During the night, the octopus he was studying would crawl out of its tank, across the table to the other tank to enjoy a late night snack, then go back to it's own tank!

If you don't think it was smiling and laughing as it watched that befuddled scientist scratching his or her head, well, sorry, you lack imagination. 

No, I have no proof to my belief there is life out there. I want to believe it.

I want desperately to believe there is another species if not many more who stand there looking up pondering the same questions we are.

Imagination. Like we are now.

What is there out there?

And if they are really advanced,  then perhaps they have evolved even further in another area.

Emotion. 

I hate using it again, but on the new time line of Star Trek, Mr. Spock and his father were talking.

Not only their civilization, but their species almost wiped out was what it took for it to come out.

As hard as they tried to suppress it, deep down inside emotion was still something they really couldn't fight.

"You once ask me why I married your mother. I married her because Ioved her!"

Is that the real test of determining intelligence?

We are basically animals, but there is a difference. 

I don't just eat because I have to to survive. 

I eat because I want to survive!

When a species shows compassion not only for themselves,  but another species as well, they've evolved to the next level.

I want to believe there are others out there, who have stepped up the ladder of evolution that next step and have become intelligent.

Because if there isn't, hasn't this experiment here just been wasted time?

[Rusted]

Dark Matter is [just] gravity "leaking" between parallel universes.
Dark Energy and expansion are caused by the pressure of photons leaking between parallel universes.
UFOs & ghosts could be sightings across thinning of the membranes between universes.
If the maths does not agree.. then it will later. They just don't know it yet.
In a multiverse of unknowns then even my silly "theories" are equally valid.
Billions of people, on this world alone, believe even sillier theories than these.

[saac]

9 hours ago, Rusted said:

Dark Matter is [just] gravity "leaking" between parallel universes.
Dark Energy and expansion are caused by the pressure of photons leaking between parallel universes.
UFOs & ghosts could be sightings across thinning of the membranes between universes.
If the maths does not agree.. then it will later. They just don't know it yet.
In a multiverse of unknowns then even my silly "theories" are equally valid.
Billions of people, on this world alone, believe even sillier theories than these.

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. 

Jim 

[leibek]

the universe is huge ..its probably that aliens exists .at least alien life forms....we discover extrasolar planets every week its a matter of time that  we find something alive .ihope so👽.

[900SL]

I find it difficult to imagine a Universe without consciousness. They go together like Fred and Ginger.

From hydrogen to hyacinth,  vacuum to Verdi, we, life, evolution, are the cracked mirror in which the Universe can see itself

And maybe that's the way it is meant to be. The invisible cage on which we gaze

 

 

 

[markse68]

On 23/11/2022 at 01:30, Gfamily said:

Which begs the question of when will the universe know that across the scale of the universe there is nothing else but photons - of course this can never be 'known'  - at least not under the current cosmology.  

maybe if spacetime is emergent, it won't need to know it'll just happen when the last matter ceases to exist

[ollypenrice]

Another thought: we seem to assume that the appearance of life on Earth was a passive process requiring an accidental set of circumstances. What we've learned from Darwinism, though, is that evolution is not passive but is actively directed by natural selection. Can we be certain that no equivalent processes actively drive matter into forming living organisms? I don't know what such processes might be but that doesn't mean that they cannot exist.  Has anyone ever looked for them? If ever such processes were identified it would change, radically, the probability of there being alien life.

Olly

[andrew s]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Another thought: we seem to assume that the appearance of life on Earth was a passive process requiring an accidental set of circumstances. What we've learned from Darwinism, though, is that evolution is not passive but is actively directed by natural selection. Can we be certain that no equivalent processes actively drive matter into forming living organisms? I don't know what such processes might be but that doesn't mean that they cannot exist.  Has anyone ever looked for them? If ever such processes were identified it would change, radically, the probability of there being alien life.

Olly

Indeed there are. I recall looking into this some 50yrs ago. I can't remember the details but non equilibrium thermodynamics can drive the creation of complex molecules some of which can become auto-catalytic. These types of process can generate the pre life self replicating entities.

When that transitions into life is a whole new debate on what is life.

Regards Andrew 

[Astro_Dad]

16 minutes ago, andrew s said:

Indeed there are. I recall looking into this some 50yrs ago. I can't remember the details but non equilibrium thermodynamics can drive the creation of complex molecules some of which can become auto-catalytic. These types of process can generate the pre life self replicating entities.

When that transitions into life is a whole new debate on what is life.

Regards Andrew 

https://arxiv.org/abs/1503.04683

[saac]

Don't we already have it, a proton gradient, a few millions years and before you know it we have ATP being synthesised. 

Jim 

[Rusted]

Would these processes not tend to produce more Borgs? Rather than fluffy little puppies. Or T.Rex.

The list of potential threats to all forms of life grows longer by the day. And may often [inevitably] be "Their" last.

Give our own preoccupation [innate obsession] with appearance and status:
I must say that our mothers-in-law are highly unlikely to allow "anything else" as a suitable partner. 
Even if "They" do come in peace. 

[EarthLife]

On 23/11/2022 at 10:31, Peter Drew said:

Despite the advances in technology and vast sums of money spent, naked eye is still the most successful at detecting alien activity.  Just look at the number of UFO's etc that are reported.     🙂

There is a huge and inescapable problem with "UFO's" entering our atmosphere, NASA knows full well why they could never do such a thing, at least any biological form of aliens/crafts.

The problem is pathogens, you could never mix life forms from different biospheres without wiping out either/both sides. A single virus or bacteria being passed from alien/craft to earth's atmosphere could cause all life on earth to be destroyed (due to earth life having zero resistance to an alien pathogen).

Columbus had the same problem, they caused a lot of death in the tribes they visited due to passing on things like the common cold, the victims had no resistance to the 'developed' world's pathogens.

Any alien life forms capable of moving from solar system to solar system would of cause know all this, the trouble is most human life forms don't

[Rusted]

Any species, advanced enough to be capable of interstellar flight, would have solved this problem. 

Interstellar flight is not Moon rockets on steroids. It is a quantum leap in science, technology, materials, energy, wealth and biology.

[saac]

2 hours ago, EarthLife said:

There is a huge and inescapable problem with "UFO's" entering our atmosphere, NASA knows full well why they could never do such a thing, at least any biological form of aliens/crafts.

The problem is pathogens, you could never mix life forms from different biospheres without wiping out either/both sides. A single virus or bacteria being passed from alien/craft to earth's atmosphere could cause all life on earth to be destroyed (due to earth life having zero resistance to an alien pathogen).

Columbus had the same problem, they caused a lot of death in the tribes they visited due to passing on things like the common cold, the victims had no resistance to the 'developed' world's pathogens.

Any alien life forms capable of moving from solar system to solar system would of cause know all this, the trouble is most human life forms don't

Equally any alien pathogen may be completely harmless to life on Earth, having not evolved a compatible vector pathway , it being alien to this world  

Jim 

[Ouroboros]

3 minutes ago, saac said:

Equally any alien pathogen may be completely harmless to life on Earth, having not evolved a compatible vector pathway , it being alien to this world  

Jim 

Emphasis on the word “may” I feel.  The thing about microbiological pathogens is they tend to reproduce very quickly. I think if their alien hosts remained here for a while, their pathogens may like to dine out occasionally and may get a taste for the terrestrial flora and fauna. 

Frankly, if these alien guys come visiting I want them to maintain radio contact only. Preferably from the orbit of say Jupiter.  

[Mr Spock]

Any advanced civilisation would see us as primitive. If they have a 'prime directive', as a pre warp society, we would be ignored.

[saac]

11 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Emphasis on the word “may” I feel.  The thing about microbiological pathogens is they tend to reproduce very quickly. I think if their alien hosts remained here for a while, their pathogens may like to dine out occasionally and may get a taste for the terrestrial flora and fauna. 

Frankly, if these alien guys come visiting I want them to maintain radio contact only. Preferably from the orbit of say Jupiter.  

Alien virus may be harmful to us, alien virus may not be harmful to us. No reason to load the dice one way or the other. Consider that most pathogens here on Earth do not cross species barrier. Some do but it is not normal. 

Aliens may exist in a biome without virus and bacteria, they could equally be without protist and fungi. 

Jim 

Edited December 13, 2022 by saac

[Ouroboros]

Better safe than sorry I reckon. 

[saac]

4 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Better safe than sorry I reckon. 

Definitely, I'll be at the back of the que when it comes to first contact - I agree, quarantine them at Jupiter  

 

In all seriousness though I think concerns over biological contamination are taken very seriously by the likes of NASA when they send landers to other planets. 

Jim 

Edited December 13, 2022 by saac

[Peter Drew]

I think to be on equal terms we would have to meet aliens somewhere halfway across the galaxy, not here.    🙂

[Alien 13]

1 hour ago, saac said:

In all seriousness though I think concerns over biological contamination are taken very seriously by the likes of NASA when they send landers to other planets. 

Jim 

The problem as I see it is that life is impossible to destroy 100% so all the NASA landers etc will carry some...

Alan

Edited December 13, 2022 by Alien 13

[saac]

26 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

The problem as I see it is that life is impossible to destroy 100% so all the NASA landers etc will carry some...

Alan

We seem to be taking a good crack at it here on Earth.  

Jim 

[EarthLife]

On 22/11/2022 at 23:48, Paul M said:

Space, as an empty void, has never made sense to me.

I find it equally difficult to understand why space exists.

As a boy I wondered and worried about why anything exists. Why is there a Universe? So what if the Universe didn't exist, I thought, why would there be such a thing as space? 

I know physics talks about space being created in the Big Bang, but maybe that is a different kind of space that existed before there was a Universe?

But... If time = space and there was an instance of zero time maybe there was zero space. And without time as a yardstick does space mean anything?

It's a paradox that the universe exists at all (whatever it may be).

Where did the universe come from, it must have been 'something' (cause and effect). but then where did that 'something' come from, so on and so forth. Nothing comes from nothing, so how did anything get started in the first place

Paradoxes indicate a fault with our thought process/method

[Xilman]

2 hours ago, EarthLife said:

It's a paradox that the universe exists at all (whatever it may be).

Where did the universe come from, it must have been 'something' (cause and effect). but then where did that 'something' come from, so on and so forth. Nothing comes from nothing, so how did anything get started in the first place

Paradoxes indicate a fault with our thought process/method

Please justify your claim "nothing comes from nothing".   It is far from obvious to me that it is true.

[Paul M]

6 hours ago, Xilman said:

Please justify your claim "nothing comes from nothing".   It is far from obvious to me that it is true.

Indeed, it strikes me that everything came from nothing.

But my real problem is that when I try to imagine absolute nothingness it becomes an entity...