Alien Life

Singollo · #1 August 15th, 2002, 06:48 PM

I'm with Geo on this one. Given the vastness of the Universe, and the absurdity of the assumption that life must necessarily involve oxygen, water, rock planets, etc., I think it's pretty much a given that other life has existed, exists, or will exist. Seriously now, this may sound really corny and stupid, but for a long time now I have been fully and completely convinced of this. You wouldn't surprise me by proving it to me; I judge it as truth already. It seems so obvious...I even find myself taking it for granted in conversations with others (which is a little embarrassing, as you can imagine). The idea that we could be the only intelligent life in this Universe is incomprehensible to me.

That being a given, the real question, and point of contention, is this: is there other intelligent life out there right now? As has been pointed out earlier in this thread, we as a species have only been "sentient" and "aware" (if, indeed, we are) for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second, from the Universe's perspective. I think it is granted that there is/was/will be intelligent life out there...but I think that it is perfectly possible that we are the only intelligent life at this point in time.

For me, this creates a scenario of haunting sadness. Imagine dozens, maybe hundreds, of intelligent civilizations rising, expanding, and dying out, all without ever having contacted one another, existing alone in time, always wondering if there is anybody else out there. It makes me feel very lonely.

geoschmo · #2 August 15th, 2002, 07:08 PM

Singollo, that's quite a deep thought. I suppose that it is entirely possible we are the only intelligent life right now. That would depend on the 'life span' of intelligent species. One of those Drake variables we have no concrete data on.

It reminds me of a story I once read. The theory goes that the universe is expanding, and that eventually it will stop expanding and collapse back into a single point, and then blow up into a new big bang and form a new universe. This race had developed very late in the life of the universe during this contraction phase. It had interesting parallels like they had discoveries of blue shifts instead of red shifts, and so on. IIRC for them the big bang was harder to conceptualize becasue all there evidence told them the universe was contracting and always had. They didn't like the fact that there exsistance was going to end "early" just because they had the bad luck to come along so late, so they were trying to figure out a way to leave a message for the next universe. Just a "Hello, we were here" kind of thing.

I would expect the desire to make contact is quite strong with most if not all intelligent creatures. It would be a sad irony indeed if the vast distances made it impossible to do so.

Geoschmo

Singollo · #3 August 15th, 2002, 08:06 PM

Wow, that sounds like an awesome premise for a story. How cool. That would indeed be a cruel joke, to be stuck at the end of the universe, near to the Big Crunch. IIRC, the most recent evidence points to an unending expansion of the universe, though, although the Big Crunch scenario cannot be completely ruled out. (Yeah, as if we can completely rule anything out as far as this stuff is concerned.)

jimbob · #4 August 15th, 2002, 09:14 PM

Yeah, the numbers change by the day, but it is currently Vogue to say eternal expansion, but with a limit approaching zero (stasis that's never quite reached?).

I've also read from some physicists that the big crunch would be more like the big smoosh (something to do with the laws of thermodynamics and the force of gravity, but I'm just a biologist here

), and that the result would be more a big ball of moosh than a point-singularity like the thing that jump-started the big bang. Not surprisingly their position is that repeated big-bangs for each universe won't happen.

Singollo · #5 August 15th, 2002, 09:34 PM

Quote:

...stasis that's never quite reached?

Yup, the idea of a "flat universe", as opposed to an open one (endless expansion) or a closed one (Big Crunch...er, Smoosh). It's impossible to tell for sure, of course, because things like dark matter and dark energy make calculations difficult, as does the mysterious repelling force that seems to be accelerating galaxies apart from one another. The flat universe idea is the romantic view, because it requires a complete balance between everything, which would signify (to some folks' minds) some grand plan or controlling factor behind the scenes. The data, as it is now, is amazingly close to the flat balance.

DocShane · #6 August 17th, 2002, 05:48 AM

All this discussion of alien life has reminded me of an old Arthur C Clarke book: "The Songs of Distant Earth". What if we are the aliens?

The book takes into account the improbabilities of travel to other stars. Our sun is discovered to go supernova in 800 years. Mankind is doomed. Unable to physically travel, instead, we build ships that contain libraries of DNA of humans, plants, and animals. Hundreds of computer controlled ships drift in the vastness of space, looking for suitable planets to settle, then experiment using local resources to recreate human life.

Eventually we do discover quantum drives and can travel at about 10-20% spead of light. One million humans in suspended animation leave and arrive on a planet colonized hundreds of years earlier. How would our descendants receive us?

Good reading for any interested.

Personally, I believe there is life out there, but we are so hopelessly separated by the vastness of space and time to ever meet each other. I think if we are ever to meet, it will be by targetting worlds suspected to contain life by radio or laser transmissions. These worlds will be detected by interferomety. Of course, that is assuming such life is oxygen/water based. Then if we can overcome our language barriers, we can share libraries of information, realizing that it may take hundreds of years to transmit and receive. We will talk, but never actually meet them.

Will · #7 August 17th, 2002, 06:53 AM

I would have voted/posted earlier, but I seemed to have developed a bug in Internet Exploder... no new windows can be created (well, they are created, just not with anything inside...

Anyway, my view would be like Geo's. I think that intelligent life -- other than us -- already has existed, exists currently, and will continue to be formed throughout time. The vast size of the universe is more than the human mind can begin to comprehend (but we still try to understand anyway). Just in our own galaxy, by the most conservative of estimates, using the criteria for life like us to exist, there are millions of suitable places. In this galaxy. There are millions of galaxies. So if only one in a million produces intelligent life, there are still millions.

Now as for us ever meeting any other intelligent life... I doubt it will happen. AFAIK, there isn't even a theory on how FTL travel can occur, at least for something having mass. Tachyons are theorized, but nobody has confirmed their existance. And even at near light travel, it would take a very long time to reach any other civilization. I very much doubt humans would want to travel to aliens, since there is no real short-term benefit, just a single long term goal. And if they came to us... well, they most probably would have developed nothing like we did. Their entire basis of thought would be completely different. So I have no idea what they would be thinking if/when they show up here.