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Why haven't we found alien life yet?

POSTED BY: KPO
UPDATED: Sunday, December 19, 2010 00:48
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 8:12 AM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Hmm.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11982757

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 8:31 AM

BYTEMITE


I'm of the "we haven't looked enough yet" group.

The people who believe that technology is self-destructive and the window between broadcast technology and self-destruction is small are pessimistic anthropocentric doomsayers.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 8:34 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


For one, we can't even define "life". We have our preconceived notions of what constitutes "life" and what it takes to think something "alive", but those are being challenged right here on Earth, every day.

You have a universe that is some 32,000,000,000 light-years across, containing some 70 sextillion stars, and we're looking for "people" who happen to be, at this exact same moment in time (and space, and history) aiming their devices towards us - devices which we can recognize as communications devices, despite our only having had similar devices for the past century or less.

The odds of finding an alien civilization that we'd recognize and be able to communicate with even on the most rudimentary of levels is vanishingly tiny. It's akin to telling someone, "Somewhere in the Sahara Desert, once every millennia, a priceless diamond the size of a grain of sand will flash into existence, and just as quickly wink out. You won't find it, but if you do, the secrets to the universe will unfold before you." Chances are, you won't find that diamond. But you still have to look, don't you?

The question isn't "*IS* there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?" - it's "*WILL THERE BE*...?", or "*WAS* THERE...?" It's not just today; it's *ever*, and *always*.

And of course, the notion that we haven't found them, doesn't mean that they haven't found us, and just decided we really aren't worth talking to. It could be that, universally speaking, we're just not that interesting...

This Space For Rent!

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:26 AM

MALACHITE


From the article: "And many disagree about whether this is anything to look for at all. Indeed, the simplest answer to Fermi's Paradox is that there is no intelligent life to search for so none has been found.

The human race is either an accidental blip in the Universe or we are special and the conditions we evolved in were unique.

The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that because of the intricate design and infrastructure of our planet, the amount of coincidences and circumstances that must occur together make life almost impossible."

I'm of this opinion -- I never knew it had the official title, "The Rare Earth" hypothesis, though. That being said, it would be incredibly fascinating to be wrong about this...


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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 10:26 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Because...."space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space"

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 12:11 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!


I'm in the Drake, Sagan, SETI camp on this one.

Space is big. Bigger than ( most ) humans are use to comprehending. 50 years of listening for ET via radio signals may seem like a long time, but it isn't. Human haven't been around very long, in the timeline of stellar history. Hell, we've not been around very long in the timeline of Earth's history.


And that's how I do think we'll 'find' life, intelligent life, other than our own. Via radio signals, traveling across the cosmos.

Fossilized microbes ? Meh..... maybe, but I'm still not convinced. Gimmie more. LOTS more.


" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 1:50 PM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Yup. I'm with Rappy on this one.

And you can't even just look at it on the timeline of human history in a straight line. You have to look at human history, you have to look at "modern" human history, you have to look at the exceedingly short amount of time we've even considered "looking" (by listening) for signals, and you have to put that against not only the TIMELINE of the history of the universe, but also the four-dimensional axes of space and time. We're *hoping* that someone or something, somewhere, has our level of technology and just happens to be transmitting our way while we happen to be listening in their direction.

As I said, the chances are vanishingly small. And that's every reason in the world to keep looking.

What I think most likely, judging from Earth and the things we find here, is that when we find "life" (as we know it) elsewhere, it will be in a form that's startling to us, and that maybe we won't view as anything we can really communicate with, but that we'll find it EVERYWHERE where it can gain a foothold. What I've seen on Earth is that anywhere it's remotely possible for there to be life, it will flourish. And my bet is that it's like that elsewhere.

We know almost nothing of Mars, or what might lie beneath its surface, for instance. We *DO* have readings of methane plumes in areas of Mars, which are seasonal, and which are usually (we think) linked to decomposing natural matter, so what's that all about, eh? We have solid evidence of liquid water on Mars's surface, and there may well be more of it under the surface.

The real problem isn't that we haven't "found" life elsewhere - it's that we've barely (literally) scratched the surface in our search for it elsewhere. There are oceans of liquid water on Europa, and strange discolorations it the ice sheets that may or may not be evidence of microbial activity; we don't know. We think, we imagine, and we speculate, but our minds are larger than our ability to put feet on the ground and take samples and really, REALLY *LOOK*.



This Space For Rent!

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 2:00 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Our own solar system is a insignificant pin prick and the edge on a non descript galaxy that's just a small goosepimple in the fabric of the universe.

we've been here for a blick of a bat's eyelid, and will be erased before he opens his eyes again,

in the timeline of the universe we are nothing

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 2:15 PM

FREMDFIRMA



Of course it's big, that's why they call it... SPACE.

..
..
*rimshot*

Ok, yeah, well we do have some suspicions about Gliese581 - and I'd like to see more research or even a probe launch using the DS1 engine, but I also suspect that any first contact with any civilization even remotely like ours will be a disaster cause our leaders are insane.

For all the movies about alien invasion, consider what the rapacious nuts we have for world leaders might try if the other guys had some resource we wanted (See Also: Avatar) or if they just couldn't cope with the idea of others outside their control...

What if WE picked the fight, eh ?
Cause it's damn likely.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 4:38 PM

DREAMTROVE


Alien life is everywhere, and w destroy it at record rates. You're unlikely to find alien life at any advanced level in space because of simple odds, but you can find some damned interesting alien intelligences, smarter than us, and truly alien, right here on earth.

The situations that create life are not all that rare, but higher lifeforms are rare enough that they would be spread out across the universe, especially around our corner, at a far enough distance that if there were any species like humans, with spaceships, etc, and were we to start looking for each other today, both their species and our own would become extinct before we found each other.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 4:49 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that because of the intricate design and infrastructure of our planet, the amount of coincidences and circumstances that must occur together make life almost impossible."

I'm of this opinion -- I never knew it had the official title, "The Rare Earth" hypothesis, though. That being said, it would be incredibly fascinating to be wrong about this...


Just watched a BBC documentary on this subject, that finished with a good quote by Arthur C. Clarke:

"Sometimes I think we are alone in the universe, sometimes I think we're not. Either way the implications are staggering..."

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 4:50 PM

DREAMTROVE


Firsted by Frem not he space is big.

Plug this into your scenario. If space is big, and somewhere out there is another race, and we *do* run into one another, than at least one of us is going to have a vast empire at the time, and probably both.

It will be something like star trek, except that the quibbles will never be about material resources, because every element of any use will be in the googol gigatons compared to eqch sentient life form, and any battle for territory will be over a very few things which would be valuable to such societies:

1) other sentient lifeforms
2) habitable uncontaminated environments
3) biodiversity hotspots which contain useful information.

Foodstuffs would fall under 2) above. Anything so mundane as energy would be moronic, and such a society would never evolve to this state.

The two would probably kill each other in the ensuing conflict, but not wipe each other out, and in that way,, it would be like star trek.

But our society has discovered many sentient life forms and is busy slaughtering them, without recognizing them, like that bimbo on the dolphin/mirror video guessing that a cature undoubtedly smarter than herself might actually be sentient, and comparable to humans, something which has basically been known for a century or more.

It's been about 30 years since humans conceded that cephalopods were smarter than us. I wonder how long it will take us to change our actions based on the information we already have. If we figure this part of human behavior in, its logical to assume that when humans encounter a spacefaring alien race they will ignore it's presence for decades because we will not be able to accept the information no matter how obvious they make it for us.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 4:54 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Yup. I'm with Rappy on this one.



Would you guys quit it. It's already 20 degrees here with a zero wind chill factor. Hell can't freeze much harder.


But, yeah. Given the size of the universe and the amazingly short time we've been looking (or even capable of looking), it's not surprising that we haven't found alien life. The distances alone make it improbable to find even radio signals limited to the speed of light.

It is, however, interesting that astronomers are now finding so-called "Cinderella" planets that are relatively like our own in mass and distance from the primary in other solar systems. Seems reasonable that if we can find such planets within the limited scope of our technology, that there must be a lot of them out there. Seems sort of arrogant to think we're the only game in town.

The thing that hacks me off is that I won't live long enough to see FTL drives and the exploration of the galaxy. Per the SF of the 1950s, we should be at least living on other planets within the Solar System by now. WTF happened?

"Keep the Shiny side up"

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 5:10 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

The real problem isn't that we haven't "found" life elsewhere - it's that we've barely (literally) scratched the surface in our search for it elsewhere. There are oceans of liquid water on Europa, and strange discolorations it the ice sheets that may or may not be evidence of microbial activity; we don't know. We think, we imagine, and we speculate, but our minds are larger than our ability to put feet on the ground and take samples and really, REALLY *LOOK*.

An interesting segment of this documentary I just watched was following some researchers looking at examples of life forms in very extreme places here on Earth, and one they've isolated that they think might be different to all other earth life as we know it in its fundamental building blocks - as in not related at all. It's from a very arsenic rich lake, in America I think. The scientist was quite excited about it, and said they were 'close to an announcement'.

So yeah, we just need to find that second example of life coming spontaneously into being, even on our own planet - and it proves that life must occur anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe (or on the thousands of Earth-like planets at least).

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 5:12 PM

KPO

Sometimes you own the libs. Sometimes, the libs own you.


Quote:

The thing that hacks me off is that I won't live long enough to see FTL drives and the exploration of the galaxy. Per the SF of the 1950s, we should be at least living on other planets within the Solar System by now. WTF happened?

I agree, heads should roll.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 5:54 PM

CANTTAKESKY


Earth is probably a penal planet for some enlightened races who know that the best way to keep us in our place, is to let us think there is nothing out there to see.

Alien #1: Haha, those earthlings are so stupid they think they're alone.

Alien #2: Shhh. We want them to think they are alone. That way they won't come and bother US. (Rolls eyes.)

Can't Take (my gorram) Sky
------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 8:59 PM

THEHAPPYTRADER


I dunno, human civilization has gradually become more enlightened and less violent over the centuries hasn't it? You don't see slavery or public executions in most places anymore, so isn't it possible that by the time we encounter (or perhaps are allowed to encounter) intelligent life, we would be a mite more peaceable and civil about it than y'all assume we are?

Also, I wonder what would happen if we had 'competition.' Maybe if we didn't have the monopoly on intelligence, we wouldn't be so complacent eh? 'Might step up our game as a species.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010 11:00 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Of course it's big, that's why they call it... SPACE.

..
..
*rimshot*

Ok, yeah, well we do have some suspicions about Gliese581 - and I'd like to see more research or even a probe launch using the DS1 engine, but I also suspect that any first contact with any civilization even remotely like ours will be a disaster cause our leaders are insane.



Did you know scientists are currently probing Uranus. (I guess this joke depends entirely upon pronunciation - well I find it hilarious)

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 12:13 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Heh - in the game Mass Effect II you can probe planets for minerals, and the AI "voice" calls it off when you do it...

Just for a lark, I went back to the home system and tried to launch a probe at the planet Uranus, and there's this looong pause, and the AI goes "Really, commander ?..."

I blew coffee out my nose.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:10 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by Geezer:
Quote:

Originally posted by Kwicko:
Yup. I'm with Rappy on this one.



Would you guys quit it. It's already 20 degrees here with a zero wind chill factor. Hell can't freeze much harder.


But, yeah. Given the size of the universe and the amazingly short time we've been looking (or even capable of looking), it's not surprising that we haven't found alien life. The distances alone make it improbable to find even radio signals limited to the speed of light.

It is, however, interesting that astronomers are now finding so-called "Cinderella" planets that are relatively like our own in mass and distance from the primary in other solar systems. Seems reasonable that if we can find such planets within the limited scope of our technology, that there must be a lot of them out there. Seems sort of arrogant to think we're the only game in town.

The thing that hacks me off is that I won't live long enough to see FTL drives and the exploration of the galaxy. Per the SF of the 1950s, we should be at least living on other planets within the Solar System by now. WTF happened?

"Keep the Shiny side up"




Well, here's a shocker - I agree 100% with Geezer on this matter, too.

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:15 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


Quote:

Originally posted by kpo:
Quote:

The real problem isn't that we haven't "found" life elsewhere - it's that we've barely (literally) scratched the surface in our search for it elsewhere. There are oceans of liquid water on Europa, and strange discolorations it the ice sheets that may or may not be evidence of microbial activity; we don't know. We think, we imagine, and we speculate, but our minds are larger than our ability to put feet on the ground and take samples and really, REALLY *LOOK*.

An interesting segment of this documentary I just watched was following some researchers looking at examples of life forms in very extreme places here on Earth, and one they've isolated that they think might be different to all other earth life as we know it in its fundamental building blocks - as in not related at all. It's from a very arsenic rich lake, in America I think. The scientist was quite excited about it, and said they were 'close to an announcement'.

So yeah, we just need to find that second example of life coming spontaneously into being, even on our own planet - and it proves that life must occur anywhere and everywhere throughout the universe (or on the thousands of Earth-like planets at least).

It's not personal. It's just war.



Yeah, there's a series like that on the Science Channel, "Wonders of the Solar System", with a British physicist, where he covers some of that kind of stuff. Goes into a deep cave in Central America where the air is poisonous to humans (some kind of a sulfide gas venting from the cave), yet far down in the cave, where no light ever penetrates, live these things that breathe in toxic gas, metabolize it, and excrete sulfuric acid. That seems not only alien to me, but like something right out of the MOVIE "Alien"!

Like I said, everywhere we look...

This Space For Rent!

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Saturday, December 18, 2010 4:37 AM

KANEMAN


I'm in the "we should not even look, because they may want to eat us" camp. I'm pretty sure there is a stellar food chain and we ain't on top....just saying. We don't get along with other humans here on earth and i'm sure we won't get along with the space virus that will make ebola look like a common cold.


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Sunday, December 19, 2010 12:48 AM

DREAMTROVE


Sorry, didn't notice that Rap had said it first. Yes, the bigness of space ordains both he certainty of extraterrestrial life and the difficulty of finding it.

Of course alien intelligences exist here, if only we would stop killing them. Note how many species there are on the earth, and what % of those are highly sentient, and then expect to find the same in space. Not all planets will be as abundant in life as the earth, for most of earths history, earth hasn't been. Nothing we've found yet is.

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