Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: latebind on 26/04/2010 13:07:25
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I tend to agree with Hawking, I think intelligent life out there would not be peaceful, just look at us!
He is right when he says we should just stay quite and hope nobody notices, cos if u think about it logically the more basic an organism is, then the more peaceful it is,and the more intelligent organisms get the more dangerous they become.
I hope if there is intelligent life out there, that they dont know we here.
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Quite apart from the biological hazards, it does not matter how "civilised" other beings might be. It would be extremely expensive to mount an expedition to go trolling around the galaxy, so I would suspect their motives would be not be entirely scientific.
I think that is a motivation behind human exploration too.
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What a pair of miserable pessimists you are. Given the age of our solar system compared with others in the galaxy there are likely to be vast differences in the age of any species in the galaxy. If it turns out that space travel to other stars is possible then there are likely to be species out there who have already been there, done it and acquired the tee-shirt. And they could be millions of years ahead of us! It is indeed quite likely we are already on their books (if we are in any way of interest), whether we signal our existence or not. If they choose to visit us, and they may have already, you can be sure that we would not know about it. Our technology would not be up to it. This is really why CETI is a waste of time. The only intelligent aliens who would be likely to be found are those who are within a few years of our state of development and so can't get here anyway. I doubt we would recognise the stray emissions from anyone in advance of us.
I will not lose sleep worrying about this :-)
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Not pessimists. Realists.
The Earth is a very desirable piece of real estate. Any aliens that do show up around here are bound to be technologically far in advance of us, and they are likely to look at us as a primitive life form that's overcrowding the place and generally buggering it up, much the same way as we look at a plague of rats.
We need to keep schtum. Turn off all the RF transmitters now. Don't say we didn't warn you!
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What Hawking has said is certainly plausible, as are the various opposite views, but all views are pure speculation because there is no evidence to support any view over the others. All that can be done is to project different human traits onto hypothetical aliens, and here Hawking has chosen one particular trait over many others.
Trying to hide the presence of the human race on Earth is futile (security through obscurity never works) and may even be counter productive. Even if we could conceal the presence of human life on Earth we cannot conceal the entire planet, so if the planet is attractive to aliens then I would think that the fact that there is already non-primitive life on it is more likely to act as a deterrent than a spur, unless you assume, of course, that what they really want is a fight and not resources.
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I tend to think the only reason they would be here is because they were looking for a place to colonize. They might not be looking for a fight, but they would view us a big nuisance.
Why else would they expend vast resources (and time) to come here?
(I realize nobody is going to win this argument [;D])
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...but they would view us a big nuisance.
Indeed. If they can get here from a distant star (none of the near stars show any evidence of life) then they could go somewhere else where they didn't have to deal with that nuisance.
Of course, there's the possibility that eliminating the human race could be trivial for them and hardly a nuisance at all, but in that case there would be nothing we could do about it.
What it seems to come down to is that if aliens are interested in the planet (which we cannot conceal), either for resources or for colonisation, then knowing about human life on Earth is either going to act as a deterrent or won't be a significant factor.
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...but they would view us a big nuisance.
Indeed. If they can get here from a distant star (none of the near stars show any evidence of life) then they could go somewhere else where they didn't have to deal with that nuisance.
Of course, there's the possibility that eliminating the human race could be trivial for them and hardly a nuisance at all, but in that case there would be nothing we could do about it.
What it seems to come down to is that if aliens are interested in the planet (which we cannot conceal), either for resources or for colonisation, then knowing about human life on Earth is either going to act as a deterrent or won't be a significant factor.
So, basically you're saying that if they ever decide to show up, we're pretty much screwed! I think I'd agree with that.
If we are lucky, they might keep us around for entertainment value. I wonder if they'd have a sense of humour? I would think any advanced civilization would have to.
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Here's one of the (many) articles summarizing his point: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8642558.stm
No one's going to win this argument, but Hawking makes a good point when he says that when Columbus met the native Americans, things didn't turn out so well for them. Indeed when technologically advanced human civilizations met less technologically advanced civilizations, things generally went disastrously for the latter groups. Does this reasoning hold for non-earth intelligent life? It's impossible to tell since our sample size is 1 and we have an observational bias.
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You know the concept that generals are always planning on fighting the last war and not the next one? There is an anology here. Wars in the past were fought over real estate for colonisation because of expanding populations. I don't see this being an issue for the technologically advanced countries in the world now. Things have changed. Arguably recent wars have been about natural resources, but I don't see that the earth is likely to have raw materials not available elsewhere with less damaging consequences. A civilisation with the capability to get here would probably not have a problem in acquiring minerals and other items can probably be synthesised. They may be interested in the less tangible, art and culture, but it would definitely be counter productive to destroy the population to get it :-) I don't think extrapolation of earth's history is a good model unless you take into account a lot more facts.
That is not to say contact with an alien culture could not be destructive. It could. But I think the destruction would be more likely from our inability to manage the responsibility of any sudden increase in our technological ability rather than by the deliberate acts of an alien race.
I will say again, if interstellar space travel is practically possible and if life exists elsewhere in the galaxy (it seems very likely) then any aliens who could get here are likely to be hugely technologically advanced compared with us. Not just us compared with (say) 100 years ago but thousands to millions of years. They would be very likely to know of every planet in the galaxy and if they wanted the earth could have taken it before man existed.
SciFi movies and computer games have a lot to answer for :-)
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I don't think that the Columbus-North American Indian scenario is as simple as Hawking might have us believe. The North American Indian population wasn't really decimated until the 19th century, when competition for land became an issue, long after the initial 'discovery' by Columbus and the first settlements were formed. There were many instances where the early settlers got on pretty well with the indigneous indians (as well as quite a few where they didn't, of course).
Perhaps Hawking should have used the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs instead.
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One thing that I personally feel is in favour for us, is the fact that our planet is fairly small, and probably not worth the energy it would take to get here and mine it.
ALSO I'm pretty sure most elements that are on earth can be found on other planets in our solar system and other solar systems, but I still agree with Hawking that the risk is just too much to take(at least until we have the proper weaponry)
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Good grief. Now we are planning a war!!!
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I would imagine if there were an alien species capable of crossing the interstellar void that it evolved in a more or less similar way to us. That evolution took billions of years to create the capability. We are still a long way off from traversing the gulf between the suns and I would hazard the guess that long before we do that we will learn how to process the ordinary and common minerals and metals found in a solar system into whatever we want them to be. Therefore I would posit it unlikely any alien species would be interested in coming here to harvest our resources. Further I would guess that any species that has evolved to the point of interstellar capability has learned to love and respect the richness and diversity of life for its own sake, not as something merely to exploit. So I disagree with Hawking.
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Good quibitheed. I was beginning to despair.
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Aliens will not be friendly, its a fact of life. Its only because we are human that we try to see the good side of them and happily imagine them with outstretched arms like ET, but I seriously doubt they will be as caring as us, we are a very very very special race.
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That is not a very scientific comment latebind. I can see no supportable evidence for your assertion. All species tend to try to act in a way that is of benefit to themselves. Humans are no different in this respect: either personal, family or tribe (country, state, race, religion, football team etc). The fact that this is sometimes restrained is, maybe, a measure of our greater understanding of the world, but is rare and rather recent in human history. I would contend that aliens would, currently, have no advantage in contacting and dealing with humans. We would have nothing they would want. I perceive the danger is in humans being able to manage any rapid advance in technology that might arise. We don't manage very well what we have as it is - nuclear technology, genetic engineering, climate change etc.
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That is not a very scientific comment latebind. I can see no supportable evidence for your assertion. All species tend to try to act in a way that is of benefit to themselves. Humans are no different in this respect: either personal, family or tribe (country, state, race, religion, football team etc). The fact that this is sometimes restrained is, maybe, a measure of our greater understanding of the world, but is rare and rather recent in human history. I would contend that aliens would, currently, have no advantage in contacting and dealing with humans. We would have nothing they would want. I perceive the danger is in humans being able to manage any rapid advance in technology that might arise. We don't manage very well what we have as it is - nuclear technology, genetic engineering, climate change etc.
Hehe I agree with you, I dont know what came over me :)
Anyway, let the science continue --
So, I'd like to know what the odds are of 'complex' life elsewhere in the universe? Hawking states that just because of the maths alone, aliens are a rational debate to have.
Is there anyone who knows how to calculate this stat? That would be really fun to see...
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There's the famous Drake equation but regrettably it has too many unknowns to be very useful. However, it would seem to me surprising if intelligent life is in any way unique given the number of potential places it could occur and the time that has elapsed to allow it to develop. Life on earth has only occupied a small fraction of the time that has been available and there are stars very much older than the sun. Finding life, of any sort, anywhere, would certainly give huge credance to this view, but, of course, at the moment this is really speculation without facts to back it up.
Historically, humans have only changed their view that they are somehow special when forced by the evidence to do so. I tend to take the view that it is unlikely that humans are in any way special and we probably lie in no distinct place in a statistical distribution of life in the galaxy.
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There is a nice short discussion on seti, alien life and the Drake equation on the 28th jan 2010 edition of BBCs material world - including an interview with Frank Drake himself. the podcast is available on the material world section of bbc website (apologies for plugging a different podcast)
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....interesting topic.
i think
a) the universe is massive, perhaps infinately so
b) the universe is old, perhaps even older than current guesses
the opportunity is certainly there for life to exist.
as to the earth being desireable for conquest, i think that depends on the life-form; we know that to survive here one has to be carbon based requiring a nitrogen rich atmosphere. however, life does exist on this planet that survives in extreme eco-systems - take the tube like worms that survive under water through chemosynthesis. therefore, life only has to be adaptable, which evidence dictates it is, and have the time to develop, which there has been. that would not make any advanced civilisation necessarily aggressive.
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I think that the clearest evidence that there is INTELLIGENT life elsewhere in the universe rests in the fact that they have NOT come HERE... [:D] [:D] [:D]
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I think that the clearest evidence that there is INTELLIGENT life elsewhere in the universe rests in the fact that they have NOT come HERE... [:D] [:D] [:D]
HAHA LOL :) I like that one!
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Call me cynical if you like, just don't call me Shirley. If aliens ever happen to show up in these parts, we're doomed.
(Yeah, thrice doomed I tell ye! Wo! Wo is we! Doomed I tell ye!)
Assuming they are not simply looking for an alternative source of protein, or some comfy new digs, and they are here on a purely scientific mission, their arrival will precipitate all kinds of destabilizing influences.
The mere mass of politicians rushing to meet them is likely to tip the Earth off its axis.
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Call me cynical if you like, just don't call me Shirley. If aliens ever happen to show up in these parts, we're doomed.
(Yeah, thrice doomed I tell ye! Wo! Wo is we! Doomed I tell ye!)
Assuming they are not simply looking for an alternative source of protein, or some comfy new digs, and they are here on a purely scientific mission, their arrival will precipitate all kinds of destabilizing influences.
The mere mass of politicians rushing to meet them is likely to tip the Earth off its axis.
Hehe lol, I wonder if they would be interested in taking the politicians with them?
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I think the point is that any reasonably advanced civilisation would have nothing to gain from announcing themselves to us and they probably also realise that their presence, and the potential of their technology, could be severely destabilising to the cultures as they are on earth. That is why we are not going to find them via SETI. They won't be found unless they want to be found and, they won't want to be found.
As I see it, whilst it is possible that there is an alien guiding hand present on earth (though we have not a hope of seeing it), it is more likely that any aliens would just let us get on with it - they may have their own rules on this. The only way we would make contact is by developing interstellar travel and physically finding them so they can't deny their presence. That isn't going to happen any time soon.
All this presupposes that interstellar travel is even practically viable.
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Well I can say that if they are out there, and it is pretty hard to imagine that they are not somewhere, I just hope that if they find us, they are nothing like us, otherwise we are completely screwed and I am with Geezer on that one. If they are peacefull and friendly then, if politicians have anything to do with it, they are screwed. Either way, somthing or someone is gettin it.....unless we dispose of the politicians. I recomend offering them up for experimentation to the alien scientists in exchange for technology that can really help us.
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If it is supposed that there are many alien civilisations that would have developed in the galaxy and that many of these have interstellar travel, then it seems to me that the view that would logically follow from your ideas (Doppler1 and Geezer) is that they would already have had numerous interstellar wars and there may only be one race of beings left. Given that there could be a vast timespan in the development then it would be logical for the likely genocide to be carried out by the oldest and most advanced prior to many of the others having much ability to fight back. Indeed it would also be logical to assume that such aliens would have done for us long ago had they such a desire. Given that we are still here, I think it likely that the premise that leads to such a conclusion is, therefore, wrong.
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Somebody mentioned the Drake Equation and correctly noted that it is nearly useless due to the fact of a broad assumption that must be made for each variable.
There is also the Fermi Paradox that is sort of a response to the Drake Equation, high estimates.
Essentially, if there are so many advanced civilizations out there, why haven't we seen any of them?
I would posit yet another view, in contrast to Hawkin's pessimism. We know that, from our own planetary experience, that it takes the collective resources of many millions of our species, just to get a single individual to step foot on our own moon. And it takes even more collective work to maintain a permanent inhabited space station, and even more to get a few individuals to our nearest planet. So I suspect that in takes a fully unified, very technically advanced planet to come up with inter-stellar travel, be it probes or inhabited ships.
It is hard to imagine all this [inter-stellar travel] effort to just go get some fresh protein, or minerals, or for colonization. I mean, if star travel is that doable, and you come across an intelligent life-laden planet like ours, why not just jump to another star system? There are the implicit moral questions as well. For example, would aliens honor other intelligent life? Again, as we know from our own experience, civilizations that do not have a strong moral/intellectual foundation always collapse through misuse/overuse of resources, war for resources/expansion and ultimately, fragmentation to collapse. Please, show me one that hasn't followed this simple formula. So I contend that any alien civilization that has developed star travel, has gotten past their brutal periods of development, has unified their planet, and has a firm moral/intellectual base to their civilization that promotes planet-wide cooperation that, in turn, enables the development of star travel. Star Trek and Star Wars scenarios aside, I think a critical approach to this question shows that the aliens just can't get here if they are some sort of amoral brutes, just hankering for human meat or territory.
Kevin
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I think it is very dangerous for us to superimpose human perspectives on lifeforms that we cannot possibly comprehend. If they are so far ahead of us technologically (which they obviously are because they showed up here), how could we even begin to understand their motivation?
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UPDATE!
The Stephen Hawking documentary about his views on alien life will begin on the Discovery Channel, it is called "Stephen Hawking's Universe" and starts on 9 MAY at 9 PM.
I personally cannot wait to see it, and I hope it will spark some new idea's in this debate on TNS.....
You can PM me or reply to this if you have any question's about the documentary, IE : repeat times and other schedules for it, I'm keeping a close eye on it :):)
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I have to agree with Hawking, Geezer, doppler1 et al. It's not that I don't think that advanced extra terrestrial life would always seek to harm humans. But I think that a technically advanced race which didn't have any designs on Earth would probably just leave us alone. I do think land and overpopulation is still a problem on Earth, and I feel it will continue to be so. Plus we have the problem that if we are going to survive, we will have to move.
What if life isn't rare in the Universe? What if anywhere life can happen, it does? If that is true, then with the age of the Universe there could be quite a few advanced civilizations who were already forced to move. And it may be that every place they come across which would be a suitable new home already has life? It could very well be that some life forms will not settle on a planet which has what we call intelligent life, so maybe they just ignore us. But if they don't consider us intelligent? What if they fear another advanced life form scouring the Universe for places to colonize?
I think the basics of life in general lie in competition, after all, isn't that what drives evolution? Presumably any life anywhere in the Universe would be a product of evolution, so it doesn't seem too far off to me when we presume competition might be an issue if we ever come in contact with alien life forms.
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Well I'll say this again because nobody has challenged this argument but prefer the concept that aliens would be land grabbing, warlike and without concern for other life forms (perhaps based on recent history):-
The sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Most of the stars in the galaxy vary from 1 billion to 10 billion years old. Life on earth is thought to have started possibly as early as 3.5 billion years ago with early humans only about 200,000 years ago. It does not need a lot of maths to realise that if life is anything like common in the galaxy, then the likely range of development must be something like between 5.5 billion years in advance of earth's to 2.5 billion years behind. Given the tiny span of human existence, and assuming aliens developed along some similar path (on average) then there would be plenty of planets with much more primitive life that aliens could occupy should they wish to do so. In fact, had this been an aim, they would have long occupied earth and we would not have evolved.
Assuming that humans are not in any way special then we are faced with a huge range in the development of alien cultures (+/- billions of years). If interstellar travel is in any way practical it is unimaginable (at least to me) that such aliens would not know about earth already. If they wanted earth they would have taken it millions of years ago. And if, for any reason, they visit or monitor the earth we would not know about it; the technology difference would be too great. From a human perspective the worst situation is that they simply may not care - a position which may not matter except to human self esteem.
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If they do show up, which is highly unlikely I admit, Graham gets my vote to lead the welcoming committee. [;D]
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If they do show up, which is highly unlikely I admit, Graham gets my vote to lead the welcoming committee. [;D]
The real scary, and serious thing is, that they might already be on their way, due to arrive in a few hundred years or so. We better be careful, because at the moment we can't even stop asteroids! :)
Our radio signals have been beeming out from earth for about the last 100 years or so, meaning that only aliens within a 100 light year radius would know about us by now, and it would take up to another 100 years to get here. Any aliens that are further than 100 light years away have absolutley no idea we exist, but they will when our radio signals reach them.
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Doesn't anyone want to address my argument as to why there should be no problem with nasty aliens? I feel ignored :-(
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Doesn't anyone want to address my argument as to why there should be no problem with nasty aliens? I feel ignored :-(
It's a perfectly good argument and you could well be right, but this is not an argument that anyone can really win. I just think there might be some variables involved that we cannot anticipate.
For example, what if they were riff-raff that had been cast adrift in a "lifeboat"?
or,
What if they were on a hunting trip, as in Predator?
or,
What if their logic was utterly incomprehensible to us?
or,
What if they were missionaries who were here to show us the "true way"?
or,
What if they were machines that happened to radiate neutrons from their internal fusion reactors?
etc
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That is an attempt to argue a point, Geezer, so thankyou. I agree that there is no clear way to resolve such a question, however you still don't address the issue of the vast timespan over which life could have developed. This would mean a vast range of technological abilities. As the human race occupies only a tiny fraction of this timespan and our technological advancement an even smaller fraction, any advanced civilisation capable of interstellar space travel would likely to be aware of us on earth for thousands (even many millions) of years. Any nasty things that they could do to us would have been done already - why wait. I don't buy the weird rogue aliens being out for a bit of fun either, as the same argument would mean that they would be not be permitted to act in such a way, though I always like the Douglas Adams idea of UFO sightings being down to rich kids flying down to the odd human in a deserted place, going beep beep at him, then flying off knowing nobody would believe him.
If interstellar travel is practically possible (and it may not be) then, given the timespan argument it would seem likely that a variety of intelligent alien cultures would know of earth and regard it (as Douglas Adams again said) as "mostly harmless". These aliens are either here already, maybe helping us to survive, observing from afar or just ignoring us as they have better things to do. We wouldn't know as our technology would not be adequate by a long way.
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Try this then [:D]
You don't need to be all that advanced to achieve interstellar travel. You just need the motivation to build a large craft that you can use as a lifeboat to escape from a dying planet.
The crew may have been in suspended animation for a long time, or perhaps they are a much later generation of the original crew.
We are not very far from being able to do something along those lines. I think we would if it was our only way to avoid extinction.
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They could find a much easier target than earth which may be tricky if they are not very advanced. It would not be a likely scenario. You are right that any threat would be from civilisations close in development to us but given the spread of time it would be rather bad luck. In any case, I don't think that cracking interstellar travel will happen anytime soon.
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If we had to do something similar (which I think we will be able to in less than 100 years), we would probably aim for a close star that appears to have some rocky planets similar to Earth (I suspect we'll have the ability to detect rocky planets in less than twenty years). They might send out large numbers of "lifeboats" in lots of different directions in the hope that at least one of them will find a new home.
Mind you, I think it's highly unlikely anyone ever will show up. If life evolves on other planets anything like the way it has on Earth, I don't think there are too many planets in our general vicinity with lifeforms that have the capability.
I don't think it's even safe to assume that life eventually evolves to the point that we consider "intelligent". It's a bit of a fluke that humans evolved as they did. We were almost wiped out at least once.
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As the human race occupies only a tiny fraction of this timespan and our technological advancement an even smaller fraction, any advanced civilisation capable of interstellar space travel would likely to be aware of us on earth for thousands (even many millions) of years. Any nasty things that they could do to us would have been done already - why wait.
I agree that some advanced civilization would be aware....but any?
I agree that any advanced civilization which had been aware of us and had interstellar travel would have probably done it, but I don't see why all other alien life has to have known about us or been capable of interstellar travel for thousands or millions of years. There is likely to be many alien civilizations in my opinion, at every stage of development. I think if they have interstellar travel they can probably wipe us out pretty easy, we aren't that tough. Plus, interstellar travel can be really fast, and still possibly take quite a bit of time.
Also, we don't really know how rare an Earth environment is... it could be exceedingly rare and necessary for life. Considering a lease on a planet can last for a few million years at least, it may be well worth a long drive for some prime beachfront property on the cheap [:D]
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Considering a lease on a planet can last for a few million years at least, it may be well worth a long drive for some prime beachfront property on the cheap [:D]
"Ewooooo! Come and look at this pretty blue one Quarfisnot. Wouldn't this be a darling nursery for the Quarfisnot babies?"
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Aliens with interstellar travel that have been around for thousands or millions of years will considerably outnumber those whose development is similar to ours. It would be an odd distribution if this were not the case. Given (say) 200 billion stars in the galaxy of which (say) 8 billion could sustain a habitable planet and a spread of development of 8 billion years, then, with a flat distribution there would indeed be many close to our own state of development. The rate of gestation being 1 per year. However it would be immensely unlucky, with this number of civilisations, if none of the other 4.5 billion that are in advance of us had not decided to take over the planet at some time earlier. It is also possible that the more advanced of these cultures would have laws which they may enforce to prevent such behaviour, but that is conjecture.
If life in the galaxy is very rare and habitable planets also rare then the case is slightly different. The chance that another civilisation is at a stage of having interstellar travel (but not into terraforming and has no moral compunctions), searching for a new planet but is only capable of finding earth because we are sending out a few weak radio broadcasts, is also rather small.
Geezer, I bet you a pint that we won't have any practical interstellar travel capability in 100 years. Actually I'll take the pint now and give you 2 back (if you win) in 100 years. Honest.
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It is also possible that the more advanced of these cultures would have laws which they may enforce to prevent such behaviour, but that is conjecture.
From what I have heard, the Hindu Vedas is a story about "good" aliens fighting "bad" aliens, and the "good" wins. Perhaps some rebels violated the "prime directive" by setting up shop here on Earth, and then the Law had to come in and clean up Dodge [;D]
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Graham,
I didn't say we would have interstellar capability in 100 years, but I think we could if we really had the motivation. However, you're on. Put one on my slate.
Here's another scenario. We know lots of life forms cast their progeny to the winds and oceans in vast numbers, and never do any parenting at all. An alien species could do the same thing by launching their offspring into space.
We have much of the technology to do that too. We could launch a ship into space with frozen embryos and a robotic system to bring them to life and educate them before dropping them off on a likely planet. Sort of interstellar school bus.
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Hmm, does not seem a very guaranteed method of procreation of the species. Anyway, such a random system would again be much better for the offspring if there were less opposition. Also if this was anything like common it would have happened already. Some people have the idea that we are actually the outcome of such seeding; after all, beings who are billions of years ahead of us might have much longer term plans than we could conceive of. Not that I subscribe to this view.
Expect a bill for 1 pint of decent real ale in 100 years then. I will let you know the exact price and specific ale next week; it depends on the guest ale in my customary drinking establishment. I should warn you it will cost in the vicinity of £3.00.
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Expect a bill for 1 pint of decent real ale in 100 years then. I will let you know the exact price and specific ale next week; it depends on the guest ale in my customary drinking establishment. I should warn you it will cost in the vicinity of £3.00.
Apparently you didn't understand. I said you can put it on my slate at my pub. First, you have to find my pub - just ask if anyone's seen A. Geezer.
I wonder what two pints is going to cost you in 2110?
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Also if this was anything like common it would have happened already.
You are making a good argument, but I lose you right here.
"Common" is a completely subjective term. We cannot reliably say whether aliens have or haven't visited already; but if they have, then by definition of the question we are looking at, we are not talking about any aliens that already have visited. The question looks at the problem of us meeting a previously unknown alien species and the odds of whether they will be "peaceful" so to speak. It could be that viable planets are conquered repeatedly, but because we are in a rural area we haven't really seen the effects of interstellar war. But if the Galaxy is filling up? What if a nearby area was colonized within the last few thousand years, and Earth is on a list to be scouted?
I'm not saying I think any of this is happening, but my point is: You can't say "If something was possible, it already happened and I would know of it."
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You can't get a decent pint in the US, Geezer. I don't accept your terms :-)
norcalclimber, I am just going on some sort of statistical likelihood of the events postulated as a means of deciding whether we should try to hide from the rest of the universe or not. I would not deny that any outcome is possible, but then if we, personally, took such a view we would all be reclusive and never venture outside our houses.
We may think a few hundred billion stars as being a lot but, if interstellar travel is practical, then over the possible 4.5 billion years that alien civilisations may be in advance of us it would be relatively easy for a whole variety of them to have a good galactic geo-political map and that they will have been here (and maybe here now or at least observing us). We would not know and there is no point looking. The analysis of vast amounts of data from the earth would be trivial and automated for such advanced technologies.
I would contend that colonisation is a recent and temporary drive in an expanding population. I think that it is likely that advanced alien cultures may have cracked birth control when they had to face it within the confines of their own planet, much as we are doing now, if not yet wholly successfully.
If we wish to advance ourselves and explore the galaxy we are going to have to face up to meeting alien cultures anyway. Even if the assumption is made that there are hostile and expansionist aliens (and they are all too preoccupied to have noticed the earth over the last few million years), given the timespan of the cultures that may be out there, trying to hide is only going to delay the interaction by a few hundred years.
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You can't get a decent pint in the US, Geezer. I don't accept your terms :-)
norcalclimber, I am just going on some sort of statistical likelihood of the events postulated as a means of deciding whether we should try to hide from the rest of the universe or not. I would not deny that any outcome is possible, but then if we, personally, took such a view we would all be reclusive and never venture outside our houses.
We may think a few hundred billion stars as being a lot but, if interstellar travel is practical, then over the possible 4.5 billion years that alien civilisations may be in advance of us it would be relatively easy for a whole variety of them to have a good galactic geo-political map and that they will have been here (and maybe here now or at least observing us). We would not know and there is no point looking. The analysis of vast amounts of data from the earth would be trivial and automated for such advanced technologies.
I would contend that colonisation is a recent and temporary drive in an expanding population. I think that it is likely that advanced alien cultures may have cracked birth control when they had to face it within the confines of their own planet, much as we are doing now, if not yet wholly successfully.
If we wish to advance ourselves and explore the galaxy we are going to have to face up to meeting alien cultures anyway. Even if the assumption is made that there are hostile and expansionist aliens (and they are all too preoccupied to have noticed the earth over the last few million years), given the timespan of the cultures that may be out there, trying to hide is only going to delay the interaction by a few hundred years.
You have a very good point, I tend to disagree on the colonization part, but that is just my opinion.
So we don't try to hide.... but does prudence lead us to look into extraterrestrial weapon systems so we aren't caught with our pants completely down? How well do conventional weapons actually work in space?
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So we don't try to hide.... but does prudence lead us to look into extraterrestrial weapon systems so we aren't caught with our pants completely down? How well do conventional weapons actually work in space?
I don't see there being a lot of point. The same reasoning would suggest that if alien cultures have weapons, they would be far in advance of any we could make. And, if they don't, we are hardly going to engender goodwill. However, I expect that what good be classed as defensive armour or beam "weapon" would be essential if only against the odd meteorite moving at a rapid rate. If we ever find any practical means of travelling between the stars, we have to have the means to protect against impacts and radiation.
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what resources do you think we have that aliens want? do you think they need coal for their starships steam engine?
i dont think we have anything to fear but our selves, we who still kill our own brothers, have to come together before discussing such a topic.
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what resources do you think we have that aliens want? do you think they need coal for their starships steam engine?
i dont think we have anything to fear but our selves, we who still kill our own brothers, have to come together before discussing such a topic.
Coal might be as good a reason as any other. We have no idea how common coal is in our Galaxy, let alone the Universe.
You kind of lost me on the second bit. Have you decided this topic should be removed or something?
BTW - Interesting handle. What does it mean?
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what resources do you think we have that aliens want? do you think they need coal for their starships steam engine?
i dont think we have anything to fear but our selves, we who still kill our own brothers, have to come together before discussing such a topic.
If they showed up here, they would probably want our water. There is tons of water in the universe, but very little of it is liquid. Because Earth is in the 'temperate zone' most of our water is liquid, and perhaps the alien's have used up all their water or their planet is no longer in the temperate zone and they need a new source of h20 to continue their species. Just one thing they might want...
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That idea was used on a daft SciFi series. We are talking of a civilisation who is capable of interstellar travel. I think they could melt a few comets!
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Perhaps the aliens have already been here and left, a million years ago.
They seeded the planet with their own kind.
And we are them....
Kevin
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what resources do you think we have that aliens want? do you think they need coal for their starships steam engine?
i dont think we have anything to fear but our selves, we who still kill our own brothers, have to come together before discussing such a topic.
Coal might be as good a reason as any other. We have no idea how common coal is in our Galaxy, let alone the Universe.
You kind of lost me on the second bit. Have you decided this topic should be removed or something?
BTW - Interesting handle. What does it mean?
I do tend to generalize, the point i am trying to make is, if there is a life form traveling from star system to star system, they are probably advanced enough to acquire what ever resources they need by other means than war. In the unimaginable vastness of the universe it is ignorant to think the elements found here on earth are only here. For example in the star trek movies when you want water you say, computer i want water.
I dont think star ships will run on coal, if steam power was sufficient for light speed we would have been using it already.
The end part suggests that we need to open our minds more before taking on such a subject.
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what resources do you think we have that aliens want? do you think they need coal for their starships steam engine?
i dont think we have anything to fear but our selves, we who still kill our own brothers, have to come together before discussing such a topic.
Coal might be as good a reason as any other. We have no idea how common coal is in our Galaxy, let alone the Universe.
You kind of lost me on the second bit. Have you decided this topic should be removed or something?
BTW - Interesting handle. What does it mean?
the handle is my web site, please take a look. And coal is here from the era of the dinosaurs, millions of years of compressing organic material = coal, oil , and the rest of fossil fuels. U.R.U.TM
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Perhaps the aliens have already been here and left, a million years ago.
They seeded the planet with their own kind.
And we are them....
Kevin
or they could be traveling through time
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That idea was used on a daft SciFi series. We are talking of a civilisation who is capable of interstellar travel. I think they could melt a few comets!
ICE PIRATES
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Although it is a totally unanswerable problem - my feeling is that any species that can cross interstellar distances will only have two aims; scientific discovery and a search for alternative life-forms. I think an enquiring and scientific 'mind' is a prerequisite to leaving one's own solar system; any other prognostication is unfounded and anthropocentric.
I think the only thing the earth could offer to alien species is the knowledge of a different basis of life
Matthew
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Although it is a totally unanswerable problem - my feeling is that any species that can cross interstellar distances will only have two aims; scientific discovery and a search for alternative life-forms. I think an enquiring and scientific 'mind' is a prerequisite to leaving one's own solar system; any other prognostication is unfounded and anthropocentric.
I think the only thing the earth could offer to alien species is the knowledge of a different basis of life
Matthew
That is well said Matthew.
But there is also a third reason I think.
One day aliens, just like us, will have to leave their planet because it is no longer habitable, and they will be looking for a new place to call home.
They probably would put their needs in front of ours if they found earth, just like we would put the needs of all humans before aliens.
The last paragraph of mine here was just speculation, but the first is the important one :)
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Latebind, you are repeating the same concern but ignoring the facts about the timespan of development of any alien cultures. If this was a likely scenario it would have happened already. If life bearing planets are relatively common, aliens would go to one that was not occupied with intelligent life.
If life bearing planets are very rare then your suggestion is at least a plausible possibility. However, the Hawking idea about keeping quiet so we would not get noticed would only apply if the aliens were not hugely advanced compared with ourselves (and so were somehow incapable of any sizeable exploration of the galaxy or incapable of detecting our presence so far) but sufficiently advanced to have interstellar travel. His concept would also preclude us from ever exploring space for fear of detection - it seems daft to me, even if he is a clever bloke in other respects. This narrow window over a potential span of billions of years is not very probable.
I am not presupposing any moral compunction on the part of an alien culture here, though I expect they would have such rules and laws and, I would hope, be more respectful and caring of other life-forms than us, only recently developed, humans. The points I am making are really just based on evidential data and statistics.
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Graham - agree entirely. In addition to the fact of unlikely coincidence of the timespans of develpment; these is also the possibilty/probability that the first life to reach earth will be adapted to entirely different planetary conditions. Whilst a life-form like ours would be hard to imagine developing on a gas giant; as gas giants are at present thought to be common throughout glaxy perhaps our first contact will be with gas giant dwellers. It is damn near impossible to avoid anthropocentrism in questions like this. Personally I look forward to meeting the hooloovoo; a super intelligent shade of the colour blue (H2G2 again)
Matthew
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Latebind, you are repeating the same concern but ignoring the facts about the timespan of development of any alien cultures. If this was a likely scenario it would have happened already. If life bearing planets are relatively common, aliens would go to one that was not occupied with intelligent life.
If life bearing planets are very rare then your suggestion is at least a plausible possibility. However, the Hawking idea about keeping quiet so we would not get noticed would only apply if the aliens were not hugely advanced compared with ourselves (and so were somehow incapable of any sizeable exploration of the galaxy or incapable of detecting our presence so far) but sufficiently advanced to have interstellar travel. His concept would also preclude us from ever exploring space for fear of detection - it seems daft to me, even if he is a clever bloke in other respects. This narrow window over a potential span of billions of years is not very probable.
I am not presupposing any moral compunction on the part of an alien culture here, though I expect they would have such rules and laws and, I would hope, be more respectful and caring of other life-forms than us, only recently developed, humans. The points I am making are really just based on evidential data and statistics.
I think we also have to look at the possibility that faster than light travel is really impossible. If so, a species could be far, far more advanced than us but still be unable to traverse the entire galaxy looking for a planet capable of supporting life but without life. Look at our own difficulties in finding planets outside of our solar system. It could very well be that aliens would only be able to tell if a planet had the basic elements needed for life, and maybe they only have one shot to decide where they move to. We have no problem killing many of the life on our own planet, in fact our very survival depends on us killing(animals or plants, both are life). I think the most likely reason why an alien species would be traveling the galaxy would be because their home planet is no longer a viable home.
I think that when it really comes down to it, most of us care about survival. We kill, or others kill for us daily in order for us to survive, and that seems to be primarily the case for animal life at least. I see no reason to believe that life which evolved somewhere other than Earth would not put it's own survival before ours.
Should we be quiet then? Should we try to hide? I don't think so. But I think we should also not delude ourselves into assuming that alien life most likely has what we consider an "enlightened" perspective.