Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: science_guy on 02/11/2006 09:02:45
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There are other topics, but I wanted to see everyone's opinions in a poll.
I believe that Aliens Cannot exist in this universe, because of the unique life-supporting situation that earth is in. The abnormalities of our solar system are numerous, the solar system placement is extremely unlikely, and the Structure of our Milky Way is Extremely rare.
Of the other solar systems we have discovered, none of them have their terrestial planets on the Inside of their Gas Giants, and none of them are in the life support zone of proximity to the sun. This alone should be argument enough, but there are many others.
Comments, arguments?
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I don't think we know enough about life to be able to say. There are many other places in at least the solar system where some types of earth based life could live/ could have lived. Whether it could have developed would require a much better knowledge of what is needed to develop life, which we just don't have at the moment.
There could be whole other types of life based on very low temperature supramolecular chemistry, some sort of high temperature plasma physics or something even more wacky that could be all around us and we haven't even noticed..
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I think of life as a normal chemical process that will go no wherever the ingredients and appropriate conditions occur no 'life force' or supernatural nonsense hence I think it is fairly common.
Now by 'Aliens' I take it you mean creatures similar to ourselves with which we could communicate' I think they must have evolved more than once but I believe they are very rare and are so remote from us in space and time that communication will never occur (much the same as saying they don't exist)
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Well, with what 100-300 billion sras in this galaxy ? and 100-300 billion galaxies ? out there and the fact that we are discovering planets around these stars on a daily basis , then I can't think how there can not be life elsewhere....We would be wholly arrogant to think that in the vastness of this cosmos that we are the only life forms.
Of course, it's us who could be the aliens who's seeds of life hitched a lift on a body that crashed into this planet in the distant past.
But when you say Aliens, I think you may be meaning some form of intelligent life with the ability to travel vast distances....and there may well be (and probably are) beings like that...but I would give equal credence to a single bacteria living in a pool of ' something' a billion light years away.
We may be surrounded by life right now that we can not detect. I speculated in another thread that because Dark matter seems to take up the majority of Space, that it may well be us who are in the minority and that there are a bunch of dark matter civilisations happily going on their merry way...probably wondering what the other percentage of the universe (ie us) is made up from.
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I do not believe for a moment we are alone.. There is far to much we don't see or know to even say anything in a negative light! I think we may well be socializing with aliens such as the likes as Neil or myself..HEE HEE HEE!! In all seriousness, Is it really possible that we are alone? I don't think so!
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I think I am arrogant but also, think we are the aliens....I run into them everyday on the highway...yikes! LOL
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LOL!! Morning Loretta!
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I think I am arrogant but also, think we are the aliens....I run into them everyday on the highway...yikes!
If you stop one of them, could you please ask him/her if it's true that they will invade us on 2012? This would be useful for me because I think houses prices would fall after it.
Thank you!
By the way, kiss you Loretta!
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by Aliens I mean Intelligent life. Life that may not yet have space travel, but is a civilization nonetheless. I also entirely believe that bacteria Could very possible live an another planet, but even that is unlikely. There is a very strict parameter to what can support life, and only one planet is known to fit those parameters: Earth. None of the other planets come close.
I used to think that Life forms could exist in other forms than carbon based, breathing things other than oxygen, but I now know that carbon is what bonds into sugar, our main energy source. Because of the hydrogen bonds in the sugar molecules, we can have our energy. If a creature wasn't carbon based, it could not get the energy it needs. It is the same thing for Oxygen. Methane breathing bacteria and the such do exist, but Oxygen is the only substance that is reactive enough, without being too reactive, to additionally supply the energy we need. This considerably lowers the candidates for Life support in Our Universe.
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by Aliens I mean Intelligent life. Life that may not yet have space travel, but is a civilization nonetheless. I also entirely believe that bacteria Could very possible live an another planet, but even that is unlikely. There is a very strict parameter to what can support life, and only one planet is known to fit those parameters: Earth. None of the other planets come close.
I used to think that Life forms could exist in other forms than carbon based, breathing things other than oxygen, but I now know that carbon is what bonds into sugar, our main energy source. Because of the hydrogen bonds in the sugar molecules, we can have our energy. If a creature wasn't carbon based, it could not get the energy it needs. It is the same thing for Oxygen. Methane breathing bacteria and the such do exist, but Oxygen is the only substance that is reactive enough, without being too reactive, to additionally supply the energy we need. This considerably lowers the candidates for Life support in Our Universe.
Dear Chum,
I see where you are coming from but don't relate the manner of our life to elswehere....I do see that you have reasoned it out but there may well be life...but (to coin a phrase) but not as we know it !!
You are applying earth bound life and human intellect to your reasoning......life may well exist in a form so ' alien ' to our way of understanding that we will never know of it or understand it .
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Probably one day, not very far from now, an intelligent form of life will born from a supercomputer's electronic circuits or from new artificial intelligence made robots.
We won't have to worry about aliens, that day.
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I find a lot of Earthism in this discussion of what constitutes life, we make the assumption that all life in other parts of the Universe is primitive.
I see no reason why this should be I see no reason why life of a similar complexity to that found here should not have evolved elswhere where conditions are benign.
I think that carbon based life must be the most common but I do not rule out other forms.
I saw a horrifying electronic/robot life form evolving on 'Horizon TV' last night vehicles finding their own way about the American desert, it wont be long before they are equipped with non-American detection software. machine guns, flame throwers and poison gas projectors etc!!!!!
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I saw a horrifying electronic/robot life form evolving on 'Horizon TV' last night vehicles finding their own way about the American desert, it wont be long before they are equipped with non-American detection software. machine guns, flame throwers and poison gas projectors etc!!!!!
And secretly, Science_guy will be found behind the remote control, eliminating all who oppose his views. [B)] [B)]
*ominous laughing*
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I find a lot of Earthism in this discussion of what constitutes life, we make the assumption that all life in other parts of the Universe is primitive.
I see no reason why this should be I see no reason why life of a similar complexity to that found here should not have evolved elswhere where conditions are benign.
I think that carbon based life must be the most common but I do not rule out other forms.
What do you mean by 'primitive' - this too assumes that their is some sort of hierarchy of life.
One problem we have is confusion between intelligence and life (neither being well defined, and the relationship between the two even less well defined).
If unintelligent life inherently more primitive than intelligent life?
If by complexity, you are referring to the genetic complexity of the animal (assuming that all life has anything that compares to genes on Earth, although it probably must have some information storage mechanism, but it may be of a very different form to the thing that we would recognise as a gene), then what is to say that the human genome is more complex than the genome of other species, even on Earth?
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I saw a horrifying electronic/robot life form evolving on 'Horizon TV' last night vehicles finding their own way about the American desert, it wont be long before they are equipped with non-American detection software. machine guns, flame throwers and poison gas projectors etc!!!!!
And secretly, Science_guy will be found behind the remote control, eliminating all who oppose his views. [B)] [B)]
*ominous laughing*
What was horrifying was that this machine was not remotely controlled but was thinking for itself
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What was horrifying was that this machine was not remotely controlled but was thinking for itself
Although the intelligence of military machines, including weaponry, increases at a rapid rate; the concept of weapons making decisions about target acquisition is not new, this is at a very crude level what land mines, and fire and forget guided missiles do; just we are becoming ever more sophisticated about how these machines make their judgements.
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Going back to the original question about alien encounters with humans. This same issue actually arose in a different forum that I am on, so I thought I would copy here some of the matters I raised there.
The distances in space are vast, and although many have speculated that amongst the billions of stars, there ought to be at least one other star systems somewhere where intelligent life has evolved.
The problem is that most of those stars are millions of light years away, and even within our own galaxy, most are a hundred or more light years away. In order for an alien to traverse such distances, we are talking about round trips that may be in excess of millions of years (even if their own time frame may be compressed, the external clocks, like that on Earth, would still show millions of years elapsed time).
Any life, and in particular any society, that can cope with such large time gaps and regard it as normal within their time frames, would be operating at such a different time scale to our own that we would view them as being unchanging within our own experience of time, while they would see us as being so transient as scarcely to be visible on within their notion of normality (i.e. they would see us as living in such a short time space that they may not even see us as living at all).
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It is obvious there are many Viewpoints, but what do astronomers today think?
It would be very interesting to see this poll after all the astronomers of the world voted.
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It is obvious there are many Viewpoints, but what do astronomers today think?
It would be very interesting to see this poll after all the astronomers of the world voted.
Not sure why 'astronomers' should have any definitive answer on this.
Maybe cosmologists might have a view, but it is a very interdisciplinary matter, since it involves life sciences, that astronomers are not specialists in, combined with the physics of stars that astronomers and cosmologists might know more about.
Beneath that, there are philosophical and linguistic questions about what is life.
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I think I am arrogant but also, think we are the aliens....I run into them everyday on the highway...yikes!
If you stop one of them, could you please ask him/her if it's true that they will invade us on 2012? This would be useful for me because I think houses prices would fall after it.
Thank you!
By the way, kiss you Loretta!
Hello Alberto! I have talked to a few...but the amazing thing is they have been in denial for over zen klingon years....pretending to be humans...pffft! The nerve of them....They are the reason why we pay more for houses...LOL There will be no invasion in 2012...they already invaded us in 1992...we are stuck in a time warp!
By the way...Kisses and more kisses back! ;-)
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Hello Alberto! I have talked to a few...but the amazing thing is they have been in denial for over zen klingon years....pretending to be humans...pffft! The nerve of them....They are the reason why we pay more for houses...LOL There will be no invasion in 2012...they already invaded us in 1992...we are stuck in a time warp!
By the way...Kisses and more kisses back! ;-)
You mean that you don't trust very much today 14 y.o. people? [:)]
By the way...Kisses and more kisses and a deep hug back! [:X]
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If you stop one of them, could you please ask him/her if it's true that they will invade us on 2012? This would be useful for me because I think houses prices would fall after it.
Thank you!
There is no question but that we will be invaded by aliens in 2012 - that is the year the Olympics are comming to London.
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Alien intelligent lifeforms almost certainly exist in our universe but the problems of travel over interstellar distances mean that the only way we are likely to be awatre of them is by communicating using electromagnetic waves and even then it is unlikely we will be able to have a conversation within the lifespan of any individual human. This means that the risks of communicating are small and attempts at sending and receiving messages are definitely well worthwhile because just the knowledge that another advanced civilisation exists could be well worthwhile brcause there is a high probability that it will be more advanced than ours and will have survived the crises that will occur during the coming millenium.
I believe that if the human race can survive and remain an advanced technology society for another thousand years we will last a very long time but the probability of us managing to do this is quite small.
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I must disagree I think that attempts to communicate with alien civilisations are quite futile except in the very unlikely event that the civilisation is within about one light year.
Is it conceivable that we will pickup broadcast from an advanced civilisation that will be broadcasting useful advice ?.I think not.
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This means that the risks of communicating are small and attempts at sending and receiving messages are definitely well worthwhile because just the knowledge that another advanced civilisation exists could be well worthwhile because there is a high probability that it will be more advanced than ours and will have survived the crises that will occur during the coming millennium.
Just as likely is that they will teach us the technology by which we will finally be able to destroy ourselves.
I believe that if the human race can survive and remain an advanced technology society for another thousand years we will last a very long time but the probability of us managing to do this is quite small.
I doubt very much that in the overall scheme of things much will have changed in 1000 years. I don't mean that technology will not have changed, or that the Environment will not have changed, or that society will not have changed; what I mean is that human nature will not have changed.
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There are no other stars within one light year. It is quite possible to communicate over distances of many hundreds of light years and more if we know exactly where to aim our transmitters and receivers please remember we communicate with spacecraft out as far as Saturn with about the power of a mobile phone and could use a lot less if we really needed to.
If we don't learn how to live with in our means on this planet by reducing our population and recycling our resources we will not make it to the next millennium as an advanced technological society
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Hello Alberto! I have talked to a few...but the amazing thing is they have been in denial for over zen klingon years....pretending to be humans...pffft! The nerve of them....They are the reason why we pay more for houses...LOL There will be no invasion in 2012...they already invaded us in 1992...we are stuck in a time warp!
By the way...Kisses and more kisses back! ;-)
You mean that you don't trust very much today 14 y.o. people? [:)]
By the way...Kisses and more kisses and a deep hug back! [:X]
They are aliens until they are adults! LOL Subhuman?
You sexy man....just love the way you kiss me back...and hug too...mwahhhh!
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This subject was discussed in the 'Scientific American' a year or two ago and it was agreed that with enough money and effort communication might be possible out to 1000 light years, but what use would it be?.
distance can be overcome but not time!!.
I repeat if some civilisation was beaming useful advice to us it might be some use but is it likely?
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Yea seems pointless unless there was some evidence for there to be someone to receive it. also the time thing, i dnt know how fast our communications would travel but even if at the speed of light thats 1000 yrs for 1000 light years, its just silly
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The use of 1000 is nil, because by the time it reaches the aliens, If it does, And even if they immediately start to head towards Earth, It would be 2000 years at best before they reach us from our communications. There is no guarentee that we will still be here in the year 4000.
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distance can be overcome but not time!!.
Ah, but it's not time that must be overcome...just the speed of light! As far as we know, nothing can go faster than the speed of light in our dimensions. If anyone has read the Mutineer's Moon by David Weber, they have a technology called, I believe, the Enchanach Drive (I don't remember how to spell it) that moved through alternate dimensions. I'm only an amateur at physics (still wrestling with basic E&M) so I don't have any idea how one would begin to discuss this possibility quantitatively. It does seem plausible though (as anything is until thoroughly disproven beyond any doubt), if indeed it is a little hard to imagine.
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The problem with the idea of moving in other dimensions is that we can only do that which nature permits us to do, or more precisely, if nature is not already doing it somewhere, then it is very unlikely we would be able to utilise it to our own ends.
If there was a possibility that we could travel in some alternative dimension, this would only be because other things are already moving in these alternative dimensions, and we can piggyback a ride with them (e.g. take a simple example, if one is to accelerate in an alternative dimension, then it follows that we must be able to transmit a force in that alternative dimension, and thus at very least the force particles that transmit that force must already be capable of travelling in that alternative dimension).
The other problem is still, what happens in the 3 (or 4, including time) dimensions in which we already know we exist. If we exist in 6 or 7 dimensions, it does not mean we stop existing in 3 dimensions, it just means we have to add parameters for the new dimensions. This does not allow us to violate the laws of those 3 dimensions, it just gives us new laws that provide further constraints in the new dimensions.
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Ah, that makes sense. What about the virtual vaccuum though? If that really exists, the current theory is that when things go into the vaccuum, something must come out and vice versa...that would mean, if we could somehow come out of the vaccuum where ever we wanted to go and make it so that we went into the vaccuum simultaniously from where ever we were to start with, that instantanious travel would be possible. Kind of abstract...would be really neat though!
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Ah, that makes sense. What about the virtual vaccuum though? If that really exists, the current theory is that when things go into the vaccuum, something must come out and vice versa...that would mean, if we could somehow come out of the vaccuum where ever we wanted to go and make it so that we went into the vaccuum simultaniously from where ever we were to start with, that instantanious travel would be possible. Kind of abstract...would be really neat though!
that does sound plausible...
What is the Virtual Vacuum? Indeed instantanous travel would be possible IF we are able to propagate ourselves into and out of this simultanously... I can't help but wonder what the downside to this kind of travel could be...
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The universe is too be a place to rule out all life other than our planet and in 'the great scheme of things' we are so insignifiant we can't be all there is!
That what I think anyway.