Title: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 23, 2012, 02:06:47 am We are currently finding more and more earth-sized exoplanets that are in the habitable zone. The bioscientific consensus is also that life should rise spontaneously wherever the circumstances are right. If this is the case, then there should be millions of planets with biological life in this galaxy. The presence of oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet strongly indicates that there is biological life on the planet, as diatomic oxygen is an extremely reactive gas which most likely will disappear from any planet that doesn't have a continuous reemission of oxygen into the atmosphere from a process like photosynthesis. It is also possible to detect the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere of an exoplanet from here, as oxygen has a unique absorption spectrum which will show on any light that passes through the atmosphere of the exoplanet. So, my guess is that we soon will find earth- sized exoplanets in the habitable zone with oxygen in the atmosphere. But if that is the case then intelligent lifeforms on other exoplanets should also be able to detect oxygen in our atmosphere. Our planet has had oxygen in the atmosphere for approximately 2.4 billion years, and I would assume that any intelligent species that might have risen in our galaxy during the last 2.4 billion years must have scanned the galaxy for planets with oxygen in the atmosphere.....
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: meep-eep on January 23, 2012, 08:29:33 pm Why would we believe either option?
Something may be likely, or may be unlikely, and we may make estimates of that likeliness, but why require anyone to make a choice to believe? It is okay to admit that one does not know. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Lukipela on January 23, 2012, 10:32:49 pm In a similar fashion, since there was no "I know aliens are watching me" option, I couldn't answer the poll.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on January 24, 2012, 12:08:58 am I think if there are technologically advanced aliens within, oh, 1000 LY of us, they're probably aware that Earth bears life, and could well be aware that our ice-age cycle has been disrupted (that's been going on for over 2000 years, so it's noticeable even with light-speed delay). Further makes it more likely for aliens but less likely of awareness.
I don't know how likely that is. It all depends on the solution to Fermi's Paradox, doesn't it? If it's just that interstellar travel is unbelievably inconvenient and advanced civilizations tend to leak little EM, then it's virtually certain. If it's that advanced civilizations arise rarely or don't last long, probably not. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Alvarin on January 24, 2012, 02:01:37 am Although I do believe there is intelligent extraterrestrial life, the "monitoring" part is highly unlikely.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on January 24, 2012, 03:12:48 am Oh, it's definitely possible that there's life somewhere else in the universe, but monitering Earth? Since when is Earth so interesting? Plus, there's no guarantee that life as intelligent as humans would evolve anywhere else in the universe; after all, it took something like 1-2 billion years on Earth. So even if we do find another planet that harbors life, it's incredibly unlikely that there would also be technology. More probably life would be kind of like what Earth was before humans evolved (e.g. the Mesozoic Era).
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on January 24, 2012, 05:44:46 am onpon, we're barely off the starting mark and we're already looking for planets with alien life on them. Once we find them, we'll be monitoring them closely, I'm sure. It's not that we're special.
As for the likelihood of aliens... the universe is really really big. If it could happen once, it could happen twice. This galaxy? Much less so. Perhaps we're alone here. perhaps not. I find your chain of reasoning about the unlikelihood of intelligent life very tenuous. It took us 1-2 billion years... okay? The others also have the same time to work with. And there could be a lot of planets out there with some sort of life - and thus a lot of tries to get intelligence. Even if it's more probable to have mesozoic life (which I won't dispute), intelligent life may not be so much less likely that you wouldn't expect it to arise at all. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: RTyp06 on January 24, 2012, 10:07:37 am Assuming there are many extra terrestrial species in the universe that have a phisiology similar to humans, are at least as smart as humans and are at a technology level well beyond current human technology, they'd be intested in monitoring a planet like Earth for sure. In fact they'd probably be interested in studying *any* planet just as we humans are. But considering the age of the universe, the likelyhood that thier civilization is in existence at the same time period as our own seems unlikely. And with the speed of light barrier considered the likelyhood becomes even more remote that we are being monitored. At least from afar.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 24, 2012, 11:07:17 am "But considering the age of the universe, the likelyhood that thier civilization is in existence at the same time period as our own seems unlikely."
Well.... it all depends on what usually happens to species that manage to acquire advanced technologies. Do they use biological tools to enhance themselves into even more advanced species, or do they destroy themselves in nuclear holocausts? I cannot say for sure what is the more likely outcome for our species. If a technologically advanced species wants to stay alive for a long period of time, it probably goes into a more suspended state. The idea of the Precursors going into suspension as the Ortogs in Star Control 3 is not so bad, not because there is a species feeding on higher intelligence, but because a species will increase its odds for long time survival by going into suspension. Of course it would be much smarter to merely freeze zygotes rather than to live as Ortogs, and have machines like the Daktaklakpak germinate the zygotes every now and then. Animals like the Ortogs have a high mutation rate, and therefore wouldn't serve very well as a suspension vehicle. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on January 24, 2012, 03:41:01 pm I think it's very unlikely that a nuclear holocaust will occur. More likely is that some fool genius will program a computer to be intelligent without bothering to make sure that it cares about us. Think the Replicators, or Skynet with halfway decent strategy (microdrones by the billions instead of Terminators by the handful). We'd be lucky beyond measure to end up in a Matrix instead of dead outright.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 24, 2012, 09:25:42 pm Well... programming a computer to be that intelligent is something nobody has been able to achive yet, and which has proved to be much more difficult than what science fiction writers believed in the 60's. We have the means to create a nuclear holocaust right now, and has had it since the 50's. I also however doubt that there will be a nuclear holocaust, as even politicians should be able to understand that a global nuclear war is suicide for everyone. Genetically engineered viruses might be the greatest threat to mankind right now. Such a virus could be created by a single crazy bioscientist, and can have the potential to do huge amounts of damage. I doubt however that either a nuclear war or genetically engineered viruses will be able to wipe out ALL of mankind. There will always be survivors. Such events might however cause a collapse of the global infrastructue and put us hundreds of years back in time. Even the depletion of non-renewable resources might cause a collapse of the global infrastrure and put us hundres of years back in time.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on January 24, 2012, 09:43:47 pm The idea of the Precursors going into suspension as the Ortogs in Star Control 3 is not so bad, not because there is a species feeding on higher intelligence, but because a species will increase its odds for long time survival by going into suspension. If you're talking about making your species stupid so they become normal wild animals, no. There is nothing about less intelligent animals that makes them survive longer. Unless you're talking about side-effects of modern technology, in which case making everyone forget so they end up doing the same thing later on is not a very good solution. Quote onpon, we're barely off the starting mark and we're already looking for planets with alien life on them. Once we find them, we'll be monitoring them closely, I'm sure. It's not that we're special. As for the likelihood of aliens... the universe is really really big. If it could happen once, it could happen twice. This galaxy? Much less so. Perhaps we're alone here. perhaps not. I find your chain of reasoning about the unlikelihood of intelligent life very tenuous. It took us 1-2 billion years... okay? The others also have the same time to work with. And there could be a lot of planets out there with some sort of life - and thus a lot of tries to get intelligence. Even if it's more probable to have mesozoic life (which I won't dispute), intelligent life may not be so much less likely that you wouldn't expect it to arise at all. Considering we haven't found any life anywhere except for Earth, not even single-celled organisms, it's pretty safe to conclude that life is an extremely rare occurrence in the universe. Given that, if there's life (which wouldn't surprise me), the chances are extremely slim that they would be lucky enough to evolve to an animal (or other life form) as intelligent as Homo sapiens. It's important to note that the exact way evolution leads life forms to be is random; humans re-adapted arms, originally most suited for climbing trees, to manipulate objects. Without that, modern humans would have never existed no matter how big our brains got. Nothing even remotely similar has happened with any other life form on Earth, and there was no guarantee at all that it would happen. It just happened. Natural selection doesn't just tend towards "better" or smarter; all it cares about is what survives and reproduces. (I'll give you the thing about studying Earth, though.) Well... programming a computer to be that intelligent is something nobody has been able to achive yet, and which has proved to be much more difficult than what science fiction writers believed in the 60's. Computers, as they are now, simply obey instructions and return an output. That's why they're called "computers": they compute. The only way they could possibly be "intelligent" and "decide" to do something we don't want is if someone specifically gives the instructions to do so. So unless the way computers work changes dramatically (and I don't see that happening any time soon), a cybernetic revolt or other computer-related apocalypse is just silly (unless it involves some madman trying to end the world, but then he'd have an easier time doing it with some sort of nuclear weapon than with something as complicated as artificial intelligence). Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 24, 2012, 10:11:13 pm "If you're talking about making your species stupid so they become normal wild animals, no. There is nothing about less intelligent animals that makes them survive longer. "
Well.. that is not what I was talking about. I was talking about freezing zygotes, not making a species less intelligent. All organisms that are alive will have mutations occurring in their genome, and those mutations don't necessarily need to be beneficial. If a species was to be alive for millions of years the genome would change significantly. If however a zygote is frozen down for millions of years the changes in the genome would be negligible. "Considering we haven't found any life anywhere except for Earth, not even single-celled organisms, it's pretty safe to conclude that life is an extremely rare occurrence in the universe" No it is not.... The other planets in this solar system are not particularly environmental friendly for biological life, and lots of scientists believe that there might be microbial life on Mars and Jupiter's moon called Europa. In other solar systems there are planets that are approximately the same size as earth and have approximately the same average temperature. On such a planet the likelihood for microbial life would be far higher than for either on Mars or on Europa. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on January 25, 2012, 04:38:15 pm Well... programming a computer to be that intelligent is something nobody has been able to achive yet, and which has proved to be much more difficult than what science fiction writers believed in the 60's. Yes, that is true. However, unlike the holocaust, it is something which people are trying to do and don't realize how dangerous it is. I doubt however that either a nuclear war or genetically engineered viruses will be able to wipe out ALL of mankind. There will always be survivors. Such events might however cause a collapse of the global infrastructue and put us hundreds of years back in time. Even the depletion of non-renewable resources might cause a collapse of the global infrastrure and put us hundres of years back in time. Exactly. None of those will wipe out humanity. A victorious AI not interested in our well-being could annihilate life on Earth. Quote from: onpon Considering we haven't found any life anywhere except for Earth, not even single-celled organisms, it's pretty safe to conclude that life is an extremely rare occurrence in the universe. Oh come on. I haven't found my keys in my pocket, therefore they don't exist? Our ability to find alien life is really really weak at this point. They'd need to be shouting at us for us to notice. Also, there are a handful of planets that aren't very promising to begin with, that we've seen, where if life was on them, we could probably tell by looking at atmospheric spectra, and we haven't. For now, the absence of evidence in what we've seen is really weak evidence of absence overall. Maybe that'll be different in 20 years. Quote Given that, if there's life (which wouldn't surprise me), the chances are extremely slim that they would be lucky enough to evolve to an animal (or other life form) as intelligent as Homo sapiens. We don't know how likely it is, actually. We're the first species it happened to, and it took about 500 million years from the development of multicellular life, which in turn took 1.5 billion years from the earliest time biochemistry was feasible. Our position in respect to the sun will be viable for at least 500 million more years, possibly much more. There is room for multiple mass extinctions and recoveries -- and in a system that got started earlier than ours but was still second generation, that time would already have happened. We have ONE data point, basically. Hard to generalize from that. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on January 25, 2012, 06:45:28 pm For now, the absence of evidence in what we've seen is really weak evidence of absence overall. Maybe that'll be different in 20 years. You can't prove non-existence of anything. That doesn't mean it's more rational to assume it does exist. Maybe the reason we haven't found any life at all, anywhere, except for on Earth, is because we haven't looked hard enough, but it seems more likely that life is just a rare occurance. We don't know how likely it is, actually. We're the first species it happened to, and it took about 500 million years from the development of multicellular life, which in turn took 1.5 billion years from the earliest time biochemistry was feasible. Our position in respect to the sun will be viable for at least 500 million more years, possibly much more. There is room for multiple mass extinctions and recoveries -- and in a system that got started earlier than ours but was still second generation, that time would already have happened. We have ONE data point, basically. Hard to generalize from that. Generalizing from one data point makes more sense than making stuff up from nowhere. That one data point (the history of Earth) is the only data that we have. But you're not getting my entire point: natural selection, the only way certain life is preferred over others, makes no effort towards intelligent life. All that matters in natural selection is how well a given animal survives. This makes the current state of humans (technology and intelligence) not even close to guaranteed. Even the survival of the genus Homo seems to have been unlikely, because modern humans are the only species that survived. It's just loaded with unlikely events and luckiness so much that it seems extremely unlikely that it would happen everywhere life exists. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: oldlaptop on January 25, 2012, 10:15:29 pm Generalizing from one data point makes more sense than making stuff up from nowhere. In this case, no it does not. You're looking at roughly 300 billion entire star systems in the Milky Way, most of which would seem to have planets. And besides that there's over 170 billion entire galaxies, just in the part of the universe we can see, with anywhere from ten million to a hundred trillion stars apiece. One data point out of the countless quintillions of stars in the universe means next to nothing. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 25, 2012, 10:22:17 pm "Maybe the reason we haven't found any life at all, anywhere, except for on Earth, is because we haven't looked hard enough, but it seems more likely that life is just a rare occurance."
It is not necessarily that easy to find microbial life. Sure, photosynthetic life can be found due to oxygen accumulation in the atmosphere, but there were chemoautotropic microorganisms here on earth long before the first phototrophs. If there are such chemoautotropic microorganisms on Mars for example, they are probably just on specific locations where there is liquid water, not everywhere. In order for there to be life as we know it there must be liquid water, and there is not a lot of liquid water on the other planets in this solar system. There might however be some on Mars and on Jupiter's moon Europa, but probably a lot of it on other planets in other solar systems. Recently we have found lots of new planets that have approximately the right temperature for liquid water to exist ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone#Recent_breakthroughs:_Super-Earths_and_Earth-sized_planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitable_zone#Recent_breakthroughs:_Super-Earths_and_Earth-sized_planets) ). (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Kepler-22b_System_Diagram.jpg/750px-Kepler-22b_System_Diagram.jpg) There are probably millions of planets like Kepler 22b in our galaxy. I think most bioscientists would find it very strange if none of those planets have any microbial life. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on January 25, 2012, 10:37:15 pm Generalizing from one data point makes more sense than making stuff up from nowhere. In this case, no it does not. You're looking at roughly 300 billion entire star systems in the Milky Way, most of which would seem to have planets. And besides that there's over 170 billion entire galaxies, just in the part of the universe we can see, with anywhere from ten million to a hundred trillion stars apiece. One data point out of the countless quintillions of stars in the universe means next to nothing. You think it's better to just pull stuff out of your hat which has no basis in reality whatsoever than to look at what limited sample of the subject we have of the subject in reality and draw conclusions based on that sample? This "generalization" is looking at all life we have ever witnessed as well as our most general understanding of how life works. In particular, natural selection, the mechanism for evolution, the only process we know of that can possibly produce complex life (short of artificial means), does not guarantee or even encourage intelligent life. Assuming, then, that intelligent life is going to be common in places where life exists is an extraordinary claim. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 25, 2012, 10:59:02 pm Quote In particular, natural selection, the mechanism for evolution, the only process we know of that can possibly produce complex life (short of artificial means), does not guarantee or even encourage intelligent life. Assuming, then, that intelligent life is going to be common in places where life exists is an extraordinary claim. Well.. even though there are many bacteria and single celled eukaryotes that in many ways are much more successful than humans, especially when it comes to their ability to survive in harsh conditions, life on earth has been evolving greater and greater complexity. This is mostly because life of increased complexity can find and exploit new niches. We can therefore assume that life on other planets also have the tendency to evolve greater and greater complexity to fill and exploit new niches. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: oldlaptop on January 25, 2012, 11:34:20 pm You think it's better to just pull stuff out of your had which has no basis in reality whatsoever than to look at what limited sample of the subject we have of the subject in reality and draw conclusions based on that sample? This "generalization" is looking at all life we have ever witnessed as well as our most general understanding of how life works. In particular, natural selection, the mechanism for evolution, the only process we know of that can possibly produce complex life (short of artificial means), does not guarantee or even encourage intelligent life. Assuming, then, that intelligent life is going to be common in places where life exists is an extraordinary claim. I'm saying drawing conclusions based on what we know and pulling something out of a hat are functionally identical in this case, because what we know amounts to nothing. They're both bad ideas. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 25, 2012, 11:57:39 pm But we do know a bit....
Quote WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists have estimated the first cosmic census of planets in our galaxy and the numbers are astronomical: at least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way. http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110219/D9LG45NO0.html (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110219/D9LG45NO0.html)At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope. We also know quite a bit about abiogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis), and the vast majority of bioscientists believe that life originated spontaneously from simpler molecules on Earth. They also believe that life will develop on other planets with liquid water in a similar fashion. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: oldlaptop on January 26, 2012, 12:30:56 am How do we know life on other planets will even remotely resemble life on Earth? Yes, we have some fairly concrete guesses on how life developed on one planet out of those 50 billion in the Milky Way alone, what makes us think that any of our knowledge will even be applicable to life on other planets?
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on January 26, 2012, 01:01:32 am Quote How do we know life on other planets will even remotely resemble life on Earth? Yes, we have some fairly concrete guesses on how life developed on one planet out of those 50 billion in the Milky Way alone, what makes us think that any of our knowledge will even be applicable to life on other planets? We don't know all the possible ways life can develop, but we do know that life can develop the way it did here on Earth. It will be incredibly interesting to have a microbial specimen from another planet. Will it have its genetic code stored in DNA or in some other polymer? Will it use the same amino acids as life on earth, and have proteins made of amino acids? Will it have a cell membrane made of phospholipids? A microbial specimen from another planet would most likely revolutionize our understanding of cell biology. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on January 26, 2012, 01:44:45 am For now, the absence of evidence in what we've seen is really weak evidence of absence overall. Maybe that'll be different in 20 years. You can't prove non-existence of anything. That doesn't mean it's more rational to assume it does exist. Maybe the reason we haven't found any life at all, anywhere, except for on Earth, is because we haven't looked hard enough, but it seems more likely that life is just a rare occurance. Did I say 'prove'? No, I didn't. I'm talking about a minimal level of evidence of absence. We have ONE data point, basically. Hard to generalize from that. Generalizing from one data point makes more sense than making stuff up from nowhere. It does, you are correct. And what makes more sense, in turn, than generalizing from one data point? Admitting ignorance. We don't know whether alien life and in particular alien intelligence is or has been out there. We know that no alien intelligences are broadcasting uncompressed high-powered microwave signals in our direction, and we know that certain 'promising' locations do not have uncompressed low-powered microwave signals coming in our direction. We may have been able to examine the atmosphere of one or two super-heavy rocky planets. That's... not strong evidence of anything except the absence of aliens that know we're here and want to say hello. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Lukipela on January 26, 2012, 07:14:10 pm Generalizing from one data point makes more sense than making stuff up from nowhere. It does, you are correct. [/quote] Isn't it essentially the same though? One data point could be a line, an incline, all manners of curves, a circle and whatever. In my line of work at least, using one data point is just guessing. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on January 26, 2012, 11:15:32 pm That's the next point I made, yes. He said 'more', not 'a lot'.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Lukipela on February 09, 2012, 08:14:28 am That's what I'm curious about though. I'm no expert and not trying to be clever, just looking for some thoughts on the subject. I was taught in my field that one point of data is as worthless as none, and I've always kind of assumed that holds true otherwise as well. Perhaps this is only relevant in more parctically applied fields though? I mean, if I get one data point without references, I can't do any recommendations on materials, required pressure class or some such. To me, it doesn't make MORE sense to use one data point rather than NONE, because the one point can always be a fluke of some sort that doesn't give any sort of indication as to actual constrains or values.
But again, my work is more down to Earth than calculating possible ET's. What I'm curious about is whether my way of thinking is only useful in specific fields, or whether it can be used more broadly, such as in this discussion. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on February 09, 2012, 08:33:20 pm One data point establishes very little about what isn't possible. In engineering, that's what you're mainly concerned with - you need to establish that certain bad things will not happen (i.e. device failure). Whenever the question is instead, 'what can happen', a single data point can be very illuminating.
Turn it around, thinking like, you have one measurement of a bridge collapsing due to some effect that only applies to that design of bridge. You aren't going to want to use this measurement to prove other bridges won't collapse, but you can definitely use it to establish that they can. Now suppose you only ever learned about this style of bridge because this one collapsed and the locals called you in to look into the matter, and you have no idea how many other bridges of this sort are out there. Maybe there are lots of them out there that don't collapse. Maybe there are lots of other bridges, and a lot of them collapsed, and this is just the first time they called you about it. Bridge collapse, in this case, is analogous to the development of sapient life. You definitely know it can happen (it did), but you don't know how widespread the conditions necessary for it are, and you don't know how likely they are given those conditions. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Wolframm on February 12, 2012, 10:04:12 pm No doubt there IS someone else somewhere. If the DNA could have shown up out of nothing (i mean out of lifeless H,C,N and O-atoms) here on Earth, I see no reason why could not the same thing happen somewhere else. As to me, the part with aliens monitoring us has no sense. It would take enormous effort to even reach someone who's 20LY or so away from you and you would achieve nothing important with it. We've all seen corpses of Grays on photos, altough they are the most probably fakes. Perhaps even a form of concealment. Secret services of some governments might monitor the citizens of Earth and blame Grays for doing it.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Alvarin on February 12, 2012, 11:00:27 pm @Wolframm - definitely coverup! In reality they actually are Greens.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Dabir on February 13, 2012, 03:54:55 am I'm not sure I want aliens to be monitoring Earth. If they were, if/when they eventually revealed themselves, the result would have to be fairly major shakeups in the whole of society, and I really can't be bothered to deal with stuff like that.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on February 13, 2012, 05:17:54 pm Be careful not to let your wishes affect your beliefs.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Alvarin on February 13, 2012, 05:43:07 pm Good advice in any field and situation.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Lukipela on February 13, 2012, 07:55:29 pm One data point establishes very little about what isn't possible. In engineering, that's what you're mainly concerned with - you need to establish that certain bad things will not happen (i.e. device failure). Whenever the question is instead, 'what can happen', a single data point can be very illuminating. Turn it around, thinking like, you have one measurement of a bridge collapsing due to some effect that only applies to that design of bridge. You aren't going to want to use this measurement to prove other bridges won't collapse, but you can definitely use it to establish that they can. Now suppose you only ever learned about this style of bridge because this one collapsed and the locals called you in to look into the matter, and you have no idea how many other bridges of this sort are out there. Maybe there are lots of them out there that don't collapse. Maybe there are lots of other bridges, and a lot of them collapsed, and this is just the first time they called you about it. Bridge collapse, in this case, is analogous to the development of sapient life. You definitely know it can happen (it did), but you don't know how widespread the conditions necessary for it are, and you don't know how likely they are given those conditions. Thanks, I knew I had something turned the wrong way around in my brain. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: grayfox7777 on March 01, 2012, 01:31:51 pm It was hard for me to pick between maybe and probably, but I couldn't pick yes (nor no) for certain. I think there's a decent chance we're being watched to some extent, but I can't say that for sure. It's just my personal opinion mostly. I could be right or I could be wrong. There's a little, tiny bit of evidence to support my opinion, but nothing 100% concrete.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: RTyp06 on March 05, 2012, 06:25:51 am Quote There's a little, tiny bit of evidence to support my opinion, but nothing 100% concrete. What evidence if you do not mind me asking? Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: grayfox7777 on March 05, 2012, 07:37:24 am Crap... I used to have a list of UFO cases that seemed very interesting to me, but I don't seem to be able to find it anymore.
But anyway, here are some... http://www.ufocasebook.com/physicaltracefiles.html Some of them aren't that great, but a few of those are really good. Especially this one... http://www.ufocasebook.com/Rendlesham.html I'm not saying 100% of UFO reports are true. I just don't think the subject gets fair acknowledgement. You can't learn about the unknown by dismissing it. People pick their side and stick with it. Some see Venus and think an alien invasion has begun. Many other people assume aliens can't reach this planet based on what we know. But there are lots of things we just don't yet know about the universe. And there are ways that aliens could theoretically reach us that we just don't have the technology to make happen ourselves. Here's a piece of evidence that (probably?) has nothing to do with UFOs.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow_signal Here's another one like that.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_source_SHGb02%2B14a Of course, there are also the discoveries of a bunch of potentially habitable planets. Like I said, nothing 100% concrete, but there are some interesting bits of information out there. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: RTyp06 on March 07, 2012, 12:18:03 am I used to watch UFO files quite a bit and there very well be somthing to some of those cases. I am, however, skeptical of any claim made by anyone about pretty much everything. Wether it's bigfoot and ufo sightings to naturalistic claims of the origin of life. Skepticisim is healthy in my book and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I have yet to see strong, compelling evidence for any UFO case though.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 07, 2012, 12:39:06 am Wait. You think that suggesting that life spontaneously arose N billion years ago is an extraordinary claim, as opposed to the notion that life was intentionally created?
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: RTyp06 on March 07, 2012, 01:41:01 am I think both are extrordinary claims and simply that the evidence (at this point at least) favors the latter. I believe in intelligent evolution. I refrain from using "intelligent design" anymore becuase people get the wrong idea and think I'm talking about a diety. Bees and birds exhibit intelligent design in how they build their nests but there is nothing supernatural about what they do. Likewise I think the evidence points toward somthing a bit beyond natural selection as an explanation for all aspects of biology. Especially when it comes to life's origin.
That said, I don't want to get into a huge discussion about this because it makes some of the mods here angry. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 07, 2012, 06:39:56 am I think both are extrordinary claims and simply that the evidence (at this point at least) favors the latter. I believe in intelligent evolution. I refrain from using "intelligent design" anymore becuase people get the wrong idea and think I'm talking about a diety. Bees and birds exhibit intelligent design in how they build their nests but there is nothing supernatural about what they do. Likewise I think the evidence points toward somthing a bit beyond natural selection as an explanation for all aspects of biology. Especially when it comes to life's origin. That said, I don't want to get into a huge discussion about this because it makes some of the mods here angry. Ever heard of evolution? Natural selection? The life that spontaneously arose was VERY simple; it was only through evolution (which is driven by natural selection) that life became as successful and diverse as it did. In fact, if you're not a creationist, that is EXACTLY what you're talking about when you say "intelligent evolution". Hey, wait a minute! You even used the same word! Point is: abiogenesis and evolution are not even close to mutually exclusive. You seem to believe they are. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 07, 2012, 03:40:47 pm So... where did those intelligences come from?
It's not going to be any more likely than our arising in the first place, unless it's supernatural, and that's horribly undefined. It doesn't actually explain anything! Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 07, 2012, 05:37:53 pm So... where did those intelligences come from? It's not going to be any more likely than our arising in the first place, unless it's supernatural, and that's horribly undefined. It doesn't actually explain anything! Erm, how to I say this? Evolution isn't "intelligent" in the sense that there's some intention to it. But natural selection drives evolution. It's not all that complicated: organisms that are unfit for survival die before they can reproduce while organisms that are fit for survival survive and reproduce. Sometimes, a mutation occurs; if the mutation impedes the organism's ability to survive and reproduce, then it probably dies before it can reproduce. On the other hand, if the mutation is advantageous, the organism probably has a better time surviving and reproducing, causing the mutation to be spread. This is all basic high school biology. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 07, 2012, 06:05:07 pm I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to RTyp06.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 07, 2012, 07:01:54 pm I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to RTyp06. Ah, OK. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Draxas on March 08, 2012, 06:54:27 pm ...to naturalistic claims of the origin of life... Why did you want to derail this thread so badly? You should know better than to even mention this unless that was you intention (as you can see above). Back to the point: Why would aliens be monitoring us? If sentient, starfaring life is common, then we're really wholly unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, and hardly worth observing until we achieve interstellar travel. If sentient, starfaring life is uncommon (or unique, in our case), then the universe is much too big a place to expect the small number of aliens out there to actually find us. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Lukipela on March 08, 2012, 07:27:00 pm That said, I don't want to get into a huge discussion about this because it makes some of the mods here angry. Not just the mods IIRC :) Quite the coincidence, I was just browsing through the cool comic thread, the thing in the tree thread and the two headed thingamajig thread last week. Good times. I should visit this place more often. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 09, 2012, 04:32:49 am Back to the point: Why would aliens be monitoring us? If sentient, starfaring life is common, then we're really wholly unremarkable in the grand scheme of things, and hardly worth observing until we achieve interstellar travel. If sentient, starfaring life is uncommon (or unique, in our case), then the universe is much too big a place to expect the small number of aliens out there to actually find us. Oh come on. Don't you think there's a rather large medium ground? If there were, say, 10 alien races we could see, we would be monitoring them all closely. If there were 100, we would be monitoring them a bit less closely. We would be monitoring all of them to some extent all of the time. If there were 1000, we would still probably look at each one fairly frequently - not less than once a month, even for the least interesting ones. If there were 10 000, make that once a year. We'd still be monitoring them. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 09, 2012, 07:58:24 am Oh come on. Don't you think there's a rather large medium ground? If there were, say, 10 alien races we could see, we would be monitoring them all closely. If there were 100, we would be monitoring them a bit less closely. We would be monitoring all of them to some extent all of the time. If there were 1000, we would still probably look at each one fairly frequently - not less than once a month, even for the least interesting ones. If there were 10 000, make that once a year. We'd still be monitoring them. Space is huge. The Milky Way galaxy alone is around 100,000-120,000 lightyears in diameter. The closest star system to Sol, Alpha Centauri, is a little over 4 lightyears away. I don't see why it's such a silly position to say that it is incredibly unlikely for us to be found by intelligent aliens if intelligent aliens are rare. We certainly haven't. You're just speculating with those numbers, by the way. They're completely arbitrary. They are also completely insubstantial to the point of "how in holy hell are they going to find us in this giant 100,000 lightyear disk?" or "if intelligent life is so common, what makes us so special?" (As an aside, I don't get why SC2 uses "sentient" to mean "intelligent". It's bad English. I'm pretty sure ants and dragonflies are sentient just as well as humans.) Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 09, 2012, 12:37:14 pm Look
at the quote I was responding to. Seriously. Quoting out of context and challenging someone's assumptions that were dragged in by someone else is REALLY annoying 'debate' technique. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Draxas on March 09, 2012, 06:56:40 pm Honestly, I don't really think there's much of a medium ground at all. Either evolution toward sentience (i'm going to ignore that intelligent vs. sentient remark, since it adds nothing to this discussion. My cats are fairly intelligent, too.) is totally random and we just lucked out, which would make it very rare and us very difficult to find, or it's something that life tends to gravitate towards in its evolution, and we are just one of many untold sentient species and not terribly interesting considering how primitive we are. I can't think of any reasonable scenarios that support a state between those two extremes.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 09, 2012, 10:41:33 pm Look at the quote I was responding to. Seriously. Quoting out of context and challenging someone's assumptions that were dragged in by someone else is REALLY annoying 'debate' technique. I was quoting out of context because I removed the quote above you since most people don't like quote pyramids? Huh? I even mentioned Draxas's post... Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: ubericon on March 09, 2012, 11:47:50 pm I am watching this documentary series called Through the Wormhole ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1513168/ ). Episode 6 season 1 ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1669753/ ) and episode 10 season 2 ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1931230/ ) are about alien life. Morgan Freeman is the narrator of the series, and I would highly recommend it.
Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 10, 2012, 05:58:51 pm Honestly, I don't really think there's much of a medium ground at all. Either evolution toward sentience ... is totally random and we just lucked out, which would make it very rare and us very difficult to find, or it's something that life tends to gravitate towards in its evolution, and we are just one of many untold sentient species and not terribly interesting considering how primitive we are. I can't think of any reasonable scenarios that support a state between those two extremes. Well... evolution itself gives you a middle ground between 'totally random' and 'tends to gravitate towards', doesn't it? Also, there are plenty of other dials to tweak in terms of number of sapient species running around. Even if the evolution of sapience is near-certain given the development of complex life, the number of sapient species active at any given time will be limited by the number of worlds on which life arises in the first place, the frequency with which life becomes complex, and the ability for civilizations to self-destruct, and the ability for civilizations to destroy each other. And there are a lot of systems out there. You're focusing on one factor of the Drake equation and ignoring all the others. Even if this one is basically going to be 1 or 10^-6 and nothing in between, we could have anything from 1 to 1000 sapient races in the galaxy... Also, even if millions of systems in the galaxy will develop sapient life and they never die off, and they are all patently obvious to everyone in the galaxy from the moment they arise... Think of what each one sees in turn as it rises. The first one sees no one. The second one sees one other. The third sees two others. The fourth sees three others, and so on. I was quoting out of context because I removed the quote above you since most people don't like quote pyramids? Huh? No, it was out of context because you were blaming me for pulling numbers out of nowhere when my numbers were generated (over a range of four orders of magnitude!!!!) in response to the supposition that life is common. It didn't make sense to say what you were saying in response to me in the light of what was said in advance, and it didn't make sense to say what you were saying TO the statement made in advance. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 10, 2012, 09:26:05 pm No, it was out of context because you were blaming me for pulling numbers out of nowhere when my numbers were generated (over a range of four orders of magnitude!!!!) in response to the supposition that life is common. It didn't make sense to say what you were saying in response to me in the light of what was said in advance, and it didn't make sense to say what you were saying TO the statement made in advance. What are you talking about? All I said was that your numbers were meaningless and arbitrary. I never "blamed" you for anything. It wasn't even the core of what I said in that post. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 11, 2012, 05:12:47 am "You're just speculating with those numbers, by the way. They're completely arbitrary."
You were telling me I was just speculating, which kind of suggests that I didn't know in advance. Yet those numbers span the plausible range of values for what could be considered applicable to the argument at hand. It isn't speculation - it's covering all the bases! Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 11, 2012, 04:48:14 pm "You're just speculating with those numbers, by the way. They're completely arbitrary." You were telling me I was just speculating, which kind of suggests that I didn't know in advance. Yet those numbers span the plausible range of values for what could be considered applicable to the argument at hand. It isn't speculation - it's covering all the bases! All right, I'll humor you. If they're not arbitrary guesses, please share with me what they are based on. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Kwayne on March 11, 2012, 06:04:00 pm "You're just speculating with those numbers, by the way. They're completely arbitrary." You were telling me I was just speculating, which kind of suggests that I didn't know in advance. Yet those numbers span the plausible range of values for what could be considered applicable to the argument at hand. It isn't speculation - it's covering all the bases! All right, I'll humor you. If they're not arbitrary guesses, please share with me what they are based on. I think Death 999 knows he's making arbitrary guesses, speculatively, by covering all the bases. I think he just doesn't like when you -- onpon4 -- make it sound like he's doing that in a dishonest/idiotic manner, while your guesses can be just as arbitrary, like every guess ever made about the completely unknown. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: Death 999 on March 11, 2012, 06:04:34 pm Yes, what Kwayne said.
I did not say that any of these numbers is true. I was denying an excluded middle. That's the opposite of speculation. Obviously, <1 is rare, and that possibility had been acknowledged. The opposite possibility of 'too many to even try to keep track of' had just been put forward. I pointed out the possibilities of several, many, very many, and extremely many but still few enough to count. The post I was responding to denied the middle. Title: Re: Do you believe that aliens are monitoring earth? Post by: onpon4 on March 11, 2012, 08:21:54 pm I think Death 999 knows he's making arbitrary guesses, speculatively, by covering all the bases. I think he just doesn't like when you -- onpon4 -- make it sound like he's doing that in a dishonest/idiotic manner, while your guesses can be just as arbitrary, like every guess ever made about the completely unknown. Yes, what Kwayne said. You thought I was trying to make you look dishonest/idiotic? I guess I can kind of see how you would infer that, but that wasn't my intent at all. I apologize for misunderstanding, but you misunderstood me, as well. What I was trying to say is that pulling arbitrary numbers out like that isn't an argument or grounds for argument. I didn't think you were being dishonest, but it's all too easy to just end up believing arbitrary guesses like those, or to use them as a basis for an argument where they don't belong. I was also worried you were already doing this, mostly because I saw no benefit your numbers had to your argument (which, in a nutshell, was "we'll always study all life even if it's common, we'll just study each individual one less if there's more of them", as I understand it). |