My theroy on space and life in it

[Joey D]

I just finished my Metaphysical Studies course on Friday and we talked about something rather intresting this week and I was hoping to get your input on the subject. I'll try to keep the first post short so you don't have to read for hours.

The question that everyone ask is "are we alone in the universe?" Well the answer should clearly be no, there must be something else out there because if there wasn't then why would space be so big, vast, and empty? Seems like a big waste to me.

Some people say that there can't be other life out there because God created us and that was it. If a Supreme Being does exisit what's to say they didn't make other forms of life out in the universe? It would make perfect sense that they would.

The last thing I'll bring up is when people say "we can't find plants that support life". That's incorrect, we should be saying "we can't find plants that support our life." This would make more sense because if there are other forms of life out there then they may need something completely different to survive. They could breath nitrogen or hydrogen or even something us earthlings don't even know.

But with all this said I'm curious on others takes.

 

[Ev0]

I'm almost certain that there is life out there. As you said, space is just too vast for any of us to comprehend, so there has to be at least one other form of advanced life somewhere in the universe. I believe it's just a matter of time before we discover them (It could be tomorrow, or it could be 50,000 years from now for all I know).

But I would be absolutely fascinated to visit another advanced society. It would be astounding to see their technology, culture, daily life, etc.

The last thing I'll bring up is when people say "we can't find plants that support life". That's incorrect, we should be saying "we can't find plants that support our life." This would make more sense because if there are other forms of life out there then they may need something completely different to survive. They could breath nitrogen or hydrogen or even something us earthlings don't even know.

First off, I'll assume you meant planets, and not plants.

But, I do agree with you, we should not be looking for life on planets that are very closely related to our own. Life will start, and evolve using whatever resources are available, meaning that if there is an abundance of life in the universe, I'd wager that there is a wide variety of basic needs to sustain life (Like Air, water, food, and sunlight for humans).

But I highly doubt that alien organisms would breathe anything other than common gasses, like nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on, since the composition of elements and compounds will not vary throughout the universe.

 

[gt3 drifter]

I just finished my Metaphysical Studies course on Friday and we talked about something rather intresting this week and I was hoping to get your input on the subject. I'll try to keep the first post short so you don't have to read for hours.

The question that everyone ask is "are we alone in the universe?" Well the answer should clearly be no, there must be something else out there because if there wasn't then why would space be so big, vast, and empty? Seems like a big waste to me.

Some people say that there can't be other life out there because God created us and that was it. If a Supreme Being does exisit what's to say they didn't make other forms of life out in the universe? It would make perfect sense that they would.

The last thing I'll bring up is when people say "we can't find plants that support life". That's incorrect, we should be saying "we can't find plants that support our life." This would make more sense because if there are other forms of life out there then they may need something completely different to survive. They could breath nitrogen or hydrogen or even something us earthlings don't even know.

But with all this said I'm curious on others takes.

I agree with that, I mean think of the universe as a big block of apartments with no lifts and only a stairway and us earthlings ans a person who lives on the bottom floor in a wheelchair. we havent gotten to the top but someday we will. and I thought they found little microbes on another planet or meteor. life on earth started out like that billions of years ago, that planet or meteor could be the next earth. and I hear now that bush has promised america that in 2015 e will have the first man on mars. and did anyone see that documentary that bbc made about people living in a orbiter called "pegasus" and traveling to other planets. they said that that could be a reality by 2055. I think we are dreaming more than the 70's and technology.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

I have no idea what point gt3drifter was trying to make, so I'll refer to above posts; it seems completely viable that other lifeforms should exist- in planets we have discovered. The first lifeforms discovered on earth were discovered in water- but water only came after nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen had formed in our atmosphere. All it need was a volcano to kickstart it, which consequently sent steam into the atmosphere. When Earth was being formed it was a huge mass of fast moving tectonic plates constantly shifting, dividing, and colliding. This produced the many earthquakes and volcanoes commonly portrayed in The Land Before Time (I- XI), and other movies depicting ancient life. Although this actually happened some couple billion years before dinosaurs, they were on the right track, and life could sustain itself off of moisture alone. As evolution progressed, bacteria began to become more advanced and could feed off of other bacteria, could reproduce sexually, asexually, and some would grow to become hermaphroditic. Plants too became more avdanced, some becoming "sexually perfect"- meaning they could be pollenated or pollenate themselves. This has got to be happening somewhere, it would be ludicrous if it wasn't. As long as nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide are present, life should theorhetically be sustained. As it progresses, life would feed off of other life. Unless the planet is completely gasseous (which consequently is also under HUGE pressure), life should begin to form anywhere with an atmosphere.

 

[Nasadus]

I dont think people are grasping how mind bogglingly large the universe is. There has to be intelligent life out there, but it might be impossible for them to get here. They could be almost an infinite number of light years away.

The odds are overwhelming, i mean put an infinite number of monkeys in a room with an infinite number of typewriters, and the odds are that eventually they will bang out Hamlet.

 

[asv]

While the universe is indeed mind-bogglingly huge, it isn't infinite, so that means there mightn't be other life out there, albeit unlikely that there isn't. The monkeys/Hamlet debate doesn't hold up unless there are infinitely many monkeys.

However, big though it may be, consider the VAST amount of coincidenses that have occured to get us where we are today. Primarily - evolution of the human race from primates has relied upon hundreds of thousands of generations of breeding that, if even on slightly altered, could have resulted in a distinct lack of us as we are today ('intelligent' life).

So, even if life exists out there, which it probably does, it is fairly unlikely, despite natural selection, that such life is developed into a state that we would recognise. Even if life similar to humans had evolved elsewhere, consider the odds of them inventing the same technology as us. Man existed for many thousands of years as completely undetectable beings - if such other beings elsewhere in the universe have not developed radio etc. then we wouldn't have a clue that they were there.

So, despite space-time being so big, I don't think it's very likely that we'll ever find life outside the solar system. If there was life of a similar type to us, SETI probably would have found it by now. If life isn't all that near, finding it wouldn't be all that useful - any degree of communication would have so much lag that saying hello to each other would take millions of years.

By which time, the human race will have wiped itself out.

So I come to the bleak conclusion that to all intents and purposes, we're all alone .

Good topic, tho 👍

 

[Blake]

We are carbon based creatures (as is everything else on this planet, except maybe Pamela Anderson who is silicon based) and as far as I know, the only other element that could be a base for life is silicon. Of course their is everything else in that group, such as germanium, tin etc. but they are too heavy to be the basis of life (as far as my understanding goes). The reason these elements could be the base for life is because they can form an infinate number of compunds. I can't remember what elements would be needed by silicon based life to survive, but I think it needs elements that are very toxic to carbon based life, so the chances of us being able to meet eachother is very slim .

Also the only reason their is "intellegent" life on earth is because a huge meteorite came and wiped out the dinasours, giving small mammals the chance to survive and evolve, eventually into us, the most technelogically advanced things on this planet. So I think "intellegent" life is pretty rare, I'm not saying it couldn't happen elsewhere, just that it may be less likely than we think.

Blake

 

[PublicSecrecy]

"Intelligent" life is indeed hard to find in the Universe. Let alone earth. I mean, look at the people we are supposed to idolize:

-George Bush
-Brittany Spears
-Jessica Simpson
-Will Smith when puff daddy came out
-Jim Carey

As for us ever making tansmissions or some form of communication, I'm not sure it will take quite as long as a million years, but yes, since the distances would be so vast it would be damn hard to communicate. It takes 8 minutes for sunligh tto travel to Earth, one Astronomical Unit. That equates to about 150 million kilometres. Pluto is 5.9 BILLION kilometres. If something travels at the speed of light, it would take 40 minutes to travel from the sun to pluto, at its farthest distance. And since a radio transmission supposedly travels along light wavelengths to a certain degree, and the nearest star/solar system is alpha Centauri, it would take approximately 4.3 years to send a message, and another 4.3 years to recieve it, whatever was in that universe was using the same technology. Now that may seem long, but when you consider how much farther away the farthest known solar system is (15 billion lightyears), it really isn't that much at all. According to NASA, at the rate of technological expansion (10 000 years to leave Earth- 2 more to reach the moon, 4 more to send man to the moon, and 20 000 more for Voyager2 to reach Alpha Centauri) Earthlings could theorhetically have jumped to a whole new solar system before ours burns out, before are scheduled to die out, and hopefully before our planet dies due to our pollution. Apparently, if we were to cut off all cars, factories, logging operations, and wars, the Earth would be fully functional, fully repaired, and good to go in about 120 years. But that's never going to happen to why hypothesize? Anyway, my point is, is that it is entirely possible that technology (if it continues to advance at the same rate as it has in the past 150 years) will bring us to other galaxies and discover other lifeforms well within Mankind's existence.

 

[ND4SPD]

Damn, all this theory about space, makes me feel so insignificant.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

That's because you live in your room.

 

[ND4SPD]

That's because you live in your room.

No, comment.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

And that's Jeff's complete theory on space and life in it.

 

[Blake]

No, comment.

Lol

Blake

 

[Emohawk]

(nothing personal)

there must be something else out there because if there wasn't then why would space be so big, vast, and empty? Seems like a big waste to me.

I hate this, it's not a logical arguement. So what if it's a big waste? Your sense of economy is not a concrete principal of reality.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

he's simply stating that since the universe is so vast, and theres so much crap in it, that it would be more stupid to assume we are the only form of "intelligent" life. Heck there could be civilizations 10x more advanced than we are and we would have no clue. Fortunately for us, if they were more advanced they'd probably realise that we are another life form and respect our existence. But who knows, maybe there are thousands of colonies of George W. Bush-like creatures out there that are just dying to bomb us and take over.

 

[the_cobbinator]

Just out of curiosity, is is really neccessary to bring George W, Bush into everything? It just seems to be getting a little stale.

Anyways, I feel that there is intelligent life elsewhere, but I think it's doubtful that the race would resemble humans. I would imagine that given the proper amount of time, small, molecular organisms could evolve into intelligent beings, but the being's traits would be characterized by the environment in which it evolved in.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

True. Environment would have a lot to do with how it evolved. I think that unless there's a planet out there with an environment very similar to that of Earth's, then I doubt we'll see anything remotely similar to a human.

 

[Blake]

Yeah, I imagine they would look very different. What I find stupid is that on sfi-fi movies etc. they always give the aliens a face, and an earth life skeletal configuration, but we all have that because of a common ancestor and I think it's highly unlikely that other life would have that ancestor so I imagine they would look very different to us.

Blake

 

[PublicSecrecy]

I'm guessing that if the environment were similar to that of the earth though, they would have very similar looking people (along the right time-frame of course). Apparently we have evolved the way we did (as humans?), because it is one of the most efficient lifeforms (4 fingers and a thumb, 2 eyes, 2 ears etc.) . I hardly think thats true, because you have single cell life forms that will eat just about anything, live just about anywhere, and can reproduce asexually. If we're so efficient howcome the average human can only operate for about 9 hours a day or run a mile, when dogs, horses, and many other animals (especially monkeys too) are much stronger and know how to organise themselves much better? Anyway, I'm just guessing that an intelligable lifeform would be weak, unethical and hugely wasteful...much like us.

 

[Blake]

I'm guessing that if the environment were similar to that of the earth though, they would have very similar looking people (along the right time-frame of course). Apparently we have evolved the way we did (as humans?), because it is one of the most efficient lifeforms (4 fingers and a thumb, 2 eyes, 2 ears etc.) . I hardly think thats true, because you have single cell life forms that will eat just about anything, live just about anywhere, and can reproduce asexually. If we're so efficient howcome the average human can only operate for about 9 hours a day or run a mile, when dogs, horses, and many other animals (especially monkeys too) are much stronger and know how to organise themselves much better? Anyway, I'm just guessing that an intelligable lifeform would be weak, unethical and hugely wasteful...much like us.

The energy that the human brain uses tends to make us inheritly weak and lazy. Unethical and wasteful, well I think society is to blame for that, many indigenous tribes etc. were extremely effecient, did not take more than they needed and didn't waste anything, and ethics is just a principle so I'm not sure if that's just inherit human behaviour or what.

Blake

 

[PublicSecrecy]

The energy that the human brain uses tends to make us inheritly weak and lazy. Unethical and wasteful, well I think society is to blame for that, many indigenous tribes etc. were extremely effecient, did not take more than they needed and didn't waste anything, and ethics is just a principle so I'm not sure if that's just inherit human behaviour or what.

Blake

Good point, but remember, we consider ourselves modern now (or digital i'm not sure they crap it is now). Which means we're supposed to be better than others or something. Definitions of stuff r dumb. fnar fnar

 

[Blake]

Supposed to be, it'll never happen, as we have gotten more "modern" I think we've become more wasteful as we aren't struggleing to urvive on what little we have, we have superfluous amounts of everything, I guess we don't see it as wasteful if we've got heaps of it.

Blake

 

[PublicSecrecy]

Another good point. Humans r gay. thank god im not o- anyway i better get going have fun earthling

 

[Blake]

Well I don't have any more good points up my sleeve, so I'll leave this thread for a little bit

Blake

 

[DRL]

I guess I'm a part of the "It's too big for us to be alone" group.

Here's what I think... I did a quick google search and found an estimate for the age of the universe to be 13 billion - 14 billion years old, and that life on Earth first appeared 2-3 billion years ago(just grabbed a few numbers, feel free to revise). Couldn't life have flourished and perished before Earth was even created?
And something must have started it. I just can't believe that life would only spark at a certain point in the universe at a certain time, and absolutely nowhere else. There are only so many variables as to what planets can and can not support life, and a vast amount of planets. And then there's always the possibility that life elsewhere might not be like life on earth, just like how someone said earlier.

Heck, I don't know. I'm supposed to write a Social Studies Final Exam tomorrow, and get on with the rest of my life. If we are the only ones in the entire universe to experience the wonders of life, I feel like I'm getting screwed over in this whole 'birth->school->job->reproduce->die' deal.

 

[PublicSecrecy]

Ain't that the truth.

 

[Danoff]

Also the only reason their is "intellegent" life on earth is because a huge meteorite came and wiped out the dinasours, giving small mammals the chance to survive and evolve, eventually into us, the most technelogically advanced things on this planet. So I think "intellegent" life is pretty rare, I'm not saying it couldn't happen elsewhere, just that it may be less likely than we think.

That’s the path the intelligent life took on Earth, but it isn’t necessarily the only way that intelligent life might have evolved. It’s quite possible that we could have evolved alongside the dinosaurs. It may have taken a few million more years, or it might have taken even less time.

Imagine that! Humans and dinosaurs living at the same time. Today they’d be in big big zoos.

Or perhaps mammals wouldn’t have been the ones to develop intelligence. Perhaps the dinos would have developed intelligence instead.

The thing is, even if intelligent life did develop somewhere else in the universe, it might have been wiped out by an asteroid, or it might have wiped itself out when it achieved nuclear power. Perhaps they follow a religion that prevents them from having technology. Or perhaps one of the technological advancements that we think of as a fundamental building block, is much harder than we realize.

Perhaps Isaac Newton or Einstein was more of a revolutionary thinker than we know. Perhaps other cultures will spend hundreds of years before realizing the things that one of our geniuses picked up.

Or perhaps it works the other way around, maybe we took a really long time and other cultures have a jump on us.

Perhaps the aliens live on a planet that has different natural resources that give them a disadvantage as they try to develop technology. Maybe it gives them an advantage. Perhaps their planet is larger than ours so they can’t get a rocket into space (too much gravity) or perhaps space travel came quickly because they have very little gravity.

Or…


Perhaps they got to the point in their civilization when genetic engineering becomes possible and they shaped their brains into something so fantastic that it is capable of conquering the problem of traveling faster than light.

Or perhaps that problem is much harder than we thought and we won’t solve it for millennia.

The biggest problem with this discussion is that we have no idea how common or uncommon life is, let alone intelligent life, let alone intelligent life capable of solving the faster-than-light travel problem.

 

[DoZeRxXx]

usually when we travel space arent we just looking for a planet that has water and is about 80 degrees (F) every day, and trying to find these aliens that crashed(supposedly) into area 51? are we even picking up a few of the rocks on mars and stuff and examineing them closely?

another thing, maybe we are just some micro-organisms to something much huger than us and we are just living on some tiny tiny rock in the desert somewhere?

 

[Blake]

That’s the path the intelligent life took on Earth, but it isn’t necessarily the only way that intelligent life might have evolved. It’s quite possible that we could have evolved alongside the dinosaurs. It may have taken a few million more years, or it might have taken even less time.

Imagine that! Humans and dinosaurs living at the same time. Today they’d be in big big zoos.

I'm not saying it's the only way intelliegent life could have evolved, but I'm saying that's how it did, due to a giant fluke. As to us living alongside Dinosaurs, I doubt it, they were keeping small mammels in check and I doubt mammels would have had the chance to evolve into intellegent life with such a constant threat.

Or perhaps mammals wouldn’t have been the ones to develop intelligence. Perhaps the dinos would have developed intelligence instead.

I think it would be very difficult for a dinosaur to become intellegent, first of all the were pretty dumb to begin with, I think it's almost impossible for the brain of a dinosaur to get enough energy to perform complex problem solving tasks.

The thing is, even if intelligent life did develop somewhere else in the universe, it might have been wiped out by an asteroid, or it might have wiped itself out when it achieved nuclear power. Perhaps they follow a religion that prevents them from having technology. Or perhaps one of the technological advancements that we think of as a fundamental building block, is much harder than we realize.

Perhaps Isaac Newton or Einstein was more of a revolutionary thinker than we know. Perhaps other cultures will spend hundreds of years before realizing the things that one of our geniuses picked up.

Or perhaps it works the other way around, maybe we took a really long time and other cultures have a jump on us.

Perhaps the aliens live on a planet that has different natural resources that give them a disadvantage as they try to develop technology. Maybe it gives them an advantage. Perhaps their planet is larger than ours so they can’t get a rocket into space (too much gravity) or perhaps space travel came quickly because they have very little gravity.

Or…


Perhaps they got to the point in their civilization when genetic engineering becomes possible and they shaped their brains into something so fantastic that it is capable of conquering the problem of traveling faster than light.

Or perhaps that problem is much harder than we thought and we won’t solve it for millennia.

The biggest problem with this discussion is that we have no idea how common or uncommon life is, let alone intelligent life, let alone intelligent life capable of solving the faster-than-light travel problem.

Exactly, there are so many variables, we don't know if our planet is an absolute miracle or if it is fairly common or whether there's life all over the universe, we only know about ourselves and how things went here, we have no other evidence to base any arguements on.

another thing, maybe we are just some micro-organisms to something much huger than us and we are just living on some tiny tiny rock in the desert somewhere?

Don't you just love stepping back and trying to figure out how insignificant we really are?

Blake

 

[PublicSecrecy]

Some guy posted some crazy **** in the convo forum (no offense to whoever it is) about how there was probably a civilization on the Earth before us. Um, yes the Universe is 14-15 billion years old, and yes earth is 4-5 billion years old...but how could we have gone through so many generations of exploring and only come up with neanderthals and primates and dinosaurs? It's almost innevitable that we'd eventually find some peice of a lost billion year old civilization. and lets not forget that the earliest forms of life discovered originated between 1-2 billion years ago. Don't you just love shell fish?

[Edit] Oh and don't forget that since we're 1 astronomical unit away form the sun now, 5 billion years ago, we'd be about 1/2 as far away, and the sun would have been bigger, and the Earth would have still been forming. So because there was nothing to stand on (ala hot molten magma everywhere) and many of the gasses that were on Earth were barely breathable, it is extremely unlikely any form of life would have formed.