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There is this line of thought that says that there is an infinite number of intelligent races in the universe, and the argument goes along the lines of universe being infinite which means that there is an infinite number of planets in it, and they host an infinite number of intelligent races, and our existence is just a proof, or something like that.

When a friend started explaining this my reaction was: stfu and pass another beer!

adary wrote:There is this line of thought that says that there is an infinite number of intelligent races in the universe, and the argument goes along the lines of universe being infinite which means that there is an infinite number of planets in it, and they host an infinite number of intelligent races, and our existence is just a proof, or something like that.

When a friend started explaining this my reaction was: stfu and pass another beer!

As the universe is not infinite and we can measure its expansion that is a silly idea.

Grakmar wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Yes, there is almost assuredly intelligent life out there, somewhere. But, if it is out there, why hasn't it contacted us?

The most obvious answer is that there isn't other intelligent life out there. There are a few other logical answers, but most are rather unsatisfactory, IMO.

The only ones I really buy are the "zoo hypothesis" and the idea that it is the nature of intelligent life to exterminate itself in some way.

Why hasn't it contacted us? Distance just might have something to do with it.

just because they havn't contacted us does not mean that they do not exsist they could be at a similar stage as us, stages before, or even inteligant (ie if you don't try to contact people you won't get not trouble)

No. Stupid universe.

Unknown, and most likely we will never know.

Look at the SETI program. The purpose of that program is to monitor for radio waves from distant objects. But our own emission of radio waves is going to encompass only about 100 years, just a blip on the chronological radar. Unless we, in our few decades of listening, happen to overlap with some other species' radio broadcast, we're going to miss it.

The evolution of our species is pretty insignificant, given the amount of time the universe has been around.

There may very well be intelligent life out there, but we will never know.

I think the human race will know sometime, but not within anyone in the near future's life time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And how do we know they have not tried to contact us? We have only been listening for around forty years.

corpsesarefun wrote:

adary wrote:There is this line of thought that says that there is an infinite number of intelligent races in the universe, and the argument goes along the lines of universe being infinite which means that there is an infinite number of planets in it, and they host an infinite number of intelligent races, and our existence is just a proof, or something like that.

When a friend started explaining this my reaction was: stfu and pass another beer!

As the universe is not infinite and we can measure its expansion that is a silly idea.

Almost as silly as T-Rex's eating coconuts!

iproxtaco wrote:

Grakmar wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Yes, there is almost assuredly intelligent life out there, somewhere. But, if it is out there, why hasn't it contacted us?

The most obvious answer is that there isn't other intelligent life out there. There are a few other logical answers, but most are rather unsatisfactory, IMO.

The only ones I really buy are the "zoo hypothesis" and the idea that it is the nature of intelligent life to exterminate itself in some way.

Why hasn't it contacted us? Distance just might have something to do with it.

Well, the universe is incredibly old, and the Earth is fairly young. And, there are billions of planets in the galaxy. If intelligent life is common enough to develop on more than 1 planet in the galaxy, the number of planets indicate that it should have evolved on much more than 2.

And, since the universe is so old, it stands to reason that one of these civilizations got a head start on humans by hundreds of millions of years. Even traveling at only 10% of the speed of light, you'd manage to get probes all the way across the galaxy in only a million years.

Indubitably.

I have a hard time believing that it wouldn't exist somewhere else in the universe.

Yes, I am quite sure there is intelligent life in the universe somewhere other than earth.
Why haven't they contacted us yet?
Chance. The universe is so large, and the earth is so small. They probably haven't sent their messages towards earth yet. Also, they might not comunicate in a way familier to us. For example Pychic Messages, or some form of energy we haven't discovered yet. As well as this, because of the massive distances involved in space, any alien race trying to contact us may have died out long before the message reached us.

I have seen on some program that there are more stars in universe than there is grain of sand on this planet kind of makes you think there has to be another planet out there that can support life

Due to the theory of relativity which purports that we can never travel faster than the speed of light, means that we can forget any viable interstellar travel.

If this is a constant then the idea of little green or grey aliens travelling to earth can't happen, for this it will take a Space Ship hundreds of thousands of years to travel within several light years.

We call it science fiction because it is exactly that.

Even if intelligent life is out there, the chances of actually making contact and have any dialogue impossible, i watched a very good docco on Radio transmissions and the like, the only radio transmission by earth based transmittor would have to be very powerful and concentrate that transmission in a very tight beam to prevent Radio Wave Dispersal.

Sci-Fi movies like Contact that predisoses the theory that television and normal radio transmissions travel up to hundreds of light years is an out and out falsehood, television and normal radio transmission peters out after 5 light years, there are no known Earth Like planets within 5 light years of Earth, meaning that we are isolated, we also are located in a very poor concentration of space for stars, we are located between Galactic Arms which is Star Poor.

Achaylus72 wrote:Sci-Fi movies like Contact that predisoses the theory that television and normal radio transmissions travel up to hundreds of light years is an out and out falsehood, television and normal radio transmission peters out after 5 light years, there are no known Earth Like planets within 5 light years of Earth

...which kind of makes you wonder why we're spending any money on SETI at all. At least, the part that monitors radio frequencies.

biccat wrote:

Achaylus72 wrote:Sci-Fi movies like Contact that predisoses the theory that television and normal radio transmissions travel up to hundreds of light years is an out and out falsehood, television and normal radio transmission peters out after 5 light years, there are no known Earth Like planets within 5 light years of Earth

...which kind of makes you wonder why we're spending any money on SETI at all. At least, the part that monitors radio frequencies.

What do you mean by "we"? Government funding of SETI ended a long time ago. It's all been private contributions keeping it running for years and years now.

Grakmar wrote:

biccat wrote:

Achaylus72 wrote:Sci-Fi movies like Contact that predisoses the theory that television and normal radio transmissions travel up to hundreds of light years is an out and out falsehood, television and normal radio transmission peters out after 5 light years, there are no known Earth Like planets within 5 light years of Earth

...which kind of makes you wonder why we're spending any money on SETI at all. At least, the part that monitors radio frequencies.

What do you mean by "we"? Government funding of SETI ended a long time ago. It's all been private contributions keeping it running for years and years now.

Interesting. I figured they were still part of NASA.

Still, seems a bit of a waste, but if people want to throw their money away, good for them

biccat wrote:

Grakmar wrote:

biccat wrote:

Achaylus72 wrote:Sci-Fi movies like Contact that predisoses the theory that television and normal radio transmissions travel up to hundreds of light years is an out and out falsehood, television and normal radio transmission peters out after 5 light years, there are no known Earth Like planets within 5 light years of Earth

...which kind of makes you wonder why we're spending any money on SETI at all. At least, the part that monitors radio frequencies.

What do you mean by "we"? Government funding of SETI ended a long time ago. It's all been private contributions keeping it running for years and years now.

Interesting. I figured they were still part of NASA.

Still, seems a bit of a waste, but if people want to throw their money away, good for them

reminds me...i still think we should spend more on space travel....

Leys face it if they are advanced enough to get to us, then they will observe us first, they will see our capasity for war and violance and the such, then they will probably avoid us (if they are smart) or attack us as we are likely to be a threat in the future.

I hope there is.

my viewpoint on it,

if you're religious, if god created just us, then that really is just a waste of space

if you're not religious (or are capable of thinking practically) the universe is a large place, there HAS to be some other lifeforms out "there" wherever "there" is