Nope; that's why I said 'maybe'. It's a guess. How could I or anyone else know the answer to that with certainty?
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Fascinating Talk Connecting Cosmology To Life
- Thread starter amirm
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Marc v E
Major Contributor
Lol, that's exactly why I wrote the sentence you first reacted to. I guess we've gone full circle and understand each other now. Funny how things roll.
JSmith
Master Contributor
I find Roger Penroses theory on this quite interesting and all theories on this topic in general;
New evidence for cyclic universe claimed by Roger Penrose and colleagues – Physics World
Cosmic microwave hot spots could point to black holes from before the Big Bang, but some physicists disagree
physicsworld.com
JSmith
In a way we already live in a multiverse. Quantum world, ours and world of galaxies are so wastly different that I would consider them multiverses?
I find it funny how self observed we are, always looking for a way to give significance to our exsistance. There are almost infinite chances that we are totally insignificant, or better there is no significance at all. We are significant ONLY to our self.
I find it funny how self observed we are, always looking for a way to give significance to our exsistance. There are almost infinite chances that we are totally insignificant, or better there is no significance at all. We are significant ONLY to our self.
Marc v E
Major Contributor
Frank Wilczek on Lex Fridman.
I read his book on Quantum physics for laymen. I can tell you, however bitesize you want to make it, it's hard to get your head around even the basics. It's mindblowing. And counterintuitive.
I read his book on Quantum physics for laymen. I can tell you, however bitesize you want to make it, it's hard to get your head around even the basics. It's mindblowing. And counterintuitive.
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Nice unprovable test.
WillBrink
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Science does not work on "proof" but evidence, or lack there of. As there's no evidence to the contrary, the default position is it happened cuz it happened without higher powers, intelligence, or conscious intent. Short of a time machine, God(s) or aliens deciding to let us know directly they had a hand in life developing on this planet, that will be the default hypothesis and why all but a fraction of scientists in the field work from that hypothesis. I try and stay agnostic about such things as best I can as it's the one of the most important and interesting Qs we ask.
The "meaning" of life is an individual one left to each person to figure out before we shuffle off this mortal coil.
Always when we thought we are speacial, we where proofen wrong. So from my point of view, its more logical to think we are not speacial. Since 200 years we know about communication with radio waves. If you look how long it took to evolve to this point, its absolutly nothing. Maybe we need 100000 years more to receive something and even this would be a short time span. Its a littel like you want to meet someone with no appointment in ms accuracy.
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Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
I'm a big fan of this stuff. My personal feeling is that there is other intelligent life out there. I certainly don't think it's a sure thing though. But my feeling is that if it's true we're the only species that's gone technological, well it seems to me if it's that rare, it would simply never happen at all. I mean we didn't just get intelligence...we got off the planet. We're exploring space...just like our imaginations foresaw. We only have one example of it happening - US. But we also actually have one example of it happening - US. So, the occurrence is obviously allowed in our universe...which suggests to me that it's likely happened more than once. The answer to the Fermi Paradox may just be that the nearest intelligent species capable of communicating with us is 100,000 light years away. If the speed of light is actually an insurmountable thing, there's just so much distance to cover that we might as well be alone. Now of course there's still an issue there, because part of the problem is that even with a very low chance of intelligence, we should still be seeing life all over the universe by now - likely in the form of Von Neuman probes/Artificial Intelligence. The universe is so old, and so vast that by now there certainly should be older intelligent species that have far far far more advanced technology than us - and even if those species have died off their stuff should still be out there doing it's thing. We could be one of the first that's gotten this far...which would probably be a lucky thing for us actually. Or, again perhaps there are lots of probes and things floating around out there but they're still thousands of years away from us. There are regions of space that look pretty weird - The Bootes Void for instance.
But I'm really excited by the prospect of simply finding good evidence of other biological life out there - intelligent or not - in my lifetime. That would be amazing.
I'm also on a real Sci-Fi bender lately. Currently reading the Three Body Problem trilogy as well as Revelation Space. Just loaded with crazy concepts.
But I'm really excited by the prospect of simply finding good evidence of other biological life out there - intelligent or not - in my lifetime. That would be amazing.
I'm also on a real Sci-Fi bender lately. Currently reading the Three Body Problem trilogy as well as Revelation Space. Just loaded with crazy concepts.
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When you realize how hard it is to pick out a radio signal from an extreme distance (unless it's in the well), you come to realize that we haven't even begun to scratch the surface when it comes to surveying our own galaxy for EM emissions coming from a technological civilization. But what we have seemed to establish is that no civilization has extensively colonized the Milky Way and created a galactic civilization.
Anthropic principle - if it never happened, we wouldn't be here talking about it. All we can say for sure is that of millions of species on earth, only one has gone technological.
However, there are enough stars in the universe that even if it's effectively impossible for a technological species to arise, it's not actually impossible.
It's said there are 10^25 planets in the universe.
Even if the odds are 1-in-a-million against technological life arising in an entire galaxy, there are still 2 trillion galaxies and therefore 2 million technological species out there. That doesn't do much for our odds of meeting one, but it does put in perspective how rare something has to be to LITERALLY NEVER happen.
Hard to say. We have a ton of UFO sightings, which are almost definitely bogus or manmade, but if a galactic civilization had sent out a fleet of observation probes... what if?
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Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
True of course, although it could be the case that a planet is only ever likely to host one technological species at any time. Once one gets there, no other has a chance. Otoh, there definitely are other intelligent species on Earth. The Octopus is a very intelligent (and quite alien lol) creature. But further to the point I was trying to make, it's just something I was ruminating about the other day really...just thinking about the notion that we might be the only intelligent species in the whole universe (or Galaxy even). In a way, it seems to me that our existence combined with the fact that we've figured out how to get from our planet to the Moon and beyond - it just seems like that implies that the universe is sort of "set up" in favor of life. It seems to me to be at least as unlikely that it would only happen once as that it would happen over and over again all over the place. What are the chances that the ONLY intelligent species in the whole damn barnyard would actually manage to get off the planet?
Now it could be the case that we've benefitted from a bunch of random lucky breaks that made our progress possible and that without all those coincidental bennies it just can't happen. But I generally adhere to the mediocrity principle ftmp. We may be lucky enough to live in a nice comfy little cosmic bubble here, but it's probably not the nicest little bubble in the whole cosmos. There's probably bubbles out there that are even more comfy and homey for life to blossom in...
The UFO thing is difficult. On the one hand it's easy to dismiss much of it as goofy silliness. Otoh, if some super inteligent species had sent out Aritificially Intelligent probes to "keep an eye" on the galactic neighborhood, they might behave a lot like some of the things the Navy pilots are running across...
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The problem with the universe is that it is not clear what it is. Can we even name it? Name what? Our notion of a thing is something different from something else, but in this case.. I mean, if the universe includes everything, then.. isn't the the meaning of this word trivial and non-informative? Oh boy... I'll restrict myself to the solar system, that I can understand. 
Another point of view is that many favorable coincidences had to happen for us to get here.
The configuration of the solar system appears to be unusual and helpful in shielding us from asteroid impacts and whatnot.
The earth has a nice robust magnetic field, which not all planets do.
We haven't been hit with any serious gamma ray bursts or things of that nature.
AND - to the point about being able to launch rockets - we have the benefit of millions of years worth of fossil fuel just sitting in the ground! This is not guaranteed either!
Humans might be the equivalent of a species that won the lottery 5 times on the same day, or we might be kinda average, we have no way of knowing yet.
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
lol, I actually just addressed my thoughts on that in an edit to my post as you were responding.
Sgt. Ear Ache
Major Contributor
Yep absolutely true...but boy what a lotto win right?? I mean just think of the stupendous odds that the ONLY intelligent species in the entire universe...the only one that would have the capability to use it - actually dropped on a planet that happened to have a suitable supply of the fuel needed to get off the planet! I mean were that the case you'd almost have to wonder if it hadn't been set up that way.
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It's a simulation and we're the subject of a bet:
Carbon-based biological life can't colonize the galaxy even if you set the the difficulty to zero.
Odds: 10:1.
Wager: Lunch at the simulation shop.
The appreciation that something cooked in the stars is now studying them is really beautiful. Matter is studying matter.
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