Do you think there are other forms of life out there?

Question

i have always wondered this... what is your opinion?

Answer 1

-I think the odds would greatly support the chance of there being other forms of life, even intelligent ones, in the Universe.

That said, - I also think the chance that we will ever discover such intelligent Life is so infinitesimally small that, for all practical intents and purposes,... it is non-existent.

Indeed, we could actually run into such life and never even know it,...
... for there is nothing that says that any other intelligent Life would be able to comprehend that we even exist, much less understand our 'human' concepts.

As humans in a human world, we may arrogantly think that our plethora of disciplines in science and mathematics can be 'universally' understood but, to an alien Life form,...

... they may mean nothing more to them than incoherent scratches on a cave wall.
-

Answer 2

There are chickens and cows and bacteria and viruses all other kinds of odd stuff already. Why worry about "out there"? We are systematically killing off all forms of life here.

On the other hand, since we are unlikely to stop our fumigation of this planet, it would be nice if there were truly intelligent life somewhere.

There are more galaxies than we have stars in our own galaxy, so the odds seem to favor the existence of some form of life elsewhere in the universe, although it will likely be too remote for us to ever locate it. Life is so persistent that it crops up in the most bizarre forms and unexpected places.

Answer 3

Well, given our existence...added to an infinite universe... I'm sure there is likely to be other life out there. And very possibly other intelligent life forms throughout the universe wondering, like us, if each other is out there...

Answer 4

There are billions of stars in each galaxy, and there are billions of galaxies in the universe. We already know of several hundred extra-solar planets, so it appears (as expected) that stars with planets are ubiquitous. That means there must be countless trillions of other solar systems in the universe where there may have been planets with suitable conditions for abiogenesis.

Now, there must be a certain probability associated with abiogenesis - Maybe it's unlikely to happen even in a trillion solar systems (in which case why are we here?) or maybe it's only (say) one in a billion, in which case there ought to be hundreds of examples of extraterrestrial life in our galaxy alone, and billions in the universe as a whole.

However, what are the chances that the *probability* of abiogenesis exactly matches the number of *opportunities* it has to occur, so that it happened exactly once, and only once, in the entire universe? This, to me, seems incredibly unlikely - Either abiogenesis would be so unlikely that it would never happen, or it would be quite likely and it would happen billions of times. For it to occur just once, and only once, seems far more unlikely than either of these possibilities.

So... Given that we're here, my guess is that life has started in many other places in the universe too. How much of that would develop into intelligent species is another matter, of course.

The only caveat with this argument involves the idea of multiple universes: Suppose that there are many or an infinite number of universes, all with different characteristics, and that the probability of abiogenesis is so small that it's extremely unlikely to happen even in a trillion solar systems. In that case, maybe there are a vast number of other universes in which conditions suitable for life exist, but it never got started in those other universes - Our universe was the one place where this inconceivably unlikely event occurred, and it occurred only once. That's a possibility that we could perhaps be disappointed about, or inspired by, depending on your point of view.

Answer 5

perhaps. let's have a look shall we? certainly we can say that if we don't look we'll never find them. it may take a fair lot of time and money, but perhaps not so much as you'd think. within the next ten years it should be possible to detect certain signs of life in nearby earth-like planets, and of course the search for radio signals from ETIs continues.

Answer 6

There are very good chances that there is. The only problem is that it is so far away that we will not be able to find it until we invent more newer more advance technologies than what we currently have. And even than, the universe is so huge that it will have to be a lucky shot.

Answer 7

Yes

Answer 8

Yes

Answer 9

Probably, though I doubt we'll discover them anytime soon.


If there is a watery planet of a reasonable size in the habitable zone of a star in a stable period of its life, then the likelihood of life there is extreme high. However, the likelihood that we would be able to detect that life is low.

Encouragingly, we've learned in the last ten years that planets are *much* more common that we thought they were, and earthlike planets are not at all rare.

Answer 10

There has to be. Our sun is a star, and there are more stars out there than there are grains of sand on all of the beaches on this Earth, so, therefore, the are trillions and trillions of suns, and our sun has many planets, therefore, there must be plenty of planets around those trillions of suns. There have to be at least a billion other planets out there with life on them. Have to be. Out of all of those trillions? Have to be.

♥♥Peace♥