What's your theory on life elsewhere in the universe?

Question

Here my take:

Our Solar System is just one of 100 billion of them in the Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy is just one of 35 or so in the local group. The obserable universe if believed to have BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of galaxies. So even life in the universe only comprises %0.0000001 of the star systems out there, that would still be millions of worlds. That being said, I think it's the height of arrogance that anyone would make an assertion that we're the only civilisation that exists.

BUT..

The NEAREST star system besides us is Proxima Centauri, which would take 4 years or so to reach, IF YOU WERE GOING THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Additionally, it would take 100,000 years to exit the Milky Way, millions of years to travel to other galaxies, and billions of years to travel to the other side of a universe that we can't even place boundaries on.

Plus, at one tenth the speed of light (around 100 million km/h),
(hold on, out of characters...)

It is said that two rocks colliding could create an impact that would be the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb, and our universe if filled with more than grains of dust.

That being said, although the chance of life elsewhere in the universe is STATISTICALLY high, unless there are civilisations out there that have managed to make ships that travel as "unsolidified" "ghostlike" objects, unless they've managed to blur the distinction between science and pure magic, our chances we will ever meet them are STATISTICALLY troublingly low.

Answer 1

You are basically selling us the upside of the Drake Equation, named (surprise, surprise) after Frank Drake. Many people have played with the numbers and most come up with a pretty big number, suggesting life is common in the universe.

I personally believe it is inevitable that right now there are many planets with intelligent inhabitants elsewhere in this galaxy. And I believe many galaxies are the same.

This does not mean that I believe we get alien visitors. To me this is highly improbable. I am en exogenecist, as opposed to over 90% of people who are endogenecists. Hence my belief that life is the norm elsewhere, as opposed to being an exception.

Answer 2

I believe that wherever the conditions are right for life, there life will be.

The thing that is amazing about human life is that we have words, language running through our minds. Language, the meme of language, has been growing since it was first turned on maybe 75,000 years ago. Each person steps into that swelling stream for their lifetime. They explain the universe they see about them, with the words they have. Perhaps, a new word is made in their life time.

When there aren't words, then nothing happens. Words and consciousness are two sides of the same coin.

A language is taught. It is teachable. Reading and writing, printing, the expansion of books. The internet. The explosion of words, the exponential growth of consciousness.

I always wondered that if the universe contracted eventually and then there was another Big Bang, then there must have been an infinite number of Big Bangs? And in an infinite number of Big Bangs, this exact same universe would happen an infinite number of times.

I figure that the odds of two separate language speaking species of animals, to evolve in the same time, but on different planets, or solar systems, AND be close enough in time @ space to contact each other, is beyond remote.

Answer 3

The big problem with the idea that the universe is teeming with life is that we have no evidence of any not on Earth. It isn't so much a problem for life in general but for intelligent life it is pretty much a show stopper since it would take only millions of years to settle the galaxy fully with technology that we know to be possible and millions of years is actually a rather small timescale from a cosmological perspective so if there were other intelligent species in the galaxy then we should have found them already (i.e. they'd already be here).

We probably aren't alone in the universe but there are good reasons to suspect that we might be alone in this galaxy or even in the local group of galaxies. You'd have to be very arrogant to say that anyone who thinks we're alone in the universe is wrong because the evidence does not at all contradict that idea.

Answer 4

Hmm...Sounds about right. As Douglas Adams once wrote: "Space is Big...Really Big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space..."

There's a lot of it out there, and, as you say, the idea that anything like all of it is devoid of life rather stands up and slaps Reason in the kisser. But is IS awfully big, by our standards. So the chances of species having the technology to travel the vast distances involved is comparatively small.

Having said that, I suppose to a mayfly, the lake it's born near is Big...Really Big. And it's life, in comparison to ours, is short. Really short. So whereas we could row across the lake in a couple of hours, the mayfly has no hope of ever seeing the other side of it. If life has evolved elsewhere, we have no way of knowing how long ago it did so, and how tech-savvy it could be - Maybe it's found ways of rowing the to-us unconquerable distances of space. Maybe it just lives that darn long. Unless we kick research into a high gear and try and get out there ourselves, I guess we'll be waiting for a buzz from some of the other life in the universe.

Peace.

Answer 5

I had to go find these. I think it is very hard to grasp just how far things are away in both space and time. I doubt if we will ever meet anybody else out there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZJb6yFDKIw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHkOQFF5ewk

Now this one is just a bit more difficult for me to wrap my brain around, in spite of how simple it looks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzeGke6KdI

The point is that not only are the stars we see separate from us in space, they are separate in time as well. The video fails to show that the objects we see are caught up in the expansion just like we are and that by the time the light reaches us they are not where they were either.
Another way of looking at it is that at the distances we are looking at it is quite possible that life did not have time to form yet, and the farther away we look the worse the problem gets.
If yo consider that even Hubble lets us see back almost to the big bang then you start to get the idea of what I mean.

(I really hope the new telescopes inform us that our theories about space and time are wrong, so that we can figure out how to get out there for real.)

Anyhow, "God did it" does not seem to be a very useful answer to questions like this.

Answer 6

its pretty arrogant of people to think that humans are the most intelligent beings out there in the universe. When we meet them, chances are it will be them coming to us. Or at least in the short term anyway. Maby after our technology gets to a certain advanced point they will show up.

If they do come down and take people, Aliens!! Take me with you!! I wanna fly the ship!

Answer 7

Well the evolution of life isn't as far fetched as people seem to believe. Therefore I have absolutely NO doubt that there is life elsewhere in the universe.

Do I think we've been visited by extra-terrestrials though? No. Maybe one day though.

Answer 8

As I understand it, it is statistically impossible for us to be the only ones.

And I do think others have been here. They're in art from cave paintings down through the Renaissance, and probably responsible for at least part of the bible.

Answer 9

Why not? Hell, anythings possible. We can't be the only form of life in this entire universe. We are only a small part of it. No telling all the other civilizations and species of life in other galaxies...Just because we can't find them does not mean they are not there.

Answer 10

I think it would be foolish to believe that Earth is the only intelligently populated planet. I'm sure there is life elsewhere and if they have any sense they'll stay away from here until we either grow up or annihilate ourselves.