Do you believe we are alone in the universe?

The universe is far, far, far too big and ancient a place to reasonably rule out life elsewhere. Even if the galaxy is currently lacking intelligent life other than our own (and I'm not convinced it is - our expectations of what intelligent life should be doing with itself is, obviously, prejudiced toward our own ideals), I don't think it was nor will be. I'm also much more optimistic about FTL.

 

[Ratskinner]

The other apes have been around as long as we have − and all of them failed to make the ‘jump’.

The human proves to be unique.

While humans are unique as a matter of observation, that doesn't prove that we are necessarily unique in this sense. That's one of the problems with sample of one. What we do know is that it seems relatively common on Earth for other species to bump up against whatever it is that the 'jump' is jumping over. (I suspect it is related to language, given things like how well FOXP2 mutations of modern humans were preserved against the neanderthal and denisovan introgressions.)

However, I suspect that there is definitely a "first in" effect here. If several already-diverse primates on Earth made "the jump" in a relatively short timeframe....one of them would make the developments that gives them the edge on their competitors. And soon, there would be only one. (I'm just imagining how medieval European explorers and merchants would have reacted to spear-chucking chimps, orangutans, or phanatons.)

 

[Yaarel]

While humans are unique as a matter of observation, that doesn't prove that we are necessarily unique in this sense. That's one of the problems with sample of one. What we do know is that it seems relatively common on Earth for other species to bump up against whatever it is that the 'jump' is jumping over. (I suspect it is related to language, given things like how well FOXP2 mutations of modern humans were preserved against the neanderthal and denisovan introgressions.)

However, I suspect that there is definitely a "first in" effect here. If several already-diverse primates on Earth made "the jump" in a relatively short timeframe....one of them would make the developments that gives them the edge on their competitors. And soon, there would be only one. (I'm just imagining how medieval European explorers and merchants would have reacted to spear-chucking chimps, orangutans, or phanatons.)

At the same time. The evidence of only ONE intelligent species on planet earth − when there are roughly 8 million species. Suggests the odds of an intelligent species on a planet is apparently, 1 in 8 million. Yes we would like other planets for comparison, but evidently intelligent species are extremely unlikely.



Regarding the ‘jump’ to become an intelligent species, it seems to be all about the capacity of language, where linguistic constructs can relativize the ‘meaning’ of biological instincts, thus override biological instincts. (Heh, of course, the capacity of language itself is a biological instinct, albeit an especially potent one that can override other instincts.)



On the other hand, I agree with the ‘first in’ effect here. Where humans entering the intelligent species ‘niche’ might prevent other species from entering it.

But that too can also have cosmological implications. It may be, we humans are the first intelligent species in this universe. Otherwise, an other extraterrestrial species before us may have already arrived and edged us apes out before we even evolved into humans.

 

[Shasarak]

The galaxy is around 200,000 light years from end to end. At 0.1 it would take 2 million years just to cross the galaxy, let alone visit every planet in the entire place.

Sure, lets use your figure. So the Milky Way is around 13 billion years old and at 0.1c it takes 2 million years to spread across it which gives aliens (or at least their machines) plenty of time to come here.

Ok, let's posit another intelligent race. Let's also posit that it's close enough to our neck of the galaxy that contact would actually be feasible. Sorry, even if they have some sort of FTL communication system, we don't, so, we're limited to light speed here. And, so far, we've been transmitting for less than a hundred years. The odds that a technological species capable of talking to us, also being near enough to us spatially and ALSO concurrent to our time frame is unbelievably small. If we're off by even a couple of hundred thousand years, an mere eyeblink of time when we're talking about the millions or billions of years available, we won't ever meet.

To me, this is the answer to Fermi's paradox. It's not so much that we never see aliens, it's that the odds of an intelligent, technologically advanced species being in our neighbourhood, RIGHT NOW, are so vanishingly small that of course we're not seeing anything.

Well that is the thing, we would not have to transmit (or travel) light years to different solar systems. There should be aliens here right now because they have had enough time.

So long as the Speed of Light holds up, there will be no alien visitations. Million year projects are cool for SF and all, but, again, the odds of a species being able to see that far ahead are virtually impossible. Heck, we're bad enough at looking ten years down the line. It's why things like terraforming Mars will continue to be a pipe dream. There's just no way that our society will ever commit to a project that will take centuries to complete.

I would not agree with that. There are plenty of mega projects around the world that took more then 10 years to build like the Pyramid and the Great Wall. Some estimates put the Great Wall at 200 years. If thats a bit too fantasy for you then we can go Sci-Fi with the Large Hadron Collider which took 10 years to build and the International Space Station has just been finished recently (also 10 years)

If we just stick to Space exploration the Voyager 1 satellite is 41 years old now and left the solar system about 6 years ago. Imagine if we did the same thing with a 3d printer on board that could build more satellites as it goes. I dont know that the scientists that designed Voyager imagined that they could do that but it does not seem impossible to do now.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Imagine if we did the same thing with a 3d printer on board that could build more satellites as it goes.

...if it had enough raw materials to do so, of course.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure, lets use your figure. So the Milky Way is around 13 billion years old and at 0.1c it takes 2 million years to spread across it which gives aliens (or at least their machines) plenty of time to come here.

And? You're assuming that 1) they have been around for more than 2 million years, 2) they have interest in exploring, 3) that they would explore in the manner you suggest, 4) that they would bother to stop and try to communicate with us, 5) that a race that advanced couldn't keep their visits a secret from us, 6-a whole lot) other reasons why they wouldn't have stopped here or we wouldn't know about it. Intelligent alien life would probably have alien thought processes, so what we might do isn't necessarily what they would do.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

However, I suspect that there is definitely a "first in" effect here. If several already-diverse primates on Earth made "the jump" in a relatively short timeframe....one of them would make the developments that gives them the edge on their competitors. And soon, there would be only one. (I'm just imagining how medieval European explorers and merchants would have reacted to spear-chucking chimps, orangutans, or phanatons.)

Uh-oh...
BONOBOS WITH CROSSBOWS!!!*







* RPG, copyright me, game due in Fall 2019. Expansions MACAQUE ATTACKS, BABOON DRAGOONS and MASTERS OF FLUNG-POO, with GORILLAS IN MANILA AP in Spring 2020**


** not a chance in Hades.

 

[Imaculata]

We basically have a sample size of 1. It is indeed like taking a spoon full of water from the ocean, finding life, and then concluding that there for the rest of the ocean must not have any life in it. Only the ocean in this example is far bigger than we could ever comprehend. In my opinion, this actually makes it likely that the universe is full of life. But the distances are so vast that we may never make contact with one another.

 

[Hussar]

Sure, lets use your figure. So the Milky Way is around 13 billion years old and at 0.1c it takes 2 million years to spread across it which gives aliens (or at least their machines) plenty of time to come here.



Well that is the thing, we would not have to transmit (or travel) light years to different solar systems. There should be aliens here right now because they have had enough time.



I would not agree with that. There are plenty of mega projects around the world that took more then 10 years to build like the Pyramid and the Great Wall. Some estimates put the Great Wall at 200 years. If thats a bit too fantasy for you then we can go Sci-Fi with the Large Hadron Collider which took 10 years to build and the International Space Station has just been finished recently (also 10 years)

If we just stick to Space exploration the Voyager 1 satellite is 41 years old now and left the solar system about 6 years ago. Imagine if we did the same thing with a 3d printer on board that could build more satellites as it goes. I dont know that the scientists that designed Voyager imagined that they could do that but it does not seem impossible to do now.

The Great Wall was built in fits and starts over centuries, from local walls that were joined up later on down the line. But, even at 200 years, so what? You're talking about a million years. Again, it's an eyeblink. And the only reason the Great Wall was continuously built was because of the outside threats to China. AND, even after a relatively short span of time, they saw the effects of having the Wall. You really think that human society will continuously expend the resources necessary to terraform, say, Mars, for centuries? Not happening. There's just no way that any society is going to expend that level of resources for something that will have no benefit for centuries.

Even something like Von Neumann self replicating machines don't work. They run up against Newton. You cannot have perfect replication. There will always be breakdowns. And, once you go into deep time - such as a million years, the machines will simply not be able to replicate themselves fast enough to overcome failures. Heck, some species can't do it and they have a LOT easier time than trying to travel interstellar distances through all sorts of radiation, and whatnot.

Sorry, but, between Newton and Einstein, interstellar travel is pretty much off the board. You're talking FAR too many resources being allocated for virtually no gain.

 

[Morrus]

It has occurred on 100% of the planets that we know of which contain life, but that unfortunately makes for a sample size of 1, which isn't very useful for predicting anything.

That was the joke, yeah.

 

[Morrus]

I saw an interesting statistic that it would only take around 1 million years for a self replicating space ship with an average travel speed of 0.1 c to spread from one side of the Milky Way to the other.

With the galactic time frame you dont even need to have FTL travel.

It's a common one. Assumes Von Neumann probes that move at 10% of light speed, and extract resources and replicate themselves on each planet, spreading like a virus across the galaxy. Most recent models put it at about 10M years, though.