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.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's also the question of uplift (in the David Brin sense). We are starting to get into genetic editing. That gives us the option of helping other species over the hump. Gorillas don't use language in the wild, but can be taught basic sign language and express themselves. How much would it take to bring a gorilla or chimpanzee or bonobo to full language use?

(Love me some Brin.)

Even with uplifting, they may still need signing and written/typed communications if their physiology remains incapable of producing speech.

I worry what the Bonobos will post in online forums, if things get to that point.

Also, M:tG players will have to stop using the phrase “monkeys flinging cards” to describe playing mechanically simple decks as “speciesist”.

 

[Hussar]

Perhaps no earth society is going to expend that level of resources. Are you assuming aliens will be and/or act like humans for some reason?

Well, math is still math. The notion that an alien society will expend massive resources for no real gain isn't really a compelling argument.[/quote]

At our current level of technology you cannot have perfect replication. I see no good reason why a sufficiently advanced civilization would be forced to use our level of replication, though.

Newton still applies. That whole pesky third law where entropy increases over time. It's not a technological issue, it's an issue with the universe. Unless our basic underpinnings of understanding of the universe are wrong, you cannot ever have perfect replication.

Unless of course there are things we don't know about, which there are. Lots of them. I don't know why you take this position based off of our highly limited understanding of the universe. Heck, we even know our understanding is highly limited.

Again, unless our basic understanding of the universe is totally wrong, then, sorry, nope, not going to happen. Look, I'd love to be wrong. But, again, we're slapping up against actual science here.

 

[Mortus]

I recently read an article on bbc.com about the origin of life. Basically, there are five main theories, but each requires that they be the first (i.e metabolism, reproduction, DNA/RNA, etc.). This bolstered my belief that we are alone. It is possible that the origin of life here on Earth was a one-off event. We've been looking for decades and we haven't found one shred of proof. If we crack the mystery of origin of life that should help shed more light on this big question.

 

[Shasarak]

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.

Luckily we can rely on the sunk cost fallacy to work in our advantage in this case. Once we get started then the emphasis is on continuing. For example if you have settlers there who have children then you have a self replicating terraforming system.

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.

If replication is impossible then how did life manage to get by until now? How do rabbits breed like rabbits if they can not replicate themselves fast enough to overcome failures? I dont really understand the point you are trying to make.

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.

Once you start being able to harvest the whole resources of the solar system and then the resources of the next system then you dont have a scarcity of resources.

 

[Maxperson]

Well, it's worth noting that Earth had meaningful life on it for 500 million years before it had sentient life that could ask this sort of question (and I believe it took 3 billion years to get to that point in total!) So any consideration of life on other planets has from the one model at hand the following points to consider:

You don't know that, though. You have no idea if a sentient dinosaur clan evolved and was destroyed by a volcano or meteor strike. Sentience may well have appeared and vanished dozens of times before it finally took off.

3. We can't know whether we are special in the universe, but we can state that we are the only representative sample we have to study. As such, it's not unreasonable to assume that the length of time it took life on Earth and eventual sentient civilization to develop wouldn't take at least as long on other planets of the same composition/placement in the Goldilocks zone of other star systems.

Assuming we know how long it takes with any certainty, and we don't. We can only assume we are the first and look at how long it took. You also had multiple resents in evolution with the great extinction events. The time we assume it took for sentience to appear might have been greatly reduced had those events not happened.


I think the answer to whether we are special or not boils down, at least for now, to the notion that we can consider ourselves special in the sense that we are a "sample of one," and the only sample we have unless something interesting rears its head in the frozen oceans of Enceladus or elsewhere. But we are by all probabilities not "special" in the sense that there is a vanishinghly small likelihood that our circumstances have not repeated to some degree elsewhere in the universe, probably many times.....but unfortunately not nearby, or necessarily in the same timeframe we have developed.[/QUOTE]

 

[Maxperson]

Well, math is still math. The notion that an alien society will expend massive resources for no real gain isn't really a compelling argument.

To us. You have no idea whether it would or would not be compelling to an alien culture.

Newton still applies. That whole pesky third law where entropy increases over time. It's not a technological issue, it's an issue with the universe. Unless our basic underpinnings of understanding of the universe are wrong, you cannot ever have perfect replication.

We don't understand a great deal about how the universe works. It's hubris to think we know for certain whether or not it's possible to have perfect replication.

Again, unless our basic understanding of the universe is totally wrong, then, sorry, nope, not going to happen. Look, I'd love to be wrong. But, again, we're slapping up against actual science here.

Science of the universe which changes annually as we discover new things and find out we were wrong about old things, oh and find out we were wrong about the new things we thought we were right about.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Once you start being able to harvest the whole resources of the solar system and then the resources of the next system then you dont have a scarcity of resources.

To us. You have no idea what scarcity would look like to a species with that capacity.

For example, if you can harvest whole systems, what happens when you’re one system short of your immediate requirements? What if the system you just started harvesting is unusually short of “Unobtanium”? Or if only certain systems have the characteristics that make harvesting economically feasible- such as no red giants or anything approaching going nova in N many years?

Bringing things around a bit, what if they only harvest systems devoid of life above a certain level of development? (Think of it like an interstellar version of the Endangered Species Act.)

We don't understand a great deal about how the universe works. It's hubris to think we know for certain whether or not it's possible to have perfect replication.

Ehhh...entropy looks pretty robust.

 

[Hussar]

Luckily we can rely on the sunk cost fallacy to work in our advantage in this case. Once we get started then the emphasis is on continuing. For example if you have settlers there who have children then you have a self replicating terraforming system.

But the cost to get to the point where you can actually realistically send settlers is so high and takes so long that it likely is never going to happen. No government is ever going to start a program that is going to take a thousand years to complete. And that's what terraforming is. A thousand year or more project. There's simply no way that any group of people is going to invest in something that will only benefit their many times great grandchildren. Never minding keeping that investment going for that long.

If replication is impossible then how did life manage to get by until now? How do rabbits breed like rabbits if they can not replicate themselves fast enough to overcome failures? I dont really understand the point you are trying to make.

Perfect replication is impossible. That's why we have evolution. Breed rabbits long enough and you don't have rabbits anymore. If that happens with your machines, then they don't explore anymore.

Once you start being able to harvest the whole resources of the solar system and then the resources of the next system then you dont have a scarcity of resources.

Again, the sunk costs of something like that are so great that it's never going to happen. And, frankly, why? What's the goal here? To send physical probes? Terraforming? You can't send people, they'll never survive the trip.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If that happens with your machines, then they don't explore anymore.

Yup- they come back home and try to destroy everything.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, the sunk costs of something like that are so great that it's never going to happen. And, frankly, why? What's the goal here? To send physical probes? Terraforming? You can't send people, they'll never survive the trip.

Our resources are finite. Sooner or later we will have to start harvesting large meteors and other planets, regardless of the cost.