Do you believe there are Extraterrestrial beings ?

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Janissy
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02 Oct 2014, 8:18 am

jbw wrote:

I wonder why in this context the discussion so often gravitates to towards "intelligent" life. As if humans are in any position to universally define a concept like "intelligence" in a way that would be understood by other forms of life in a similar way.

I have noticed that "extraterrestrial life" often gets quickly conflated with "intelligent extraterrestrial life" when discussing the possibility. (Unless it's actual cosmologists talking. They just as easily confine the discussion to non-intelligent microbial life. And yes I realize that the whole rest of your post calls into question the use of "non-intelligent" the way I just used it.) And then just as quickly, "intelligent extraterrestrial life" morphs into "intelligent extraterrestrial life that left their home planet and went to other planets, possibly including Earth".

I think it's very difficult for us to conceptualize intelligence without using ourselves as a reference point. So every discussion of extraterrestrial intelligence gets bundled with the assumption that it would have human (or at least mammalian) curiosity and exploratory nature. So it would visit if it could. I find some plausibility in Panspermia so life may have already visited us, but not life that I can conceptualize as intelligent although it might be in your broader, less anthropomorphic definition.

tall-p
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03 Oct 2014, 1:41 pm

jbw wrote:

Welllll... from my grumpy old man's perspective, you can't have "intelligent" life without words... language. And you/we/them can't have a technological society without words for every little thing. That means generations passing down these words, and improving them... expanding and perfecting.

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naturalplastic
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03 Oct 2014, 2:52 pm

Janissy wrote:

jbw wrote:

Life on Earth took two billion years to get from: bacteria, to Protozoa (prokarote microbes to eukarote one celled microbes).

Took another billion years before it vaulted relatively suddenly from protozoa to multicellular plants and animals (jellyfish, worms, trilobites). Weve only had critters big enough to see with the naked eye on Earth for the last 13 percent of Earth's history. So yes- if we traveled through the cosmos and found life around other suns- 99.9 percent of planets with life would probably only have life equivalent to the bacteria here on Earth. Only a rare subset of the rare solar systems with life- would have life that ever got beyond the bacteria stage.

naturalplastic
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03 Oct 2014, 3:56 pm

tall-p wrote:

auntblabby wrote:

all [every single one] of the sightings of ET aircraft over the centuries cannot be fake. that is a lot of smoke there and IMHO there must be a fire somewhere.

Well what about all the people that thought they had been abducted by aliens? It was very popular in the 80's. Butthe first were "The Antonio Vilas Boas case (1957) and the Hill abduction (1961) were the first cases of UFO abduction to earn widespread attention. " Wikipedia has a good long read about "the phenomena" here>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_abduction The thing is, that we just don't hear about it any longer.

Well... whadya expect?

Like our National Park Service gets a grant, and can expand its program to tag salmon in the Columbia river. And then suddenly looses it grant, and the program stops altogether.

The ETs obviously started a pilot program to tag the migrations of a few individuals back in circa 1960, and then in the Eighties expanded it to a vast wildlife monitoring program that monitored millions of Earthlings ( grab 'em examine 'em, and then release 'em back into the wild). But then in the Nineties they lost their funding! Now they have to go back to cattle mutilations.

( I'm being slightly tongue-in-cheek here).

little_blue_jay
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03 Oct 2014, 4:28 pm

Swiper wrote:

Billions of them. We call them NTs.

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Tollorin
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03 Oct 2014, 5:43 pm

The thought that humans could be the most intelligent life in the Universe is rather depressing.

little_blue_jay
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03 Oct 2014, 5:46 pm

Tollorin wrote:

The thought that humans could be the most intelligent life in the Universe is rather depressing.

^^^LOL!

(side note, I really miss Calvin & Hobbes!)

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cyberdad
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03 Oct 2014, 7:48 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

Took another billion years before it vaulted relatively suddenly from protozoa to multicellular plants and animals (jellyfish, worms, trilobites). Weve only had critters big enough to see with the naked eye on Earth for the last 13 percent of Earth's history. So yes- if we traveled through the cosmos and found life around other suns- 99.9 percent of planets with life would probably only have life equivalent to the bacteria here on Earth. Only a rare subset of the rare solar systems with life- would have life that ever got beyond the bacteria stage.

The known universe is billions of years older than the earth (according to Stephen Hawking at least 5 billion years). If you take into account the spread of habitable planets plus duration of time then the actual number of possible candidates for higher life may be much greater than we surmise.

Based on the earlier Drake equation and current statistical estimates there are at least 20 billion habitable earth like planets in the Milky way alone.
http://science.time.com/2013/11/04/so-m ... t-like-it/

Even if you factor in mass extinction and collisions with asteroids, disease and other local catastrophes surely a few of these planets will reach a level of evolution equivalent with us (and perhaps beyond).

AnonymousAnonymous
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03 Oct 2014, 8:25 pm

I do believe in UFOs and the possibility of us not being alone in the universe, but ironically I don't believe people who claim that they have been abducted by aliens.

Reason: With the right techniques, you can be able to convince someone that he or she has been abducted by aliens.

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jbw
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03 Oct 2014, 8:38 pm

Tollorin wrote:

The thought that humans could be the most intelligent life in the Universe is rather depressing.

Indeed. But according to my definition humans are far from the pinnacle of evolution on this planet. We don't need to venture far to find incredible intelligence in nature.

The really depressing thought is that humans have overrun the planet like a plague and are destroying biodiversity at a mind-boggling rate.

Toy_Soldier
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03 Oct 2014, 8:41 pm

I don't want to meet the Mold People, even if they are more intelligent.

auntblabby
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03 Oct 2014, 8:48 pm

I wonder if in the hot mantle or below, if there are any hortae oozing about?

Toy_Soldier
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03 Oct 2014, 9:33 pm

auntblabby wrote:

I wonder if in the hot mantle or below, if there are any hortae oozing about?

Your right! We should send down some red shirt security people pronto.

auntblabby
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03 Oct 2014, 9:48 pm

Toy_Soldier wrote:

auntblabby wrote:

I wonder if in the hot mantle or below, if there are any hortae oozing about?

Your right! We should send down some red shirt security people pronto.

preferably ones with bricklaying experience.

anthropic_principle
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08 Oct 2014, 9:22 am

obviously its impossible to know for sure.
the usual argument is that there's an unfathomable amount of stars so it's a given that there has to be more life out there somewhere.
im not really going to argue with that, but i will say that something a lot of people seem to not take in to consideration is the question of the required factors and occurrences for life to arise and how exacting they may be, at least for the case of intelligent life.
we can only guess a lot of them based on our own existence, but its not as simple as 'a planet orbiting from a reasonable distance a single star' i can tell you that.
so i think you're jumping the gun when you assert the universe must be teeming with life.

auntblabby
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08 Oct 2014, 1:26 pm

the drake equation is at least a good start.

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