Last night after getting ripped my friend and I came across this large sheet of paper with blacklight ink sprayed on it. We looked at it for a bit and found it looked like the universe, specifically, a population density map of the universe. We got to thinking and figured that we [earth] could be smack in the middle of nowhere. Imagine a small village with no outside contact that has yet to be explored. On our map there were some spots that were really dense, like cities but made of galaxies. The implications are mindboggling. Think about how stupid and trivial rural places in the middle of nowhere with no tech seem here, what if that's us, stuck in a relatively worthless place. Anyone have any thoughts?
That is us. I am sure that there must be more advanced civilizations in our galaxy alone, let alone in other galaxies. But consider the vastness of space: it is unlikely we will ever know about them as a fact. Also, consider the vastness of time. Most such alien civilizations must surely have existed and perished millions of years before our civilization could even have the hope of knowing about them. If you think about the human race ten thousand years from now, if we survive, we will surely be mightily advanced. And even then, it will be unlikely that we make contact with another civilization. What is more likely is that our first contact will be an alien civilization discovering our ruins, or vice versa. But as you say, perhaps there are concentrations of civilizations in space, and in that case it may indeed be possible for us to know one another before we pass into eternity. Or perhaps a method of travel is possible we don't yet know that makes such concentrations less relevant. I hope this is the case.
Let's just hope that when los conquistadores come crashing through the bushes, so to speak, they'll be a little bit nicer than the Spaniards were, eh? Potosà doesn't bear repeating with the whole human race.
I get this feeling all the time. That we are, or at least it appears to be so, near no where. No one around except ourselves, lost in our own chaos, unable to communicate with outsiders. Frankly so, unable to communicate with ourselves. Spinning through space, catching the stars, dreaming of what can be. A particle in the vast amount of space, totally engulfing our size. We are close to nothing. We are close to no one. Yet, we are everything we know of. Like we've only seen one bajillionth of what is really out there. Little matters, like the bills being passed by congress, seem almost meaningless when you look at the whole picture. But when you zoom in to see where we are, it is all that we can seem to focus on. It is all that is important to us, because it only effects us. I'm sure if there was some space congress in which a civilization of explorers were debating what would be passed, whether or not to invade Earth, we would have almost no say in it. Bigger yet, a colony in space congress debating whether it should take over that civilization of space explorers. Are we the only ones here? Or are there others? Would we perceive this universe the same way an alien would? Would an alien have different forms of sensing?
I believe they most likely would. However, consider this. As far as we know it, there are only so many conditions under which life may exist. Once you factor into play the conditions under which intelligent life may exist, the possibilities shrink. For a being to become intelligent it must posses a brain. Evolution, as far as ithas come on our planet, can only produce so much brain-power within a limited amount of volume of brain-matter. Therefore, there may be some species of alien which have only had about as much time to evolve as us - and assuming that evolution is a constant (which it is) and that their rate of evolution (advancement from generation to genertation) is fairly consistent with ours, we can assume that aliens would need to have rather large brains in order to be intelligent (at least on-par with us). Life, as we know it, is dependant of self-replicating DNA. This DNA is made up of acids that are comprised of elements that are common throughout our universe. In order for aliens to exist, they would have to operate within the same basic genetic system. Consider a planet that is much like our earth . . . There is ample sunlight. Evolution responds to this by giving certain organisms light-sensitive receptors. These receptors evolve into eyes . . . now these creatures can see. Assuming that evolution will seed out what is most efficient, we can say that the seeing mechanism (eye) found witin our planet would closely resemble that of a species on a simliar planet. However, if this 'sister' planet were further away from it's sun this species may have developed more sensitive or larger eyes, but the mechanism would still remain fairly similar. If you apply this train of thought to other sensory receptors (ears, tongue, skin, etc.) then there may just be aliens that have evolved similarily to us. I think that evolution would probably apply the same basic principles of design to another species, however even with conditions perfectly reflecting Earth's there would still be many differences between the alien species and ours. Our species itself is based upon millions of mutations that can come about for no intended purpose what-so-ever and can stay within our genetic make-up for generations. The chance that the alien species would evolve in the same order of events as our species is hard to believe, however they may share some of the same basic principles of sensory perception we have. As far as percieving their wolrd the same way as us? I have no clue, seeing as their brains may be wired in such a way that is completely foreign to us. For all I know, synesthesia could be common place in the alien's brain. It could be a way of making their brains much more efficient than ours (seeing as some sevants use synesthesia to make incredible calculations and feats of memory-recall). We'll probably never know though, dude.
Only so many conditions under which OUR form of life can exist. Who knows if lifeforms composed primarily of some lighter element than carbon don't live inside gas giants or something like that. Or perhaps lifeforms composed primarily of some heavier element that can breathe corrosive gasses. Visitors are not likely to even resemble humanoids, and may not be carbon based. The might not even be physical. They might be here already, but they might exist in a dimension we can't percieve yet. You would think that the laws of physics would demand they exist in our 3/4 dimensions as well as higher ones, but the laws of physics are only based on what we've observed, and are not complete. The extradimensional possibility interests me the most. Beings from a higher dimension would probably have the ability to see different points in time and perhaps even different timelines. There are all kinds of crazy possibilities.
Postal Blowfish, I agree with your post... The universe is just too inmense. As inmense are the possibilities that everything can happen, has happened and will happen. So it is very probable that extraterrestial "life" exist. We only know about our tiny little corner of the milky way, and what applies here, may not apply there...
Hubble Ultra Deep Field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is a photograph taken by the Hubble telescope equal to one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. Every single dot of light you see is a galaxy.
Just to put a sense of scale on how massive I think the multiverse is, I think that not only is there a timeline for every possibility that can happen in this universe, there is a whole universe full of infinite timelines for every possible universe that exist. Universes where the laws of physics are completely different. And I think they're all connected at some point in a distant higher dimension. Literally infinity to the power of infinity. And that's a piece of sky where literally nothing could be observed before it focused there.
Why does our place in the universe has to be 'nowhere'? Like it's the worst place to be, or it's some place of zero importance? Yes, true, we might be a little dot on the whole map, but it's not such a bad place to be. It may even be a great place to be.
Everywhere in the universe is nowhere. Everything we know on our planet is so ridiculously small considering just the scale of the galaxy, moreso considering the scale of the universe.
I was referring to the idea that maybe there are places out in the universe where other alien species have much more massive populations and perhaps even communication between them. Relative to them, we would be a small oasis in the middle of a vast uninhabited and unexplored space.
One thing always puzzles me. As vast as the known universe is, if other highly advanced races have risen through the ages and staked a claim to their part of the universe then why haven't they tried to contact us?
Maybe they have? (unidentified flying objects) Or maybe they are just so many billions of light years away from us that they couldn't have possibly reached us just yet. Who knows . .. maybe they did reach us at some point in our existence, possibly when we were still very primitive.
It's such a shame that there is so much that we just don't know whether because we've forgotten the truth or there are others who would seek to hide it from us.