Potential life on other planets....

Discussion in 'Science and Nature' started by Bohemianblaze, Dec 3, 2012.

  1. This is a pretty distant thought i had but...
    Hundreds of thousands years ago, humans were not on earth. Through evolution, we became the complex creatures we are today. So, lets say one day, whether its in 21 days or 21 years from now, the world on earth ends. The universe is a huge place as space is infinite, so does that mean the microscopic bacteria on Mars or wherever else could develop into intelligent life, mabe even more complex than us? Even if life on earth ceases it's nice to know there could be life elsewhere. Thoughts? Agree, disagree? Peace to you all, my friends:smoke:
     
  2. 1354078062825.jpg

    After looking at this picture, it's pretty fuckin' ignorant for anyone to manifest the belief that we are the only life in this universe..

    It is more then just 'potential'.. There IS other life out there, whether it may be highly advanced or still in their primitive ages.. We can't say, but what we can say that mathematically it is impossible for Humans to be the only intelligent life in such a vast universe..

    In the bigger picture - we are nothing more than dust in the wind..
     
  3. i dont understand how its 'impossible' for life not to exist on other planets when we've never found any evidence of ET life. Now i firmly believe that there IS other life out there but until we find evidence of it its just foolish to make such assumptions.
     
  4. You can alwways say there is a such I high probability of life out there but you can't say there IS as if its a fact. I believe there is and your right the universe is fucking huge but you remind of of people who say there IS god because the universe is in perfect balance.
     
  5. Anyone who holds beliefs with no proof is a fool, see religion for example..

    see ^
     
  6. Lol I didn't even see your post but whatever I got what I had to say out
     
  7. then i dont understand, did i miss something or are you contradicting yourself?
     

  8. He agrees with you bro.
     
  9. then why did he say there IS life on other planets?
     
  10. He probably just wasn't thinking about it when he posted.
     
  11. It's foolish to doubt that there is some form of life out there.. Out of the billions upon billions upon billions x284 of planets out there, what makes Earth so special? What makes humans so special? Life on Earth established a foothold and look at us now.. Hell, before our solar system even formed, the universe had 10 billion years to do it's thing. Our solar system could have gone through 2 life cycles up to now in that time. Every star has a "Goldilocks" zone, and from what they're finding out, the majority of stars have planets around them.

    So why is Earth the black sheep of the universe? Even if someone plays the God card, what makes you think he created this extremely vast universe and only created one planet with life on it? For your viewing pleasure? To make you doubt his existence?
     
  12. Just to let you know, "mathematical possibilities" mean nothing in the real world. For example, it's mathematically possible for particles to exist that have imaginary mass and travel faster than light at all times. Doesn't mean they exist, though.
     
  13. I never doubted life on other worlds like I said I agree. But what we were trying to say is he said it as an absolute fact which annoyed me. Its also possilble for the universe to be as big as it is and still just be us. I highly doubt it but you can't just say there IS.
     
  14. I don't think anyone doubts the existence of microbes. The thing that people doubt is intelligent life, and with good reason.

    Out of 853 exoplanets found thus far, none have been exact replicas of Earth. They are either gas-giants, Venuses, or Super-Earths.

    The fact that out of almost a billion species in the history of the Earth and intelligent life only emerged once says something, doesn't it? We've yet to find a planet with the right properties to harbor life, and even if we do, there's little reason to believe intelligent life is inevitable.

    Ironically, this is a detriment to the thought that intelligent life is abundant throughout the galaxy. Seeing as our star is young in comparison to lifetime of the galaxy, then where is everybody? I believe some physicists made some calculations that it would only take 50 million years to colonize the entire galaxy, and that's at subluminal speeds.
     
  15. i agree with all of this but i dont agree with people taking that extra step and saying that there must necessarily be other life out there.
     
  16. Let's hope future humans can answer these questions it hurts a little that it may not happen in time for me to see.
     
  17. Depends on where you draw the line on intelligent life. To me, humans aren't the only intelligent species on Earth. It just seems cocky to think we're the only ones in the universe. And universally, we may not be that intelligent. We've only been able to send one of our kind to our moon..

    That's 853 out of 100 billion (and that low balling it) planets in our galaxy alone. I don't think intelligent life is a common thing, could even be as low as 1 planet per 1,000 galaxies containing intelligent life, but that's 1,000 galaxies out of a virtually infinite amount.

    No, it doesn't.. because I don't see us as the only intelligent species on Earth. That's old, outdated thinking. Even if homo sapiens never came to be, one of our primate cousins would of filled the niche down the road. And we have found a planet with the right properties, Earth. Now as for another planet, out of those 853, we don't even know many details on them.. So we know a few details on a fraction of a fraction of the amount of planets out there. Random events taking place in an infinite universe are bound to repeat, or at least get pretty damn close. I'm not talking like there's more of you out there, but the events that took place for Earth to form.

    Luckily, I never said it was abundant.. And you're right, our star is young, but as you said right after, it'd take 50 million years to colonize an ENTIRE galaxy at faster than light speeds. Assuming space travel at light speed is possible, and that another intelligent life form in our galaxy figured it out, chances of them running into our star system are probably slim to none unless they're within range of picking up our broadcasts that are radiating out, and they know how to interpret our radio waves.. And our broadcasts aren't that far out there really..

    Just like I have no doubt that Earth harbors more than one intelligent species, I have no doubt our universe holds at least one more. It might be in a galaxy that's outside our observable section of the universe, but it's out there.
     
  18. It depends on how you define intelligence. Sure, dolphins are smart but are they capable of building a civilization or unlocking the secrets of the universe? If you set the bar that high, then I hope it is apparent to you that only humans fit the bill.

    There's no scientific reason to believe such a thing. In fact, history on Earth has lead many experts to believe that our development of intelligence might have been a sheer accident.

    Actually, we know enough to conclude they don't harbor complex forms of life, unless you think gas giants and Venuses in unstable orbits have the right ingredients to harbor complex life?

    Scientists still don't understand 100% how life came to be on Earth, and until we do, we have nothing more than speculation to go on about how probable life can arise on other planets that have the same properties as Earth. Even if life an inevitability on such planets, there is no evidence that would suggest intelligent life is an inevitability. Quite the contrary, actually.



    Care to show where I said FTL travel? My post said it would a maximum of 50 million years (with a minimum of 5 million) at subluminal (speeds less than c) speed. Space travel is possible, and assuming FTL travel is possible, than any species (which would almost always be a million years ahead of us) would have colonized the entire galaxy in less than a 100,000 years, which is nothing in terms of cosmic time scales.

    Except, you have no scientific evidence to support it. It's all speculation at best, because our understanding of statistics doesn't work too well when we only have a sample size of 1 (Earth).
     
  19. You go from saying we're unlocking the secrets of our universe and then say we don't even know how life began on Earth.. We know the general idea of the universe, but actually know very little.

    And it'd take 100,000 years to cross our galaxy at light speed, seeing as the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across, not to colonize the billions of planets in it.. Say it took an average of 1 year to travel from star to star at light speed, it'd take at least 100 (up to 400) billion years to stop at each star system. And then factor in the time spent searching the system, and then the time it'd take build colonies.

    So 100 billion years to travel 1 light year to each star, a universe that is 14 billion years old, that leaves 86 billion.. So even if an intelligent life formed at the birth of the universe and they began searching right away, it could be another 86 billion years til they find us. So the argument of "where are they then?" is pretty ignorant.
     
  20. And our intelligence wasn't really an accident, more like a random event following other random events.. And again, an infinite universe full of random events, that chances of a similar event taking place at some point in time is more than likely.
     

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