Does anyone seriously believe there is not intelligent life...

[Lestat]

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It doesn't matter how much of a longshot it is. Odds still say that intelligent life existing (or having existed), elsewhere is almost certain.

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With due respect it is obviously wrong that it doesnt matter how much of a longshot it is. If the odds are long enough then life existing elsewhere can become infinitesimally unlikely no matter how big the universe is.

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I disagree Bunny, but since you are a teacher I'll defer to you.

We know for a fact that life has occured at least "once", right? So it's not impossible for life to form no matter how rare. Now...

You've got gazillions of stars with trillions of solar systems, with gazillions of planets, which have had billions of years to spawn intelligent life. Common sense says (to me anyway), that it is almost impossible for life not to have developed elsewhere.

That has life occured at "least" once that we know of, is extremely significant when it comes to estimation given the huge numbers involved. No matter how rare it is.

[Lestat]

There can be no question that life has occured at least once. That's all the evidence I need.

[CallMeIshmael]

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There are TRILLIONS of stars, with TRILLIONS of solar systems, with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life.

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I appreciate the capitalization, but Im well aware. See n=10^21, in my previous post.

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That intelligent life HAS occured once (on our planet), makes it an almost certainty that it has occured elsewhere. No matter how rare it is.

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Any arugment that uses "its already happened" to estimate a probability of something that can only be observed if its already happened doesnt seem to be that solid.

[Riddick]

Maybe another intelligent life form existed but it got so intelligent that it figured out how to escape the universe.

[CallMeIshmael]

Also, FWIW, it took roughly a third of the universe's age to produce us. Its not like "its had billions of years" really adds that much to the argument.

[CallMeIshmael]

Also, somewhat interesting (at least to me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]):

Lets say 2 people come up with an estimate for the probability of life forming (p, under the above, and assume 10^21 planets)

One estimate is: 10^-11.

The other is: 10^-30


With the first, we expect 10^10 planets that evolved intelligence but the later we expect 10^-9 (almost 0 chance)


Now, those two estimates seem like they're miles apart, but the difference between 10^-11 and 10^-30 is about equal to the chances of two people picking the exact same litre of water in the atlantic. Adding that small of a chance to the probability of intelligent life evolving completely changes the outcome.


We are dealing with probabilities so small that humans arent really used to dealing with them.

[Stu Pidasso]

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I'm not going through the trouble of actually performing calculations, because the answer is too obvious if you have even a modicum understanding estimations.

There are TRILLIONS of stars, with TRILLIONS of solar systems, with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life.

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Even in a universe as large as ours, there are certainly events which occurred that are completely unique. Why can't abiogenesis be one of those events?

Stu

[StepBangin]

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Also, FWIW, it took roughly a third of the universe's age to produce us.

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Take away all the mass extinctions and fall-backs and this is true. But we were actually "produced" much faster.

In my physics course we discussed that everything evolves towards intelligence. Therefore if there were no great extinctions, there would still be intelligent life on earth, just not in the form of Human Beings. And we would be much much much more advanced by now.

Question I should have asked the proffesor! He said everything evolves towards intelligence, does that mean in 100 Million years Humans wont be the only intelligent life on this planet? Will Dogs, Cats, Dolphins....etc...Become intelligent?

[DougShrapnel]

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2. Life does exist all around us, but we are being deliberately shielded from it. I really don't like this answer, because I don't think it would really be feasible for there to be an "interstellar police force" capable of such a feat as blanking out all transmissions and prevent any and all travelers from getting close enough to us for an observation (and no, I don't think that UFO and alien abduction reports are credible).

[/ QUOTE ] What would a significatly intelligent lifefrom require of a civiliation before it introduced itself to them?

I think you also forgot a 3rd possibilty: All intelligent life reaches a "critiacl mass" and destroys itself, before it can "contact" other intelligent life.

And a 4th: The universe is expanding in such a fashion that the farther away a system is from another system the faster they are moving away from each other, making contact impossible between much of the universe. Combined with, life is rare enough to have isolated instanciations to far apart from any other instance on life for communication to reach each other.

[FlFishOn]

"...with TRILLIONS of planets that have had BILLIONS of years to spawn life."

And not a one of these is sending out radio. Well, one.