Aliens - where are they?

[WhoIam]

Maybe they don't care. Why should we assume an alien race would possess human-like curiosity?

Maybe we don't know what to look for. For some reason most people assume life has to carbon-based and water-dependent. All that is necessary is a self-replicating molecule. Conceivably life could exist as a liquid or gas.

There's a real possibility that any alien found will be an artificial instead of biological life form. Human knowledge and technology is progressing exponentially, and there is no reason to think this would not be true for any technologically-advanced civilization. Unless we destroy ourselves or impose totalitarian limits on technology, we will eventually produce computers and machines more powerful than the human mind. Inevitably we will produce powerful computers capable of learning and evolving. This is inevitable, only the timeline is debatable. It is much more likely we will encounter a species' technology than the species itself.

Rearden, if aliens landed tomorrow and made contact with our government, I would be much more likely to believe that it's an Illuminati (or whatever your favorite conspiracy theory is) plot to take over the planet by means of ingenious deception. Both scenarios are extremely improbable, but I would think human trickery is much more likely.

[jogger08152]

As pure speculation, I'd say yes, there probably is life elsewhere in the universe (not necessarily "on" "planets" either - possibly in space; or on non-planet solid bodies like comets, satellites, etc; or in the atmospheres of gas planets, etc). If earth can be taken to be representative - not that there's any real reason to assume this - something like 1 species out of every 25 million, give or take, develops enough intelligence to deliberately broadcast communications that are capable of reaching into space.

Obviously there's a huge amount of pertinent information that we (or at least I) don't have, like how long/difficult/unlikely it is for intelligent life to evolve (were humans a longshot? or is earth impoverished when it comes to smart species?). But at a guess, I'd say there are probably many more species out there that can't communicate or travel long distances through space, than species that can. So I suppose #1 and #2 (life exists, but it is rare, especially sentient versions, and space travel/communication is hard) are my guesses.

Bonus speculation #1: If humanity does encounter an extra-terrestrial organism during my lifetime, the organism will be nonsentient. I'd probably be willing to lay odds on this at 20-1 or so, taking into account that intelligent life, though much rarer proportionally, might be both willing and able to proactively make itself known to us, whereas "space plants" or whatever, can't do so.

Bonus speculation #2: if and when humanity does encounter intelligent "life", that life will be inorganic. In other words, our first encounter with aliens may well be with alien machines/robots/whatever that outlived or out-traveled their makers but that DO pass the Turing Test.

Best regards,
Jogger

[m_the0ry]

Fermi's paradox!

[blutarski]

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The third reason is just plain galactic contact. This would likely be on audio or video contact prior to actual physical contact, but my guess is that will not happen unless Earth passes thru the nuclear threshold. Why would you show further advanced technologies to a society that still has yet to prove it desires to exist for eternity, and may use those technologies in a desructive fashion.

i guess in summary, what reason would a further advanced people want to come here. We cannot offer them any intelligence they dont already possess, we have shown many times we will kill based on differnces among humans (ie religion and skin color) so on a galactic level we are not a very inviting planet. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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The only problem with theories like this, and other things people say like "oh they obviously don't contact us because we are so immoral and evil", is that in order to KNOW that we are not sufficiently advanced/moral, they would have had to contact or observe is in some way. I suppose a highly advanced people might have some technology that would allow this to be performed undetected, but I find it much more likely that they just don't know we're here.

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What about a barely sentient species that evolved in space? How about a culture that made great strides technologically, but thirst for our knowledge of the arts?

The real problem is assuming that aliens would have thought processes, morals, philosophies remotely like ours or even understandable to us. The things I just listed might be strictly human traits.

Even the assumption that aliens would use audio or video messages to contact us is pretty ethnocentric. What if they've been trying to contact us telepathically for centuries but we can't understand them? What if the whole concept of contacting us is alien to them? (Maybe they just show up, instead of calling first? [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img])

To assume the motivations of an alien race is pretty pointless.

[FortunaMaximus]

I don't think it is. Base assumptions can be made. If they have bothered to travel here, whether by accident or by design, it is clear an imperative to explore, to acquire knowledge ranks fairly highly on their priorities.

As for the motivations of such an undertaking, I've noticed some conclusions in this thread that have a human bias. Trickery and Machiavellian aims are probably one of the stronger fundamental quirks of this species. Tangled webs and all.

Reduced to a mathematical expression of probability, the likelihood of life occurring multiple times in this Universe is pretty high. Intelligent life? It should be rarer still, but that's a basic logical deduction.

You're going to get different opinions on the rate of occurrence, but it should be a pretty microscopic ratio in regards to the amount of matter there is, existing.

How far off would be a ratio that took the mass of human brain matter on this planet in ratio to the amount of matter in the Solar System, and applying it across the whole Universe? (Comic touches aside)

Humanity, as I see it, is a fairly organized sum of information that can be categorized and sub-categorized, yet a gestalt can be drawn from it.

This is useful if you realize a civilization that has gone through its technological singularity is just as likely to evolve inwards with the ability to pack much denser amounts of information into smaller and smaller packages.

It's not unfeasible to think that a super-civilization, with the assumption that the same deductions were drawn about the eventual demise of the Universe, that entropy is in fact, an irrecoverable process, would have the capability to design a self-contained sub-Universe with timescales that were effectively infinite.

Given that possibility, are we inside or outside such a artifact? Does it matter? Elements can be tweaked to challenge individual civilizations as they emerge out of the probabilistic murk. What games would deities play?

AFAIK, for the Universe we can assume exists, and not a hypothetical one, yeah, Fermi shall suffice, for now.

[blutarski]

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I don't think it is. Base assumptions can be made. If they have bothered to travel here, whether by accident or by design, it is clear an imperative to explore, to acquire knowledge ranks fairly highly on their priorities.


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No, I'm sorry, this is just assumptions, based on no evidence.

[WhoIam]

I just came up with an interesting idea. While intelligent (even sentient) species may evolve, they will not be able to create advanced technology unless they are naturally social creatures. Many, many species on earth are loners, only coming together to mate or compete for territory or a mate. Such alien creatures might even develop language if there was sexual selection for it or if were useful for dominating rivals.

[FortunaMaximus]

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I don't think it is. Base assumptions can be made. If they have bothered to travel here, whether by accident or by design, it is clear an imperative to explore, to acquire knowledge ranks fairly highly on their priorities.


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No, I'm sorry, this is just assumptions, based on no evidence.

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Yes?

[Insp. Clue!So?]

As several have mentioned, we really don't have enough data points to say what sentience really is, at least for some kind of universal definition. That said, it does seem odd that there is no evidence of artificial robot creatures exploring (or overtaking or colonizing or helping or whatever) us. Do note that any race capable of interstellar travel could crush us like the silly bugs we are if it so wished, and we would'nt even know it until the fat lady sang the last bars of "Amazing Grace" so that's a non-issue if you're concerned.

Now it's sometimes said that it has taken this long for the Universe to generate sufficient heavier materials etc. for beings such as we to exist. The problem I have with this lies in the law of large numbers. Unless you're willing to say that we are virtually the first in our light-cone to establish a) civilization or b) the scientific method and its industrial fruit (something that seems possible but rather unlikely), then I think the argument is counterfeited by the fact that a and b have existed on earth for virtually the blink of an eye.

While our species is only a few hundred thousand years old, we have existed as recognizably intelligent societies for only 10,000 of those years. And arguably the burst of science into society and resultant progress in conquering nature has only truly been the case for the last 3-400 years or so. We are in some ways practically a different species starting from the days of Newton etc.

Now if we extrapolate technical progress even over the last 100 years, and then realize that, if extra-solar civilizations are in any way common, there must be a few who are in geological terms still very young yet also which possess scientific/technical civilizations that are thousands or even millions of years old...many orders of magnitude beyond our own. Even if they couldn't be bothered to personally go on intra-or inter-galactic field trips, it seems odd that they wouldn't expend the what would presumably be trivial resources to launch probes. Of course there is always the possibility of some kind of evil dark matter or who knows that's a deal breaker, yet unknown to us primitives.

Ultimately, the only honest answer to this thread is, we don't know chit...but it sure is fun to about.

Here's something to ponder. With last year's discovery of water geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, we now have 2 instances (out of 2 possible trials) of tidally-locked bodies around planetary gas giants supporting both liquid water and a source of energy that won't necessarily fry life as we know it. Contrast this to our 1 in 9 success rate (or 2 of 8 if we charitably throw in Mars and uncharitably toss out Pluto) for massive, sustained liquid water on true planets--it's all about us earthlings, of course.

This suggests to me, at the most preliminary level of course, that future searchers might best be served looking for at least primitive life around the moons of similar extra-solar gas giants. These gas giants (it's too hard at present to detect their moons) seem to exist in plentitude, or at least according to our inital surveys.

And last, speaking of solar exploration, why the hell are we wasting tons of money repeating the feats of half a century ago when we can get our asses to Europa or Enceladus and make some truly Earth-shattering discoveries? Even worm-like life, while a big longshot, is possible.

[blutarski]

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I don't think it is. Base assumptions can be made. If they have bothered to travel here, whether by accident or by design, it is clear an imperative to explore, to acquire knowledge ranks fairly highly on their priorities.


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No, I'm sorry, this is just assumptions, based on no evidence.

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Yes?

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My point is that these base assumptions aren't valid. You can't look at our culture, biology, etc, and draw conclusions about another species light years away. That's silly.

I know I'm repeating myself (this is my last post) but there's no practical point in speculating what aliens will be like- we just won't know until we meet them.

Take your idea about a need to explore. Well, what if they evolved in space, as I suggested before? Their needs may be such that they don't require active searching for nutrients, etc. What if their colony/ship/society was at the mercy of the solar winds and their consciousness was turned inward to the point where they had only a cursory knowledge of the universe outside?