SETI - Why look for Alien life when the odds are they have found us

[vcoleiro1]

Ok, heres my Sunday arvo thinking.  

I have heard time and time again that statistically there must be many many intelligent races in the universe.  If this is the case , the odds are heavily stacked that these races must be on majority more advanced than us. The odds being that they should have found us already (even if more intelligent life was a minority).  This leads to some interesting thought.  

If there is intelligent life out there then why look for it as they would surely have found us already. Perhaps theres a line of thought that some would be trying to contact us and we should be looking for there direct signal.

If it is possible to travel great distances than these intelligent beings would have already visited earth - barring any universal law prohibiting them from interfering with fledgling races. If they have been here, the questions are endless , ie why dont they make themselves known?, have they interfered in our past, if so how would we feel about that?

In conclusion, Statistically there is intelligent life out there , and statistically they would have already found us. Scary thought?.  So why havent they contacted us?, or have they and we dont know about it? Perhaps they have interfered in our history - how would we feel about that.  
"Hey were the cyborg race from orion .By the way 1000 years ago we interfered in your history and you know religion XX, well we kind of started that, sorry bout that"

[SNAAKE]

religion wasnt invented(lol) by aliens. it was just some random people. the world be a different place if everyone believed there is no afterlife.  

personally I like to think we are in the matrix. one of these days Morpheus will find me..

[vcoleiro1]

religion wasnt invented(lol) by aliens. it was just some random people. the world be a different place if everyone believed there is no afterlife.  

personally I like to think we are in the matrix. one of these days Morpheus will find me..

I hope Morpheus doesnt find me , not a big fan of Laurence Fishburne (lol)

[SNAAKE]

hope agent smith doesnt find me for doing the things I do...with computers..

[Howard_Casto]

I thought Star Trek pretty much explained this one.  Super advanced races can't interfere with the natural evolution of more primative peoples.  If they did it would introduce technology and knowledge to a species far too stupid to use it properly.  Essentially it would be like giving a bunch of monkeys hand-grenades to play with.  So any advanced race would avoid contact both for the benefit of their race and the primative one. 

Now you might be thinking "But wouldn't some races ignore this edict?"  Of course they would.  If they could.  The thing is only unadvanced races would be petty or even interested in mucking about in primatives lives and they wouldn't have the tech to find or bother us. 

So somebody needs to get to work on warp drive so the Vulcans can visit. 


As for the answer to the universe and life after death, it's Blue 13, section C.  Sounds like nonsense now, but just wait until you die. 

[saint]

Ok, heres my Sunday arvo thinking.  

I have heard time and time again that statistically there must be many many intelligent races in the universe.  If this is the case , the odds are heavily stacked that these races must be on majority more advanced than us. The odds being that they should have found us already (even if more intelligent life was a minority).  

Why would any of these assumptions be any more correct than we're the first intelligent race to evolve?

[Ed_McCarron]

Well, the speed of light limits anyone else out there listening to our EM radiation to having to be within ~90 light years or so (assuming we started broadcasting around 1920).  Pretty small chunk of the galaxy.

Personally, I believe that our race was seeded on this planet by another (very corporeal) intelligence.

In case anyone else is reading, here's a warm welcome to all the intelligent life forms out there. And to the rest of you... the trick is to bang the rocks together, guys.

[hypernova]

Ok, heres my Sunday arvo thinking.  

I have heard time and time again that statistically there must be many many intelligent races in the universe.  If this is the case , the odds are heavily stacked that these races must be on majority more advanced than us. The odds being that they should have found us already (even if more intelligent life was a minority).  

Why would any of these assumptions be any more correct than we're the first intelligent race to evolve?

Bingo.  I've thought the same thing.  Our planet has gone through numerous climate changes, as well as many natural/intergalactic disasters.  We've just hit a lull where things have been allowed to evolve to our current "advanced" state.  That meteor that one day wipes us completely out of existence will one day come.  Will we be advanced enough to flee or stop it?  If not, we're back to square one on this planet.  I have a suspicion that this is the reason that we've not been contacted by others.

I think the assumption that statistically there must be other intelligent races is just false logic.  We have a hard enough time finding planets that are capable of supporting life (in our terms of course).

I thought Star Trek pretty much explained this one.  Super advanced races can't interfere with the natural evolution of more primative peoples.

This isn't Star Trek.  Or V.  Or ID4.  We can't really make assumptions on other species morals and ethics.  They could even be like the Space Pirates from the Metroid series.  We can't even truly make the assumption that we wouldn't "interfere" ourselves, as we've yet to come across anything.  The notion of not interfering is still only presented in a television show/movie series.  In fact, we could argue we've done the opposite, by throwing all sorts of things into space to try to find other life out there.

There's life out there, to be sure.  Whether it is quite as advanced as us, that's another question, which I'm starting to doubt.

[Louis Tully]

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[SNAAKE]

^ interesting video

As for the answer to the universe and life after death, it's Blue 13, section C.  Sounds like nonsense now, but just wait until you die.  

lol..

[Ed_McCarron]

I found this comparison more useful.



But, if you wanna feel real wanna feel small?

[shmokes]

Yeah, seems to me the OP is filled with unwarranted assumptions. That another advanced species necessarily knows about us strikes me as pretty unlikely. That one has visited us strikes me as incredibly unlikely, borderline laughable. The universe is a big damned place. Even if an Alien species could accelerate a spacecraft to the speed of light (they probably can't), they'd have to be cooped up in the craft for many MANY years to make such a trip. Like, most likely tens tens or hundreds or thousands or millions of years. At light speed. That's a lot of time to spend on a spaceship.

To put things into perspective, one of NASA's probes reached Pluto recently. That ship, which was the fastest humans had ever created, took ten years to reach Pluto. When it was done there it continued on past Pluto toward the edge of our solar system. Staying at the same speed it would take another ten thousand years for that craft to reach the end of our solar system. Not to another solar system, let alone to another star, let alone to the edge of our galaxy, let alone to another galaxy. Just to the edge of our solar system. Ten thousand years.

An alien race isn't going to expend the kind of resources it would take to traverse the kind of expanse we're talking about to sneak around playing historical/political practical jokes on us. The Star Trek thing is also silly. We don't give monkey's hand grenades, but we certainly don't go out of our way to hide our existence from them. I don't think an alien race has some legal obligation to turn over all their technology to us by virtue of having revealed themselves to us.

While I think it tremendously likely that there are other intelligent races in the universe, I also think that for all intents and purposes we're alone and always will be.

[Ed_McCarron]

We don't give monkey's hand grenades.

Nope, but there are certain people we let post in P&R...

[menace]

Eric Von Daniken--even if 99% of the stuff he talks about is utter crap, he has tons of pictures from all over the world that are not explained easily unless you invoke the "they did it for religious reasons" crap that some people spout when they can't explain it.  Our modern archealogical equivalent of "god did it"

Nan Madol for one--given the location, materials on hand, use of outrigger canoes etc. its a feat of engineering to have constructed that vast complex..

Nazca--not the lines--the completely flat mountain tops surrounded by peaked mountains

vast underground caves in turkey--again, just the size of it makes it difficult to believe ancient man just went digging

lots more--ancient aliens believe it 

[vcoleiro1]

To put things into perspective, the theory for intelligent life is based on there being over 150,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe, this is an estimate based on the visible amount of stars, galaxies etc which seems to go up every year as we discover more with our telescopes etc.  Granted that the conditions for life are small for each galaxy, however, when you multiply that very small number by such a vast number as 150,000 Blllion Billion, the number is vastly in favour of inteligent life existing in some numbers .  I think the estimate is 50 intelligent races per galaxy (with each galaxy containing 300,000,000,000 stars , so 50 is a pretty small figure). There are 500,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe. So the estimate for the universe is 25,000,000,000,000 intelligent races.  But this is either nor here or there, my point was ( as per the title of the thread) , why are we looking for intelligent life when.

a)  It exists in such numbers that they surely have discovered us, not necessarily traveled to us, but discovered us, and yet dont want to contact us . Think about how far advanced our science will be in 1000 years , we probably would have discovered every exo planet in the universe by then. I seriously doubt communication would still be using electromagnetic waves. Who knows what sort of quantum fluctuation crap they will be using by then, so these arguments about searching for light speed electomagnetic waves dont make any sense. Surely in a 1000 years we will be using something else. So why do we look for electromagnetic/radio waves when these are surely not likely to be the communication most advanced races would use. Its narrow minded based on what we know now .

b)  Doesnt exist (as some have said) , so again why look

[fallacy]

Everyone needs to watch all 8 Episodes on How the Universe Works. It puts everything into perspective

http://movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70208976&trkid=3325854

I think this was the most fascinating show I have ever watched.

[Louis Tully]

.

[Rando]

Do I think there is something out there?  Sure, maybe.  But an old X-Files episode summed up my belief pretty well.  What are we doing right now both in space, in oceans, and in the earth? We're sending out probes and such to learn more.  We'll eventually be able to follow these probes up with manned missions in the far future,  but for now, we're sending satellites, cameras, etc.

IF there are some alien races at or above our intelligence levels, they're probably doing the same things.  A lot easier to map the universe with probes and bots and such which you can then follow after to the more interesting places.  We're likely not going to be visited by grey/green men in big flashy ships, but we could get hit by something resembling a Mars Rover or such.  The X-Files episode featured these tiny little robot bugs I believe, that were exploring and collecting data.

If we get hit with something not of this world, I'm guessing scientists could trace back to find out where it came from and bingo, in 1,000 years we can go visit!

 

[Donkbaca]

There are lots of people in this world who really could give a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- if there is alien life.  Not hard to imagines that there are races of aliens that just wouldn't give a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- enough to look.  The bigger and more complex a society gets, the more effort and energy gets expended to keep that society together.  Maybe they aren't looking for us because they frankly have better things to do.  Just like 99.99% of the people on this planet aren't looking for them, because we have better, more important ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- to take care of

[SavannahLion]

To start....

“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.” ― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Point being is, while I believe there is life out there, one might as well treat that fact as none exists and move forward accordingly.


Moving along...

Eric Von Daniken--even if 99% of the stuff he talks about is utter crap, he has tons of pictures from all over the world that are not explained easily unless you invoke the "they did it for religious reasons" crap that some people spout when they can't explain it.  Our modern archealogical equivalent of "god did it"

Nan Madol for one--given the location, materials on hand, use of outrigger canoes etc. its a feat of engineering to have constructed that vast complex..

Nazca--not the lines--the completely flat mountain tops surrounded by peaked mountains

vast underground caves in turkey--again, just the size of it makes it difficult to believe ancient man just went digging

lots more--ancient aliens believe it 

More credence could probably be given to a rise and fall of civilization and what you're seeing are the left of remnents of such.  Given the following, A) that as our technology becomes more sophisticated, it becomes more fragile, leave an arcade cabinet outside for a year with no cover and see what you have at the end of it. B) due to the specialization of knowledge of individuals through sophistication and refinement that a society loses more of the vertical knowledge for individuals. Ergo, just because a person knows how to assemble and solder a PCB does not mean that that person knows how to fabricate their own ICs. and C) those who do not understand the tech will scavange what they can until, eventually, you have nothing of note left.

What remains are bits and pieces.

[Dartful Dodger]

We live on a pist off planet. Advanced life forms were forced to evolve.

When the world was only one temperature and one flat land mass animals only evolved to escape(or eat) other animals.

After the one contentment was torn apart and all the settled layers of gasses were disrupted by the meteorite, being the biggest was no longer the best way to survive.

I would think any life form that has "evolved" with our (or better) intelligence would be just as violent and motivated to conquer as we are.

I think being in the Milky Way is protecting us. Those intelligent life forms don't want to waste time and resources looking through all the crap we have floating around in our galaxy for the off chance of finding us, so they concentrate on cleaner galaxies. the onse that do stuble across are on their way to somewhere better so they don't care.

It's like having the choice to dive for treasure in a giant crystal clear ocean or a little muddy lake.

By now those other life forms have fought millions of wars against each other. The strongest life form has won and grown weak and complacent with its dominance of the universe. Heck I bet the reason they don't accidentally find us is because the people looking for us are some forced slave race that doesn't give a poop.

When we eventually get off this planet we're going to take those other life forms by surprise.

[t3design]

....pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth

[Ed_McCarron]

....pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth

That's been rattling round my head since I started reading this thread.

When we eventually get off this planet we're going to take those other life forms by surprise.

And probably try to kill them.  Or at least royally piss them off.

[Dartful Dodger]

And probably try to kill them.  Or at least royally piss them off.

Exactly!

After millions of years of peace their culture and technological advances will revolve around curing disease, hunger and unlimited fuel sources. They'll be bigger ---Bad words, bad words, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when saint censors you?--- than the French and we'll have no problem taken over the universe.

[t3design]

....pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth in Oklahoma.

Fixed.

Jim, that's disappointingly puerile, even coming from a Texan.

[fallacy]

They say we are supposed to hit another Ice age in 15,000 years. We are supposed to be in the middle of geological sweet spot were species  rise up and flourish according to there records. Right now it happens to be humans.  Humans have only concurred earth in the last 10,000 years.  I don’t think another 15,000 years is enough time for humans to leave the planet before the climate changes and billions of humans die off along with a lot of the technology. I am not seeing any Star Treck Enterprise in 15,000 years

[Donkbaca]

Right, because there is no way we would be able to adapt to the cold in time, not with our rate of technological progress.  We are doomed!

[Howard_Casto]

They say we are supposed to hit another Ice age in 15,000 years. We are supposed to be in the middle of geological sweet spot were species  rise up and flourish according to there records. Right now it happens to be humans.  Humans have only concurred earth in the last 10,000 years.  I don’t think another 15,000 years is enough time for humans to leave the planet before the climate changes and billions of humans die off along with a lot of the technology. I am not seeing any Star Treck Enterprise in 15,000 years

Hold up.  You don't see interplanetary space travel in 15 THOUSAND years?  That seems a bit odd considering we can do interplanetary space travel NOW.  It also seems a bit odd considering we went from carts and horses to landing on the frikkin moon in less than 100. 

Now if you would have said 1500 I would tend to agree.  But 15,000?  Assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves I don't think we could possibly comprehend the level of technology we would have at that point. 

[upprc04]

Future:  

[vcoleiro1]

@upprc04

After seeing the future, I am now stocking up on electrolytes as there important man - LOL

[fallacy]

They say we are supposed to hit another Ice age in 15,000 years. We are supposed to be in the middle of geological sweet spot were species  rise up and flourish according to there records. Right now it happens to be humans.  Humans have only concurred earth in the last 10,000 years.  I don’t think another 15,000 years is enough time for humans to leave the planet before the climate changes and billions of humans die off along with a lot of the technology. I am not seeing any Star Treck Enterprise in 15,000 years

Hold up.  You don't see interplanetary space travel in 15 THOUSAND years?  That seems a bit odd considering we can do interplanetary space travel NOW.  It also seems a bit odd considering we went from carts and horses to landing on the frikkin moon in less than 100.

Now if you would have said 1500 I would tend to agree.  But 15,000?  Assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves I don't think we could possibly comprehend the level of technology we would have at that point. 

Innless they are able to find a place that we can go I don’t see it ever going past the point of small groups of people launching probe missions. Maybe one day they will have probes able to travel the speed of light and take wild shots at potential solar systems.