Are we alone.... The answer is ''Yes''

Capt'n Midnight

Fermi Paradox would indicate that there isn't any other contactable life out there.

BTW forget TV signals they are gone forever since digital signals won't be decodable anymore and power levels have fallen.
- Radar is where we've been pumping out megawatts since WWII


Back in the days of Marconi they were using unreal power levels for early radio, enough to cause sparks on the other side of the Atlantic.

And the really big one ?
50 / 60Hz mains power, cables are long enough to act as antennas



How big was the emp pulses / light flashes from the H-Bomb tests ?
- there is a small chance that an ET at a slightly lower technical level than ourselves detected these pulses and realised they represented devices 1,000's of times more powerful than their mightiest A-bombs and have decided to keep the head down.

Nerro

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Fermi Paradox would indicate that there isn't any other contactable life out there.

BTW forget TV signals they are gone forever since digital signals won't be decodable anymore and power levels have fallen.
- Radar is where we've been pumping out megawatts since WWII


Back in the days of Marconi they were using unreal power levels for early radio, enough to cause sparks on the other side of the Atlantic.

And the really big one ?
50 / 60Hz mains power, cables are long enough to act as antennas



How big was the emp pulses / light flashes from the H-Bomb tests ?
- there is a small chance that an ET at a slightly lower technical level than ourselves detected these pulses and realised they represented devices 1,000's of times more powerful than their mightiest A-bombs and have decided to keep the head down.

the whole idea looking for ET radio signals is not to try and catch a radio or tv show transmited by alians but look for patterns in signals that would show that they are not natural.the more diffused a signal is the more sensitive equipement you would need.
ofcourse some radiowaves, such as those of a short-wave frequency, bounce back off the ionosphere but some of them leave our planet and then its just a matter how sensitive your equipement is...

lockon...

ciaranmac wrote: »

This is all interesting but really no more useful than a discussion of theology. We know of only one planet that holds intelligent life, i.e. Earth. There is no way to logically prove that intelligent life exists elsewhere, except by finding it. As for proving that intelligent life does not exist elsewhere, we could look forever, find nothing and still not have proven a case.

But the mind boggling thing is we live in a universe that has billions of galaxies and then some physicites believe there is an infinite number of universises :eek:

There is life out there.

Aquarius34

Curly Judge wrote: »

Perhaps you'd like to share your reasoning or evidence with us lesser mortals?

That we are not alone? Ok.

The universe is teaming with life. You either wake up to that fact or you don't. Creation is all around you and it's not something special to Earth.

Maximus Alexander

Aquarius34 wrote: »

That we are not alone? Ok.

The universe is teaming with life. You either wake up to that fact or you don't. Creation is all around you and it's not something special to Earth.

Them's some mad debate skillz.

Aquarius34

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Them's some mad debate skillz.

isn't it, The lights are on, but no one's home.:)

Windy Fjordian

The Universe is an incredibly dangerous & unforgiving place. We don't even need to look far to see just how dangerous it is. Mars: probably did sustain life, however the loss of it's magnetic field put paid to that. Venus: Probably did have microbial life at least, Runaway Greenhouse effect knocked that one on the head. The fact that we even evolved, is largely down to the Asteroid that wiped out the Dinosaurs & cleared the path for us.

Asteroid & Comet impacts causing mass extinctions, Hyper & Supernova's Char-grilling whole Solar Systems or stripping atmospheres, Gamma Ray Burst's Blasting atmospheres into space , Black Holes swallowing Planets or Gravitationally flinging them from their parent Stars, Wandering Planets & unstable orbits of massive Jupiter like objects ejecting Planets into the cold black of Space or into their Home Stars, The Solar wind, Runaway Greenhouse effects, Tidal forces making Volcanic hellholes, Temperatures a few degrees above absolute zero, Well, you get the idea, the list goes on.

I do believe the Universe is full of life, Most of it probably Microbial or pretty basic, But as the OP said if there is intelligent life out there it's so far away we will probably never be aware of it's existence or they of us.

However, If Humanity survives for long enough & doesn't Nuke itself, get hit by an Asteroid or get wiped out by a Virus i do believe we can conquer the furthest reaches of Space.
Humans have a very strong desire not to die, Given enough time we will eventually replace all, or most, of our organic components with superior artificial ones, Brain included (Quantum Computer for a Brain anyone?). This will give us the required time to get out there & see what or who is about. If we do meet an Alien any time soon, chances are, it too will be more computer than Organic life form.

Justin1982

Proof that there is life in the universe similar to us does exist.

Argument goes as follows:
1. There is a non-zero chance of intelligent life evolving in any given galaxy in the universe. We know this because life exists for definite on planet Earth
2. We live in an infinite universe
3. Use the following mathematical rule - Any non-zero real number multiplied by infinity is infinity

=> Non-Zero Chance of Intelligent Life in any arbitrary large region of Space multiplied by Infinite number of equivalent spaces = Infinite amount of Intelligent Life in our Universe

=> There is Intelligent life throughout our universe, an infinite amount of it (an infinite number of you and me to be precise)

Its basically that simple

Of course this does make a few assumptions which ruin the proof.
Assumptions:
1. The laws of physics are the same throughout the universe (we dont know this for definite. Personally I am not overly confident)
2. Universe is infinite (This is assumed by a lot if not most theoretical physicists but again I would not be so sure)
3. Universe is isotropic and homogeneous (seems to be approximately the case so far but again there is not a shred of evidence for this as far as I know)
4. I'm kind of assuming a classical universe that obeys classical physical laws (introducing QM and interpreting it can lead one to question one's own existence never mind anyone else's existence or any intelligent life anywhere else in the universe)

Justin1982

ps200306 wrote: »

Why did it apparently only happen once on earth, then?

I've been thinking about this for the past few months. Seems to be the best evidence that life on a habitable planet has probably a very very very low chance of happening. I'd kind of assume that the chance of a single cell coming into existence is almost zero.

Current theory of biology does hold that all life on planet earth evolved from one original cell?

Are biologists sure that all life evolved from the same thing?
I know viruses and fungui are a lot different from other single cell organisms like bacteria. But they all have DNA or RNA or something that links them, thereby proving that they came from the same original one cell?

crx===

Are we alone?........... Those damn bugs just chucked a rock at us!

Capt'n Midnight

Justin1982 wrote: »

2. Universe is infinite (This is assumed by a lot if not most theoretical physicists but again I would not be so sure)

Even if the universe is infinite we can't see beyond the event horizon.

Which means our universe is finite, yes we may see further in time, but heat decay limits how far we can ever see.

Capt'n Midnight

Nerro wrote: »

the whole idea looking for ET radio signals is not to try and catch a radio or tv show transmited by alians but look for patterns in signals that would show that they are not natur

Forget patterns

a radar beam would stand out as a spike against nearby frequencies
and it's doppler shift might provide our annual and daily movements

ps200306

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Forget patterns

a radar beam would stand out as a spike against nearby frequencies
and it's doppler shift might provide our annual and daily movements

Why do you say that? There are microwave masers produced naturally by interstellar molecular clouds that would like pretty much like radar.

ps200306

Justin1982 wrote: »

I've been thinking about this for the past few months. Seems to be the best evidence that life on a habitable planet has probably a very very very low chance of happening. I'd kind of assume that the chance of a single cell coming into existence is almost zero.

Current theory of biology does hold that all life on planet earth evolved from one original cell?

Are biologists sure that all life evolved from the same thing?
I know viruses and fungui are a lot different from other single cell organisms like bacteria. But they all have DNA or RNA or something that links them, thereby proving that they came from the same original one cell?

Yes. The theory of evolution is a theory of monophyletic descent, i.e. a single common ancestor. I'm not certain about viruses, since some people wouldn't even classify them as "alive", and even if they had recognisable codon sequences matching living organisms, they could be "stolen". But, as a general argument, all life on earth is related. So if life arose multiple times on earth, not all of it survived. That's kinda strange. If life is as tenacious as it seems, and as likely to arise as we think, there's no reason I can think of that we wouldn't have lots of different webs of life on earth.

ZeRoY

Might get an answer soon!

http://titansaturnsmoon.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/cassinis-first-flyby-of-2013/

Capt'n Midnight

ps200306 wrote: »

Why do you say that? There are microwave masers produced naturally by interstellar molecular clouds that would like pretty much like radar.

and what frequencies would these resonate at ?

and their periodicity ?

also in the unlikely even of eclipse by moon / sun there would be clear evidence of a point source

ps200306

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

and what frequencies would these resonate at ?

and their periodicity ?

also in the unlikely even of eclipse by moon / sun there would be clear evidence of a point source

They're masers ... so they're microwaves, same as radar. Radar is typically in the 2 to 40 GHz range. So are molecular cloud masers. The OH molecule alone can mase at 10 different frequencies from 1.6 GHz to 13.4 GHz. Other typical molecules are water, methanol, ammonia, and formaldehyde.

They can produce point sources too -- by "beaming" which means that a maser beam is preferentially emitted along the line of greatest path length through a cloud, and is exponentially amplified along that path.

And they can be variable on periods from days to years.

Capt'n Midnight

ps200306 wrote: »

They're masers ... so they're microwaves, same as radar. Radar is typically in the 2 to 40 GHz range. So are molecular cloud masers. The OH molecule alone can mase at 10 different frequencies from 1.6 GHz to 13.4 GHz. Other typical molecules are water, methanol, ammonia, and formaldehyde.

You do know that radars avoid frequencies that natural molecules resonate on ?

As time goes on we will probably fill in more of the RF spectum , mobile phone/white space so the chances of picking up a clear signal from us will drop, except possibly for radar

ps200306

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You do know that radars avoid frequencies that natural molecules resonate on ?

As time goes on we will probably fill in more of the RF spectum , mobile phone/white space so the chances of picking up a clear signal from us will drop, except possibly for radar

No, I didn't know that. So they would be distinguishable from natural masers. I guess that leaves the problem of power -- am I right in thinking a beam width of one or two degrees is typical? So, there would still be a lot of attenuation over interstellar distances. And we'd still only be covering a one or two degree strip of the sky.

maninasia

Manach wrote: »

My own opinion coming from a geological POV is that the evolution of intelligent complex life was a very hap-hazard process that involved multiple dependent variables on Earth. So other such life in say this galaxy could exist, but would be both rare and given the brief span of mankind might have already come and gone.

You demonstrate the classic blind spot of anthropomorphism. The dinosaurs were intelligent. The ancestors of dinosaurs were intelligent. Trilobites were intelligent! Intelligence has existed on this Earth for hundreds of millions of years. Once of out of the bottle, it's hard to put back in. At this very moment there are many intelligent creatures co-existing with us on the Earth, some of which display better spatial reasoning or other attributes than us!

Even plants have a form of intelligence, they transmit signals to each other through their root systems, through associated fungi and also through air borne pheromones.

Bacteria exist in communities, they also send signals between themselves.

Even non back boned creatures like octopus demonstrate intelligence.

Intelligence is an attribute that exists across species. It does not belong to Homo Sapiens exclusively.

maninasia

Justin1982 wrote: »

I've been thinking about this for the past few months. Seems to be the best evidence that life on a habitable planet has probably a very very very low chance of happening. I'd kind of assume that the chance of a single cell coming into existence is almost zero.

Current theory of biology does hold that all life on planet earth evolved from one original cell?

Are biologists sure that all life evolved from the same thing?
I know viruses and fungui are a lot different from other single cell organisms like bacteria. But they all have DNA or RNA or something that links them, thereby proving that they came from the same original one cell?

Let's look at our own solar system.
Out of the eight planets we have four rocky ones and something huge numbers of moons. We haven't done much research on any of the other planets except Mars. Even then we haven't done much research to be honest and we are LITERALLY just now scratching the surface. We really know extremely little about the gas giants and I don't think we have any ability to discern whether they support life or not at this time.

But let's say for the sake of argument that only Earth has life in our solar system.

That's still 1 out of the 4 rocky planets. Or 1 out of 1 with a large planetary body of liquid water.

I think the odds look pretty darn good, especially when you consider that microbial life appeared on Earth almost as soon as the crust cooled!

We haven't even talked about the moons yet, which offer a factor higher number of targets and they are also more diverse in their chemistry.

maninasia

ps200306 wrote: »

Yes. The theory of evolution is a theory of monophyletic descent, i.e. a single common ancestor. I'm not certain about viruses, since some people wouldn't even classify them as "alive", and even if they had recognisable codon sequences matching living organisms, they could be "stolen". But, as a general argument, all life on earth is related. So if life arose multiple times on earth, not all of it survived. That's kinda strange. If life is as tenacious as it seems, and as likely to arise as we think, there's no reason I can think of that we wouldn't have lots of different webs of life on earth.

This is a fair point. It's intriguing that life started VERY early on Earth, and yet we cannot detect any life that cannot be linked back to a common ancestor.

This to me suggest a stronger probability that life came from outside Earth and we are part of a galactic community of bacteria. This is an extension of the Copernican revolution..our spheres of perspective constantly widening from man > animals > all life on Earth > all life in the solar system > part of the galactic biosphere. There is no reason why we arbitrarily cut ourselves off from the galaxy that we inhabit. Anyone who doesn't think that we don't interact with the space around us hasn't been watching the news this week!

As soon as the Earth cooled bacteria seeded the Earth just as a newly born volcanic island can support life. After at least one bacteria managed to get a foothold on Earth it simply evolved into the broad range of life we see today.

Since that time other bacteria may have arrived, they may simply be outcompeted by the already highly adapted bacteria here on Earth.

A further idea, that more bacteria have arrived and prospered in the intervening years, but they also share a common ancestor to the first bacteria that prospered on Earth, therefore we cannot detect them.

Lastly it IS possible that there are other bacteria that exist on Earth and that do not share a common ancestor with us. This is because our techniques to detect bacteria, that we cannot culture in the lab (over 95% of bacteria) are extremely biased to standard DNA/RNA and protein sequencing.

maninasia

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Firstly, we don't know that it only happened once - maybe it happened several times and the current instance of life ate all previous life.

Secondly, maybe it can only happen once: maybe the current instance of life on earth changed the conditions by gobbling up all the precursor chemicals in the primordial soup.

Darwin had this figured out, it's all about competition. The new guys are outcompeted by the established competitors, who outnumber them by trillions to one and who are perfectly adapted to the terrestrial environment.

maninasia

EnterNow wrote: »

I do see it, as I said Dolphins communicate in a way we never can...yet its believed in five to ten years, we'll be able to understand the things they are 'saying' to each other & communicate with them in a two way fashion.

Communication is communication...its all about finding common ground.

There is a whole branch of science called information theory, information is the same all over the universe, and the systems to process, transmit, encode and decode would all use similar constituents. The main difference would be the degree of technical progress affecting the current state of the art information processing.

So as mentioned once two cups and a string wasn't bad. We then moved on to telegraph wires and wireless transmission. Next might be lasers. Ultimately we could use neutrons. I'm surprised people haven't mentioned neutrons yet.

Capt'n Midnight

ps200306 wrote: »

No, I didn't know that. So they would be distinguishable from natural masers. I guess that leaves the problem of power -- am I right in thinking a beam width of one or two degrees is typical? So, there would still be a lot of attenuation over interstellar distances. And we'd still only be covering a one or two degree strip of the sky.

yeah tonnes of attenuation but at least there wouldn't be much water adsorption


As for power at some frequencies we'd be the brightest thing in the solar system AFAIK

darjeeling

I heard this on BBC Radio 3 of all places - a discussion between various scientists with an interest in aliens on what they might be like, how likely it is they're out there or down here already, how they might behave towards us and how we should react to them - should they enjoy human rights or should we try to blow them out of the sky if we see them. Weird and wonderful!

darkhorse

dorkacle wrote: »

Why does everyone assume that intelligent aliens from another planet wouldn't have a 'colourful' history of violence etc. etc. just like ourselves??

Yeah, cause look at the Klingons for one. Everytime the Federation try to make peace with them, they keep trying to blow the Federation ships out of sky. They can't be trusted.

Justin1982

maninasia wrote: »

Let's look at our own solar system.
Out of the eight planets we have four rocky ones and something huge numbers of moons. We haven't done much research on any of the other planets except Mars. Even then we haven't done much research to be honest and we are LITERALLY just now scratching the surface. We really know extremely little about the gas giants and I don't think we have any ability to discern whether they support life or not at this time.

But let's say for the sake of argument that only Earth has life in our solar system.

That's still 1 out of the 4 rocky planets. Or 1 out of 1 with a large planetary body of liquid water.

I think the odds look pretty darn good, especially when you consider that microbial life appeared on Earth almost as soon as the crust cooled!

We haven't even talked about the moons yet, which offer a factor higher number of targets and they are also more diverse in their chemistry.

The fact that life started so early in earths history makes me confident but also not so confident.
If life didnt start so early then we might not have had enough time to evolve as humans and start observing that life started so early. Its kind of the anthrophic principle at work.
Personally I dont think early life on earth means much.

If life starts so early then I have no doubt that more than one form of life would have taken hold at this stage.

Again I dont know enough about virues, fungui and bacteria's inner workings but its something I'll look into to see if there is a big difference or if there is definitely connecting all these life forms.

Personally I am not very confident that life exists anywhere else. It could have been just a big big fluke. There is no evidence to suggest that life will always take off on an earth life planet at all.

And Drakes equation is a pile of rubbish. It is pure meaningless!

Throughout the universe I would suggest that there is some really amazing things going on that the human brain cant even begin to imagine or comprehend. I mean like, apart from the fact that we are so familiar with life and the powerful human brain, if there was something like a powerful computer on the other side of the universe calculating all the things that could be discovered in the universe using the known laws of physics and maths that we have, I reckon that same computer would never ever calculate that something as amazing as life or a human brain could develop and be present on the other side of the universe right here on earth. Similarly I would bet that there is some amazing things out there that we cant even start to imagine. I'm just not confident that life as we know it is necessarily one of them.

dyer

I haven't heard anyone mention quantum mechanics as a viable mode of communication yet. Why waste all that energy communicating when we could theoretically use quantum entanglement to our advantage? There is a great article here with Anton Zeilinger about his work in the field : http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/14-anton-zeilinger-teleports-photons-taught-the-dalai-lama

I often wonder if it's just inevitable in a system like our universe that intelligence should develop, because [it] might as well not exist at all if it can't somehow be conscious of it's very own existence. I also wonder if everything that exists in reality is alive in some way, not simply in the way we define intelligence in a practical sense but as different systems constanty evolving and exchanging information. As Zeilinger pointed out, the line between reality and information is becoming increasingly blurred.

david75

not to get all Star Trek about it but why is it life can't evolve in liquid or gaseous form? always thought the argument that life has to be carbon based was a bit arrogant.