There are around 30 billion planets in our galaxy , and there are...

Melodeon · 17-12-2018 12:52pm

EdgeCase wrote: »

You start out with a nice friendly Von Neumann Probe and end up coming back a few decades later to discover it's morphed into the Borg.

I await the return of our V'GER overlord!

BeerWolf · 17-12-2018 12:55pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

We’re probably averagely violent. Any aliens who could get here would be able to wipe us out anyway.

Obviously, with their common alien flu!

Blazer · 17-12-2018 12:58pm

gozunda wrote: »

Before answering - read this....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Yeah from guys back in the 1950’s. I'm not dismissing them but we have far more powerful telescopes now, we've achieve space flight and yet we still haven't travelled further than the moon after nearly 60 years of space flights.
If you really how to know how big the universe is watch the below video.
When you realise how small where we live and how small the milky way galaxy is it would be a miracle if we even meet one species in the next 1000 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy7NzjCmUf0

Bigbagofcans · 17-12-2018 1:31pm

893bet wrote: »

If the aliens come

1) where will we house them?
2) how long do they need to be here before they can claim the children’s allowance?

Would they be classed as an ethnic minority?

EdgeCase · 17-12-2018 1:35pm

Well, we don't know how common life is. So we have no way of even calculating that likelihood. There isn't sufficient data to conclude anything.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 17-12-2018 3:56pm

Blazer wrote: »

Yeah from guys back in the 1950’s. I'm not dismissing them but we have far more powerful telescopes now,

Telescopes don't really affect the reasoning on the Fermi paradox. Except it proves that we still haven't seen anything.

Laois_Man · 17-12-2018 5:33pm

Are we even the most intelligent species on our own planet?

eviltimeban · 17-12-2018 6:05pm

badabing106 wrote: »

Does anybody else ever look up at the sky and see that vast dark sky with twinkling stars and think...how unimportant and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things..

That must be some dank herb, man

Carlingford Locked · 17-12-2018 7:39pm

Zooming in and out on this is pretty mind blowing as it gives you some perspective of the size of things

www.scaleofuniverse.com

crustyjuggler · 17-12-2018 7:41pm

It would be very grim to think that humans are the most intelligent .

runawaybishop · 17-12-2018 8:34pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

I already said it would take a million years. Out of the billions available to other civilisations.

They would be everywhere. Every solar system. Every planet. And if the Drake equation is correct there would be many civilisations doing this

And that follows that 1) we can see them and 2) we are looking in the right places at 3) the right time?

There could have been a swarm of probes or aliens riding away over the planet a mere 2k years ago and we wouldn't have a clue.

We somehow have managed to go from 100 years ago learning to fly, to going to space 50 years later to someone being pretty sure about the galaxy 50 years after that. We haven't even mapped our own planet like.

AudreyHepburn · 17-12-2018 8:34pm

badabing106 wrote: »

... over 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe

Do you think it's more likely or less likely that this planet has the most intelligent species in the cosmos

Does anybody else ever look up at the sky and see that vast dark sky with twinkling stars and think...how unimportant and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things..

The most intelligent beings - hard to say.

But I certainly don’t believe we’re the only inhabited planet in the universe - it’s simply too vast for that to be the case. There has to be life on other planets.

What form that life might take is anyone’s guess.

Fourier · 17-12-2018 9:23pm

Carlingford Locked wrote: »

Zooming in and out on this is pretty mind blowing as it gives you some perspective of the size of things

www.scaleofuniverse.com

That's a class site!

Just to say I'd take everything beneath the Phospholipid in size with a grain of salt. Things get a bit strange beyond that point and it's hard to say to what extent the stuff is a valid picture.

EdgeCase · 17-12-2018 9:34pm

crustyjuggler wrote: »

It would be very grim to think that humans are the most intelligent .

Can you imagine: Aliens show up, the Americans jump in and claim to run the place and they say "take me to your leader" and the aliens meet Donald Trump.

If it were the Borg they would just move swiftly onwards deciding nothing to assimilate here.

pleas advice · 17-12-2018 10:07pm

Laois_Man wrote: »

Are we even the most intelligent species on our own planet?

on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.

dellas1979 · 17-12-2018 10:28pm

Does evolution = intelligence?

I think about things like this a lot.

I am not curious if there is something out there. Am curious what is out there.

i.e., human type ejits like ourselves, grand. Not even curious. A big nasty xenomorph who'd eat me, curious.

Capt'n Midnight · 17-12-2018 11:04pm

Back in the middle ages it took lifetimes to build cathedrals. There are similar examples worldwide of extended projects.

It would take us 50,000 years to get to the nearest star with existing technology. ( less because it gets closer in the meantime) So an upper limit of 13,000 years per light year distance. The Milky Way is 105,700 light years across so 1.37 Billion years to colonise the Galaxy.

But we could do way better than that.
We could get probes there in 50 years if we really, really tried.
So planets could be terraformed by the time we got there. In fact part of the terraforming could be to send out further probes.

If we develop hypersleep or artificial wombs then we could travel way faster due to lower mass. Or if we could figure out how to go back to eggs for a while. Or if we send out cephalopods or corvids that use eggs.

Or if we develop new technology, even being able to predict a coronal mass ejection and using it to boost escape velocity.

If we can do it , so could they.

Ipso · 17-12-2018 11:31pm

I like the HP Lovevraft idea of cosmic insignificance.
Any human interaction with ETs would probably be like that in Arthur C Clarke’s Rendevous with Rama.

Larbre34 · 18-12-2018 5:13am

Raheem Euro wrote: »

Like several previous posters talking about this you don't actually know what a Von Neumann Probe is. Your whole post shows this but just take the point above.

I'm well aware of what the theoretical device known as the Von Neumann Probe (VNP) is. Its a massive red herring. Its more a philosophical than a technical theory, with as many wild assumptions as the Drake Equation so to make it an irrelevance.

Carl Sagan described the VNP as basically not thought out. If such a probe were to keep self-replicating, effectively beyond the control of its original creator, it would eventually spread to occupy all available space, destroying both the potential subjects of the search as well as the creator themselves. Sagan summed it up, no one intelligent enough to create a Von Neumann Probe would ever build it. Throw that bone to the philosophers.

In my example, I'm extrapolating with physics that at least humanity has some grip on.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 18-12-2018 6:43am

Larbre34 wrote: »

I'm well aware of what the theoretical device known as the Von Neumann Probe (VNP) is. Its a massive red herring. Its more a philosophical than a technical theory, with as many wild assumptions as the Drake Equation so to make it an irrelevance.

Carl Sagan described the VNP as basically not thought out. If such a probe were to keep self-replicating, effectively beyond the control of its original creator, it would eventually spread to occupy all available space, destroying both the potential subjects of the search as well as the creator themselves. Sagan summed it up, no one intelligent enough to create a Von Neumann Probe would ever build it. Throw that bone to the philosophers.

Firstly I doubt you did know about van neumann probes as you certainly didn’t understand the argument when I first mentioned it. You clearly thought colonisation of the galaxy was impossible. And when you do respond you respond with the Sagan counter argument which is in the wiki link I posted.

This Sagan rebuttal is pretty weak. If there are millions of other aliens why wouldn’t some of them be “stupid” enough to create the probes. And no individual alien probe would keep replicating for ever, there's a simple fail safe of not entering a system you’ve already colonised. It’s only with multiple intelligent alients creating multiple different probes unaware of each other that Sagan’s counter argument makes sense - but this argument means these aliens should be aware of each other though we are not aware of them.

In my example, I'm extrapolating with physics that at least humanity has some grip on.

There’s nothing theoretically impossible about van neumann probes. Many Aliens older than us are older than us (if they are plentiful) than the earth’s age. In the time it took life to evolve from single cells to complex forms, these aliens have been evolving technologies - which is much faster than evolution.

Unless you think that we are the only technological species, or that we’ve reached peak technology and no aliens could ever surpass us, or that we are the smartest in the galaxy (all of which you rejected) then there should be aliens out there smarter than us who are ahead of us by billions of years in technology. They won’t be able to break the laws of physics (no faster than light travel) but they can should certainly be able to build Von Neumann probes.

So, as fermi said, where are they.

runawaybishop · 18-12-2018 8:29am

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

So, as fermi said, where are they.

We aren't advanced enough to see them, or are not looking in the right place at the right time.

With regards to the probes if someone was dumb enough to unleash an aggressive hegemonizing swarm it follows that someone would eradicate it for obvious reasons.

MarkHenderson · 18-12-2018 8:40am

If a tree falls in the woods will it kill a snail?

facehugger99 · 18-12-2018 9:06am

MarkHenderson wrote: »

If a tree falls in the woods will it kill a snail?

yes

BrokenArrows · 18-12-2018 10:36am

If you exclude people from Cork then probably yes.

Avatar MIA · 18-12-2018 2:48pm

facehugger99 wrote: »

yes

Would we have to import snails first before trees can fall?

orourkeda1977 · 18-12-2018 3:15pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

There are 9 million bicycles in Beijing

That must make it the sex tourism capital of the universe

topper75 · 18-12-2018 3:21pm

What about the possibility of life, be it higher form or otherwise, being on BILLIONS of planets beyond the solar system...

...and yet remaining utterly IRRELEVANT for the entire remainder of human existence?

An equally possible situation.

TomSweeney · 18-12-2018 3:25pm

30 billion planets in the milky way ?
I'd imagine there is even more , there is about 100 billion stars, so I would guess it's closer to a trillion planets...

Irishcrx · 18-12-2018 4:02pm

Humanity is fatally flawed , at our core the majority are selfish , ignorant , violent race that learns little from our past. Sure , we have advanced technology and build cities etc etc but we are still murdering each other and are only a stones throw out of two world wars in the grand scheme of thing's, on a whole we don't really care about people outside our own little bubble (Minority do sure and of course there are good people) but a dime a dozen.

We will be our own downfall and demise no doubt about it , it's written in our DNA and history. Our sun will eventually burn out but I doubt we will survive to see it , the warning signs that we need to find a new planet to survive is there and that would take massive leaps in advanced technology and probably the whole world working together to even have a chance of achieving , we aren't capable of that...too greedy , human nature would prevent it.

Sad as it is , it's more likely we will advance AI and in some way integrate with that AI over the next 200 years...probably extend life expectancy due to implants etc but eventually again greed , arrogance will ruin us...It's more likely that AI will survive and superseed us on this planet , we will be the creators long gone when they advance off this planet and through space not hindered by Human biology or time and it'll be that AI that finds other life if it exists.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 18-12-2018 4:15pm

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

And yet most scientists do think that. For extremely rational reasons.

Because we have no proof is not a rational reason.

Avatar MIA · 18-12-2018 8:06pm

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Because we have no proof is not a rational reason.

It's as equally valid as the the borg probe, imo. Sci-fi masquerading as scientific theory.

There are around 30 billion planets in our galaxy , and there are...

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