Do You Believe?

[gustavusadolphus]

Aliens are not a topic I see often on the forums, possibly this Is the first thread on the subject. I would like to know if you think aliens are really out there. I have not spoke with any that I know of but I do believe our universe is so big they have to be out there somewhere. I would go as far as to say it pretty arrogant to think we could be the only ones unless you religious then it not as much arrogance but faith in something other than humans. To be honest I don't think we as humans have found any aliens as i think if they come here they probably are smart enough to to only be found if they want to be.

Vote in the poll lets see what you believe.

[n0el]

Well, as a believer in science, I believe that there is a strong likelihood of life outside of earth. It’s probably not aliens are people think of them from tv and movies but some more primitive life forms.

[gustavusadolphus]

Well, as a believer in science, I believe that there is a strong likelihood of life outside of earth. It’s probably not aliens are people think of them from tv and movies but some more primitive life forms.

I agree but I think its just as likely we could be extremely primtlative to them. We know so little our frame of reference could be super small.

[vardar]

I swear some people on these forums are Aliens

[Dolan]

Yea. According to my calculations, they're made of jelly.

[n0el]

Well, as a believer in science, I believe that there is a strong likelihood of life outside of earth. It’s probably not aliens are people think of them from tv and movies but some more primitive life forms.

I agree but I think its just as likely we could be extremely primtlative to them. We know so little our frame of reference could be super small.

Could be. However if they are more evolved it’s likely they’d have been visible to us.

[zoom]

Define "aliens", please.

[Hidddy_]

Aliens are real guys, they'll come back to check up on us soon. Don't let them find only machines...

[Gendarme]

@n0el Why is that likely? We can't listen to the whole universe, and if you're referring to "the observable universe", it is just a theoretical maximum—we don't have coverage of it all.

[gamevideo113]

The existence of life outside of planet earth is possible but not really plausible imo, and even if it actually was there don't think we will ever get to meet aliens as the human species. Not only we need to find them, but we would also need to be lucky enough to live in the same era as them.

[gustavusadolphus]

Well, as a believer in science, I believe that there is a strong likelihood of life outside of earth. It’s probably not aliens are people think of them from tv and movies but some more primitive life forms.

I agree but I think its just as likely we could be extremely primtlative to them. We know so little our frame of reference could be super small.

Could be. However if they are more evolved it’s likely they’d have been visible to us.

They could be invisable or just tiny but very smart. Also to answer another question we are talking about more than observable universe.

[n0el]

@Gendarme if you assume evolution occurs at the same rate, and if we are later in the timeline for life around the universe then I’d expect other life forms to have evolved to the point where their tech allows them to have a presence in the universe.

Although I see your point with regards to scale

[j_t_kirk]

Klingons are real. Qapla'

[spanky4ever]

Aliens cold be really big, and our globe is merly an atom, flying around in a cell, called the milky way.

[HUMMAN]

Fermi paradox :(

[gustavusadolphus]

I surprised so far how few people think there is a cover up

[j_t_kirk]

The Infinite-Monkey-Theorem explains everything.

[dietschlander]

I believe in Jezus Christ and His and ours heavenly Father who created the heavens and the earth (which is pritty obvious because of the beauty and visible craftsmanship).

Dunno about aliens, are they friendly pets?

[gustavusadolphus]

Has any one ever watched the show ancient aliens?

[dietschlander]

Is that about aliens and pyramids and stuff?

[gustavusadolphus]

Is that about aliens and pyramids and stuff?

Yes the show could be a great drinking game when it comes to the massive jumps in logic they make.

[lejend]

Wake up, sheeple!

phpBB [video]

[Gendarme]

Yes we can! Thank you satan!

[zoom]

If nothing else, I believe in Garja.

[momuuu]

This question basically comes down the fermi paradox: Imagining the sheer size of the universe, and the estimates of how many planets are in the 'habitable zone' (that's the zone where human-like life could form, so we're even ignoring the possibility for some weird lifeform), and then the relative youth of the earth and the human species (to put this in perspective, I think the human species has only been around for a very short time. I think if you would equate the lifetime of the universe to a year, we have only been around for the last 2 minutes of that entire year), then one would expect surely there is an intelligent species somewhere that has developed far beyond our capacity and has conquered much of space. Yet, wherever we look, we see no traces of life. This is a relevant question, because one of the solution to the fermi paradox is that all advanced civilizations could meet a hard barrier that ends up destructing them. In that case, we should probably be preparing for the worst.

In the formation of life there are a few steps. First, you need to form biological connections between carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. These molecules don't form naturally if you just throw them together. Research has shown that under certain circumstances they can form however. I recall a research where they mixed those elements and gave the mix various electric shocks (mimicing lightning) which resulted in these biological molecules to form. Given the long time the universe has existed, and the huge size, I think this cannot be an extremely unlikely event. Then there's the formation of these molecules into microscopic life, and then from that microscopic life into macroscopic life. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that most life on earth has a lot of DNA in common and then probably has similair roots in their origin. This would suggest that the formation of these macroscopic creatures out of the microscopic life is not very easy; otherwise we would logically see many different roots in the DNA of different species. And then lastly, theres the step of becoming "intelligent life". Out of thousands of species, we are so far the only species (together with some subgroups of us) that managed to take the step towards truly intelligent life. This also suggests that final step is hard to take. Dogs, lions, cats, elifents, parrots etc. all have thusfar been completely unable to take that step. I think we can pinpoint two steps that should be considered reasonably unlikely, even though they did happen once both (not actually sure on the dna thing though).

But, we must not underestimate the number of planets that there are. Recently we have been able to see more and more exoplanets. It seems that the majority of stars have a number of planets, usually at least one in the habitable zone. If we then take into account that there are trillions of stars. I quote: "For the Universe, the galaxies are our small representative volumes, and there are something like 10^11 to 10^12 stars in our Galaxy, and there are perhaps something like 10^11 or 10^12 galaxies." This means that if we were to be the only intelligent life, then we're about 1/10^22. We'd be a true miracle in this universe. Even if we would be alone in our galaxy, we would be 1/10^12. And honestly, thats not even taking into account the fact that there have been numerous of planets before us and that many planets have existed for much longer than ours, so that chance is probably a couple factors of ten smaller.

We have been looking for life outside of our planet. It seems not unlikely that any species would at some point in their development use radio waves to communicate, as we do. They are simply an easy and obvious way to transmit information, so it is a reasonable thing to look for in the search of extraterrestial life. We've been scanning the sky, but have been unable to locate radiowaves of extraterrestial life. Scanning for a Dyson sphere (a sphere around the civilizations star to harvest all solar energy in the solar system, a theoretical possibility) hasn't given any results either.

It seems like either intelligent life is really hard to form, or that it is extremely hard/impossible to actually start conquering space. Yet, we are reaching the point where we can actually start colonizing stuff in our solar system and we're still developing a lot, so it would seem unlikely that we're close to reaching a barrier that we cant advance beyond.

Check out pbs spacetime for more or maybe just better content than my post (great youtube channel btw): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJONS7sqi0o