Do extra terrestrials exist? If so...

Not read the full 16pages on the subject, so this reply may even now be off topic compared to the original post. But even so, its a subject that fascinates me, so I wanted to throw my two cents on the subject.

Given there are hundreds of billions of stars in our own galaxy alone, and say if even only one in a billion are in the goldilocks zone, with the correct elements present for life, then yes.

The laws of physics are across the entire cosmos. That we know! and i truly I believe the laws of life are too. The driving force behind life and evolution and everything being about survival, regardless if you're a minuscule bit of bacteria, or a full on t-rex, those laws HAVE to be present. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here typing this reply. Just cos its too far away to get a confirmation unfortunately allows humans to come up with all different fairy tales, about Gods, son of gods, prophets and whatever other nonsense there is out there.

Is the universe part of an elaborate design? I mean surely biology is far too complex to just be by chance isn't it.. Who knows. I only know what I know for sure, and that's if all the right ingredients are present and soak it with solar radiation. It will mutate into something as a life form.. Because that's the laws of life, and per galaxy, even if its only one in a billion.. Then there are hundreds of different exoplanets out there harboring life. Now if we take the probabilty of intelligent life, then maybe we are the only ones in our galaxy, given the millions of different species we have here on earth, and only one is intelligent.

If we move further away into different galaxies, then its almost a sure bet. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, with the laws of life 'probably' present.. Its gotta be a sure bet.

Have they visited? I very much doubt it. Doesn't the laws of physics not allow anything to travel faster than light? Making anything outside of our galaxy impossible.. and perhaps that's the way it was meant to be?
 
Liampope said:
Have to disagree a tiny bit with Angilion, but only in semantics really. Any equation/model like that has predictive power - that's the whole point of them. Of course the results of any equation are only as good as what you feed into it, and that's the real problem with trying to use the Drake equation to give a quantitative answer today. We only have a sample size of one example of intelligent life which makes many of the inputs to the Drake equation no better than complete guesses. One can therefore plug in arguably 'feasable' numbers and get an answer ranging from 'it's just us' to there being millions of civilisations buzzing about. So clearly it is indeed useless as a means of calculating a number at the current time, but only because most of the parameters are unknown rather than any there being any fundamental problem with the model itself or the general approach.

If at some time in the future we manage to, say, survey our entire galaxy, we would be able to put numbers to all the parameters with quite some level of confidence in them. The equation would then be able to predict the number of civilisations in other galaxies just fine to a reasonable level of confidence. Of course Angilion is correct to say you wont get a precise number until you've surveyed the entire universe anyway, but it's not correct, imho, to say statistical models like this are useless and have no predictive power at all. If you have a good enough sample to put reliable numbers on the parameters, then they are useful. As has been said, the Drake equation, mathematically, is only any use as a framework to spark discussion at this time.
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I'm not saying that statistical models in general are useless and have no predictive power at all.

I'm saying that the Drake equation, specifically the Drake equation, is useless as a means of predicting anything, ever.

I'm also saying that it isn't really an equation at all.

It's a list of the factors involved in whether or not there are any civilisations that we could theoretically communicate with. If Drake hadn't dressed it up as an equation, I wouldn't have any problem with it. As a list, it serves to spark discussion. Dressed up as an equation, it serves to stifle it by derailing discussion.

On top of that, I'm saying that it would still be impossible to assign values to most of the terms even if we had surveyed every part of the universe in detail. If that happened, we would know the number of civilisations that we could communicate with, but we would still be unable to know what combination of values of the terms led to that result. A simple example would be a * b = c and knowing (from experimentation) that c = 12. That wouldn't tell you what the values of a and b are, only the result of multiplying them together. 12 and 1, 6 and 2, 4 and 3, 7.653 and 1.658...there are a multitude of possibilities and that's with only 2 terms.

Your point about using results from a survey of this galaxy to predict the results in other galaxies sounds fine, but I argue that Drake "equation" fails as a predictive tool even in that situation because it is simply pointless.

Let's say that at some point in the future the galactic survey is complete and our far descendants know that there are x billion planets in the Milky Way and y civilisations that they can communicate with in it.

Someone digs out the Drake equation and makes up some numbers to fill in all the terms that cannot be known. In essence, they have the result and something approximating a combination of the first two terms. None of the other terms can really be known, under any circumstances. But they put in some values that give the correct result and which might be roughly right (or completely wrong - there's no way to know).

They then make the assumption that all the relevant factors will be the same in other galaxies, so they can apply the Drake equation to other galaxies.

They use an estimate of the number of stars in another galaxy and apply their collection of assumptions to it and the Drake equation to get a prediction for the number of civilisations in that galaxy that they could communicate with.

Well, OK, that's using the Drake equation as a predictive tool, right?

Not really, no. You'd get exactly the same result with this:

(number of civilisations in the milky way/number of stars in the milky way) * number of stars in the other galaxy.

Because that's all the Drake equation is doing, just dressed up with superfluous and unknowable terms. So it's pointless even in the scenario you describe.
 
thedoc46 said:
[..] If we move further away into different galaxies, then its almost a sure bet. Hundreds of billions of galaxies, with the laws of life 'probably' present.. Its gotta be a sure bet.
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No, it doesn't. We only know that life can exist and that the universe is extremely large. It's still possible that life is unique to some staggeringly unlikely combination of freak circumstances that only occured on Earth. I'd bet good money on life existing elsewhere, but it's not a sure bet.

Have they visited? I very much doubt it. Doesn't the laws of physics not allow anything to travel faster than light? Making anything outside of our galaxy impossible.. and perhaps that's the way it was meant to be?
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There are some theoretical workarounds to the speed of light limitation (e.g. extra-dimensional shortcuts such as warp drives and wormholes) and there's the possibility that some knowledge that humans don't currently have makes superluminal travel possible, somehow. Laws of physics describe what humans currently know about how the universe works. It's possible that we're overlooking something fundamental that would allow superluminal travel. On more known ground, there's time dilation. That would allow effectively one-way travel. If you could accelerate quickly enough for long enough, you could travel tens of thousands of light-years in mere weeks of subjective time. Seconds, theoretically.

As for "perhaps that's the way it was meant to be?", that's religion and I'll leave you to whatever religious beliefs you have.
 
Angilion said:
No, it doesn't. We only know that life can exist and that the universe is extremely large. It's still possible that life is unique to some staggeringly unlikely combination of freak circumstances that only occured on Earth. I'd bet good money on life existing elsewhere, but it's not a sure bet.

Read his question, probability prevails here, it's possible we are alone but it's likely we aren't and haven't been for a very long time. There is far more logic to support the argument that there is other intelligent life out there somewhere in the universe.
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Article from the guardian;

Is there life out there? Almost definitely, say UK scientists

· Revolution in space technology aids search · Primitive life will be found in 10 years, minister told

Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian, Wed 6 Jun 2007 14.37 BST

Intelligent extra-terrestrials almost certainly exist on distant planets beyond our solar system, leading British astronomers told the government yesterday.

The scientists expect that the first evidence of primitive alien life, such as microbes and vegetation, will emerge within 10 years, with more substantial finds following future space missions.

The experts, from high-ranking UK universities and research institutes, were gathered in London by the science minister, Malcolm Wicks, to describe the latest advances in the search for distant, habitable planets capable of harbouring life.

A recent revolution in technology means astronomers can now spot Earth-like planets orbiting faraway stars, raising the chances of alien life being found. By analysing reflected light, it is becoming possible to find any that may host vegetation and breathable atmospheres.

"Twenty years ago we only had one solar system to study and that's the one we live in. But since then, there's been an explosion in the number of planets outside our solar system that we've been able to detect," said Professor Keith Mason, chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council and former head of space physics at University College London. Some 200 planets have been detected orbiting stars other than the sun.

Scientists this year announced the discovery of a warm, rocky "second Earth" circling a distant star called Gliese 581, about 20 light years away in the constellation of Libra. Crucial measurements of the planet's surface temperature range revealed it was able to hold liquid water, believed to be a prerequisite for life.

In 2015, the European Space Agency will launch a mission called Darwin, a cluster of four orbiting telescopes that will scour the heavens for life-bearing planets. For five years, the telescopes will peer at 500 stars and conduct spectral analyses of the 50 most promising planets it detects.

"You can be pretty sure that if there's life out there, we've a good chance of being able to say so," said Glenn White, head of astrophysics at the Open University and a scientist on the Darwin project.

Our own existence may already have come to the attention of any aliens who are peering in our direction across the depths of space. Since the advent of radio waves, stray signals have leaked from Earth and travelled as far as 80 light years into space, far beyond the closest stars.

"If there's intelligent life out there, they sure as hell know we're here," said Michael Perryman, an astrophysicist at the European Space Agency.

The seven scientists, who included Ian Stevens, head of extrasolar planets at Birmingham University, and Suzanne Aigrain, of Exeter University, all believed that life existed elsewhere. Only Dr Perryman believed humans to be the sole intelligent beings in the universe.
 
airrunner said:
Read his question, probability prevails here, it's possible we are alone but it's likely we aren't and haven't been for a very long time. There is far more logic to support the argument that there is other intelligent life out there somewhere in the universe.
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Again though, it's probabilities rather than certainties. It's not phrased as a question - it's a statement "it's gotta be a sure bet." when as has been pointed out we simply know that life can exist, not that it definitely does exist elsewhere.

dirtychinchilla said:
Very interesting article, thank you. It irritates me how it's all still speculation though, although well backed speculation.
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If it wasn't speculation then it would almost certainly be the story of the century.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Again though, it's probabilities rather than certainties. It's not phrased as a question - it's a statement "it's gotta be a sure bet." when as has been pointed out we simply know that life can exist, not that it definitely does exist elsewhere.



I whole heartedley agree with your comment. I really wanted to establish from the other persons response that it's definitely a more than viable option and, in many ways even though
it's not proven as of yet it's probably of a likely occurrence.

From a personal opinion only, if someone takes enough time to do their own research, especially into the ufo phenomena i feel it's undeniably believable that someone or something has or still is visiting this planet.
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Castiel said:
I do find it interesting that many people who profess a belief that God(s) do not exist citing that there is no evidence and as such the default position must be negative, will hold the contrary position regarding extra terrestrial life given the criteria are basically the same....
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They are not even remotely the same.

We have seen life, there are countless life forms on this planet. Life elsewhere is extremely plausible, gods of theism are not.
 
Skunkworks said:
They are not even remotely the same.

We have seen life, there are countless life forms on this planet. Life elsewhere is extremely plausible, gods of theism are not.
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Lol......another who can't understand the difference between possibilty and probability and can't seem to fathom the difference between definitive positions and probable ones.

You might want to actually read the thread, then you might actually understand what was being said and it is about the nature of the statements being made and not about the subject matter or the relative probability of them.

:D
 
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I like to think there are others out there.

I just hope we don't find ourselves on the receiving end of some crazy technology when we find each other!

As awesome as the films and games would be...
 
Castiel said:
Lol......another who can't understand the difference between possibilty and probability and can't seem to fathom the difference between definitive positions and probable ones.

You might want to actually read the thread, then you might actually understand what was being said and it is about the nature of the statements being made and not about the subject matter or the relative probability of them.

:D
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Say anything even remotely critical of religion and out comes the condescension, I’m surprised you didn’t call me Sonny Jim. :rolleyes:
 
Skunkworks said:
Say anything even remotely critical of religion and out comes the condescension, I’m surprised you didn’t call me Sonny Jim. :rolleyes:
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It is nothing personal, nor was it intentionally condescending. I wasn't even aware that you were being critical of religion, God isn't the same as religion after all.

If you read the thread you will see that I have explained the same question several times, so it if you had read the thread you would have seen that. Roll your eyes if you want, but it wasn't me that didn't understand the statement or didn't bother to read the actual discussion, I'm sure you can understand how frustrating that is. :)

The statement isn't even about religion, aliens or god specifically anyway, but about how people ascribe definitive positive and negative positions to relative subjects without the corresponding definitive evidence to support them. The relative probability has absolutely nothing to do with it. I have explained this quite a lot to several people who have simply jumped on the very mention of God and gotten bent out of shape about it.

Just look through the thread, you will see for yourself.
 
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