Poll: Where is everyone?

[jpod]

Hmm, it is a miracle that we have any fossil records in the first place on Earth, you have to have things dying in the right place under the right circumstances to get them (sediment, pressure, time).

So you are never going to get an example of everything like a stamp album. Some things will be absent just due to where they were etc.

Even with no fossil record the theory of evolution is fact and the evidence that this is as a result of natural selection has a robust and increasing body of evidence.

Way back in the thread someone asked if an organism can just appear and have intelligence. No they can't. It is large frontal hemispheres that gives animals intelligence. It is like RAM.

 

[v0n]

Well with such a vast amount of human detritus left on this planet, it's extremely likely that at least some part of it will enter the geological record, become part of the rock. And as such leave a trace for future intelligent life to find.

So, if there had been previous intelligent life on this planet we should expect to find traces of it in the geology. And we haven't. And given how hard we've been searching for fossils, including in the oldest known rocks, it's highly likely we never will because it's just not there.

We are doing full circle to my joke from few posts ago "just because we haven't found a fossil of a dino with playstation remote next to it...".

I'm not going to repeat my argument of "sample is too small/methodology of scientific projects of anything regarding intelligent life regardless of where is extremely poor" because it was in the post you quoted, so I'm sure you know my stance on that already, but instead let me ask you seriously - if geologists were to provide the proof that we were NOT the first intelligent inhabitants of this planet - what would you accept as a proof - what would such discovery look like, having survived hundreds of millions of years under layers of soil and stone, floods and dry spells, several ice ages, possibly few continental shifts here and there, maybe even shift in Earth's axis or some other dramatic change of environment etc?

 

[Trusty]

there are two great meta-traditions: Western Analytical and Continental (Eastern sort of melds into it, but some would classify it on its own)... the only difference is that in Western analytical philosophy it takes a while to get to the crazy.

Interesting, i didnt know that.

Here's another one:

You air balloon is descending fast. Alongside yourself you find a pregnant woman, an old man, a child, a world-leading scientist, Paris Hilton and your pet dog, Dingo. All your ballast is gone and you're not allowed to kill yourself. Whom do you throw out first? Second? And so on.

Whats the planet like when i get down there? Is it like 'The Road' or is the planet just normal?

 

[Cern]

We are doing full circle to my joke from few posts ago "just because we haven't found a fossil of a dino with playstation remote next to it...".

I'm not going to repeat my argument of "sample is too small/methodology of scientific projects of anything regarding intelligent life regardless of where is extremely poor" because it was in the post you quoted, so I'm sure you know my stance on that already, but instead let me ask you seriously - if geologists were to provide the proof that we were NOT the first intelligent inhabitants of this planet - what would you accept as a proof - what would such discovery look like, having survived hundreds of millions of years under layers of soil and stone, floods and dry spells, several ice ages, possibly few continental shifts here and there, maybe even shift in Earth's axis or some other dramatic change of environment etc?

Something with sufficient form that we can distinguish it as an artifact of previous intelligent life, such as a tool, item of utility or art, currency, waste product of manufacture or whatever. Note it likely won't be the actual object, but a fossil. Anything that can decay and/or leave an imprint in sediment etc can potentially leave a fossil, it doesn't have to be of organic origin. However, all of the fossils found so far ARE of organic origin because ..... I know you won't agree with this ..... nothing was making / crafting / manufacturing non-organic items before humans came along.

Bear in mind that many of the fossils we've already found have also been subject to all of the forces you've described - ice ages, continental drift, earthquakes, floods, you name it. And not just dinosaur fossils but much much earlier forms of life too. There's traces of all of it. But nowhere are there any anomalies or traces of earlier intelligent life. The sample size is not too small to be able to say this, there's a huge amount of fossils collected and recorded.

 

[v0n]

Something with sufficient form that we can distinguish it as an artifact of previous intelligent life, such as a tool, item of utility or art, currency, waste product of manufacture or whatever. Note it likely won't be the actual object, but a fossil. Anything that can decay and/or leave an imprint in sediment etc can potentially leave a fossil, it doesn't have to be of organic origin.

But that's a circular argument - if your sample range is as small as our current fossil finds (and it really is small to represent anywhere between half a billion and 3.8 billion years), in reverse scenario, how many of todays animals would we expect to expire in a swampy enough environment to be fossilised with tools next to them?

However, all of the fossils found so far ARE of organic origin because ..... I know you won't agree with this ..... nothing was making / crafting / manufacturing non-organic items before humans came along.

I'm not disputing the fact that we haven't found fossilised tools, I'm just not going to reject possibility that one of the remaining undiscovered million+ species living at the same time were able to use tools.

Equally I'm not that keen on the argument that intelligent species in the distant past would have to share our penchant to consumptionist lifestyle to such a degree as to leave enough environmental rubbish behind for them to appear with satisfactory frequency among relatively small sample of artefacts we managed to retrieve from the tiny handful of places on earth that at some point in the past offered rare enough environmental conditions, correct soil or sediment and long enough exposure for anything at all to become fossilised and so on..

 

[Sliver]

Even with no fossil record the theory of evolution is fact and the evidence that this is as a result of natural selection has a robust and increasing body of evidence.

Yes you're quite right. However, without the fossil record there is one other mountain of evidence to confirm evolution that you didn't mention, molecular genetics. Molecular genetics on it's own, without a fossil record, is enough to prove evolution because it shows that every organism is related to every other organism in a beautiful family tree. So we humans share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees and lesser % with horses and an even lesser % with cabbages. The underlying truth is that molecular genetics shows us that every organism on Earth is related and shares a common ancestor to every other organism.

 

[d_brennen]

The sort of life we know and expect to find elsewhere depends on lots of heavy elements. These elements, as far as we know, only occur naturally when stars go nova. It's looking more and more likely that we are among the "first generation" of life supporting planets. The universe simply hasn't been around long enough for life as we know it to occur before us. If there is intelligent life out there, perhaps they are facing the same challenges as we are...

 

[d_brennen]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ethansi...iverse-that-arent-made-in-stars/#6ee58a795cb3

Good read regarding heavier and not so heavy elements required for life as we know it

 

[ChroniC]

In quick and dirty layman's terms: A planet's relative position to its star and orbit are not the only things which influence temperature variation: the atmosphere, geological composition, size and mass matter also. Each key variable that affects temperature and seasons is also subject to several planetary cycles from gas exchange to continental crust renewal and drift that feed into the final result. And of course there are special cases that can miss one or more variables and cycles.

Its where water can be liquid, so its large due to different planet sizes and atmospheric pressures.
But it also doesn't include all places that could be liquid, moons like Europa aren't in the habitable zone, but do have liquid water. Just generated by the gravitational effects of a gas gaint.

Its a very much an overly simplified concept and continue to evolveas we learn more.

If that is the case then the habital zone is just a variable area that exists where there is a possiblilty of life for a variable sized planet, outside of too much or too little radiation, then earths habitable zone cmpared to it's realitive size must be much much smaller.
It strikes me as more than just a coincidence that we seem to have been plonked within a few hundred thousand miles either side of our perfect zone, however it is not.

Given that the factors involved in getting the perfect conditions for a planet to exist within it's solar system and then water to exist, followed by the perfect conditions for an amino acid to create life, followed by the rise of intelligence, (considering the dinosaurs had millions of years and never managed it) The chances of life are for me, in the billions of billions and intelligent life, in the trillions of trillions.

We are alone.

 

[Glaucus]

lol. do you realise how big the universe is and that's just the visiable universe. even if the probability is tiny, there will still be plenty of life out there.

an estimated 70 billion trillion stars.

to think we are alone, really is a mad assumption. based on nothing more than old religious thoughts that we are the most important thing to exist and centre of the universe thoughts.

 

[d_brennen]

Intelligent life is a sweeping statement. Does a species need to create tons of junk to be intelligent? Humans have been about, what, 50,000* years in a recognisable form. We only have artifacts going back, what, 5,000* years. It's only in the last few hundred years we've "made a mark" so to speak

*from memory, probably wrong

 

[Glaucus]

lol 5000 years, that's way to short. intensive farming was 10k years ago.
and the oldest stone tools are extremely old, in the millions. pre dating modern human and going back to our very early ancestors.

but i think we will come to realise other animals are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. many animals use tools.

Stone tools found from 2011 to 2014 at Lake Turkana in Kenya, are dated to be 3.3 million years old, and predate the genus Homo by half million years. The oldest known Homo fossil is 2.8 million years old compared to the 3.3 million year old stone tools.[5] The stone tools may have been made by Australopithecus afarensis —also called Kenyanthropus playtops— (a 3.2 to 3.5-million-year-old Pliocene hominin fossil discovered in 1999) the species whose best fossil example is Lucy, which inhabited East Africa at the same time as the date of the oldest stone tools.[6][7][8][9][10]Dating of the tools was by dating volcanic ash layers in which the tools were found and dating the magnetic signature (pointing north or south due to reversal of the magnetic poles) of the rock at the site.

 

[Sliver]

Intelligent life is a sweeping statement. Does a species need to create tons of junk to be intelligent? Humans have been about, what, 50,000* years in a recognisable form. We only have artifacts going back, what, 5,000* years. It's only in the last few hundred years we've "made a mark" so to speak

*from memory, probably wrong

Yeah, slightly off with your numbers. Homo Sapiens have existed in their current form for about 200,000 years according to the fossil record. With regard to artifacts, we have examples of them going back at least 12,000 years for settlements and even further for the use of tools. Search google for Clovis man.

The above is only referenced for Homo Sapiens

 

[ChroniC]

lol. do you realise how big the universe is and that's just the visiable universe. even if the probability is tiny, there will still be plenty of life out there.

an estimated 70 billion trillion stars.

to think we are alone, really is a mad assumption. based on nothing more than old religious thoughts that we are the most important thing to exist and centre of the universe thoughts.

It's not though, you assume that you can apply a logical assumption that sheer luck, or sheer possibility is quantifiable as a mathematical equation. I.e "chances".
But we just cannot even come close to being able to actually calculate the chance of life being able to appear, so regardless of knowing there are billions of trillions of habitable planets the chance of life might be 1 billion trillion / one. I.e Us.
Simply, there is more combinations on a pack of cards than there are suns in the universe. What if something as complex as life is the same? Numbers that large mean nothing when you take 52 variables and multiply them together.
It's nothing to do with religion, it's still Math, but little numbers can create absolutely massive ones. What if the variables for life to exist are more than 52?

Just assuming is as good as saying, I guess there must be, because there just must. Pure speculation.

 

[Glaucus]

no we cant come close to accurately predict probability, but neither can you say its so low we are alone, you are doing the same tthing, pure speculation and ignoring the numbers and ignoring what we know, that really is an insane opinion. It's far less speculation due to numbers involved than saying we are alone.

 

[ChroniC]

True, but it's within the realms of possibilty to say we are alone, due to knowing that a small amount of variables can end up with massive chances.
So without some sort of universal complexity arising from a universal constant that always creates life, like atoms always create molecules. Math says the chances are very very likely we are alone. Imo drakes equation makes far to many assumptions to be factual.

 

[Glaucus]

no the maths dont say we are alone.

we know water exists in many places far more than we use to think, we also know building blocks of life are extremely common. most asteroids have those building blocks.

so no you are not supported by the maths.
again visible universe 70 billion trillion stars. we also know know pretty much every star has multiple planets. and we cant even really detect earth sized ones yet, or planets out side of our plain. our detection rates are tiny compared to what is out there.

and even when we pointed hubble at a part of space we thought was totally empty we found thousands of new galaxies.

if you want the best guess work maths, then look at the drake equation. you have to work very hard to get zero life else where.

 

[ChroniC]

no the maths dont say we are alone.

we know water exists in many places far more than we use to think, we also know building blocks of life are extremely common. most asteroids have those building blocks.

so no you are not supported by the maths.
again visible universe 70 billion trillion stars. we also know know pretty much every star has multiple planets. and we cant even really detect earth sized ones yet, or planets out side of our plain. our detection rates are tiny compared to what is out there.

and even when we pointed hubble at a part of space we thought was totally empty we found thousands of new galaxies.


if you want the best guess work maths, then look at the drake equation. you have to work very hard to get zero life else where.

The amount of planets is irrelevant because so far you've only managed to get 3 variables, a planet, water, building blocks.
There might be many many many more variable, one that we have no idea about.
I have proved that as many as 52 possibility creates more chance than there are stars in the known universe. If you can tell me the exact amount of variables needed for life, I will be happy to assume there is. If you can't it's all complete speculation with no basis in fact.

infact 52 cards is this "eighty unvigintillion six hundred and fifty eight vigintillion one hundred and seventy five novemdecillion one hundred and seventy octodecillion nine hundred and forty three septendecillion eight hundred and seventy eight sexdecillion five hundred and seventy one quindecillion six hundred and sixty quattuordecillion six hundred and thirt six tredecillion eight hundred and fifty six duodecillion four hundred and three undecillion seven hundred and sixty six decillion nine hundred and seventy five nonillion teo hundred and eighty nine octillion five hundred and five septillion four hundred and forty sextillion eight hundred and eighty three quintillion two hundred and seventy seven quadrillion eight hundred and twenty four trillion."

I'd imagine 20 would be enough.

 

[Glaucus]

lol, but saying we are lone is basis in fact, this is the issue.
you are taking one side with no facts. the chances are far better for life than no life, with what we know.

 

[d_brennen]

lol 5000 years, that's way to short. intensive farming was 10k years ago.
and the oldest stone tools are extremely old, in the millions. pre dating modern human and going back to our very early ancestors.

but i think we will come to realise other animals are far more intelligent than we give them credit for. many animals use tools.

Yeah, slightly off with your numbers. Homo Sapiens have existed in their current form for about 200,000 years according to the fossil record. With regard to artifacts, we have examples of them going back at least 12,000 years for settlements and even further for the use of tools. Search google for Clovis man.

The above is only referenced for Homo Sapiens

Ha yeah a bit out. My point stands, we've only just had our population explosion and industrial revolution. That's not to say humans weren't intelligent 5000 years ago. In a million years (a blip on the cosmic scale) how much of that 12,000 year old evidence will remain?

E: shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia

While our ancestors have been around for about six million years, the modern form of humans only evolved about 200,000 years ago. Civilization as we know it is only about 6,000 years old, and industrialization started in the earnest only in the 1800s.