Alien Civilisations like us extremely rare?

Rroff said:
At least as far as our current knowledge goes much of the universe is still constrained by a relatively simple set of core rules - which does limit the combinations - what we do know of the universe so far shows the same patterns repeated for instance there are only 7 main types of stars - possible 1-2 types we've not discovered yet.
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"Types" of stars is just a way that *we* group similar (but not necessarily identical)things together. I don't know how big the range of variables are for each of the groups, but I don't think we actually know how tight the combination of circumstances had to be to get intelligent life here.

Until we see other intelligent life, we don't actually know if there is such a thing as "close enough" for the job.
 
Twinz said:
"Types" of stars is just a way that *we* group similar (but not necessarily identical)things together. I don't know how big the range of variables are for each of the groups, but I don't think we actually know how tight the combination of circumstances had to be to get intelligent life here.

Until we see other intelligent life, we don't actually know if there is such a thing as "close enough" for the job.
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The point was most of them act very similar and we only see a relatively small range which is groupable by certain distinctions. We don't see millions of distinctly different behaviour/composition stars within the observable universe. The universe we do know of really is just a vast amount of the same themes repeated with relatively predictable variation despite the amount of it.
 
As well as the vast distances involved there's also time. We've existed for a blink of a cosmic eye and there maybe many before us and after. Having said that, there's also the theory that we're one of the first because, until recently there just hasn't been enough phosphorus for life (as we know it) to develop.

There are lots of unknowns but now that we have detected exoplanets we can have a go at trying to detect bio and techno signatures.

My own opinion is that life springs up in a lot of places in the galaxy, but intelligent life is rare and spacefaring civilization even more so.
 
A lot of things kind of fall down on the unlikeliness of two civilisations existing simultaneously.

This is based on our view of the human lifespan being a baseline. If another form of life measured lifespans in millions of years, this changes things.

Also, if, as seems likely, humans create artificial life, then civilisation on earth changes.

Personally, I dread discovery by another form of life.
 
Rroff said:
The more we observe of the universe the more we seem the same patterns repeating of inhospitable and barren environments - the "default" state of the universe,
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But don't forget that due to the time it takes light to travel, we're observing these environments as they were a very long time ago. Space is big, really big. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road ... etc
 
martin363 said:
I am sure there are and have been other intelligent civilizations, but it is not just the vastness of space, but also the time, the chances of 2 civilizations coinciding in time? And space? We have been civilized for what, 300 years?
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Define civilised. Your area Greece 2-3000 years ago was fairly civilised. The Phoenicians and Egyptians ditto. Apart from science and better engineering and materials knowhow we have not noticeably become much more civilised.
 
^^ The civilised vs uncivilised comparison is interesting, it could be argued that we became less civilised after the various major religious revolutions which came in later times.

We only know life as we know it. It's only in recent years that science has found that organisms live in extreme conditions like those that eat radioactive waste, or water bears that can literally live in space. Our solar system is extremely young, not even a toddler age on a cosmic scale. biological life is at the mercy of nature. All it takes is one asteroid to wipe any signs of life off the entire planet. The dinosaurs lived for +160 million years before they were wiped out in one sitting by a space rock.

Also keep in mind the famous quote from Arthur C Clarke, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

We have projects like Breakthrough Listen, SETI etc all doing things to try to detect signs of intelligent life based on their communications emissions out there in space but those projects are listening for stuff that we'd be broadcasting, like radio waves and visual signals. The problem is space faring life is unlikely to be using primitive means. There are now more exotic means of comms or markers being explored now too as scientists account for technologies we have yet to even dream about. But as said above, any signs of life we detect from distant space is going to be from life that existed from that point in time millions/billions of years ago as the light/signal has only just reached us. They are either now extinct, or evolved far beyond.

Many of us normal folks have been watching, reading and looking up this sort of subject for most our lives and it's really fascinating and I'd say we know more about the subject than the average Metro reader so it's always a bit frustrating when these sorts of articles get published I guess.
 
I reckon all other planets are populated by dinosaurs as we would be if that rock hadn't wiped them out :cry:

As our technology improves we'll become more successful at spotting smaller planets around distant, and more distant, stars. Then we'll get a better idea of how many systems may have planets in the goldilock zone. And with spectral analysis find out more about their atmosphere. But how long have we been polluting ours at a sufficient level to be deemed civilised? At best 250 years, probably less. How many stars are in a 250 light year radius that could detect us? It'll be like 66000+ years before a civilisation on the far side of our galaxy could detect the emissions we make now.

IMHO there has to be other life out there and intelligent at that.
 
*IF we are the only ones in the universe then doesn't that thought lend itself that maybe something natural didn't occur, and that something else created life?

* I'm saying IF as we don't know the full answer yet. But from what we know now, scientifically, we're the only ones around.
 
BowdonUK said:
scientifically, we're the only ones around.
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Yes but only because the number of planets sampled is.... only this one. But the science and mathematics tells us that life must be abundant, it's just extremely hard to detect because of how limitlessly big the universe is and as such any signs take so long to reach either side. There is no hope of a instant two way communication between two civilisations spread apart in our galaxy alone if both exist at the same time because of the physics of light speed limits involved.

Also remember that all the building blocks of life exist on comets for seeding to happen when one crashes onto a planet that just so happens to be in the habitable zone of its system. We are extremely lucky in that we have Jupiter's gravitaional pull drawing a lot of danger away from our path but a few slip by once in a while.
 
Given the age of the universe and our own galaxy there's been more then enough time for intelligent live to evolve and colonise the Milky Way. The face we can't find any evidence of this should tells us all that we need to know about existence of aliens.
 
martin363 said:
I am sure there are and have been other intelligent civilizations, but it is not just the vastness of space, but also the time, the chances of 2 civilizations coinciding in time? And space? We have been civilized for what, 300 years?
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This is the crux of the matter, even if there was/is/will be other intelligent civilizations it is very unlikely that we would overlap in time and space.
 
DomBruv said:
I don't think we are the only ones but If we are then I guess god must be real
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Not sure how you come to that conclusion, surely the argument in the OP is just that not only is some form of life rather rare but for life to develop as far as it has is so rare that we might be the only instance at this sort of level of evolution.
 
doesnt matter if intelligent beings are extremely rare when there are billions of chances it's bound to happen more than once
 
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