Do you believe in Aliens?

Indricotherium

Interested to know how ST fans feel on this one, as it is intrinsic to the show.

Do you think there are Star Trek style aliens out there?

I do not.

Bit of a ramble on my thoughts on it:

I'm in the camp that life is exceptionally rare in the universe, and that within that intelligent life is even more rare. So rare that it effectively doesn't exist, because if it does, it is not possible for us to encounter or interact with it.

It's taken the guts of a quarter of all time available in the universe to produce a handful of intelligent humanoid species on earth and of those only one managed to develop to a point where travel to other planets can even be contemplated.

I'm assuming that everywhere that this happens, developing to the point where interplanetary travel can be achieved and interstellar travel can be contemplated, it goes hand in hand with the development of terrible weapons of mass destruction making destruction of the race in question inevitable, reducing further the chances of interaction.

Given the size of the Universe in terms of space and time, and how rare, and fragile, I believe life is I don't think we are ever going to coincide with another intelligent race.

_Brian

Absolutely, statistics are stacked in favour of their being other life out there, I'm convinced some of it is probably intelligent life.
I doubt there is much chance of us meeting it though for a very long time.

grogi

Indricotherium wrote: »

Interested to know how ST fans feel on this one, as it is intrinsic to the show.

Do you think there are Star Trek style aliens out there?

I do not.

Bit of a ramble on my thoughts on it:

I'm in the camp that life is exceptionally rare in the universe, and that within that intelligent life is even more rare. So rare that it effectively doesn't exist, because if it does, it is not possible for us to encounter or interact with it.

It's taken the guts of a quarter of all time available in the universe to produce a handful of intelligent humanoid species on earth and of those only one managed to develop to a point where travel to other planets can even be contemplated.

I'm assuming that everywhere that this happens, developing to the point where interplanetary travel can be achieved and interstellar travel can be contemplated, it goes hand in hand with the development of terrible weapons of mass destruction making destruction of the race in question inevitable, reducing further the chances of interaction.

Given the size of the Universe in terms of space and time, and how rare, and fragile, I believe life is I don't think we are ever going to coincide with another intelligent race.

It's not about belief. It's about probability, or should I rather say certainty.

Whether Mankind will ever encounter extraterrestrial life forms is a completely different question.

Jan_de_Bakker

Absolutely , as said it's not about faith but statistics.

Having said that intelligent life - tougher question, but simple life for sure - even in our own Solar System .... Europa is looking good for this.

degrassinoel

I think life here came from out there.
There's already confirmation of flowing water on Mars albeit seasonal - the possibility of life, even bacterial or microbial is strong. And that's just on the nearest planet to us.

Sea Plankton was found growing on the exterior of the ISS. Terrestrial in origin obviously, but hardy enough to live and thrive in a vacuum.

I don't think it's mad to think that there's life out there, i also don't think it's mad to think that, that life may be vastly older and wiser than us as a species, who's to say that a form of travel does not exist out there somewhere to bridge gaps we currently conceive as impossible?

A hundred years ago, flying to the moon was impossible.

I mean...

There are billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of planets out there.

Surely some of them must have produced life in some form.

You are asking about three different questions and trying to answer them with unsound logic.

Is there life out there? Yes probably.
Will we ever interact with it? Probably not in my life time.
If we cant interact with it, does it still exist? Yes of course. We never interacted with dinosaurs but they still existed.

Then in the poll you ask if there are ST style aliens. What like Andorians and Klingons? Maybe.

Indricotherium

Deleted User wrote: »

I mean...

There are billions upon billions upon billions upon billions of planets out there.

Surely some of them must have produced life in some form.

Yeah and lots of space and time between them!

Do you think the 4 billion years from planet forming to spaceflight is an ordinary amount of time?

The window for intelligent life between emerging and developing the means to extinguish itself seems to be in or about a couple of million years.

Given the space involved as well the time in the universe it seems unlikely that we could ever meet ST style.

Indricotherium

Deleted User wrote: »

You are asking about three different questions and trying to answer them with unsound logic.

Is there life out there? Yes probably.
Will we ever interact with it? Probably not in my life time.
If we cant interact with it, does it still exist? Yes of course. We never interacted with dinosaurs but they still existed.

Then in the poll you ask if there are ST style aliens. What like Andorians and Klingons? Maybe.

well the poll is just a straw poll for a bit of fun.

The aliens in Star Trek are basically just humans with slight differences. The same enough that they can talk and interact almost indistinguishably to humans.

And there are loads of them. This galaxy is teeming with them.

Do you think that is the case.

sReq | uTeK

100%

The question if whether we ever see it is a different story.

There are stars out there (MARJERAS) that would take 1100 years travelling on our commercial airline to fly around.

Our Galaxy is but a dwarf Galaxy compared to ones such as IC.

Look at how far we progress yearly regarding technology...chances are any civilisation we meet could be 100s of thousands or millions of years old than us. The scary thing is that statistically speaking it never really works out for the race that is met by a superior one. We need only look at our own history to confirm this.

The_Valeyard

If there is alien life out there. It will probably turn out we are the Independence Day style invaders.

Indricotherium

Indricotherium wrote: »

well the poll is just a straw poll for a bit of fun.

The aliens in Star Trek are basically just humans with slight differences. The same enough that they can talk and interact almost indistinguishably to humans.

And there are loads of them. This galaxy is teeming with them.

Do you think that is the case.

I think theres life of all shapes and sizes out there. Even on earth we have 4 different albeit similar races. If only one in every billion star systems out there had intelligent life on them, then theres at least 300 civilisations out there.

Just enough for a Federation.

Getting around is the problem though.

Put another way, under Federation law, us in 2017 would not be considered intelligent life.

TheIrishGrover

Oh mathematically, I believe there are many civilizations out there. Some as advanced, some more. And many many many more with SOME firm of life on them. I know there's that Drake equation about the probability.
Years ago astrophysicists thought that maybe 1 on a million stars had some form of planets. Now they think it's closer to 1 in 10 I believe. They believe that planets outnumber stars.

Do I believe in UFOs or that we will be able to communicate with them? No. Not unless there is some fundamental misconception we have FTL travel possibility.

I do believe that we will have discovered alien life in my lifetime: Whether it's some form of "Hey there" broadcast like Contact (Without the info dump) or detecting artificial gasses in a extra-solar planet or even just a fossilised microbe on Mars or a meteor etc.

Jan_de_Bakker

Good read here - The Fermi Paradox

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

_Brian

I think it's very conceited of humans who think that we're the only intelligent life in the universe.

I wouldn't consider us that intelligent and we're far from an advanced life form either.

Just look at the variety of life forms on this one little backwater plannet. Literally everywhere here on earth is populated with some life form. I expect the universe is similar with a huge variety of life living in a massive range of environments.

ScumLord

I think this galaxy is probably teeming with life, intelligent life is another story. If you look at the human story we're became intelligent through happenstance and pure random luck. There's nothing to really say that intelligence wouldn't have happened one way or another eventually. Even the humanoid form is fairly alien to the rest of just the mammal kingdom. never mind everything else on the planet.

Even just being intelligent isn't enough. It could be that dolphins are almost as intelligent as humans in many ways. but they're never going to build any space ships because they live in water and don't have any hands. It takes a number of coincidences to collide to end up with an intelligent, self aware species.

Although there could be all sorts of intelligence.

I could even see how a creature that was more intelligent than humans could actually hold a species back. Being naturally good at some might mean they never feel the need to create machines and AI.

A species that's not technically as smart as us may build up a knowledge over generations.


As to whether there would be other life forms like us that's probably unlikely. They could be radically different, even their code could be radically different to our DNA, the idea of them having humanoid form is probably bunkum too, it's a great shape for an intelligent species but nobody gets to pick their shape.

The odds of them coming from a planet with the same gravity as ours is also probably low. The fundamentals of their type of life could be so different it's difficult to know just how different their culture could be.

But if they're in space they're probably scientists, probably curious, show an ability to work together cooperatively.

Evade

I voted yes before reading some of the qualifiers. There's almost certainly alien life in the galaxy, some of which is probably intelligent but I don't think anywhere is at a Star Trek level of interaction.

Then again maybe we're these guys and we're going to spread our DNA across the galaxy.

EDIT

ScumLord wrote: »

But if they're in space they're probably scientists, probably curious, show an ability to work together cooperatively.

Or their Hitler won and is out to subjugate and purify the rest of the galaxy.

Indricotherium

_Brian wrote: »

I think it's very conceited of humans who think that we're the only intelligent life in the universe.

I wouldn't consider us that intelligent and we're far from an advanced life form either.

Just look at the variety of life forms on this one little backwater plannet. Literally everywhere here on earth is populated with some life form. I expect the universe is similar with a huge variety of life living in a massive range of environments.

By any possible comparison we are more the most intelligent and advanced species ever encountered by some margin.

ScumLord

Evade wrote: »

Or their Hitler won and is out to subjugate and purify the rest of the galaxy.

The problem with these sort of social orders is they want to change reality to suit their philosophy. The Nazis for example were rewriting history, they were building a lie that would have hampered science into the future. You need a certain amount of openness and collaboration, no one nation is responsible for modern technological development, no one nation could achieve it.

Of course, anything possible, but it's likely that space fairing is beyond the individual and without being open to science you're going to be running into philosophical roadblocks. Without developing an appreciation for the natural world and living things in general it's possible they would overlook many of natures secrets. On earth we thought wolfs were bad, kill all the wolfs. But then we find out they have a positive effect on ecosystems. I think once an intelligent species see's those kind of things it would be hard to ignore the fact nature is worth observing and exploiting it means it's not there to be studied.


Maybe a species could take survival of the fittest seriously, basically they see nature fighting itself on their own planet and believe that's the natural way. They may want to spread their own planets genetics and kill anything that isn't from their own planet. They wouldn't see it as a bad thing to wipe out other intelligent species and would assume everybody else is doing the same thing.

Evade

ScumLord wrote: »

The problem with these sort of social orders is they want to change reality to suit their philosophy.

That's a problem with a lot of philosophies.

ScumLord wrote: »

The Nazis for example were rewriting history, they were building a lie that would have hampered science into the future.

I didn't mean actual Nazis with their ideas but more someone or some organisation to unite their world through force instead of a sense of cooperation.

ScumLord wrote: »

You need a certain amount of openness and collaboration, no one nation is responsible for modern technological development, no one nation could achieve it.

To be fair Germany did make some good technological leaps in the middle of the 20th century.

ScumLord

Evade wrote: »

That's a problem with a lot of philosophies.


I didn't mean actual Nazis with their ideas but more someone or some organisation to unite their world through force instead of a sense of cooperation.

The nazis are a good example of this kind of scenario because it's so recent and used technology so effectively. The thing about the Nazis though was that Germany has lots of smart dedicated people, but the people in charge were flat out nuts. The reason the nazi state failed was because Hitler was completely consumed by his own ego. He couldn't handle the truth, and wouldn't listen to to people with more knowledge than him. So no matter how good the people under him were the whole system was doomed.

To be fair Germany did make some good technological leaps in the middle of the 20th century.

They did, but they didn't do it in isolation. The allies also made some huge technological leaps, Britain was on a par technologically in many ways, they handed over most of their knowledge to the Americans to get them involved including plans for atomic weapons and radar.

While the Germans made some technological leaps much of that technology wasn't fit for the battle field and they had a lot of breakdowns. Much of it didn't make it to the battlefield and again all their battle field technology was hampered by the likes of hitler who wanted impressive weapons more so than effective weapons.

Evade

ScumLord wrote: »

Much of it didn't make it to the battlefield and again all their battle field technology was hampered by the likes of hitler who wanted impressive weapons more so than effective weapons.

A great example of that was Hitler cancelling the project that accidentally created stealth aircraft.

ScumLord

Evade wrote: »

A great example of that was Hitler cancelling the project that accidentally created stealth aircraft.

Didn't he stop the deployment of the first automatic assault rifle too? And the first jet fighter?

He loved the idea of giant things like tanks though.

degrassinoel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44

he might have had a hand in delaying it in favour of other projects, but the STG 44 Assault Rifle seen action in WWII

Worth noting that some variants also had an infrared scope (nicknamed Vampire) to see in the dark

Jan_de_Bakker

Evade wrote: »

Then again maybe we're these guys and we're going to spread our DNA across the galaxy.

Heh!

That was a great episode actually ...

ScumLord

degrassinoel wrote: »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44

he might have had a hand in delaying it in favour of other projects, but the STG 44 Assault Rifle seen action in WWII

It was towards the end though wasn't it? I'm remembering a documentary I saw a while ago and as far as I remember it could have been in use much sooner but for some reason hitler didn't like it.

degrassinoel

ScumLord wrote: »

It was towards the end though wasn't it? I'm remembering a documentary I saw a while ago and as far as I remember it could have been in use much sooner but for some reason hitler didn't like it.

44' easily, it was in field testing by late 43 according to the wiki

I know he had veto'd a few tank designs deliberately, and oddly enough he had car designers, designing tanks. Porsche i think. The guy that built the Maus superheavy tank

Kiith

I don't think it's really a question of belief. There is almost certainly life on other worlds, but the chances of any of us ever meeting that life is almost non-existant. I don't think our brains can truly comprehend just how massive space actually is. Even seeing videos comparing out sun to other massive celestial objects doesn't do it justice. And while the conditions needed for intelligent life are very specific, the probability that Earth is only planet in the universe with those conditions is practically zero.

It does kind of bum me out that we'll never see it, or see some of the Star Trek type technology we all grew up wishing for.

ScumLord

Kiith wrote: »

And while the conditions needed for intelligent life are very specific, the probability that Earth is only planet in the universe with those conditions is practically zero.

I think for the most part we can forget about other galaxies, getting to another galaxy is beyond even our imagination at this stage.

Traveling between our nearest stars is within the realms of possibility. The theoretical warp drive may be able to travel 10 times faster than the speed of light which would mean we can get to our neighbouring stars in around 5 months?? Still a long time but starting to be on a par with early ocean voyages. If your ship is complete self sufficient the time frame wouldn't be that much of an issue. If medical advances continue we could have people with life spans of hundreds of years which would make the journeys even more plausible.

But if it's up to us to find other life it's going to take hundreds of years.

We can start populating our own solar system within the next 50-100 years though.

The Oort Cloud

I always had this burning feeling that alien life exists outside of our tiny solar system. It's a feeling of connection somehow that there is most definitely other life out there. It would be an awful waste of space if there isn't.

Don't forget that we have not physically put a human being on any other planet in our solar system/back yard except for the moon. We are still in our infancy, not only in thinking, but in the unknown of what is really out there in the vastness of deep space. There is life out there I'm sure, but I don't think they will be like us.

Their technology that we probably cannot even comprehend of could be rampant all over deep space billions of light years away, maybe even a couple of light years away that we just cannot trace or track as their technology could be completely different to what we understand. The possibilities are endless in thought, the mystery though of other life in the alien bodily format is interesting to ponder, and for a person to think we are the only life in the universe needs to expand their thinking, as we on this little planet are so tiny, at least our brains can expand outwards of the high possibility of life outside our little bubble.

Indricotherium

Kiith wrote: »

II don't think our brains can truly comprehend just how massive space actually is. Even seeing videos comparing out sun to other massive celestial objects doesn't do it justice.

and as well as space being huge, so is time!! so even less likely!!!!

Inviere

Indricotherium wrote: »

It's taken the guts of a quarter of all time available in the universe to produce a handful of intelligent humanoid species on earth and of those only one managed to develop to a point where travel to other planets can even be contemplated.

True, however we went from hunting Mammoths with spears, to landing on the moon in 150k years. That shows us that once intelligent life takes hold, its progress is exponential, and fast.

I'm assuming that everywhere that this happens, developing to the point where interplanetary travel can be achieved and interstellar travel can be contemplated, it goes hand in hand with the development of terrible weapons of mass destruction making destruction of the race in question inevitable, reducing further the chances of interaction.

Not a given by any means, but merely a possibility. Our own lust for power, greed for material things, and devout killing of others because our sky wizard is better than theirs cannot be applied yet to other cultures. This all goes back to the dawn of theism etc, and could unfold very differently on other worlds.

Given the size of the Universe in terms of space and time, and how rare, and fragile, I believe life is I don't think we are ever going to coincide with another intelligent race.

It's certainly looking that way currently unfortunately. We seem to be light years away from interstellar travel within a human life time (no pun intended), thats even assuming we radicalize our understanding of physics!

ScumLord

Inviere wrote: »

True, however we went from hunting Mammoths with spears, to landing on the moon in 150k years. That shows us that once intelligent life takes hold, its progress is exponential, and fast.

That's true on a cosmic stage, we're a flash in the pan. But we had long moments of stagnation. The stone age lasted a long time and not much changed. The modern world moves along at a staggering pace, we've sort of learned how to constantly evolve our technology which didn't happen as much in the past.

It could be argued that if certain environmental events didn't happen we wouldn't have been forced to adapt to it and would still be throwing stones at things in Africa. We spent the vast majority of our time as intelligent sentient creatures being hunter gathers, it took a long, long time to settle down, develop writing, maths and so on, tens of thousands of years. Even with that it took millennia of trial and error before we found social systems that worked and we still didn't have the scientific method that allowed us to constantly innovate.

I don't think human level intelligence is any guarantee of becoming a space faring species. I don't think even being smarter would help, I think being smarter would have draw backs of not needing to innovate as much.

Inviere

ScumLord wrote: »

We spent the vast majority of our time as intelligent sentient creatures being hunter gathers, it took a long, long time to settle down, develop writing, maths and so on, tens of thousands of years. Even with that it took millennia of trial and error before we found social systems that worked and we still didn't have the scientific method that allowed us to constantly innovate.

As you say though, all but a mere flash in the pan. When considering the cosmos, 150k years from Apes to Astronauts is serious progress to make. With the right environment, and the right evolutionary path, I think intelligent civilzations are quite probable. Not Star Trek style as per the OP's original question, but probable, given the right parameters. Then there's all the other galaxies to consider.... It's cruel actually, to know we'll likely never ever know what's really out there.

Indricotherium

Inviere wrote: »

As you say though, all but a mere flash in the pan. When considering the cosmos, 150k years from Apes to Astronauts is serious progress to make.

Is it though?

Apes can understand that birds can fly, and they can't. They can understand the laws of motion on a rudimentary level. They use tools. Is it that much of a stretch to Astronauts?

I'd argue that the jump from basic cell to sexual reproduction was bigger and more critical. Things that seem to take many millions of years.

Inviere

Indricotherium wrote: »

I'd argue that the jump from basic cell to sexual reproduction was bigger and more critical. Things that seem to take many millions of years.

My point was, that when intelligence takes hold, and with the right evolutionary path (bipedal as opposed to marine life for example), it seems to have taken very little time (relatively speaking) for that fledgling intelligence to make rapid, rapid, progress. Therefore, when you say it has taken a quarter of the lifetime of the universe to produce us, that's not necessarily the case everywhere. Similar life could have taken hold 500k years ago somewhere else, and may not take hold for another 500k years somewhere else again. Time would appear to be a less critical factory than say planetary conditions, and random events (would we be here today if the dino's weren't suddenly wiped out etc).

ScumLord

Indricotherium wrote: »

Apes can understand that birds can fly, and they can't. They can understand the laws of motion on a rudimentary level. They use tools. Is it that much of a stretch to Astronauts?

A lot of living things have extraordinary processing power. If a fighter jet had the processing power and skills of a common house fly for example it would be untouchable in the sky. But those creatures use up all their processing power to do basics like find food or a mate. They have nothing left over and that's the norm. It was a freak occurrence for humans to end up with extra processing power because the energy costs are so huge.

Humans are now a force of nature, very few animals can make that claim, we're part of the geology even if humans disappeared today and aliens came here a million years from now they'd find evidence of an advanced civilization in the geology. That's never really happened outside of large clumps of living things dying in the one spot and turning into oil.

We're at least up there with any other event in history, the consequences for us becoming a space faring species are huge for the life on this planet. It's likely if we can move the majority of our population into space that earth would become a protected planet. The life on earth would likely infect just about every other planet in our solar system by piggy backing on human travel.

If we ever did make it to another solar system we'd probably find it hard to visit any of the planets without also infecting it with life from earth.

ItHurtsWhenIP

ScumLord wrote: »

... If a fighter jet had the processing power and skills of a common house fly for example it would be untouchable in the sky. ...

I don't know about this. The fighter jet would constantly be stuck banging off a window pane, in spite of another part of the window being open. :eek:

That is unless it was the superfly that Blart Versenwald III created which could distinguish between solid glass and an open window. :rolleyes:

ScumLord

ItHurtsWhenIP wrote: »

I don't know about this. The fighter jet would constantly be stuck banging off a window pane, in spite of another part of the window being open. :eek:

That is unless it was the superfly that Blart Versenwald III created which could distinguish between solid glass and an open window. :rolleyes:

Ok so, maybe a hawk, it's not like birds fly into win..doh.

AMKC

Deleted User wrote: »

I think theres life of all shapes and sizes out there. Even on earth we have 4 different albeit similar races. If only one in every billion star systems out there had intelligent life on them, then theres at least 300 civilisations out there.

Just enough for a Federation.

Getting around is the problem though.

Put another way, under Federation law, us in 2017 would not be considered intelligent life.

Why do you think that?
Ok maybe they would not contact us or interfere in our affairs as that might be going against some Prime Directive they might have but I doubt they would think we are not intelligent. Sure we are a young race with a lot still to learn and maybe still a bit of evolving to do.

I think it all depends on the type of alien race. If the race was a million years ahead of us yes maybe they would think of us as just insects to be squashe then again they might not. They might know we are a fairly young and simple race to them but that there is hope and potential for us to be something great and unique. It would all depend on the aiiens really. So if we ever do meet them in my lifetime I just hope they are good ones like out of V or something and not Independence Day type one.
Ok he V aliens I was only joking they were bad too but maybe aliens like the Vulcans only thing there is we need to have a big bad war first and then create Warp Drive so they will notice us if they are out there.
Anyways I am going to stop blabbing on now lol.

Do I think there is other aliens in the Universe? Your right I do its infinite to our minds as I think there is very few people in the world today who can truly comprehend how big it really is.

Do I think there is Star Trek style ones? Sure maybe some Tholian type, some maybe a bit like the Klingons etc but not as many as in Star Trek but it would be great if there was.
I also think there are aliens out there that are so different from us it will be very hard to even comprehend them. Silicon based aliens for instance. For now we can just imagine and dream about what aliens might be like.

ScumLord

I found a good youtube channel the other day from a guy named Isaac Arthur. He answers a lot of questions like this, in depth.

Here's one where he talks about why hollywood get's it so wrong.