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alien life possibility is pathetic

makaya325 said:
Aep, scientists have a pretty good understanding of how big the universe is: 13.7 billion lights years. Theres nothing beyond that, nothing outside the universe, just space devoid of life
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Outside the universe? The universe is all that is, there is no outside. Where were you before you were born? You make ill-posed statements like they're the newest currency.
 
makaya325 said:
Soylent, but where is this universe expanding into? Nothing. Thats all it is, nothing, no life, just us and a waste of space
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And billions of galaxies containing billions upon billions of stars, many with planets orbiting them. But other than that, nothing.
 
makaya325 said:
Soylent, but where is this universe expanding into? Nothing.
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That's sort of true but the Universe isn't expanding into something, it's just expanding. There is no space-time "outside", there is no outside.

Again, I must remind you not to confuse the observable Universe with the Universe.

It's extraordinarily unlikely that we are nearly at the exact center of the Universe and therefor we have no reason to believe that our observable Universe coincides with the entire Universe or even any particularly interesting part of the Universe. Our observable Universe is a spherical ball centered on us because the speed of light is finite; there's every reason to believe that if an observer was located on a distant quasar it would have an observable Universe that is a spherical ball centered on the observer and partially overlapping our own and its observable Universe would be about as uniform and packed with stuff as our own.

Inflation REQUIRES that the Universe(both space-time and stuff) is much larger than our observable Universe.

makaya325 said:
Thats all it is, nothing, no life, just us and a waste of space
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Not even space, unless you were confusing Universe with Observable Universe again.
 
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makaya325 said:
Soylent, but where is this universe expanding into? Nothing. Thats all it is, nothing, no life, just us and a waste of space
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There is no space outside of the universe.

The Big Bang (that is, the start of expansion) didn't happen to a point in a great big existing space. It happened everywhere in the universe (and there is no "outside" that the universe expanded into).
 
Can you eventually back up your claim that life cannot arise on a planet without our moon?

Why would a planet oribiting a red dwarf 'not cut it'? If you mention that it will be in a tidal lock, well, look at what planets like Venus are capable of.

You mention these qualities without a shred of explanation explaining why they are needed.
 
I'm coming late to this thread, but we've been kicking some of these same issues around on this other thread.

Since Sagan was mentioned, I'd like to give what he said about the topic:

Sagan said:
I'm often asked the question, "Do you think there is extraterrestrial intelligence?" I give the standard arguments--there are a lot of places out there, and use the word billions, and so on. And then I say it would be astonishing to me if there weren't extraterrestrial intelligence, but of course as yet there is no compelling evidence for it. And then I'm asked, "Yeah, but what do you really think?" I say, "I just told you what I really think." "Yeah, but what's your gut feeling?" But I try not to think with my gut. Really, it's okay to reserve judgement until the evidence is in.
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I got this quote from the introduction to The Outer Edge: Classic Investigations of the Paranormal edited by Joe Nickell.

I agree. It's absurd to assume we're unique.

And for those who keep arguing about all the rare set of coincidences that were needed for us to come about: you're approaching it backward (aside from some of the bogus stuff that is claimed to be "necessary"). Life evolved to suit the conditions. It's a sort of Texas sharp-shooter fallacy to look at what happened on Earth and claim that every particular is essential to the rise of intelligent life.
 
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So Earth has set the standard for life throughout all time and the Universe ?
At which point and time did it do this.
I guess we need to see the other hand so we can raise the ante.
If we are holding a good hand Ourselves ?
Could be someone else is withholding the Ace.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Is it too late to ask if you know about the Drake Equation? By know, I mean prior to posting here, not a quick Google to Wiki. :boggled:
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I can get you one better: check out this page from The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, in this case relating to a series of astronomy lectures at Foothill College. They are all interesting, but a couple jump out. All lectures are 45 minutes to an hour. Not a hotlink (I need more posts, sorry!) but the url is, in part: astrosociety.org/education/podcast/index.html

1) Dr. Francis Drake himself presented a lecture discussing his famous equation, how it originated, and the ways it has both influenced science and been changed (affected? what's the right word here?) by science. His is the last one at the bottom of the page. He covers the scope of everything makayla has asked about and more. He also covers the point (or I think he does anyway) that "life" doesn't have to be "life has we know it" or even intelligent. That last point may have been in another of the lectures, so I apologize if I am mistaken there.
If you only listen to one, listen to this one.

2) Dr. Jill Tarter from SETI discusses the search for intelligent life using radio telescopes, what they have and have not discovered, and what they hope to accomplish in the future. Hers is #3 on that page.

3) Dr. Geoff Marcy from UCBerkeley. I have not listened to this lecture yet, but it is titled "New Worlds and Yellowstone: How Common are Habitable Planets?". Sounds promising.

4) Dr. Janice Voss, a researcher at NASA Ames in San Jose, CA discusses the search for other planets and NASA's Kepler Mission. Her lecture is #9 on the list.

5) Dr. Dana Beckman from SETI as well as The Astronomical Society of the Pacific discusses planet formation as well in lecture #7.

As I said, all the lectures are interesting, but those five in particular relate to the subject at hand. You can click on the 'listen' link next to each lecture summary and listen through your browser, or you can download the file as an .mp3 file. To do this, right click (on a PC) and choose "save file as". Not sure how to do it on a Mac, though there is a way.
 
makaya325 said:
Sun, wrong, there are at most 50 billion stars in the galaxy, and then you have to go through a strict set of criteria:
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And how many galaxies in the universe? What strict set of criteria? What criteria says life requires a sun or similar star? You sound like a fundy troll.
 
makaya325 said:
I am fully aware of everyone on the forum believing ufo's are simply man made and made up, But im talking about et life. Isnt it so ignorant and wooish to suggest that we arent the only life in the universe? Come on, does anyone see the incredibly complex events on earth that made it even POSSIBLE for the simplest of life to form? How can anyone believe it is even possible for 100's of unique events to happen just right on other planets. You need the right sun, the right planet size, the right galaxy, the right moon, etc and the list goes on and on from there. Why do many of you fall for the et life credibility?
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Do you have any idea how big and how old the Universe is? Pathetic are the postulations of immature minds that put forth ideas on what may or may not be within the possibilities of this or another Universes.
 
Okay um. Scientists don't know the overall size of the universe, and if you understand introductory physics you would realize why. There is a observable universe, which is quite large; but beyond that is an unknown. This is simply because there is a limitation to the speed of light. There are places in the universe we will never see, because honestly we will be long dead and gone before the light from those segments of the universe finally reaches us; if they ever reach us. I mean you do understand that much of what we see are actually occurrences that happened a long, long time ago.

The probability favors life existing somewhere else in the universe, especially given that we have no real idea how large the universe is; and that there is the possibility of the same or similar series of events could have taken place elsewhere as they have on Earth. I wouldn't say anything with a true 100% certainty because that would be foolish, although I would say that life is very likely to exist elsewhere. I would never say that it doesn't with 100% certainty, because that would mean I was ignoring probability.
 
I think the problem that makaya is having is a misinterpretation of the arguments. Mainstream scientists aren't saying that there is certainly life out there, although they are saying that it is very likely，and therefore worth searching for. But equally, the rare Earth hypothesis doesn't say that there is no life out there, just that complex life forms are probably very rare, although the rare Earth proponents aren't saying that we shouldn't look, just that we shouldn't be surprised if we don't find anything complex.
 
wollery said:
I think the problem that makaya is having is a misinterpretation of the arguments. Mainstream scientists aren't saying that there is certainly life out there, although they are saying that it is very likely，and therefore worth searching for. But equally, the rare Earth hypothesis doesn't say that there is no life out there, just that complex life forms are probably very rare, although the rare Earth proponents aren't saying that we shouldn't look, just that we shouldn't be surprised if we don't find anything complex.
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Exactly. Chances are that there could actually be life comparable to us, arguing the same points, searching for other intelligent life forms; and we will never find each other because we are too far away to make it possible. (I know it is an extreme hypothetical)
 
fullflavormenthol said:
Exactly. Chances are that there could actually be life comparable to us, arguing the same points, searching for other intelligent life forms; and we will never find each other because we are too far away to make it possible. (I know it is an extreme hypothetical)
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Oh no, are you saying that elsewhere in this incredible universe there may be life forms similar to us.

And some of them might be like Makaya?
 
makaya325 said:
The universe is mostly a dead zone for life, and very very few areas could hold life, but those areas are mostly in bad galaxies.
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Yes, bad galaxies are certainly areas we want to avoid. We wouldn't want to get in the middle of a turf war between the Jets and the Sharks.
 
wollery said:
I think the problem that makaya is having is a misinterpretation of the arguments. Mainstream scientists aren't saying that there is certainly life out there, although they are saying that it is very likely，and therefore worth searching for. But equally, the rare Earth hypothesis doesn't say that there is no life out there, just that complex life forms are probably very rare, although the rare Earth proponents aren't saying that we shouldn't look, just that we shouldn't be surprised if we don't find anything complex.
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The point I've been making in that other thread is that "rare" is a relative term. Life could be as "rare" as 1 in a million or even 1 in a billion stars, and that would still mean it occurs 1000 or 100 times in our galaxy alone. Is that "rare" or "commonplace"?

Even if it is as "commonplace" as 1 in a billion stars, it could still be so spread out in space and time that we may never encounter it.

We just don't know.

All that SETI has told us so far is that there has been no other radio-using civilization in our neighborhood in very recent years.
 
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