Alien life is possible, but unlikely.

[Sir Goulum]

Originally posted by /)eathKiller: Chances of two races of distant worlds actually meeting are, infact, so low, that it is vastly impossible, though we do know that life is a short process, it doesn't last as long as many wish it would, some races stay to their homeworlds and pathetically die off over time, while other races live longer but still end up dying off, when a race dies off another may begin elsewhere, It's like blinking lights on a christmas tree except only 1 or 2 lights blink at a time, and while those lights blink, life exists, and they quickly burn out, only for more lights to light up, or just one light... we could be a single solitary light, or maybe we'll be lucky enough to encounter other lights, before we, ourselves, burn out...

Thats an excellent point, but think of all the trillions of galaxys in the universe. Then think of the billions of stars in each of the trillions of galaxys in the universe. There has to be life on other planets

[Sir Kenyth]

I guess one problem is that we have absolutely no idea how life starts or how common the occurance is. Our isolation makes it's study quite difficult. We only know of one instance so far and the way it started is still debated quite often even here.

I do think it's at least a rare occurance and probably started with divine intervention. Who can say for sure though? Statements like that are faith based.

[Sir Goulum]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: I guess one problem is that we have absolutely no idea how life starts or how common the occurance is. Our isolation makes it's study quite difficult. We only know of one instance so far and the way it started is still debated quite often even here. I do think it's at least a rare occurance and probably started with divine intervention. Who can say for sure though? Statements like that are faith based.

It is quite possible that we are a cosmic mishap, what are the chances?

[andrewas]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: I guess one problem is that we have absolutely no idea how life starts or how common the occurance is. Our isolation makes it's study quite difficult. We only know of one instance so far and the way it started is still debated quite often even here. I do think it's at least a rare occurance and probably started with divine intervention. Who can say for sure though? Statements like that are faith based.

Actualy we have two occurances to study. Not including Mars and Europa, which are indeterminate. One is the oxygen ecosphere of the planet earth, widespread with an invredible diversity. We all know this and are part of it. Its success seems to indicate the oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere in this temperature range is a very good environment for life. This life formed with 100 million years of the planet becoming suitable for it to form.

The second is the sulphur ecosphere on earth. This is the lifeforms on the bottom of the oceans - with no oxygen, virtualy no light and far too much heat, nothing in our everyday experience could survive there. Even the toughest bacteria coudnt thrive there due to the presence of toxic suplhur - and yet there is an ecosystem of a sort. Its limited to life-forms we would consider primitve, but this may be because of a lack of environment for them to evolve in. This life is powered by sea-floor volcanoes which are inherently unstable. Yet these life-forms have been around longer than the oxygen ones. ON a more volcanicaly active world (like Io say) they may have become the dominant type of life-form.

Mars probably at one time have harbourd an oxygen ecosystem like ours, and possibly still harbours remnants of it.

Europa may have a sulphur ecosystem, since it has a volcnicaly active core surronded by a liquid water ocean.

Thats one system - two active ecosystems on one planet, two possibles on more hostile worlds. Plus whatever we havent even begun to think about - energy beings in the sun? Gaseous entities on jupiter? Who knows.

Life is common in this system, and it will be throughout the universe.

[Sir Goulum]

Then again, we are stuck to the confines of our definition of a 'habitable environment'. For all we know, an alien could find our planet, which is right for us, completely inhospitable. For all we know, there might be a life form that can survive in a vacuum or very little atmosphere. There could be a life form that can only breath volcanic gases. We have been stuck to the things we are used to on this planet, fish, humans etc.

[Sir Kenyth]

Originally posted by andrewas: quote: Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: I guess one problem is that we have absolutely no idea how life starts or how common the occurance is. Our isolation makes it's study quite difficult. We only know of one instance so far and the way it started is still debated quite often even here. I do think it's at least a rare occurance and probably started with divine intervention. Who can say for sure though? Statements like that are faith based.

Actualy we have two occurances to study. Not including Mars and Europa, which are indeterminate. One is the oxygen ecosphere of the planet earth, widespread with an invredible diversity. We all know this and are part of it. Its success seems to indicate the oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere in this temperature range is a very good environment for life. This life formed with 100 million years of the planet becoming suitable for it to form.

The second is the sulphur ecosphere on earth. This is the lifeforms on the bottom of the oceans - with no oxygen, virtualy no light and far too much heat, nothing in our everyday experience could survive there. Even the toughest bacteria coudnt thrive there due to the presence of toxic suplhur - and yet there is an ecosystem of a sort. Its limited to life-forms we would consider primitve, but this may be because of a lack of environment for them to evolve in. This life is powered by sea-floor volcanoes which are inherently unstable. Yet these life-forms have been around longer than the oxygen ones. ON a more volcanicaly active world (like Io say) they may have become the dominant type of life-form.

Mars probably at one time have harbourd an oxygen ecosystem like ours, and possibly still harbours remnants of it.

Europa may have a sulphur ecosystem, since it has a volcnicaly active core surronded by a liquid water ocean.

Thats one system - two active ecosystems on one planet, two possibles on more hostile worlds. Plus whatever we havent even begun to think about - energy beings in the sun? Gaseous entities on jupiter? Who knows.

Life is common in this system, and it will be throughout the universe.[/QUOTE]The main question is "What started it all?". Which original life form opened pandoras box? It would have to derive it's energy from photo or thermal sources. Even that primitive of a life form is too complex to simply spring into existence on its own. There's missing links between single celled organisms and the primordial ooze that no one seems to know about. I think the discovery of Prions may lead to some interesting discoveries in that area. Non-cellular, non-viral structures that seem to replicate like life forms, but do so without DNA. The only ones known right now are the parasitic ones that cause brain diseases like Mad-cow and a few other rare human conditions. Whether these are actually life forms or simply chain reactive chemicals released by defective cell processes or other phenomena still remains debated.

[Talthyr Malkaviel]

Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: The problem with humans Magik is that our knowledge increases are exponential, not incremental. Back then science was a lot simpler and very few people found a necessity for it. Our potential was well ahead of our progress. Just living day to day in your 40-50 year life span was enough trouble for most, and schooling was seen as a waste of valuable work time. Now we live longer and have more time to learn, but the amount we have to learn is so much greater! What your average Joe with a moderate intellectual hunger knows today would have ranked as an elite education back in the day. When do we reach a saturation point? When does our progress catch up with our potential? When will we simply not live long enough or have the capacity to effectively absorb the prerequisite knowledge and skills to even make any advances? I wonder how we will contend with this. So far, specialization by science/engineering professionals has helped. Even today you can't have too broad of a knowledge and remain cutting edge.

Yes, but then you could go back to a similar argument as to what Magik was saying, to us now we see that our life span has increased greatly, and our knowledge, and geting near our potential bacjk then.
Imagine 600 years from now, people are sitting around discussing how we managed to get around with such a short life span, and such crude technology, and the people back then may have thought their technology as advanced as it will get.
We may still have an abundance of potential, and be hugely far away from reaching it, but I suppose only time will tell.

[Sir Kenyth]

Originally posted by Talthyr Malkaviel: quote: Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: The problem with humans Magik is that our knowledge increases are exponential, not incremental. Back then science was a lot simpler and very few people found a necessity for it. Our potential was well ahead of our progress. Just living day to day in your 40-50 year life span was enough trouble for most, and schooling was seen as a waste of valuable work time. Now we live longer and have more time to learn, but the amount we have to learn is so much greater! What your average Joe with a moderate intellectual hunger knows today would have ranked as an elite education back in the day. When do we reach a saturation point? When does our progress catch up with our potential? When will we simply not live long enough or have the capacity to effectively absorb the prerequisite knowledge and skills to even make any advances? I wonder how we will contend with this. So far, specialization by science/engineering professionals has helped. Even today you can't have too broad of a knowledge and remain cutting edge.

Yes, but then you could go back to a similar argument as to what Magik was saying, to us now we see that our life span has increased greatly, and our knowledge, and geting near our potential bacjk then.
Imagine 600 years from now, people are sitting around discussing how we managed to get around with such a short life span, and such crude technology, and the people back then may have thought their technology as advanced as it will get.
We may still have an abundance of potential, and be hugely far away from reaching it, but I suppose only time will tell. [/QUOTE]I think we'll reach our maximum age pretty soon. Most of the problems were health related issues and not age related back then. Heart disease, obesity, and cancer are the only major health issues left in countries like the US. The real deciding factor of age is "maximum productive age" as far as discovering advances go. That hasn't increased much as of late. Most people still retire by age sixty. Most people start to get dulled senses and lose thier mental edge by age seventy. So the extra few years we glean with current medical advances really don't add much to productivity. Another problem humans have is we also don't breed effectively anymore, evolutionarily speaking that is. Physically and mentally superior people tend to have LESS children on average. This is presumably because they have less time due to thier pursuits and they also tend to want to raise fewer children so they can maximize thier success (child and parents). I'll be curious to see what comes of these issues.

[Azred]

I think most reasonable folks would agree that, given the size of the universe, there are probably non-Terran civilizations out there somewhere. As stated, though, the chance of communicating with them is next to 0, figuring that most communication is limited to the speed of light. Even the best interferometers being planned will be able to detect planets no further than, say, 1000 light-years away.
On the other hand, it is known that spin-paired particles seem to communicate at faster-than-light speeds when separated. It is possible that if you were to create two atoms absolutely identical to each other in every quantum detail that changes to one would be reflected in the other regardless of distance; this would allow for FTL communication.

re: humans being the oldest/most technologically advanced civilization.
Arledrian, when it comes to thinking about the universe then all possibilities must be considered, including that one. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

I agree with Ziroc--I'd love to be able to live long enough to see even the next 200 years.

[andrewas]

Originally posted by Azred: On the other hand, it is known that spin-paired particles seem to communicate at faster-than-light speeds when separated. It is possible that if you were to create two atoms absolutely identical to each other in every quantum detail that changes to one would be reflected in the other regardless of distance; this would allow for FTL communication.

Azred, youve made the same mistake Einstein made. ERP pairs do *not* allow for FTL communication. What can happen is that a single quantum wave function can be made to describe both particals despite the fact they can be at an infinite distance. Collapsing this wavefunction collapses it for both of them, but there is no way to control the result and once its collapsed the particals are no longer linked in any way.

Even if you could control the result youd have to carry one partical per bit of information.

FTL communication through a micro-wormhole is a more practical proposition. In both techniques though both ends of the link would have to be formed in contact and then moved - theres no way for humans to build one end and aliens another, you cant target a wormhole.