Aliens - Do they exist?

[Kinslaughterer]

I believe their is intelligent life on other planets and it has quite possibly been %$#*ing with us for some time now. Anybody intelligent should have a decent sense of humor after all...

[Avatar]

I am indeed comfortable believing that I am the only intelligent life in the universe.

I agree. In a sense, I prefer the thought that we're "alone", because it plays not only to my arrogance, but to my belief that humanity, and indeed, itelligence itself, is nothing more than mere random, possible sick, chance.

--A

[ur-bane]

I would think that intelligence itself would dictate that it is not mere chance.
But there's that POV thing again.

[Avatar]

Too right.

Perhaps Darth will have to split this for the Close, but Why do you think that "deliberate design" (as opposed to chance) is so evident?

--A

[ur-bane]

I am not saying that there is "deliberate design." (especially since I believe that man created God, not the other way around.)

I am saying, however, that that random chance of intelligence may not be an isolated event. It's like rolling a billion sided die....the numbers that come up may be random, but the chance exists that one number may come up twice..or three times....etc.

[Avatar]

Caught your topic in the Close, so pretty much replied there.

Will say here too that I like the analogy, and pretty much agree.

--A

[High Lord Tolkien]

Look at it this way: We are searching the past when we search into space, as would somebody on the other side of the universe who might be looking our way. So....they're 4 billion light years away.....they happen across our solar system and theorize that based on their knowledge the 3rd planet may be a life-supporting planet.
From our point of view, we're intelligent life now. But they would see a planet in its infancy.

So, even if it's out there, unless it evolved well before us, and within reasonable closeness to us, I don't think we'll ever meet or find evidence of intelligent life other than ourselves.

Yeah, if the speed of light can't be broken it's really going to suck.
We need warp speed, damn-it!

I believe that there's tons of life out there.
Bacterial..animal, the whole gamut.

I've always thought this though (long before the current release of War of the Worlds) how are we ever going to interact with an intelligent species (on par with us anyway)?

Say we find a earthlike planet with a gravity and atmosphere that can sustain us. We can't EVER leave the closed environment that we bring with us without the bateria and virus' native to that world killing us or vise versa.

So if we do find comparable life, that we can communicate with, it would have to be via video or something.

I wonder what kind of trade we could set up?
No food stuffs.
Inanimate sterilized objects?
Technology?

Robots are going to be doing all the exporing anyway,imho.
I see an intergalactic internet at best.
Still, I'd enjoy that.

[matrixman]

Good points by ur-bane and HLT. The lightspeed barrier is definitely a major bummer. As for warp drive, there are theoretical physicists out there who at least accept the principle of such a thing and are talking about it, even if the practical technology required is way beyond us presently. Maybe give us a few thousand years?

I agree about our vulnerability to potential alien viruses. When investigating an extraterrestrial planet, I would think it's a bit more complicated than just beaming down to the surface a la Star Trek without a hair out of place. (Mind you, I don't know how the heck a transporter is able to zap you without shoving some of your atoms out of place. To me, the transporter seems more "impossible" than even the warp drive. But I'm getting off topic...)

For those that haven't seen it, there is a thread in the Close very similar in subject matter to this one: Do you think there is life on other planets?

[High Lord Tolkien]

Scientists Mess with the Speed of Light

www.livescience.com/technology/050819_fastlight.html

Fire up those warp engines Scotty!!
(well, it's something anyway!)

[Warmark]

Robots are going to be doing all the exporing anyway,imho.
I see an intergalactic internet at best.
Still, I'd enjoy that.

Imagine Watch members from mars reading the Chrons

[Phantasm]

I'd be more surprised if there wasn't intelligent life somewhere else out there.

[sindatur]

I'm on the side that finds it unfathomable to believe there isn't some sort of life out there somewhere.

Why in the world, would the universe be so humungous, for just one planet's worth of people?

How can we believe with the endless possibilites that we are the only correct combination?

[Cail]

IDIC for all you geeks out there....Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. There's gotta be something else out there, let's just hope that if we ever find out, they're really, really docile.

[Avatar]

In which case we'll waste no time in subjugating or exploiting them.

--A

[ur-bane]

In which case we'll waste no time in subjugating or exploiting them.

--A

Oh, how true that is. And of course, it would be justified. "Protection of the Species." We'd have so much to learn form them, eh?
We had better hope that they know something about disease and bacteria.
If not, the microorganisms that they bring with them could wipe us out.
Then it wouldn't matter how "docile" they were.

OOOOH! That's it! We can't trust them no matter what. Maybe they would lure us into a comfort zone by being docile, but then unleash alien microbes into our atmosphere, wiping us out so they could claim the earth for themselves. Maybe Dukkha Waynhim's short sentence game story in Mallory would be true, after all!

[Avatar]

Unless they have a remarkably similar biology, "alien microbes" shouldn't have any effect on us, should they?

--A

[ur-bane]

I don't know about that. I am by no means a microbiologist.....PREBE???? Where is PREBE????

I would think that they could and would have a detrimental effect on us. Unless of course, proximity to us kills them.

[Avatar]

Dunno. We're gonna have to get Prebe in here. I'd think that unless they're carbon-based at absolute minimum, they'd be ineffective.

PREBE!!!

--A

[ur-bane]

Here's an article that pertains to this VERY deiscussion, right here, that Prebe is so far ignoring.

www.spacedaily.com/news/life-03zp.html

If he doesn't appear soon, I'll just have to make something up.

[Avatar]

Does he even know it's happening? Perhaps a nudge in this direction?

Interesting article. As we guessed, there is really no way to tell until it happens.

--A