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Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

astronomy.com

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Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#31

Post by samstave »

breckinloggins wrote: post #9
civilian wrote: post #7

I've been reading The Vital Question by Nick Lane, where he puts forth some theories about the origin of eukaryotes, and life in general. It does make it seem that abiogenesis and eukaryote-genesis are much more difficult than we give them credit for. So in the Drake Equation, I think that F[L] is probably pretty low. And because eukaroyte genesis is difficult and only happened once (and it took a billion years of ba…

This gets my vote. My hunch is that intelligent life like the kind we would love to meet happens either on the order of once or twice per galaxy during the galaxy's entire lifetime, or it happens SO rarely that, if the universe is infinite in extent, then any intelligent observer looking out from the "center" of their observable universe will most likely be in the only intelligent civilization in that visible radius.…

Then why the fuck do we keep killing ourselves?

Seriously, if we taught this level of intelligent-life appreciation to every born soul... the world would be a better place.

Rather than starting with the teachings we do for youngsters; why not just teach them how freaking rare and lucky they are to be a consciousness present to hear that fact and then know that they can then expand the known universe... but do this in a much more deliberate fashion than we are now?

We need to be much much more deterministic from a species if we will survive for eons.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#32

Post by baddox »

breckinloggins wrote: post #9
civilian wrote: post #7

I've been reading The Vital Question by Nick Lane, where he puts forth some theories about the origin of eukaryotes, and life in general. It does make it seem that abiogenesis and eukaryote-genesis are much more difficult than we give them credit for. So in the Drake Equation, I think that F[L] is probably pretty low. And because eukaroyte genesis is difficult and only happened once (and it took a billion years of ba…

This gets my vote. My hunch is that intelligent life like the kind we would love to meet happens either on the order of once or twice per galaxy during the galaxy's entire lifetime, or it happens SO rarely that, if the universe is infinite in extent, then any intelligent observer looking out from the "center" of their observable universe will most likely be in the only intelligent civilization in that visible radius.…

Where do you get the estimate of "once or twice per galaxy"? I can agree that it might be "rare," but I have no idea how you would pin down the rareness to that level of accuracy.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#33

Post by givan »

Our view of life in the universe is subjective, we compare it with the only place we know it exists, earth, probably life exists in many forms not limited to how we know it or how we would expect it to evolve so probably not all life might be brief how earthers might think.

We are amazed how life exists in the most hostile places on earth and how it was able to adapt to very harsh conditions, probably life in universe is also full of surprises.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#34

Post by frozenport »

givan wrote: post #23

I wonder why on this subject everyone overlooks two major events witnessed by thousands of people some of which former military pilots and instead focus on science fiction scenarios. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights People try to explain these events in all kind of ways avoiding the most obvious one no matter what. Is it fear? the lack of recognition by autho…

I think its more likely the government was testing military equipment.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#35

Post by theboywho »

The problem with this reasoning is that it considers this to be true: if intelligent life exists, we are gonna be able to understand its intelligence.

What if there exist an intelligent life, so intelligent that their level of intelligence compared to ours is like comparing ours with...cats. We all know small genetic mutations can have huge impact. So huge they might just be technically/biologically out of reach.

So maybe an intelligent life exists out there, but they are so ahead of us that we are not even capable of understanding how. Like a little cat watching a car thinking maybe it's an animal.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#36

Post by PaybackTony »

A series of unproven theories as a basis for a new theory that further unproven theories can be based on. The cornerstone of modern science.

There really needs to be more documented, observable data before there can be any remotely credible theory about how abundant or desolate our universe is of life. Using such observable data (we know the name) we could only surmise that in 100% of solar systems with a similar sun, bearing a planet at an adequate distance from it's sun, will not only support life, but would have life.

Common sense[?] would dictate that's very unlikely, but there's no scientific basis yet to even theorize otherwise until we can find a way to get that data. To come up with absolutes about planets such distances away is foolish given we don't know half a shit about the planets right next to us.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#37

Post by skybrian »

putlake wrote: post #27

Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest, the second book in his 3-body problem trilogy, posits a similar philosophy: resources are limited so civilizations annihilate other civilizations. So if an alien civilization knew about earthlings, they will destroy earth ASAP if they are capable, lest the earthlings come after their resources. This is also why some people believe we should not try to make contact with intelligent alien l…

Except that we have a very big moat. I liked David Brin's take on this in Existence, where anything sent such a long way is likely to resemble a virus.

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#38

Post by monk_e_boy »

shawndumas wrote: post #11
monk_e_boy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Panspermia is one solution to this.

All problems [in philosophy] can be solved by another level of indirection...

Ha! But it does solve the 'this rare event happened here on Earth but it is very unlikely to happen anywhere' because those little single cells came here from somewhere else. That source infected millions of planets.

It moves the problem of starting everywhere to starting in one place (more likely)

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#39

Post by givan »

frozenport wrote: post #34
givan wrote: post #23

I wonder why on this subject everyone overlooks two major events witnessed by thousands of people some of which former military pilots and instead focus on science fiction scenarios. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_UFO_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Lights People try to explain these events in all kind of ways avoiding the most obvious one no matter what. Is it fear? the lack of recognition by autho…

I think its more likely the government was testing military equipment.

> Witnesses claim to have observed a huge V-shaped (several football field sized), coherently-moving dark UFO (stars would disappear behind the object and reappear as it passed by), producing no sound, and containing five spherical lights or possibly light-emitting engines

Do you really think the military has this kind of technology?

Re: Life on other planets would likely be brief and become extinct very quickly

#40

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

PaybackTony wrote: post #36

A series of unproven theories as a basis for a new theory that further unproven theories can be based on. The cornerstone of modern science. There really needs to be more documented, observable data before there can be any remotely credible theory about how abundant or desolate our universe is of life. Using such observable data (we know the name) we could only surmise that in 100% of solar systems with a similar sun…

It seems like a lot of SETI/astro biology is more speculation than science, i.e. something that can be disproved or reproduced.
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