I think it's more of a when than a how question. As long as an asteroid doesn't come and wipe us all out before we master planetary space travel, I think it's pretty safe to say at some point we will encounter alien life. With all the planets that exist...too much potential for their not to be.
Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
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Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#12The chance of it existing somewhere is pretty big. However, our galaxy is huge so the chance of ever encountering them is pretty slim for now. I don't really expect us to find something until we develop a working sort of FTL technology. Since achieving this is probably still a few hundred years off I'm personally a bit sceptic whether we'll ever reach this point with all the problems we're facing here on earth. I rea…
The chance of it existing somewhere is pretty big. However, our galaxy is huge so the chance of ever encountering them is pretty slim for now Just 500 years ago, Europeans didn't know about America. It may turn out that aliens bump into us by accident and we find out that they were right around the corner the whole time. Or it is possible that the aliens have the FTL technology to get to us from a point far enough aw…
I was mainly referring to the fact of us bumping into them.
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Still, even finding non-intelligent alien life would make it much more likely that intelligent alien life exists somewhere. (Basically there are 2 probabilities we can't estimate now, other that they are != 0: the probability of life appearing on a given planet (P1), and the probability of intelligence evolving once life is present (P2). The probability of intelligent life then is P1 x P2)
Finding non-intelligent alien life would not make it more likely that intelligent alien life exists. It either exists or it doesn't. :)
This is semantics.
Finding non-intelligent alien life would raise our current estimate for the likelihood that intelligent non-human life exists.
Is that better? :P
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
The chance of it existing somewhere is pretty big. However, our galaxy is huge so the chance of ever encountering them is pretty slim for now Just 500 years ago, Europeans didn't know about America. It may turn out that aliens bump into us by accident and we find out that they were right around the corner the whole time. Or it is possible that the aliens have the FTL technology to get to us from a point far enough aw…
I was mainly referring to the fact of us bumping into them.
I think they'll find us first though. Isn't that what Stephen Hawking has said also?
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#15no
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#16IMO the only 'aliens' we'll ever meet will be humans who had left Earth for distant planets sometime in the future and whom Earth inhabitants have forgotten or fail to recognize for some reason(environmental adaptation causing inhuman features). A chance encounter in space will then be the 'meeting with the aliens' that many fantasize about.
As far as meeting intelligent species completely alien to our planet and our ecosystem, like the ones shown in Hollywood movies, I don't believe that's gonna to happen. Not now. Not ever.
The logic usually is that since space is vast, there's gotta be a planet somewhere that has similar environment like Earth and thus similar life forms inhabiting it. That's sound logic. My problem with that logic is... out of the 100 million+ species of life that are estimated to exist today and the countless ones that used to thrive over the last 4.5 billion years since the birth of our planet, only one... just one out of all those billions of species that existed over billions of years has developed far enough to type these words.
That's why when people say 'hey there are billions of galaxies out there, so we can't be the only ones' I ask them then that by the same logic, out of the billions of species that have existed on this planet there's gotta be more species like us doing the same things that we do? But there isn't. We are the only ones capable of doing things we keep hoping the aliens would do.
That's why I believe we are the only ones, on our planet as well as outside of it.
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#17Perhaps.
If they're smart, they'll wait until we annihilate ourselves or destroy our planet, and then walk right in. Less resources will be expended on their side.
If they do come, and don't have an ability to morph into beings like ourselves, people will crap all over themselves and the government will probably try to nab them.
Who knows what would happen. If they are out there, and I believe they are, and they do come, I hope they're cool and don't just wipe everyone out and start over. I also don't fancy being a pet.
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#18Encounter is a pretty vague term. Do I think we'll have meaningful conversation with Aliens any time in the next thousand years? Probably not. Hubble can see billions of light years out at this point meaning if something was within a couple hundred light years of us we'd probably know about it.
There could be societies far more advanced than ours since our sun didn't show up for about 10 billion years into the Universe's life. Those societies may be able to travel faster than light. But even if that is true they'd need to find us and I consider that unlikely. Because while traveling faster than light may be possible it doesn't change the facts that (a) the universe is huge and (b) light still only travels at light speed so you can't see things in real time. So even if they could get to us they wouldn't know where to look.
What's interesting to me is we might get to see the beginnings of one of these civilizations. Since we're basically looking billions of years into their past we might see another civilization long before we can do anything about it.
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#19Perhaps. If they're smart, they'll wait until we annihilate ourselves or destroy our planet, and then walk right in. Less resources will be expended on their side. If they do come, and don't have an ability to morph into beings like ourselves, people will crap all over themselves and the government will probably try to nab them. Who knows what would happen. If they are out there, and I believe they are, and they do c…
> If they're smart, they'll wait until we annihilate ourselves or destroy our planet, and then walk right in. Less resources will be expended on their side.
That's assuming they have time on their side. By the time they are searching other galaxies for resources, I'd imagine they wouldn't be so patient if we neglect to be hasty... ;-)
Re: Ask HN: Do you believe we'll ever encounter aliens?
#20It's see it like this:
Observe that historical trends show communication technology advancing much faster than transportation technology. In the 20th century we got cars, planes, helicopters, rockets... and now we still have cars, planes, helicopters and rockets (do they make hovercraft anymore?). No major advance for decades. Compare to communication, which seems to change beyond recognition every ten years.
What then is bound to happen is that we develop some sort of theoretically inter-stellar range communication technology. Of course by the time we do that, we'll be lucky if humanity has so much as a moon base. But the chances are we are not the first intelligent race, and a number of intelligent races will already exist, and will have already have implemented this technology.
In effect, we will switch on one day and find a galactic internet (the Intergalacticnet?) of forever isolated planetary nodes. Once we figure out how to decode and communicate etc., we will exchange/trade information and progress will increase exponentially. But no field trips (maybe some sort of VR/avatar tour of alien worlds though).
IMO sci-fi writers get it wrong when they show spaceships bumping into alien civilizations etc. Regardless of whether that sort of transportation is even feasible, communication will have been established much sooner.