Why We'll Never Meet Aliens • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#11

Post by codex » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:12 PM UTC

dicroce wrote: post #7

If there are or were aliens, why have we not heard them? Forget visits, why haven't we heard a peep? From anywhere? The universe is 13.77 billion years old. It took planet earth 4.54 billion years to evolve a species capable of emitting significant electromagnetic radiation. I'm starting to be pretty convinced that we are the first advanced species, and perhaps life is a lot more rare than we imagine.

Because space-time is expanding at an extraordinary rate, such that vast portions of the universe are forever inaccessible?

"For example there are stars which may be expanding away from us (or each other) faster than the speed of light, and this is true for any object that is more than approximately 4.5 gigaparsecs away from us." [1]

That said, 4.5 gigaparsecs is 10^10 light years, which is still pretty damn big.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#12

Post by sillysaurus » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:13 PM UTC

ignostic wrote: post #2

It's true that once something was able to reach us, they'd probably have very little interest in conquering us, stealing our resources, or anything else "movie aliens" do. Where I disagree is that such beings wouldn't be interested in us. Start with us. Despite knowing basically where we came from, what our ancestors looked like, and how their DNA would look, we're still fascinated to find links and steps along the w…

You've fallen into a trap: anthropomorphizing aliens.

Aliens aren't necessarily anything like us. Curiosity isn't necessarily a property of life. An example: cats don't appear to experience remorse, yet dogs do. One could envision the same for curiosity.

One motivation for a space program is when a civilization realizes their resources will be gone in a matter of centuries.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#13

Post by clavalle » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:14 PM UTC

dicroce wrote: post #7

If there are or were aliens, why have we not heard them? Forget visits, why haven't we heard a peep? From anywhere? The universe is 13.77 billion years old. It took planet earth 4.54 billion years to evolve a species capable of emitting significant electromagnetic radiation. I'm starting to be pretty convinced that we are the first advanced species, and perhaps life is a lot more rare than we imagine.

Perhaps we are being shielded.

Perhaps aliens don't indiscriminately broadcast signals.

Perhaps they do but they are too weak to penetrate the noise by the time they get to us.

Perhaps they are encoded to match background radiation to all but those with the right cipher.

Perhaps there is some sort of sub-space that messages can be transmitted on that we have yet to discover.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#14

Post by sillysaurus » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:17 PM UTC

kamakazizuru wrote: post #9

the largest logical fallacy among many that this article suffers from is that alien species would necessarily need to be technologically advanced to reach us. This probably comes from another flawed line of thought that aliens need to be like us in some way (hence requiring things like figuring out how to survive radiation, last for long periods without food and so on). This doesnt really make sense since on earth it…

The energy required to reach escape velocity generally precludes a planet from generating enough force to fling an object outside its gravity well.

The energy required to sustain life generally precludes large lifeforms from surviving for long periods in space on a spacerock. Anything that evolved into a complex organism probably required a stable source of energy for billions of years. Ours is the sun, and at a very specific distance range.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#15

Post by nickmain » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:23 PM UTC

Any alien species that is capable of coming here, and curious enough to want to learn about our form of life, is probably more than capable of doing so without alerting us to their presence.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#16

Post by baddox » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:23 PM UTC

sillysaurus wrote: post #14

kamakazizuru wrote: post #9

the largest logical fallacy among many that this article suffers from is that alien species would necessarily need to be technologically advanced to reach us. This probably comes from another flawed line of thought that aliens need to be like us in some way (hence requiring things like figuring out how to survive radiation, last for long periods without food and so on). This doesnt really make sense since on earth it…

The energy required to reach escape velocity generally precludes a planet from generating enough force to fling an object outside its gravity well. The energy required to sustain life generally precludes large lifeforms from surviving for long periods in space on a spacerock. Anything that evolved into a complex organism probably required a stable source of energy for billions of years. Ours is the sun, and at a very…

> The energy required to sustain life generally precludes

> Anything that evolved into a complex organism probably required

Both of those claims are based on a single data point.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#17

Post by baddox » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:25 PM UTC

codex wrote: post #11

dicroce wrote: post #7

If there are or were aliens, why have we not heard them? Forget visits, why haven't we heard a peep? From anywhere? The universe is 13.77 billion years old. It took planet earth 4.54 billion years to evolve a species capable of emitting significant electromagnetic radiation. I'm starting to be pretty convinced that we are the first advanced species, and perhaps life is a lot more rare than we imagine.

Because space-time is expanding at an extraordinary rate, such that vast portions of the universe are forever inaccessible? "For example there are stars which may be expanding away from us (or each other) faster than the speed of light, and this is true for any object that is more than approximately 4.5 gigaparsecs away from us." [1] That said, 4.5 gigaparsecs is 10^10 light years, which is still pretty damn big. [1]…

Isn't the expansion of the universe way out of scope of this article and discussion? Obviously, if there are aliens that far away, they by definition cannot reach us.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#18

Post by [deleted] » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:26 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #16

sillysaurus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy required to reach escape velocity generally precludes a planet from generating enough force to fling an object outside its gravity well. The energy required to sustain life generally precludes large lifeforms from surviving for long periods in space on a spacerock. Anything that evolved into a complex organism probably required a stable source of energy for billions of years. Ours is the sun, and at a very…

> The energy required to sustain life generally precludes > Anything that evolved into a complex organism probably required Both of those claims are based on a single data point.

[deleted]

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#19

Post by cnp » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:26 PM UTC

I'd like to humbly suggest that, if given the opportunity, one experiment with DMT. It's the closest thing to a "nearest neighbor" argument that I can come up with, but of course I have no explanation.

This is the best write-up that I've come across on the subject: http://ewwty.com/2012/02/24/dimethyltryptamine-dmt-experienc...

And for a longer treatment I recommend reading "The Cosmic Serpent", which centers around the information gained during Shamanistic ayahuasca sessions (dmt based) which led to the discovery of many plant-based pharmaceutical precursors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cosmic_Serpent

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#20

Post by sillysaurus » Fri, May 03, 2013, 10:29 PM UTC

cnp wrote: post #19

I'd like to humbly suggest that, if given the opportunity, one experiment with DMT. It's the closest thing to a "nearest neighbor" argument that I can come up with, but of course I have no explanation. This is the best write-up that I've come across on the subject: http://ewwty.com/2012/02/24/dimethyltryptamine-dmt-experienc... And for a longer treatment I recommend reading "The Cosmic Serpent", which centers around…

I knew someone who experimented with DMT. Their personality was distinctly different afterwards, and has remained different for several years. In a negative way.

Change yourself at your own risk.