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Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#21

Post by codex »

baddox wrote: post #17
codex wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It could explain why we haven't encountered aliens despite the advanced age of the Earth. The Earth has been around for roughly 1/3rd the age of the universe, but because space time is expanding exponentially, only a fraction of the universe (roughly 20%) is theoretically reachable, even when travelling at the speed of light. A planet like Earth that formed around the same time, or earlier, even relatively close to the Earth, may now be in the unreachable zone. By the same token, the longer it takes for an intelligent species to evolve, the less likely it is that they will ever be able to contact us.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#22

Post by fchollet »

sillysaurus wrote: post #12
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.

Curiosity, by this point, is extremely likely to be a required condition for intelligence in any species. You should look into the AI work done in developmental robotics and Artificial Curiosity...

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#23

Post by biot »

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 pulsars are interstellar beacons placed by advanced civilizations to signal a rendezvous point for any species capable of reaching it. (Anyone know if this is the basis for a sci-fi story?)

As an aside, I find it somewhat amusing when people lay out a statistical basis for how life is so incredibly rare to the point where it's unlikely that we even exist.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#24

Post by hfsktr »

A lot of the comments: http://xkcd.com/638/

I don't know much about all this but we haven't even left our solar system (if we truly have then fine galaxy). I mean physically as I imagine other emissions do get out but idk. And we find new life forms on Earth all the time. Are we really qualified to say there is no life out there?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#25

Post by jonahx »

sillysaurus wrote: post #20
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.

How did his personality change?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#26

Post by krsunny »

fchollet wrote: post #22
sillysaurus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Curiosity, by this point, is extremely likely to be a required condition for intelligence in any species. You should look into the AI work done in developmental robotics and Artificial Curiosity...

By what point? In time? In evolution? Because curiosity can be simulated with machines why does that prove that its a characteristic of all developing biological life?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#27

Post by hnhg »

fchollet wrote: post #22
sillysaurus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Curiosity, by this point, is extremely likely to be a required condition for intelligence in any species. You should look into the AI work done in developmental robotics and Artificial Curiosity...

Maybe that's because we've designed it to resemble our own intelligence?

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#28

Post by yareally »

sillysaurus wrote: post #12
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.

I would think that a prerequisite for space exploration would be curiosity. I mean you make a good point, but the willingness to go beyond one's current means and traveling through the unknown kind of allude to an instinctual curiosity to see what is new and different.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#29

Post by pjscott »

sillysaurus wrote: post #12
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.

One of the classic examples is the Paperclip Maximizer thought experiment. A paperclip maximizer is a superintelligent AI whose sole goal is to maximize the number of paperclips in the universe. Such a being is curious to the extent that learning more about the universe increases the expected number of paperclips in its future light-cone.

A paperclip maximizer is indifferent to your existence, but thoroughly believes that it could make better use of your planet than you could, as you are hardly optimized for the production of paperclips.

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