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Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

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Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#101

Post by zeteo »

old-gregg wrote: post #87
zeteo wrote: post #47

This article is full of misconceptions. Let's address a few of the most egregious ones. >there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Very smart people have looked at the Drake equation and it yields a very wide…

And this is the top rated comment? None of these "misconceptions" have much to do with the main point OP is making: we think too small, and we pick the wrong analogies and frameworks when we discuss an alien visit. If anything, your post is yet another manifestation of this. It simply doesn't matter what happened to native americans, when the entire Columbus story does not apply. And what do your comments about googl…

>None of these "misconceptions" have much to do with the main point [...] the entire Columbus story does not apply [...] what do your comments about googles in pockets and drake equation have to do with anything?

I don't see how you can make a valid point when your facts and supporting arguments are wrong. The article itself mentions Columbus, Google and (implicitly) the Drake equation. The "main point" that you mention - "we think too small" - is either tautological or self-defeating, depending on interpretation. If this was all there was to the article, it might well have consisted of that single phrase instead.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#102

Post by zeteo »

joe_the_user wrote: post #86
zeteo wrote: post #47

This article is full of misconceptions. Let's address a few of the most egregious ones. >there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Very smart people have looked at the Drake equation and it yields a very wide…

Jeesh, Article: Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. Zeteo: There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Me: The article said "fully understand" and "humans". Some scientists may indeed easily work with aspects of large number. Many people are lost. I'd say you're wrong but it's a disagreement on arguable, hardly settled point…

>Calling your disagreement with the author a "misconception" on the author's part is implying a hard factual accuracy on your side - and here you are both wrong and disingenuous.

The first paragraph of the article is a pretty clear statement that a calculation such as the Drake equation [1] must result in a large number of intelligent alien races and that only lack of understanding for large numbers prevents people from realizing this:

> it's nearly comical to believe we're the only intelligent life in the universe. It's easy to get lost in the numbers thrown around - there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers.

To restate my point, this is wrong on two counts:

1. The Drake equation can be understood by anyone with a pre-calc background, which is by no means rare these days.

2. Different scientists have plugged in different numbers, with the most pessimistic estimates being of under one civilization in the observable universe.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#103

Post by acqq »

jacobparker wrote: post #99
pekk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get any number? It's a back of the envelope, order-of-magnitude thing. We don't have anything close to faster-than-light spacecraft and there's no reason to think we will in the near future, except for pure religious hope.

> It's a back of the envelope, order-of-magnitude thing. You... need to work on that. There are plenty of stars within 14 light years. https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&hs=HNq&ch... If you took 100,000 years that would be a speed of 0.00014c. That is pretty pessimistic - we have put objects into space that are travelling away from earth faster than that already! (Yada yada accleration :).) At 0.1c you can go…

> If you took 100,000 years that would be a speed of 0.00014c. That is pretty pessimistic - we have put objects into space that are travelling away from earth faster than that already!

Citation needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 travels now at 17 km/s which is cca 6e-5 of c, twice slower than your 1.4e-4. However the bigger the object, the inertia is bigger too, so it is harder to speed up the bigger things, especially anything that would sustain life long enough for more generations. Then don't forget, as much as you speed up something, you have to speed it down too and you need the same amount of energy for that.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#104

Post by andrewflnr »

apalmer wrote: post #77
danielweber wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless there is one galactic hegemon, there's going to be someone who says "fuck it" and decides to come visit. Unless there's no one.

I think the argument is that the 'fuck it' level is not necessarily contact in terms of communication with the entire world but may be filled by simply picking up a couple specimens/pets and rolling onwards...

Which, interestingly, is well within some people's model of current alien contact.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#105

Post by apalmer »

snowwrestler wrote: post #8

> The bottom line is that if an alien race is capable of getting here, all the other technology they've requisitely developed in the meantime would make the trip unnecessary at best - and more than likely, simply meaningless. This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question. Personally I think the r…

Not similar at all, maybe in sentence structure, not in logical structure

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#106

Post by millstone »

> it's nearly comical to believe we're the only intelligent life in the universe

Why the obsession with life?

If our space ships landed on a distant planet containing an advanced civilization of intelligent robots, would we shrug, say “no life here,” and head home?

In fact, if you think about it, life is the most boring thing we could discover. We already know a lot about life, and how life may evolve, but we know absolutely nothing about how civilizations and intelligence may come from other substrates.

I hope we don’t find life, but something far weirder.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#107

Post by jacobparker »

acqq wrote: post #103
jacobparker wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a back of the envelope, order-of-magnitude thing. You... need to work on that. There are plenty of stars within 14 light years. https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&hs=HNq&ch... If you took 100,000 years that would be a speed of 0.00014c. That is pretty pessimistic - we have put objects into space that are travelling away from earth faster than that already! (Yada yada accleration :).) At 0.1c you can go…

> If you took 100,000 years that would be a speed of 0.00014c. That is pretty pessimistic - we have put objects into space that are travelling away from earth faster than that already! Citation needed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1 travels now at 17 km/s which is cca 6e-5 of c, twice slower than your 1.4e-4. However the bigger the object, the inertia is bigger too, so it is harder to speed up the bigger thin…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_(spacecraft)

70 km/s. I personally wouldn't want to take that specific trip, but regardless :)

Inertia is a much smaller problem than subjecting humans to acceleration :) You can't afford to accelerate fast anyway. Thankfully spacecraft speed up and slow down quadratically with respect to acceleration.

To get to a speed of 0.00014c if you were accelerating at 9.8m/s^2 ("Earth gravity") you would need to wait...

https://www.google.ca/search?client=ubuntu&hs=2dC&ch...

1 hour and 15 minutes to reach top speed. (The same to slow down (ignoring relativistic effects.)) This is a drop in the bucket vs. 100,000 years, or a human lifetime :)

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#108

Post by krapp »

loxs wrote: post #90
krapp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out the misconception where FTL travel is even possible. That's probably most likely why we'll never meet aliens... the low likelihood of them being able to harness that level of energy reduced even further by the likelihood of a ship happening to stumble across this particular rock.... and then, further still by them even caring if they find us. Heck, there might be cloud-squid in Jupiter we're not even awa…

If FTL is not possible, this makes for a very good reason to conquer the nearest habitable planets. If they are overcrowded and able to conquer Earth in reasonable (for them) time-frame, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't want to. That of course is only if "habitable" means the same thing to them as to us (liquid water, oxygen etc.).

You can come up with scenarios to justify anything, of course. The blog post seems to be discussing aliens as depicted in science fiction which almost always need some kind of handwaving ftl drive for narrative reasons. I was just suggesting the technological infeasibility of actual interstellar travel to be a more likely reason that we haven't or wouldn't encounter aliens, than their considering us beneath their contempt.

But yeah, that is one possibility.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#109

Post by SiVal »

old-gregg wrote: post #87
zeteo wrote: post #47

This article is full of misconceptions. Let's address a few of the most egregious ones. >there are billions of stars and planets in our galaxy and billions of galaxies. Humans are rather bad at fully understanding such large numbers. There's no obstacle to working with large numbers once you understand powers and logarithms (i.e. pre-calc). Very smart people have looked at the Drake equation and it yields a very wide…

And this is the top rated comment? None of these "misconceptions" have much to do with the main point OP is making: we think too small, and we pick the wrong analogies and frameworks when we discuss an alien visit. If anything, your post is yet another manifestation of this. It simply doesn't matter what happened to native americans, when the entire Columbus story does not apply. And what do your comments about googl…

My biggest quibble with the OP is that you can never say that there are no black swans out there just because you've never seen one. No matter how advanced the aliens might be, they wouldn't be able to predict everything they would find here based on theory alone. What if their theory didn't include something they hadn't yet encountered? They would have to see for themselves by some means that, if quantum limits are what we think, could not all be remotely viewed from light years away.

Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens

#110

Post by snowwrestler »

astine wrote: post #27
snowwrestler wrote: post #8

> The bottom line is that if an alien race is capable of getting here, all the other technology they've requisitely developed in the meantime would make the trip unnecessary at best - and more than likely, simply meaningless. This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question. Personally I think the r…

"This argument is structurally similar to the argument that God exists because God is perfect, and a necessary attribute of perfection is existence. It begs the question." No it doesn't. The hypothetical alien race remains hypothetical throughout the argument. Not so with the Ontological Proof.

What is each speaker trying to prove?

1) the idea that God exists

2) the idea that aliens will never come visit us

Both start their proof with an assertion that contains within its concept the very conclusion that they are trying to prove.

Both attempt to leverage an opinion that is personally held ("I think God is perfect", "I think alien science will obviate the need to visit") into an objective statement that applies universally ("God exists","aliens will never come visit").

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