On top of all that, we're forgetting that aliens might not just be very distant from us in space, but also in time. Implied in the Drake equation is also the percent of technologically advanced intelligent life-bearing planets in the universe, but technologically advanced intelligent life-bearing planets that happen to have hit some technological threshold within the right time frame to contact us. Once you start thinking of it that way, the probabilities get freakishly small. A couple small evolutionary events and a parallel Earth could have achieved sentient space-faring intelligence of some sort a billion years ago. If they came to check us out we wouldn't be here. Likewise, a couple mass extinction events on another parallel Earth could keep space-faring intelligence on the back burner for another 2 billion years.
Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
51–60 of 122 posts
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#52The film and even more so the book Solaris describes an alien intelligence that is far more interesting than the anthropomorphic forms that humans fantasize about.
The "alien" in Solaris is a sentient ocean that covers the surface of the planet. All kinds of structures form and dissolve on the surface. The being can communicate with visitors by accessing their minds and seems to alter reality itself to entertain their fantasies.
Whose to say that other lifeforms would be single units (like human egos), or would operate on time scales that we can even comprehend ? Or operate consciously only in 3 dimensions.
that said, there are probably more like us.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking at the level of interest/affection we have for intelligent animals on our own planet isn't exactly reassuring. We know/strongly suspect dolphins/whales/etc are intelligent. But we don't care enough about what they might have to say to really try to communicate them. And we know gorillas are intelligent. We even know we can teach them to communicate on a simplistic level -- but we don't really do it. We just d…
I wasn't arguing the aliens would treat us well. They very well might not. But they'd probably make some form of contact with us. That was my only point. I think it's guaranteed. Just think about if we got that technology. If suddenly magically a ship capable of zipping around the galaxy appeared in NASA's hands, other than disassembling it and trying to replicate it, what would we use it for? Looking for other life…
It is not obvious. If aliens are smart enough to get here, they are also smart to observe that contacting us will cause great chaos. We are simply to primitive. We have famine, racism, wars, and overall a lot of issues that do not warrant contact at this time.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#54This article seems to gloss over the hypothesis that aliens evolved under evolutionary pressure, and are thus likely to want to reproduce and expand. So no matter how advanced they may become technologically, they might still want our resources and our planet, simply because they're reproducing themselves at an exponential rate--especially if they've solved the immortality problem, which is likely. Even with advanced…
Agreed. The article also seems skeptical that aliens would be willing or capable to travel for thousands of years to reach us. For a truly advanced species who have undoubtedly extended their lifetime drastically, I doubt thousands of years would feel like a very long time.
Hell, thousands of years wouldn't even feel like a long time for human-built computers.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#55The idea that advanced aliens wouldn't bother talking to us / visiting us if they could because we're too primitive is obviously wrong. We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. And it's obvious that if we could travel around the galaxy and we detected life forms on another planet, we would obviously go visit them and check them out. The…
> We still have tons of interest and even affection for animals on our own planet who are far less advanced than ourselves. Actually, as far as our interactions with other life forms go, we either ignore them (intestinal bacteria), keep them away (diseases), exterminate them (pests), or harvest and devour them (farming), or kill them for sport (hunting). The utterly insignificant fraction that become objects of our a…
Being more advanced as a civilization doesn't mean that they would be more advanced as species. Any species capable of making computers or more intelligent machines than themselves would seem to be capable of developing unlimited technological advances given enough time. There hasn't been meaningful biological evolution in humans for thousands of years and it doesn't matter.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#56This 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…
The author's central thesis - that aliens who are advanced enough to send an invasion to earth but not advanced enough to get the resources they need by other means is highly implausible - doesn't rest on the throwaway points with which you're quibbling.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#57The question is not "why would they want to visit us", but "why are they not here", aka The Fermi Paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox Every issue related to the existence of aliens must answer that paradox first. My favorite interpretation: we are the most advanced civilization in the galaxy. "Why would they want to visit us?" - this can have trivial answers: the same reasons why we study ants today.
I like this one the most: "It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself"
There could simply be a technological ceiling. Once civilization reaches the ceiling, it hits it's head on the ceiling, and falls down the stairs either destroying itself or at very least losing most the progress.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#58This 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…
The author's central thesis - that aliens who are advanced enough to send an invasion to earth but not advanced enough to get the resources they need by other means is highly implausible - doesn't rest on the throwaway points with which you're quibbling.
> throwaway points with which you're quibbling
Throwaway points as to how likely it is for advanced aliens to even exist and whether they might be willing to trade with us? He's attempting to refute all possible motivations that aliens might have to communicate with us.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#59How can we say definitively (or with any certainty) that there are relatively advanced life forms everywhere, such that they are a dime a dozen? How do we know that interstellar travelers wouldn't find us rare and interesting?
Curiosity more than anything is what drives our need to know. I think that's what would drive such visitors. In fact, because they would be more technologically advanced and would likely have solved resource problems, etc., they would naturally have time to spend exploring and answering questions.
Finally, we can assume such explorers are more advanced than we, but not necessarily by orders of magnitude. I think people have a tendancy to attribute god-like qualities to them because they have solved some problems that we have not.
But, the idea of splitting an atom was outlandish until a handful of dudes, inspired by another dude's theory did it in a relatively short span. Similar with other breakthroughs. At any given time, a single discovery can advance our knowledge far beyond what we thought possible, and even moreso with the accelerating pace of technology.
And, BTW, many of our own "resource problems" are completely solvable and should not exist. For instance, we have an obesity problem in the U.S. while millions starve elsewhere (and in the U.S.). It seems that our biggest obstacles are a product of human nature. If anything, an alien species' appearance might be indicative of an advancement in philosophy or organizational behavior (ex. hive mentality vs. individual) moreso than a far superior intelligence.
Re: Why We'll Never Meet Aliens
#60I look around at a "human" species on this planet I don't understand and don't feel part of. Either I'm looking at a successful alien invasion, or I'm it.