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[Lastyou1]

The simplest explanation is there’s no one else.

And you wouldn’t want to meet them if there were.

False. Both sentences.

It is suspected, and almost proved, that organic life (plants and animals from viruses to humans) started from inorganic stuff. The process may repeat itself in the future or maybe it already happened and we haven't noticed.


The life we know is based on carbon.
There may exist other kind of lives that are not based on carbon or the carbon based population might have resources like water and oxygen in abundance.
Even the theory of negative spin antimatter seems to be more fantasy than science fiction. So I would not worry about it.

 

[Lastyou1]

I'm sure extraterrestrial beings exist. The Fermi paradox is myopic (the universe is vast, and the speed of causality is restrictive), and not generalized (beings that exist outside of Earth could be simple... non-intelligent beings).

Off-topic:

I do not think time travel is at all humanly possible. Aside from thermodynamic laws that forbid backwards time travel, why haven't we had a person from the future?

In theory, but in theory only, time travel to the future would be possible.
Not the past, only the future.

 

[iconmaster]

False. Both sentences.

Well I'm sure you have an argument for that...

It is suspected, and almost proved, that organic life (plants and animals from viruses to humans) started from inorganic stuff. The process may repeat itself in the future or maybe it already happened and we haven't noticed.

No, just speculation. Think you've got a case of

But I certainly can't prove you wrong, so don't stop believin'.

 

[Lastyou1]

Well I'm sure you have an argument for that...



No, just speculation. Think you've got a case of

But I certainly can't prove you wrong, so don't stop believin'.

Of course the key is speculation.
My point is that at least my speculation is based on the little something we know, scientifically speaking.


All hypothesis though, so we are back to square one.

 

[Kamina]

Cunth is an alien

 

[MilkyJoe]

Maybe you haven't, OP...

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

 

[Trogdor1123]

There are several assumptions on the paradox that don't necessarily make sense. This goes along with communication in general.

Given the info we are getting now, on the size and variety in the universe there is nearly zero chance were the only ones. It would be incredibly unlikely mathematically.

 

[I_D]

It's honestly quite simple:

The universe is massive. It's so large that the average mind (including mine) cannot even conceive of its vastness.
Even if there are hundreds of intelligent species out there, there's no way for them to reach us.

 

[timeflais]

The other option is contact was made already and previous administrations have injected the collective consciousness with arguments like the fermi paradox so that less people question if that has actually happened directly.

Space force.
China?
France?

 

[lock2k]

I used to love space when I was a kid... nowadays it makes me sad... I look at all the starts, I think it's beautiful but I feel like less than an ant looking at it. I feel small and insignificant and kinda depressed because we will never be able to look at it closely. It sucks.

 

[Harold Lloyd]

If the universe is infinite then there could be an infinite amount of Earths out there. So the first aliens we meet might be... us?

(which would obviously be infinitely disappointing)

 

[#Phonepunk#]

we can't even begin to answer this question without interrogating what we mean by "intelligent life". this is a nebulous term that evades definition.

are animals intelligent? we are on a planet full of animals, yet we cannot communicate with them, we treat them horribly, why would we behave any different towards aliens? animals even have many of the same traits we have, they have two eyes, a mouth, limbs, etc. yet they are different enough that we feel justified in doing the most horrible stuff to them.

people act like it would give humanity meaning, i feel like that is pie-in-the-sky, savior from above stuff, some misplaced latent spirituality held onto by so-called atheists.

 

[jason10mm]

I can't wait until Dark Matter is discovered to be the bodies of quadrillions of dead aliens floating in interstellar space

 

[Skyr]

I have a deep believe that there are things out there that we as glorified apes are unable perceive with our limited minds. Nor have we the technology to do so yet.
Maybe they don’t even exist physically anymore.

If you look at it from the perspective of possibly more advanced lifeforms I would question if they have any need or desire to contact us.
I look at it this way: If you find an anthill in the wild, you look at it, maybe study it for a while. But then you walk away and leave the ants be. They will never even know you have been there, as they are unable to even perceive your existence with their tiny ant minds.

Just consider that we may be ants for other lifeforms.

 

[Tesseract]

the thing is tho, we can self reflect and communicate and derive, so i don't think we're like ants to aliens

if it's an issue of scale, we should be intelligent enough to go back and forth with whatever is out there

if it's dimensional, we are fucked

 

[Grand Theft Scratchy]

I have a deep believe that there are things out there that we as glorified apes are unable perceive with our limited minds. Nor have we the technology to do so yet.
Maybe they don’t even exist physically anymore.

If you look at it from the perspective of possibly more advanced lifeforms I would question if they have any need or desire to contact us.
I look at it this way: If you find an anthill in the wild, you look at it, maybe study it for a while. But then you walk away and leave the ants be. They will never even know you have been there, as they are unable to even perceive your existence with their tiny ant minds.

Just consider that we may be ants for other lifeforms.

That's always a possibility that just as we view them as more advanced and intelligent, they would view us as less advanced and inferior, but I also like the classic idea that there's a space-faring race of beings with a thirst for knowledge and adventure.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

What if all the other life out there were just nomads and never evolved? What if they already passed on 40 million light years ago? What if the very same stars we see at night is but an illusion of our extremely slow light speed and we are the last life in the entire universe?

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

As an aside, I was shocked to hear a late 19th century anti-evolution piece of logic used in the discussion (starts around 10:35). Very fascinating how these discussions keep orbiting around the same metaphysical conclusions.

 

[llien]

My theory: interstellar travel is just not possible. Faster than light drives can not exist in our universe and that is why we haven’t heard from anyone else.

You do not need faster than light drives to have interstellar travel.
If we would have drives that could give constant 1g over a long period of time, we could travel across our galaxy within our lifetime. (GTR is tricky)

 

[hariseldon]

You do not need faster than light drives to have interstellar travel.
If we would have drives that could give constant 1g over a long period of time, we could travel across our galaxy within our lifetime. (GTR is tricky)

The problem is that as you get faster a spec of dust can rip your ship apart. Also slowing down gets really hard, and if time dilation becomes a factor (which it will if you get fast enough) then control gets even trickier.

 

[jason10mm]

You do not need faster than light drives to have interstellar travel.
If we would have drives that could give constant 1g over a long period of time, we could travel across our galaxy within our lifetime. (GTR is tricky)

That's not true unless you could accelerate to faster than light. At lightspeed our galaxy is still tens of thousands of LY wide. Now you could argue that from the perspective of passengers on a near lightspeed ship they would perceive crossing the galaxy in one of their lifetimes, but someone in earth would be long long long dead before it happened.

IIRC the calculation is that 1 gee constant thrust gets you to near lightspeed in 1 year, then you need 1 year to slow down at your destination.

 

[llien]

The problem is that as you get faster a spec of dust can rip your ship apart. Also slowing down gets really hard, and if time dilation becomes a factor (which it will if you get fast enough) then control gets even trickier.

Well, yes, although space is mostly empty (that is why when MIlky Way collides with Andromeda, nobody expects major catastrophies) and ship would mostly need frontal area defense.

We are not even remotely remotely close to creating such drives though.
Not only on the source of energy side of it (which is one hell of a problem), but neither on converting energy into impulse.

That's not true unless you could accelerate to faster than light. At lightspeed our galaxy is still tens of thousands of LY wide. Now you could argue that from the perspective of passengers on a near lightspeed ship they would perceive crossing the galaxy in one of their lifetimes, but someone in earth would be long long long dead before it happened.

Of course, from the perspective of the passengers.

IIRC the calculation is that 1 gee constant thrust gets you to near lightspeed in 1 year, then you need 1 year to slow down at your destination.

Slowing down is not a problem at all, just stop being conservative about it. Yes you'll spend half of the time accelerating, half slowing down.

 

[jason10mm]

.Slowing down is not a problem at all, just stop being conservative about it. Yes you'll spend half of the time accelerating, half slowing down.

Well. Slowing down IS a problem because you have to budget the fuel for it. You spend an EQUAL amount of time accelerating as you do decelerating (assuming everyone wants a comfy 1g environment) but once you get near LS you cut thrust and coast for however long to conserve fuel. No reason to keep thrusting as you can't just accelerate past lightspeed (we don't think) so it has diminished returns. Then you need to spin the ship, or at least parts of it, to simulate gravity for the crew.

 

[llien]

No reason to keep thrusting as you can't just accelerate past lightspeed (we don't think) so it has diminished returns.

Mm, I'm not sure about that. Closer to the speed of light you get, the "shorter" things around you become, so you spend less of your local time traveling.

There is no obvious "nah, stop accelerating" point.

 

[Stiflers Mom]

False. Both sentences.

It is suspected, and almost proved, that organic life (plants and animals from viruses to humans) started from inorganic stuff. The process may repeat itself in the future or maybe it already happened and we haven't noticed.

Actually Abiogenesis (life evolving from non life) is kind of unexplained and seems extremely unlikely, since you'd need a DNA/RNA to form spontaneously while there would have to be an outer protective membrane forming around that at the same time.

 

[jason10mm]

There is no obvious "nah, stop accelerating" point.

Sure there is, it's running out of fuel. How exactly are you powering your ships? That might reframe this discussion.

 

[SentientStone]

Everything is an illusion. In fact, only you, the present awareness exists.

Mr. Anderson.

 

[poppabk]

It's possible that we are more improbable than we believe. We expect life to move towards intelligence - but the dinosaurs existed for millions of years and without that cataclysm they might still be the dominant dumb lifeform - nascent intelligence might have been snuffed out by sheer brawn.
Another option is that 'intelligent' life only blooms for a short time before it destroys itself. Life developing on other worlds might occur all the time but on a cosmic scale highly intelligent life may be a blip, and the chance of two blips occuring at the same time might be miniscule.

 

[M1chl]

The simplest explanation is there’s no one else.

And you wouldn’t want to meet them if there were.

There are lot of places in the outer space, you know, but everything is pretty far.

(for ilustration on the night sky)

I think it's unrealistic to just be one and only, we at beast are one with our appearance, would suck if all life was in such a small place like Earth.

 

[CloudNull]

In just for the updates. I love me some Fermi talk.

 

[johntown]

My theory: interstellar travel is just not possible. Faster than light drives can not exist in our universe and that is why we haven’t heard from anyone else. It’s just too much space. Maybe every species; even those way more advanced than us has tried and failed to create FTL.

That is what warp drives are for! We already know that space can be warped. Warp drives are theoretically possible. The only real unknown is how to actually warp space.

 

[notseqi]

I like to believe we aren't alone in the universe because it's such a big place but this may be a question we'll never know for sure in any lifetime on Earth. Still, what do you believe?

I believe that we are not alone, but remind myself of two things: Any civilization developed to our level or any level below isn't able to search or travel in look for other civilizations. Any civilization above our level would have sped up their research exponentially quick and know about our existence - but we're not interesting to them. Kinda like Star Trek not intruding on lower life forms. It is highly unlikely that a civilization would a) exist close by, undetected, and b) only be 25 years ahead of us.

 

[MilkyJoe]

Watch the you tube video with that Rogan chap interviewing Bob Lazar. Pay close attention to the part where he describes how the craft manoeuvres and the heart shape halo caused by the "engine" then watch the US Navy released video.

Coincidence?

Any civilization above our level would have sped up their research exponentially quick and know about our existence - but we're not interesting to them. Kinda like Star Trek not intruding on lower life forms.

Stop...

1) you are like the billionth person that has said this, you're not as deep as you think you are.

2) we have continent destroying weapons, we send probes into space. We're the most importantly thing in the neighbourhood to be keeping an eye on.

 

[Airola]

Now you could argue that from the perspective of passengers on a near lightspeed ship they would perceive crossing the galaxy in one of their lifetimes, but someone in earth would be long long long dead before it happened.

Does the relative time affect to consciousness though?
Maybe all that happens is that with enough speed the movement of cells and atoms just gets slower but our mind stays the same.
Maybe all it would do is to let the body stay young and alive but the mind feels it as long as it is from the outside perspective.

I'd like to watch a movie where they intend to have someone make a space trip like that where it should be so that it feels to the passenger that it takes a short time but to the outsiders it feels longer.
But they would realize that mind isn't about cells and atoms at all and the passenger would end up being in a space trip that takes 100,000 years and there's no way out and due to speed he will not die.

 

[Kenpachii]

 

[notseqi]

Stop...

1) you are like the billionth person that has said this, you're not as deep as you think you are.

2) we have continent destroying weapons, we send probes into space. We're the most importantly thing in the neighbourhood to be keeping an eye on.

In this thread or in general? I didn't read the whole thread and I don't consider an idea I at least think came up with on my own to be 'deep'. If I built that up from stuff I heard, so be it. I think it sound in any case.

Space is a little bit bigger for your continent destroying weapons and puny probes though.

 

[Hudo]

Remember, “alien” implies outside of this planet.

We are also “alien” to aliens living on another planet.

We’re all aliens.

Especially as an Englishman in New York.

 

[jason10mm]

Does the relative time affect to consciousness though?
Maybe all that happens is that with enough speed the movement of cells and atoms just gets slower but our mind stays the same.
Maybe all it would do is to let the body stay young and alive but the mind feels it as long as it is from the outside perspective.

I'd like to watch a movie where they intend to have someone make a space trip like that where it should be so that it feels to the passenger that it takes a short time but to the outsiders it feels longer.
But they would realize that mind isn't about cells and atoms at all and the passenger would end up being in a space trip that takes 100,000 years and there's no way out and due to speed he will not die.

That is kinda what they did in Interstellar. I'd suggest it was beyond retarded to try to land on a planet where time moves 10000x slower but hey, what do I know? At least, from the colonists perspective, resupply would come REALLY fast

There are lots of books that deal with relativistic speeds and differential ageing. I'm not really sure biologic organisms would experience it like atomic decay suggests, but really, it is almost inconceivable that there will ever be a conventional engine that gets a ship anywhere near lightspeed. We will either jump right past it with wormholes or warp drive or never even come close.

 

[MilkyJoe]

In this thread or in general? I didn't read the whole thread and I don't consider an idea I at least think came up with on my own to be 'deep'. If I built that up from stuff I heard, so be it. I think it sound in any case.

Space is a little bit bigger for your continent destroying weapons and puny probes though.

Just that line. Any new planet with life would be fascinating to any species.

If aliens are here they'd have a base close by, I'd imagine. Very close..

 

[notseqi]

Just that line. Any new planet with life would be fascinating to any species.

If aliens are here they'd have a base close by, I'd imagine. Very close..

MOONBASE! MOONBASE! MOONBASE!

 

[MilkyJoe]

MOONBASE! MOONBASE! MOONBASE!

 

[Airola]

That is kinda what they did in Interstellar. I'd suggest it was beyond retarded to try to land on a planet where time moves 10000x slower but hey, what do I know? At least, from the colonists perspective, resupply would come REALLY fast

I mean that in Interstellar's situation he would've also felt it all lasting as long as it lasted for those who were in the planet.

I mean, what if relative time means that body would not age and the mind would not sense it going any faster relative to anything but the mind would feel it the same as anyone else.
Like the hypothesis is that for the traveler the time is to the mind and body as if it takes 1 year but for people on earth it has taken 1000 years. But what if it doesn't really take only 1 year but the speed just makes the body age as if it only took 1 year? The traveler's mind would still feel it taking 1000 years.

 

[Airola]

Sure there is, it's running out of fuel. How exactly are you powering your ships? That might reframe this discussion.

Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest problems with the idea of aliens who move through space with spacecraft.
There has to be fueling stations around the space. I would imagine that if they choose to come to this planet repeated times, there should be fueling stations around here too. I don't think they would risk their long-ass travels ending because they don't have any fuel left.
They have to be able to come here and go back. And what would be the odds that this planet would offer fuel for a machine they've made in their own planet far far far away? What would be the odds that any planets would offer fuel for machines they've made in their own planet? They would have to have fueling stations that offer the exact fuel they need, and those stations would need maintenance and refills. We should now be able to observe more ufo action only for that issue alone.

 

[jason10mm]

Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest problems with the idea of aliens who move through space with spacecraft.
There has to be fueling stations around the space. I would imagine that if they choose to come to this planet repeated times, there should be fueling stations around here too. I don't think they would risk their long-ass travels ending because they don't have any fuel left.
They have to be able to come here and go back. And what would be the odds that this planet would offer fuel for a machine they've made in their own planet far far far away? What would be the odds that any planets would offer fuel for machines they've made in their own planet? They would have to have fueling stations that offer the exact fuel they need, and those stations would need maintenance and refills. We should now be able to observe more ufo action only for that issue alone.

But the problem with refueling stations is that you HAVE TO SLOW DOWN TO USE THEM. The difference between space travel and planetary travel is that once you get up to speed in space you can cut thrust and just drift at a high rate of speed basically forever until you need to slow down to match velocities with your destination. So having to slow down mid way to refuel just means you have to decelerate to stop, take on fuel, accelerate again, then decelerate at your destination. From a fuel perspective its really no different than just going on, in fact it costs a lot of time to slow down and accelerate again, so refueling exacerbates your food supply issues as well.

Unless you have some sort of sci-fi magic drive that constantly burns fuel regardless of thrust and allows you to accelerate and decelerate (those 2 things are identical) quickly then you really want all the fuel (more specifically reaction mass, the stuff you are throwing out your engine to generate thrust as opposed to fuel that keeps your engine hot).

Remass is pretty universal, elements on your planet ought to be common to most any solar system. Or it should be easy to break down water or hydrocarbons into the fuel/remass you need. Even if you use heavy radioactive isotopes as fuel for your nuclear reactor, those ought to be easily obtained in most solar systems you'd want to go to. Barring some sort of complex refined material/very very rare manufactured element (which would be foolish to use in your galaxy cruising starship in the first place) it shouldn't be an issue. Even anti-matter should be able to be manufactured anywhere, bu tthat is a substance I could see being cached at destination star systems to provide fuel to get back home.

 

[jason10mm]

Since it has been a while since this thread has been active, I'd HIGHLY recommend going to the Atomic Rockets website (http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php) and reading up. Barring truly fictional propulsion systems, pretty much everything moderately theoretically possible has been hashed out over there ad nauseum.

I also recommend their reading list, any stuff using practical rocket theory for spaceships is amazing (I'll give the Expanse a pass on the epstein drive because the rest of it is so good

 

[#Phonepunk#]

there is a lot of space out there. a fucking ton of space. there could be aliens flying all over the place and we would have no idea.

 

[hariseldon]

That is kinda what they did in Interstellar. I'd suggest it was beyond retarded to try to land on a planet where time moves 10000x slower but hey, what do I know? At least, from the colonists perspective, resupply would come REALLY fast

There are lots of books that deal with relativistic speeds and differential ageing. I'm not really sure biologic organisms would experience it like atomic decay suggests, but really, it is almost inconceivable that there will ever be a conventional engine that gets a ship anywhere near lightspeed. We will either jump right past it with wormholes or warp drive or never even come close.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/076534825X/ is quite a fun take on differential time.

 

[jason10mm]

there is a lot of space out there. a fucking ton of space. there could be aliens flying all over the place and we would have no idea.

This is very true. We have a VERY short observational bubble to draw data from. Plus we are using fairly crude methods to detect any emitted electromagnetic radiation or other phenomena. Even our own emission bubble is very small (around 100LY IIRC) and unless you are looking directly at us with very sensitive large arrays the strength of our transmissions are extremely weak. So there COULD be moderately advanced civilizations all around us that we are just too blind to see. But it seems unlikely that if this were the case there wouldn't be evidence of it within our solar system. Carbon based organic life seems fairly easy to make, not to mention other forms of intelligent life, so a place like Earth ought to be interesting to at least some forms of life and worth at least a probe.

But again, if the galaxy internet runs off neutrinos and everyone is using cool emission wormholes to get around, then maybe the galaxy is TEEMING with life that produces nothing we can detect (so far) and Earth is just a little anthill in the middle of a backwater arm of the Milky Way that no one gives a shit about because the Galactic Kardashians are in the middle of a 500,000,000 year bitch fight and everyone is tuned into that

 

[Hulk_Smash]

Here’s a depressing thought: The universe, hell our own galaxy might be teeming with intelligent life. They’re may already be coalitions formed between alien races similar to Star Trek. But with so many planets and so many galaxies, we might not ever meet any of them.

Our whole existence as human beings may come and go and we never see a single one of the billions of aliens races in the universe.