The big question about life on other planets: 1000000000000000000000 planets in the universe

[FA_Q2]

But that paradox is bunk. It can be ignored, now that we know how vast the universe is.

Well, no. The size of the universe is mostly irrelevant. The core idea is that any sufficiently advanced civilization should be able to create automatons that self replicate to explore and/or map the galaxy. Given even a modicum of time, far far far far less than we currently think the galaxy has really had, those automatons will have searched everywhere even if only one was ever sent out as they would grow exponentially.

The vast universe really tells us nothing as to why we see no signs in our own galaxy. As for other galaxies, sure, but even the numbers locally suggest a staggering likelihood that life exists elsewhere. While the label 'paradox' really does not fit the question asked by the Fermi Paradox, it is a very salient question.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The size of the universe is mostly irrelevant.

To another species visiting us?

Um... gonna have to disagree with that.

We are an intelligent species. Why haven't we visited the Andromeda galaxy?

When will we, do you think?

How do you suppose the automatons would have surveyed the entire universe? You think they can travel faster? Why?

And how do you know ow these automatons have NOT visited Earth?

There is very good reason to believe billions of intelligent species have existed in our universe. And also good reason to believe it very possible that not one has been able to contact the human race.

Thus, the paradox vanishes.

 

[FA_Q2]

Which affirms that you really didn't read it.

I summarize the naturalist's underlying metaphysical bias in contrast to what the findings of abiogenetic research actually divulge. I give a few anecdotal examples of how the true believer of popular culture and of little real firsthand knowledge typically reacts to the learned assessments of those who do not presuppose naturalism. In other words, it's the presentation of the pertinent findings sans the naturalist's underlying bias that irks you. But, then, you didn't attentively read the bulk of the paper, as you obviously confound "the thematic device of competing metaphysics" with the objectively accurate presentation of the findings.

Also, there are in fact a number of compound-complex sentences in the paper, which tells me you don't know what a run-on sentence is.

In the meantime, the bulk of the paper strictly regards the research.

Lets say that ALL experiments and ALL conjectures about how abiogenesis occurred are totally and utterly false. None of them make any sense or are even remotely plausible.

That leaves you with one simple fact: there was no life on earth and then there was simple life that evolved into the state of affairs we see today. That fact strongly supports abiogenesis.

Present a coherent theory that is more explanatory than current abiogenesis theories and what sort of predictions can come of that theory. Otherwise, the statements that abiogenesis are a 'bridge to far' are irrelevant appeals to incredulity.

 

[FA_Q2]

To another species visiting us?

Um... gonna have to disagree with that.

We are an intelligent species. Why haven't we visited the Andromeda galaxy?

When will we, do you think?

How do you suppose the automatons would have surveyed the entire universe? You think they can travel faster? Why?

And how do you know ow these automatons have NOT visited Earth?

There is very good reason to believe billions of intelligent species have existed in our universe. And also good reason to believe it very possible that not one has been able to contact the human race.

Thus, the paradox vanishes.

Because we do not have anywhere near the technology. And 'faster' is not the point. You can accomplish this on fairly short timescales in a cosmological sense.

And as I said, it is NOT a paradox, the label does not fit. A paradox requires at least two things that are not compatible. There are various answers to the question posed by Fermi ergo the ideas are compatible but the particular answer to the question is a salient one.

I happen to think the most likely answer is that interstellar travel is nigh impossible to actually achieve in any consistent way which is sad IMHO (there will be no Star Trek explorations for the human race) but seems to be the best explanation. That intelligent life simply did not evolve elsewhere reminds me far to much of the earth is the center of the universe, the sun is the center of the universe, nothing can escape the earths gravitational pull and other examples of narrow thinking.

 

[FA_Q2]

Oh, it is much more than even that. Because most models only have the cores of a "standard planet" lasting from 2-3 billion years before it solidifies. And once the core dies, the planet dies.

This is a rather large assumption though, is it not? We have VERY few examples to go off of, only 2 really, as there really is only 2 stellar bodies that we have been able to extensively study: Earth and its moon. The rest of the solar system is still pretty much unexplored. We have ruled out 'advanced' civilizations for the most part but that certainly does not give us any real understanding of the boundaries around the existence of life. This is one of the reasons newer forms of cosmological arguments are rather bullshit IMHO, they focus very much on the idea that everything here is just perfect for us and if anything was changed there would be no life at all. I think it is clear that we are in utter ignorance about the various forms that life can take by the simple fact we cannot even define life properly. Not really, every time we do we find that there are examples that simply do not fit and/or poor examples that are clearly outside of what we view as life.

It seems to me that every single time we engage in this kind of narrow thinking, that what we see and understand represents anything close to the real boundaries of nature, we find that we were sorely mistaken. Even here, with a fairly good understanding of the structure of life that exists around us we are piss poor at predicting how prevalent life is. Every time we think there are areas of the planet that are devoid of life entirely, we find extremophiles when we look really close. Life can, it seems, adapt to almost any environment given just a little time.

 

[Uncensored2008]

The Greek Orthodox Church has dues and I believe most churches do. You may not be an actual member of the church you go to. You're just a party crasher. A free loader. You're going to hell.

There is no hell, moron.

There are no angels and no ET's either.

It's all make believe.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

And 'faster' is not the point.

Of course it is. At light speed, it would take 4 years to receive a reply to a message to the nearest galaxy.

Because we do not have anywhere near the technology.

Then who does? How long until we get it? Easy to say they don't have the tech either, then. And went extinct without acquiring it. Or have not yet acquired it. Or acquired it, but haven't managed to yet make their way to the little blue dot. Or acquired it and went extinct before making their way to earth. Lots of possibilties.

I happen to think the most likely answer is that interstellar travel is nigh impossible to actually achieve in any consistent way

Well there you go. Add that to the litany of reasons why it may be possible that billions of intelligent species have evolved in the universe, yet none have visited Earth.

And that is all that is needed for the paradox to vanish. And so it has.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

There is no hell, moron.

There are no angels and no ET's either.

It's all make believe.

Oh look, Shaman Uncensored has graced us with another divine declaration.

 

[FA_Q2]

Just because there’s a lot of planets out there, that doesn’t mean extraterrestrial intelligent life is inevitable. Personally, the sheer number of stars, planets, etc. Only serves to make me doubt all the more that there’s intelligent life outside of earth. Fermi Paradox.

We’ve spent tremendous effort to detect intelligent life, and all we have to show for it is deafening silence.

Given the mind-boggling distance just between individual stars, I’ll admit that we can never know for sure. But with all those planets, for all these billions of years intelligent life could have been potentially transmitting radio waves, why hasn’t a single intelligent-made extraterrestrial broadcast of some sort been detected here on earth? Even with these distances, why hasn’t some sort of alien probe or artifact been discovered since a nearly infinite amount of planets have had a nearly infinite amount of time?

At the bare minimum this suggests that if intelligent life *is*out there, it’s so unimaginably far away that we could never possibly contact them within the lifespan of our solar system. Or that interstellar travel is impossible beyond the few nearest stars. Or, most likely, that it simply isn’t out there at all.

There is absolutely zero evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life. So until such evidence presents itself the simplest assumption is that such life doesn’t exist. It’s not the most entertaining assumption, but it’s the most logical.

People love to concoct unnecessarily elaborate theories when they find reality and facts boring. That’s why conspiracy theories are popular.

There is not 'zero' evidence. Just not much. Life formed here and there are enough planets out there that to think our situation is wholly unique is a pretty massive assumption. To assume we are unique really does have no evidence for it whatsoever, every time we try and single out why our particular species is so 'special' and 'smart' we find that our assumptions are bullshit. We really are not all the different from our closest relatives on this planet, it is just that tiny difference makes a rather massive one in outcome over time.

That we cannot find any signals from them is not much of a surprise. How far do you think that we could be detected from our signals? What timeframe are you looking in.

The search using things like radio waves are pretty silly concepts, not only does the detection range just not cut it but the use of such technologies seem to be in a very tight window. The most unlikely realities IMHO is actually we are the only ones. That requires to much hubris considering the staggering numbers we are dealing with.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Oh look, Shaman Uncensored has graced us with another divine declaration.

Reality is such a strain on you...

 

[FA_Q2]

Of course it is. At light speed, it would take 4 ion years to receive a reply to a message to the nearest galaxy.

Which is, again, not relevent. The Fermi Paradox has nothing to do with communication whatsoever. Noting. Nada. Zilch.

That is your injection.

Then who does? How long until we get it? Easy to say they don't have the tech either, then. And went extinct without acquiring it. Or have not yet acquired it. Or acquired it, but haven't managed to yet make their way to the little blue dot.

No its not 'easy to say' unless you think we are the first advanced civilization. Given what we know about the formation of the galaxy and the formation of our solar system, the window where a civilization could form on a planet like ours spans hundreds of millions of years if not billions. And this operates under a false assumption that life or intelligent life requires the things we require.

Ergo, if other intelligent life exists, it is extremely unlikely we are the most advanced.

Well there you go. Add that to the litany of reasons why it may be possible that billions of intelligent species have evolved in the universe, yet none have visited Earth.

And that is all that is needed for the paradox to vanish. And so it has.

Sigh, I could repeat it again but it seems like you want to ignore the point that it never really was a paradox or that I have not explicitly stated that it is a salient question and not a paradox.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Which is, again, not relevent. The Fermi Paradox has nothing to do with communication whatsoever. Noting. Nada. Zilch.

100% wrong. If 1000 alien civilizations were sending us messages, we would not be talking about the Fermi paradox. And the point was that that communication travels at the speed of light, anyway.

No its not 'easy to say' unless you think we are the first advanced civilization.

Of course it is. Just as you say we might get the tech someday, which is to say we might not. So yes, it is very easy and correct to assume the same would be true of many of those species.

Keep adding these things up, and it becomes easly possible that billions of I telligent species have evolved, yet none have contacted us.

Thus, the paradox vanishes. This is all that needs to be shown, to render it useless hot garbage.

 

[Dadoalex]

This, according to some estimate, give or take quite a few zeroes I'm sure. A deeper philosophical question which goes beyond theology, though it certainly entangles it.

So, this number again, 1000000000000000000000 planets! According to The Institute of Astronomy at University of Cambridge. How many solar systems are there? | Institute of Astronomy

Putting the exact estimation aside. We would have to take a massive leap of faith to think that not only is there NOT other life in the universe, but, also of such existences, that there aren't many far more advanced than us.

Imagine a planet the size of Jupiter, 100's of billions of citizens. Imagine them not having our reptilian instincts of rage and violence, or developing weapons of war to be used against each other. Consider if they had the average brain power 250x that of our smartest humans, and existed for much longer, maybe lived on average 10000 years.

What would be the end result? Is there any religion that makes any consideration for this possibility (outside, I think Scientology)? It really is a daunting concept. We could be the most advanced by far, we might be Gods great creation. It would hardly seem we could be alone though based on the odds and even plain randomness.

There is most likely life out there somewhere.
But, if we're discussing sentient beings capable of building complex civilizations then they would be few, if any, and far between.
If they exist they are most likely long extinct or in pre-civilization states.
This capability has been evident on this planet for less than 150k years out of the 5 billion years this planet has existed.
There is evidence showing that we may drive all large mammal, aquatic, avian and reptilian life to extinction within 200 years.
If we use earth as the model then. if there is life out there, and if that life ever reached our level of technology, then, in all likelyhood, they are long extinct or millions of years from achieving sentience.

Also
There is little reason to believe that a species could become the dominant species on its planet without some level of aggression. Without that instinct those critters would have been eaten into extinction or be used a chattel by whatever species is dominant. There are few sentient species on this planet that do not fight for sex or food and those that don't are in no way dominant.

 

[Mushroom]

This is a rather large assumption though, is it not? We have VERY few examples to go off of, only 2 really, as there really is only 2 stellar bodies that we have been able to extensively study: Earth and its moon. The rest of the solar system is still pretty much unexplored.

Not at all. What, you think we actually have to land on a planet to detect if it has a magnetic field?

We know that Venus has a very weak one, and Mars basically has none. The gas giants have huge ones that makes that of the Earth pale by comparison. Jupiter by far has the largest magnetic field in the solar system next to the Sun. We also know that Earth has an unusually large core because it is essentially the core of two planets that have been combined into a single planet. Exactly how often do people think that has actually happened?

But we have also extensively studied Mars, and landed probes on Venus also. And at least visited each of the others with probes.

But some things can just be assumed by examination of what we do know and can observe. In an "average Earth sized body", outside of things like tidal forces the core will only stay molten for 3-5 billion years. That is the entire window available for most planets to cool, evolve life, and have it progress to the point where it can start to travel outwards before the core dies and the solar winds from its star start to scour away the atmosphere and leave it largely a dead rock (like Mars).

And there are also many other beliefs that are commonly accepted before beings could take those steps. Now remember, this is for space a space fairing race, not just life itself.

First of all, it could not be eternally covered in clouds. Any "intelligence" that evolved there would likely evolve the belief that what they are is the entirety of the "Universe", as they would not even see stars, other planets, or even their sun. That would be a huge mental issue to even start to explore above the lower atmosphere alone as most would believe there literally is nothing else "out there".

Also, that it must have at least one moderate sized satellite. Much as our Moon, to give them something to aim for in exploration. A place to go to in order to improve their technologies, and to act as a "stopping off point" for future explorations of the rest of their solar system. Without our moon, can anybody really imagine humans deciding "OK, great, we are now going to jump straight to trying to reach Mars"?

Also, there are other things like they would most likely be omnivores, and evolve to maturity in a gaseous atmosphere and not aquatic.

 

[FA_Q2]

Not at all. What, you think we actually have to land on a planet to detect if it has a magnetic field?

That was not the assumption that I was talking about.

The assumption that is a rather large one is the idea that life requires something like we have here or even a magnetic core at all.

We know that Venus has a very weak one, and Mars basically has none. The gas giants have huge ones that makes that of the Earth pale by comparison. Jupiter by far has the largest magnetic field in the solar system next to the Sun. We also know that Earth has an unusually large core because it is essentially the core of two planets that have been combined into a single planet. Exactly how often do people think that has actually happened?

We do not know. It may be VERY common. It may be almost unheard of. Because we havd zero examples to go off of other than the end result here we have little idea what those conditions would normally pose.

But the idea that it is even necessary is my contention. Not to mention that the timescale involved may not need to be nearly as long as it took us considering life here had to start over many times,

But we have also extensively studied Mars, and landed probes on Venus also. And at least visited each of the others with probes.

But some things can just be assumed by examination of what we do know and can observe. In an "average Earth sized body", outside of things like tidal forces the core will only stay molten for 3-5 billion years. That is the entire window available for most planets to cool, evolve life, and have it progress to the point where it can start to travel outwards before the core dies and the solar winds from its star start to scour away the atmosphere and leave it largely a dead rock (like Mars).

And there are also many other beliefs that are commonly accepted before beings could take those steps. Now remember, this is for space a space fairing race, not just life itself.

First of all, it could not be eternally covered in clouds. Any "intelligence" that evolved there would likely evolve the belief that what they are is the entirety of the "Universe", as they would not even see stars, other planets, or even their sun. That would be a huge mental issue to even start to explore above the lower atmosphere alone as most would believe there literally is nothing else "out there".

This is conjecture and nothing more. We cannot understand the minds of living things on this planet, trying to decipher what an intelligent species would think on any other is just pure conjecture. Hell, we do not properly understand our own minds.

Also, that it must have at least one moderate sized satellite. Much as our Moon, to give them something to aim for in exploration. A place to go to in order to improve their technologies, and to act as a "stopping off point" for future explorations of the rest of their solar system. Without our moon, can anybody really imagine humans deciding "OK, great, we are now going to jump straight to trying to reach Mars"?

Also, there are other things like they would most likely be omnivores, and evolve to maturity in a gaseous atmosphere and not aquatic.

Again, all just conjecture.

 

[Mushroom]

The assumption that is a rather large one is the idea that life requires something like we have here or even a magnetic core at all.

No magnetic core, no atmosphere. No atmosphere, no life.

That part is not exactly "rocket science". We have planets and moons with a magnetosphere, and those without. None without have an atmosphere. And the density of the atmosphere is in comparison to their magnetosphere. This is not "conjecture", it is an observable fact.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

The assumption that is a rather large one is the idea that life requires something like we have here or even a magnetic core at all.

Scientists don't really make that assumption. But given that there may be 100 million+ explanets in range of our instruments, it makes sense to narrow down the search to what we know about life. So we look for biomarkers and conditions that match the organics we know about.

 

[Ringtone]

What are you trying to say here? Sum it up.

It's perplexing how you don't seem to grasp that the excerpts from the article directly address your observation and subsequent questions.

How did you miss that the first time and then miss that again?

It's almost as if you're not really reading things.

 

[Ringtone]

What are you trying to say here? Sum it up.

Perplexing.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Perplexing.

Only because you are delusional. Nobody is going to read your magical manifesto.