What If We ARE Alone?

[Fort Fun Indiana]

What other planet in our solar system has a temperature range from 0 to 120?

No doubt there are several bodies in our solar system that have regions of their atmosphere or bodies that stay in that temperature range. Like, Europa.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Here are some thoughts about the STATISTICAL likelihood of life existing outside of Earth. It seems to me that we may be looking through the wrong end of a telescope by presuming that because life exists on Earth, it MUST exist elsewhere in the universe. What if it doesn't?

One way to look at this question is through statistical sampling. Let's hypothesize that there are 10 billion data points in the universe. Let's also take a random sample of a billion of these data points in order to determine the probability of life in the universe. A sample of this size is certainly enough to provide a confidence level of near certainty regarding its results. What if no life was detected in this sample? Wouldn't this lead us to conclude that there is no life in the universe?

Another way to look at this question is through probability calculations. A well-known equation is often used to assign probabilities to a finite number of conditions presumed to be necessary for life to exist and then essentially multiply them by infinity to produce a foregone conclusion of life existing elsewhere. However, since infinity is NOT a number, the universe can not contain an infinite number of data points. As a result, these calculations are based on a type of circular logic.

In addition, all of the conditions necessary for the creation of life are not known. But even if they were, the probability of them simultaneously occurring at the same time and place may be extremely small. Even without the time element, if there were 100,000 of these conditions with each having a one in a 100,000 probability of existing, there would be less than a 50% probability of them all occurring more than once.

Maybe we ARE all alone in the universe.

The problem with your statistics is they're based on not really knowing what a universe is, how life came about etc etc.

 

[BackAgain]

If you are referring to the Drake Equation - where does "infinity" come into play?

It's likely we will never know one way or the other.

Agreed. If there just happens to be no other sentient life in the entire universe, then yes. We are alone.

But if there does exist some other sentient life in the universe, given the limits of the speed for space flight and the enormous distances involved, it is very doubtful that we will ever meet them. So, as a practical matter, we end up in the same place.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Another way to look at this question is through probability calculations.

Not really, because then you are just making stuff up and almost certainly committing Hoyle's fallacy. Not.much way around it.

 

[lg325]

Maybe the reason why we are here is we are like a seed in the universe, and if life will exist in the universe it will come from our planet. It is the meaning behind ''be fruitfull and multiply''.

 

[Calypso Jones]

We are alone.
The Brilliant Creator made this universe just for us. When you study the science, it's obvious.
The science pointing this out was preceded by the revelations in the Holy Bible written many centuries before humans became so very sophisticated and advanced.
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
First Sentence in the first Chapter of the First Book.

Now the complexity of the human body, of atomic structure, of the Anthropic Principle, of the atomic reactor which gives us life, the sun, of the electromagnetic spectrum, of all these things and more there is profound evidence of the Hand of the Brilliant Creator in whom an overwhelming majority of Nobel Laureates in the sciences believe. Clue: They are not stupid. And they know things.

Beyond these considerations is this. IF, hypothetically speaking, there were some highly intelligent E.T., they would statistically be located over a billion light years away. Radiocommunications in either direction could never arrive to them from us or vice versa.

BUT IF THEY COULD, humans could not read hieroglyphics written by other humans until the Rosetta Stone was discovered, with three different languages giving the same message. So it is inconceivable that we could read some coded message in an unknown language from hypothetical E.T. We hear whales shrieking in the oceans and they have the largest brains on earth and we have no idea what they are saying. Q.E.D.

View attachment 781715

BUT IF WE COULD read whatever it is E.T. sent to us, it would be of no value because their biology and life practices would be so extraordinarily different from ours it would be like us communicating with the deepest fish in the ocean, asking about diseases and cures and politics and faith.

So the United States wasted a couple hundred million dollars sending the interstellar probe with its gold record, in hopes of E.T. finding it and playing it. Thanks for wasting all that money, Carl Sagan. You could have argued against it, but no, instead you and your wife profited from it and quite handsomely no doubt.

View attachment 781716

Sagan always knew there were no inhabited planets... but these NASA fundraisers were very successful. A record you say? in gold? I wonder if Carl and the Missus exchanged the gold one for one of his own? You know the joke about the folk owing the deceased so they put cash in the casket with him. The last guy wrote a check for over the amount and took the change?

 

[toobfreak]

Maybe we ARE all alone in the universe.

No. Be assured. Life is everywhere.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Sagan always knew there were no inhabited planets...

Sagan was looking beyond our solar system. And we still cant rule out life elsewhere in our solar system anyway.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

No. Be assured. Life is everywhere.

Yep. That's kinda sorta what life IS. What it does. It persists. That's why we observe it.

 

[LibertyWeeps]

Are we "alone"?

In our section of the universe, so far................yes.

Logic would dictate that with the extreme imited knowledge we have on this planet of the universe, we can only speak from what we see from our little rock. And we see very little at that.

Is there life on other planets? Of course there is.
On ALL planets? It depends on the atmospheric processes that particular planet has. Not all planets can support life.

At this point in time, from what very little human scientists can divulge and theorize from our standpoint in our section of the universe......."life" is subjective to massive amounts of guesswork and theories. And most "life" that is hypothesized is usually micro-organisms. Not viable beings building spaceships. Maybe on the other side of the universe, but nothing from our line of vision.

Mars has life. It's molecular, but they claim it's there. So, Mars has life.
Not this bullshit that the movies suggest, where ANY planet with life has beings on it worthy of creating a civilization or interstellar flight.

Even IF there were life on other planets that could build civilizations and space flight, why the hell would they waste shitloads of resources to the ghetto side of the universe? It is ludicrous to think that any E.T.s out there would want to waste so many resources and spend years, if not centuries, blowing thru the universe just to make a drive by on this little planet. I'd think if they are intelligent enough to be THAT capable of creating such flight.....they'd also be intelligent enough to know that is a useless gesture and a failed attempt at whatever their reason would be.

 

[Mushroom]

Extremophiles can live in heat vents deep in the ocean and on silicate in deep space.

And in many other places.

But they can not evolve in deep space, so to be honest that is rather pointless to even bring up. In fact, they do not even seem to be able to "live" there, but survive in a form of stasis like water bears can do.

 

[Mushroom]

What other planet in our solar system has a temperature range from 0 to 120?

Now? No others.

In the past, at least two others.

And on our planet it has gone below 0C multiple times. Where life was not possible on the surface, but continues underground or under the oceans.

 

[toobfreak]

Are we "alone"? In our section of the universe, so far................yes.

Life might be as close as the Jovian moon Europa.

Actually, one of the most remarkable happenstances imaginable would be if in the immensity of our universe we really were alone.

 

[Deplorable Yankee]

Here are some thoughts about the STATISTICAL likelihood of life existing outside of Earth. It seems to me that we may be looking through the wrong end of a telescope by presuming that because life exists on Earth, it MUST exist elsewhere in the universe. What if it doesn't?

One way to look at this question is through statistical sampling. Let's hypothesize that there are 10 billion data points in the universe. Let's also take a random sample of a billion of these data points in order to determine the probability of life in the universe. A sample of this size is certainly enough to provide a confidence level of near certainty regarding its results. What if no life was detected in this sample? Wouldn't this lead us to conclude that there is no life in the universe?

Another way to look at this question is through probability calculations. A well-known equation is often used to assign probabilities to a finite number of conditions presumed to be necessary for life to exist and then essentially multiply them by infinity to produce a foregone conclusion of life existing elsewhere. However, since infinity is NOT a number, the universe can not contain an infinite number of data points. As a result, these calculations are based on a type of circular logic.

In addition, all of the conditions necessary for the creation of life are not known. But even if they were, the probability of them simultaneously occurring at the same time and place may be extremely small. Even without the time element, if there were 100,000 of these conditions with each having a one in a 100,000 probability of existing, there would be less than a 50% probability of them all occurring more than once.

Maybe we ARE all alone in the universe.

No f****** way
And civilizations have been going and coming and coming and going since the dawn of time
Even right here on earth

 

[Mushroom]

You need to be more specific. What kind of life? People? Cyanobacteria?

There are probably more planets that can sustain simple life than there are planets where it can form in the first place. Which is probably a trillion trillion. And that is being conservative.

And I bet the overwhelming majority come in the form of the latter.

Even out of all the planets in the "Goldilocks Zone", and around the right kind of star, how many are then going to have a core capable of life ever evolving past "pond scum"?

We know out planet has an oversized core, a core caused by a lucky collision shortly after it was created that is basically the core of two Mars sized planets. That will remain molten for so long that the sun will consume the planet before it ever goes cold.

I bet the majority are far more like Mars. The conditions are right, life starts, then goes extinct after the core solidifies and it can not even evolve to the point of multi-cellular life.

 

[toobfreak]

No f****** way And civilizations have been going and coming and coming and going since the dawn of time Even right here on earth

What's surprising is that the girl in the video actually got pretty much all of the details right.

The only thing she left out was why the map is shaped like a cats eye with dark wedges to the Left and Right.

That's called the Zone of Avoidance, basically a leftover term for the fact that we cannot see through the plane of our Milky Way.

 

[Mushroom]

Speak for yourself. "This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." The Brilliant Creator's Scriptures and abundant works lead every one of His followers to truth and hope. The meaning of life is thoroughly explained in Scriptures. Your problem is that you reject Them. Large numbers of stars and planets are trivial compared with the insuperable statistics of original polypeptide synthesis. I explain it here: Mathematical Proof of Nature's God

And this is a science area, not a theology area.

If you want to discuss "God" and life on other planets, that is a far better place to post such nonsense.

If faith is required, it is not science.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

And I bet the overwhelming majority come in the form of the latter.

Even out of all the planets in the "Goldilocks Zone", and around the right kind of star, how many are then going to have a core capable of life ever evolving past "pond scum"?

We know out planet has an oversized core, a core caused by a lucky collision shortly after it was created that is basically the core of two Mars sized planets. That will remain molten for so long that the sun will consume the planet before it ever goes cold.

I bet the majority are far more like Mars. The conditions are right, life starts, then goes extinct after the core solidifies and it can not even evolve to the point of multi-cellular life.

There is good reason to think that. Probably so. And also good reason to think our solar system is not all that special. Or our planet.

Another interesting idea is that life everywhere is probably carbon based, and also good reason to think much of it is DNA-based. DNA keeps being affirmed as the most efficient configuration of the bases available and other amino acids for storing information. There is good reason to think a lot of life finds the efficient DNA model.

 

[Mushroom]

The problem with your statistics is they're based on not really knowing what a universe is, how life came about etc etc.

Or by tossing out all of the locations it is not possible at all.

Roughly 25% of stars in spiral galaxies occur in the Galactic Center of their respective galaxies. You can toss all of those out right off the bat for a great many reasons. Insane amounts of radiation from all directions, as well as the absolutely insane movements of the stars themselves. The stars inside the center most in an almost chaotic manner, as gravitationally they are being pulled all over the place.

Also kick out all of those around brown dwarfs and red dwarfs. And planets around any star that is not Population I. Or around the super-massive stars.

Only then can we even start to consider planets in the "Goldilocks Zone". And you have to then look at many other things.

Like for example, how long will the core remain molten? Because once a planetary core goes cold the clock is running on when the atmosphere is stripped away by solar winds. If not for the collision of "Earth Mark I" with Theia, our core also would have gone cold billions of years ago. At roughly the time of the Great Oxidation Event. When almost all life were single celled anoxygenic bacteria. Which were thriving on the sulfur in the hydrogen sulfide and emitting oxygen as a waste product.

 

[Mushroom]

There is good reason to think that. Probably so. And also good reason to think our solar system is not all that special. Or our planet.

But how long will the biosphere of 99.999999999999% of planets survive long enough for any life to evolve beyond "pond scum"?

And if they even manage to evolve past "advanced pond scum", are the going to be able to survive all the extinction events? Because as we have seen on our own planet, the largest extinction event ever was caused by life itself.