The Billion-Year Alien Technology Gap: Could One Exist?

[Ichingcarpenter]

Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, and yet the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a statistical standpoint, to be quite small. There are an estimated 250 billion (2.5 x 10¹¹ ) stars in the Milky Way alone, and over 70 sextillion (7 x 10²² ) in the visible universe, and many of them are surrounded by multiple planets.

Meanwhile, our 4.5 billion-year old Solar System exits in a universe that is estimated to be between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. Experts believe that there could be advanced civilizations out there that have existed for 1.8 gigayears (one gigayear = one billion years).

Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, points out that the median age of terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears greater than the age of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial communities.

Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, it likely means one of the following:

We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and so very far away we’ll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a practical sense at least.

Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely undetectable by our instruments.

Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area............SNIP.......


MORE OF THE STORY HERE:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/11/the-billionyear-technology-gap-could-one-exist-the-weekend-feature.html?utm_source=feedburner

[Warpy]

1. Our system is still in its adolescence

and our species could very well just be the rough draft for intelligent life. We really don't know that. Other species, like some of the dinosaurs millions of years ago and cetaceans now, are equipped to be more intelligent than we are but never developed technology that we've been able to discern.

Intelligence is a pretty slippery commodity and might be expressed in many different ways.

Perhaps we'll reach that limit with technology and the next intelligent species will express it in a completely different way.

However, thinking we're alone in a universe this vast is preposterous.

[Orsino]

23. ...but in its middle age when it comes to supporting complex life.

Astrobiology tells us that we are about half-way through the Solar System's billion-year "sweet spot" for multicellular organisms.

[Prometheuspan]

40. true but

we can increase that span if we move our planet around as the sun changes size....


plus, thats not going to be true everywhere else...

[Warren Stupidity]

2. I vote for C: rare and short intelligent life it is.

Technological civilizations are rare enough and short enough in lifespan to preclude detection using current mechanisms. It is the simplest explanation for SETI failure.

[Prometheuspan]

41. "It is the simplest explanation for SETI failure."

The size of the universe means that the sheer largeness of it would preclude this phenomnenon as highly probable; ie; social systems
are highly entropic, but to say unequivocally that the failure is explained that way is silly, when it seems that in fact the far more likely answers for setis failure are these.

1. Advanced billion year old civilizations aren't interested in us, because we are too primitive.
2. They don't use radio signals any more because technology is evolutionary at at a billion years old they would have access to
other quanta with much sleighter brane interactions and ftl possibilities to play with.
3. The cosmic law of non agression includes violations of that law by accident. What few trekies fail to understand is that by intergalactic law all agressors are destroyed by the full force of all intergalactic participants. Agression is not tolerated because
with any kind of interstellar drive you also have the power to wipe out whole planets easily, so the science fiction while dramatic
isn't happening because the tech levels are many levels beyond that and because where war evolves it is utterly eradicated.

4. War might be taken to include actions which lead a civilization to its own demise significantly faster than they might have otherwise gone; non intervention is not about anything other than an intergalactic enforced absolute ban on interacting because that
could start violent things, it could be bad one way or the other, and then galactic police have to come, it all gets very expensive...
etc,.

5. Thus, until humanity evolves to be non agressive, truly, it will not be contacted.

6. Except by means which could be explained away as being mere psychological aberations... IE...
people who bother to do the shamanic work, wake up, and go be cosmic diplomats... being the obvious exception...

7. The means by which to contact them is entirely psychic; and the signal we are now sending without being aware that we are sending it is a whole lot worse than most people realize.

When you used to wonder if "God" was looking down in on you for real or that was just a religious scare tactic, i can comfort you there, god is as limited by scale as we are. On the other hand, its very likely that dozens of different civilizations have made full data copies of this planet for a full million of its years, and have recorded thus every last action you ever made and thus could oh yes if that bored pin you up on the monitor and watch you... and laugh.

[villager]

3. Thanks for the link!

One does wonder/worry about that self-limiting "Achilles Heel" theory for "advanced" "civilizations..."

[TreasonousBastard]

4. How about they are just too far away to be seen? Or too...

far to travel here?

Much of the observable universe is what happened millions of years ago. We're now seeing faraway galaxies as they existed billions of years ago. we have no idea what's going on there now.

Our own galaxy is about 100,000 light years wide, and we're one of the older solar systems in it, so while there is the great chance of life elsewhere in the galaxy the light takes thousands of years to get here, and we can't know how far it might have progressed.

[havocmom]

12. Or too smart to come and say howdy to a rowdy, self destructive species like us

If I could avoid human-kind, I sure would give it a try.

[exboyfil]

15. You need at least a second generation solar system

because of the heavy elements required to be generated from the first generation fusion of a supernova. From our observations most other solar systems look pretty unlikely to contain a stable goldilocks zone (granted we have a selection bias going on because our solar system's planets would be very difficult to detect with our current technology). Also Einstein is probably right and we have a cosmic speed limit on any interactions.

When we started finding extrasolar planets many of our theories of solar system formation came into question. While life started pretty early in the Earth's history complex and finally technological life have been a rather late development (and we went through more than one "keyhole" event getting to this point). It could also be argued that the cold war was another "keyhole" event that could have ended rather differently, and we are still not out of the woods. We also have asteroids, comets, and gamma ray bursts to contend with.

Even if intelligent life is detected, unless it is within 100 light years or so it really will not have much bearing on us (unless they are broadcasting the equivalent of an intergalactic encyclopedia).

An interesting article attached which estimates, from computer simulation 361 to 38,000 technological civilizations forming since the beginning of the Milky Way. Of course crap in and then crap out. 361 (or even 100,000 civilizations) within a 100,000 light year disc which is 10,000 light years thick does not lead to very close packing. The total volume is 8x10^13 light years. The volume per civilization is 8x10^8 light years^3.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/02/25/galaxy.planets.kepler/index.html

[Prometheuspan]

42. right estimates

"An interesting article attached which estimates, from computer simulation 361 to 38,000 technological civilizations forming since the beginning of the Milky Way. Of course crap in and then crap out. 361 (or even 100,000 civilizations) within a 100,000 light year disc which is 10,000 light years thick does not lead to very close packing. The total volume is 8x10^13 light years. The volume per civilization is 8x10^8 light years^3."

that figure seems a bit high. I would bet more like perhaps 40 or a hundred technologies comparable to ours, and just a few thousand simple tool users. Life is more probable than most estimates but intelligent life less and tool using life less.

Species that make it past the technology bump are very rare, IE, entropic self destruction weeds out unbalanced civilizations very
effectively usually well before space travel or even radio.

Nuclear power eventually makes every individual virtually omnipotent- ie, able to drive themselves to pluto or wipe out all life on one planet.

To survive that, every member has to be very emotionally stable and sane. Earth as is with that power would be finished, too many people are willing to blow themselves up to smite somebody else... and we are only 20 years or so away from that technological eventuality.

Nuclear power then is small compared to various forms of high level quantum holography, which are tiny compared to any kind of control over the gravitational force. A functional warp drive by another design is a solar system eater.
Same gadget different setting.

The billion year old civilizations are thus very rare, and they don't get involved with the pond scum because pond scum can be dangerous.

[niceypoo]

5. Imagine the video games they have...

[Orrex]

19. And the porn...

Fund SETI now!

[notesdev]

6. It may be

that life gets just intelligent enough to harness the power of the universe to destroy itself

[Thor_MN]

7. My theory is that every intelligent species eventually develops a GOP analog

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. and self-destructs, out of respect of the rest of the universe?

[FiveGoodMen]

57. And self-destructs out of DISrespect for each other.

[cowcommander]

8. Prime Directive

Chances are if they're advanced enough, they're applying it on our civilization right now.

[silverweb]

16. Bingo.

That's my thought, too. At least, that's what I like to think. :)

[Orsino]

24. Does that mean punching us when we get out of line...

...then sleeping with our women?

[Swede]

27. Set phasers on caress?

:shrug:

[Prometheuspan]

38. telecron beams, not phasers.

the optimum means of communicating with any truly advanced civilization across intergalactic distances is obviously telepathy.
Humanz might not think so, but then their collective unconscious is just filled with the parasites they have created in the name of
all their false gods, vices, and distractions.

If humanz could clear their lower astral by not having a civilization at war with itself psychologically, it would become an increasing evolutionary trait to tune more deeply into the collective, and then humanz would evolve telepathy more directly, ie,
the ability to use telepathy whilst not in a waking theta brainwave state.

until then, humanz can't use telepathy because they can't access waking theta conditions, because they are so conflicted internally over the conflicts between the reptile and the mammalian instincts, and fighting each other over those conflicts to keep them constantly lit.

Lets get back to why telecrons? they allready hop branes like gravity does, but they have an even weaker brane interaction. They
are inherently non localized because they exist inside of their brane subspace domain which is space/time less. They interact only very weakly with this universe (as fizz off the top of a smelly biochemistry experiment.)

However, just as mass is ultimately equal to energy as we peer down in scale, energy even smaller in scale ends up being only information. Space time is an easy Da'at for this table of corresponding symbols from different paradigms, and consciousness is the obvious keter.

The universe exists in the end because it is observed. At first this may be a lot less true, but as time goes by, what freezes quantum /quantum interactions and thus pins down the direction of a timelines is observation and thus cemented quantum information across FTL distances.

I have news for those scientists. Every attempt is and has been and is being made to contact them. They are the ones who don't know how to listen.

[Prometheuspan]

39. psychology primer

General
1.Psychology is the study of the human mind. Most specifically the psyche, most generally All of human behavior.
2. The human Brain is composed of between 40 and 70 different organs, depending upon
how you define differences. These are called brodmanns brain areas. Each brain area
is responsible for specific types of brain processes and mental functions.
3. The human mind has four main operational conditions, they are beta brainwave states, alpha brainwave states, delta brainwave states, and theta brainwave states. Each of these might be further subdivided into waking or sleeping states of consciousness.
4. Beta brainwave states are those in which the dominant area of the brain is the frontal lobes. Alpha brainwave states are those in which the dominant area of the brain is the Mammalian brain or Occipital lobes, and Delta brainwaves states are those where the brain is dominated by the Reptilian Brain or brain stem. Theta brain wave states are
a second waking condition in which the body is healed, or, in which the normal flow of
dominance from top of brain to bottom of brain is reversed, and the bottom of the brain
loads information into the top, which is then experienced as dreams.
5. We have instincts which compel us to seek out gratification of our needs. All behavior is motivated by a conscious or unconscious belief that said behavior will get some need met.
6. Psychology involves first an instinct, which compels a thought process, and then a planning or strategizing session in which the individual uses their maps of reality and belief systems as well as learned knowledge and social conditioning to arrive at an end
product of doing something to get what you want. Schema are maps of reality which we
use as tools to meet our needs .Social Conditioning and personal experience and learning
play vital roles in helping the mind to think up tactics to meet needs.
7. Criminal behavior is behavior which that person believes will get their needs met. Punishment was well demonstrated to have little or no effect on learning curve. What is required for a person to change their behavior is a functional tactic that does work to get their needs met.
8. Groupthink is a social phenomenon of psychology where a group uses false
consensus process to end up behaving stupidly as a group. Groupthink occurs when
people cave into social pressures, where propaganda replaces knowledge or facts, and where group identity is created out of participation in group delusions, lies, codependency, or criminality. Groupthink is how a mob drifts to the lowest common denominator, and why a mob is potentially vicious, evil, and sociopathic. Group
authority ameliorates and dissolves personal conscience, and by having their emotions
manipulated and their social identity threatened, people give up their own better judgment and accept the judgment of the most psychopathic member of the group.
9. Pack Psychology is the psychology exhibited primarily by mammals in small groups
in which 3 primary roles are assumed by social participants. The roles are Alpha- the leader, Beta- the followers, and Delta- the orbiters. In human society that translates in a super-simplified way into bullies, cliques, and nerds.
10. Problem solving psychology must contend against groupthink and pack psychology in the arena of opinion. Problem solving psychology is emotionally neutral and uses the mind and logic to look at all aspects of a problem and try to come up with a viable problem solving process. Problem solving psychology is the worst enemy of both
Rightist and Leftist Dogmatists. True problem solving psychology comes from the place of the radical middle. It takes in all sides and all viewpoints, and it gives each its fair dues
And attention in creating a problem solving process that works from the big picture down through into the nano details.


Psychology;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology
http://psychology.about.com/
http://www.psychology.org/
http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-psychlgy.html
http://www.socialpsychology.org/

Brodmanns brain areas and etc;
http://www.umich.edu/~cogneuro/jpg/Brodmann.html
http://spot.colorado.edu/~dubin/talks/brodmann/brodmann.html
http://www.whale.to/b/brain.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodmann_area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_in_the_human_brain
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/outil_jaune05.html
http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmccaff/syllabi/CMSD%20320/362unit4.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/qa2.html

brainwaves;
http://www.brainwaves.com/brain.html
http://pages.prodigy.net/unohu/brainwaves.htm
http://brain.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm
http://www.crossroadsinstitute.org/eeg.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwaves

[Myrina]

10. ... imagine what they see when they tap into our satellites ...

FAUX, Dancing with the stars, Cagefighting, the Shopping Channels, Keeping up with the Kardashians, the Jesus Channels ...I'm really not at all surprised they haven't said Hello ... we're like the crazy neighbor down the street that has 50 cats and probably stashes his relatives' bodies in his basement.

[Prometheuspan]

37. why would they do that?

Its so much more efficient to just open a cosm bubble, give it spatial analogality to the malkutian universe, and then snag a full data copy of the entire planet using a recursive tachyon stream.

[Speck Tater]

11. As each civilization invents video games, and as those games become more sophisticated...

eventually the whole population of that civilization ends up sitting on the couch playing games instead of expanding out into the universe at large.

[Prometheuspan]

36. actually, thats has happened...

thats one of the primary fundamentals. Not video games per sey, but exotic technological self stimulation. Video games in particular
are mostly an earth convention, an alien civilization would get similarly stumped say, tracking down the exact DNA sequence of every organism in its biosphere, or some such. Maybe they all play music and party on their technological musical instruments. The point is that its a valid basic idea but it presumes a human idiom and human perspective and human technologies and even human biological type.

[Birthmark]

13. D. They have decided to ignore us

E. They are extremely xenophobic and a battle fleet is on its way to Earth this very moment. No use in warning us, eh?
F. Their technology is soooo advanced that they've forgotten anyone ever communicated with radio waves
G. The signal they use is indistinguishable from the background without sophisticated equipment

Honestly, we have almost no basis for making any judgments. We've only been listening a fairly short time.

[Prometheuspan]

35. your letters/options

"E. They are extremely xenophobic and a battle fleet is on its way to Earth this very moment. No use in warning us, eh?"

what could possibly motivate a stable billion year old civilization to do something like that, and how could they survive that long being zenophobic and picking wars?

All billion year old civilizations are by definition peaceful, or they wouldn't have lasted that long.




"F. Their technology is soooo advanced that they've forgotten anyone ever communicated with radio waves"

this should go without saying. Earth human scientists seem stumped on electrons and photons as if those are the only two particles
in the zoo worth manipulating for signal.


"G. The signal they use is indistinguishable from the background without sophisticated equipment."

No, two main methods are employed, one uses particles that your science hasn't even been able to find at all...
so yes, partially true, and the other method simply sends signal through other possible worlds/universes with much lower cosmological constants, or creates a superspatial cosm with an analog spatially to our universe.

Either way, the main problem is the signals aren't sent inside of what scientists are looking at; their narrow bandwidth of brane space.


"Honestly, we have almost no basis for making any judgments. We've only been listening a fairly short time. "

We are presuming a billion year old civilization never makes it past radio signals.

Maybe other civilizations don't like adding to the local cancer causes and have better means to communicate.

and might find our use of such not only laughable, but stupid and self destructive and even slightly disgusting.

[Ready4Change]

50. Thoughts

I find the Star Trekian idea (that any highly advanced civilization MUST be peaceful) to be naive.

Nature, as far as I've observed it, is only peaceful and benign in spurts, and of little consolation to individuals. But on a small scale, and on a daily basis, nature is a real bitch. Observe hornets turning cicadas into doomed-to-death living nurseries for their larvae, or a cat teaching kittens to hunt mice, and then tell me that nature gives a damn about individual creatures.

Then observe the historic record of species extinctions, and look beyond the time that humans have existed. Nature commits genocide on a, universally speaking, regular basis. There is zero reason to think that on a larger, interstellar, scale that nature should suddenly start giving a damn about some obscure simian species.

Each species 'prime directive' is to survive. If it's not, they won't. And once a species advances to the point where they aren't doomed by their original stars death, their only real survival threat is other species coming to the fore. It makes SENSE, on a species level, to keep other species down. And, if species A is sufficiently more advanced than species B, it might seem more like animal management than 'genocide.' It would be called 'saving a species from itself.'

Our 'salvation' in the form of a great big rock might be on the way as I type. Even if we spot it coming, if it's sufficiently large and fast, we wouldn't have the means to stop it, nor escape it.

[Prometheuspan]

52. cosmic sociology 101

"I find the Star Trekian idea (that any highly advanced civilization MUST be peaceful) to be naive."

The problem is that what most people miss is that there are billion year old civilizations out there, and they got that way by being
peaceful, a non peaceful civilization is inherently self destructive, and sooner or later even the borg run into beings that can look down on them as nothing more than flash pan pests.



"Nature, as far as I've observed it, is only peaceful and benign in spurts, and of little consolation to individuals."

yes, exactly, the law of the jungle is violence. Thats why its so hard to make it to actual civilization.




" But on a small scale, and on a daily basis, nature is a real bitch. Observe hornets turning cicadas into doomed-to-death living nurseries for their larvae, or a cat teaching kittens to hunt mice, and then tell me that nature gives a damn about individual creatures."

It doesn't. But we are talking about billion year old civilizations here, not cats or hornets.
in order to last that long they had to be at peace with other civilizations, its simple if you stop to think on it.


"Then observe the historic record of species extinctions, and look beyond the time that humans have existed. Nature commits genocide on a, universally speaking, regular basis. There is zero reason to think that on a larger, interstellar, scale that nature should suddenly start giving a damn about some obscure simian species."

You are right, but thats nature, not sentients who favor peace because thats whats good for them and the other billion year old civilizations.


"Each species 'prime directive' is to survive. If it's not, they won't. And once a species advances to the point where they aren't doomed by their original stars death, their only real survival threat is other species coming to the fore. It makes SENSE, on a species level, to keep other species down."

Why? Space is big, you think they actually need to argue over real estate? Billion year old civilization build whole universes like we build houses, what are they going to fight over?





"And, if species A is sufficiently more advanced than species B, it might seem more like animal management than 'genocide.' It would be called 'saving a species from itself."

You are missing the problem that its not just one sentient species out there, its millions of them, all with technology beyond most peoples imaginations, well beyond star trek or etc.



"Our 'salvation' in the form of a great big rock might be on the way as I type. Even if we spot it coming, if it's sufficiently large and fast, we wouldn't have the means to stop it, nor escape it."

Yes, but how many civilizations would witness and object to such an action?

[Ready4Change]

58. As taught at what university?

Your position is based on several unsupported ideas.

That there are already billion year old civilizations out there.
There are zero facts to support that. Haven't seen them. Haven't heard from them. Either they don't exist, or they haven't found us, or they are choosing to not communicate with us. Whichever, there are NO facts regarding this.

That any advanced and powerful civ MUST be peaceful.
Based on what? Earth history is ALL we have. Nearly every society that has existed in all of recorded history either rose through conflict, changed through conflict, or ended in conflict. (Most were subjected to all 3 during their rise and fall.) No exceptions.

All observable evidence points to other civ's being ready and able to fight through conflicts.

That resources are unlimited for a suitably advanced civ, and therefor they'd have nothing to fight over.
Just because a civ is super advanced does NOT mean it doesn't face restrictions. As far as we have seen today, everything has a cost. There is no reason to assume that fact changes on a macro scale.

That space is so huge that they can expand forever and not come into conflict. They can instead just move in different directions.
Yah, no one fought over rights to the New World. We could just 'go west' forever and ever and ever and never find cause to fight ANYONE. Advancing technology (trains) never brought that to an end. That's why we are so peaceful today, unlike our barbarous ancestors.

The New World is an example of abundant resources CAUSING conflict.

Space is so huge. Yet an advanced Civ would self destruct if it were violent
This, to me, is a contradictory position. If an advanced civ can avoid conflict through vast expansion, it should also be able to avoid annihilation through the same means. If so, it is free to fight if an advantage can thus be gained.

If it can't expand away from all problems, then space is limited, and that creates bottle necked reasons to fight.

Either way, the fight would seem to be on.

-

Now, I'm not saying that there cannot be a billion year old, beneficent, universal super civ, just waiting for us to grow up before making contact. Frankly, that would (possibly) be a great thing. I'm just saying that there's no EVIDENCE for that. And what evidence we CAN examine actually points in the other direction.

[Prometheuspan]

59. supported ideas

"Your position is based on several unsupported ideas.

That there are already billion year old civilizations out there."

yeah? so?


"There are zero facts to support that."

other than the size of the universe and the sheer odds...

"Haven't seen them. Haven't heard from them. Either they don't exist, or they haven't found us, or they are choosing to not communicate with us. Whichever, there are NO facts regarding this."

As i might state again, those are your limitations, not mine.


"That any advanced and powerful civ MUST be peaceful.
Based on what? Earth history is ALL we have. Nearly every society that has existed in all of recorded history either rose through conflict, changed through conflict, or ended in conflict. (Most were subjected to all 3 during their rise and fall.) No exceptions."

I made this argument elsewhere. A long term civilization can't survive if it is violent because its not alone.


"All observable evidence points to other civ's being ready and able to fight through conflicts."

Ready and able is very different from interested in or looking for it.


"That resources are unlimited for a suitably advanced civ, and therefor they'd have nothing to fight over.
Just because a civ is super advanced does NOT mean it doesn't face restrictions. As far as we have seen today, everything has a cost. There is no reason to assume that fact changes on a macro scale."

other than technological singularities, in which case, you can just build matter and energy as much as you like.


"That space is so huge that they can expand forever and not come into conflict. They can instead just move in different directions.
Yah, no one fought over rights to the New World."

and the earth is a mote of dust on the galactic wind.
Orders of magnitude smaller than the spaces such civilizations would naturally stake out.


"We could just 'go west' forever and ever and ever and never find cause to fight ANYONE. Advancing technology (trains) never brought that to an end. That's why we are so peaceful today, unlike our barbarous ancestors."

Err, no, your not peaceful, your in two wars and your civlization is still based on competition rather than cooperation.


"The New World is an example of abundant resources CAUSING conflict."

At a micro scale level so small compared to the scales we are talking about so as to be apples and oranges which can't be compared.


"Space is so huge. Yet an advanced Civ would self destruct if it were violent
This, to me, is a contradictory position. If an advanced civ can avoid conflict through vast expansion, it should also be able to avoid annihilation through the same means. If so, it is free to fight if an advantage can thus be gained."

No, you are trying to carry your civilizations justifications for war and violence over into anthropomorphications.


"If it can't expand away from all problems, then space is limited, and that creates bottle necked reasons to fight.

Either way, the fight would seem to be on."

Again, thats just not true.


-

"Now, I'm not saying that there cannot be a billion year old, beneficent, universal super civ, just waiting for us to grow up before making contact. Frankly, that would (possibly) be a great thing. I'm just saying that there's no EVIDENCE for that. And what evidence we CAN examine actually points in the other direction.
Welcome back, USA."

I'd advise you again to begin searching for ways to contact aliens.

As soon as you chat with them, you will understand. Until you do, your just a human projecting your biases.

[Ready4Change]

45. I agree. We've used radio for communications for ~150 years.

And 150 years is a VERY generous estimate. But still, that's an eye blink in universal terms.

Yet we ourselves have undergone change. What would Maxwell have done, had he detected today's digital HD TV signals? And that's a changed that arose in a mere 150 years.

We can try to imagine what changes 1,000 years, or 10,000 years might bring. But TRY is the keyword. Unless those other civilizations choose to dumb down their communications, we may be left on hold in the dark for a long, long time.

[mrcheerful]

14. Whats even more scarier is just think of advanced race of Palin supporters

running a world.

[Ghost Dog]

17. That's like so wow I meanyouknow oxymoranical.

[laconicsax]

21. It was called the Dark Ages.

[htuttle]

18. Our very first radiotelegraph transmissions have barely reached 1000 stars so far

At about 100 ly out, they've traveled barely 10% of the thickness of the galactic disk. And those were really weak signals back then.

As the Magic 8 Ball says, "Too Soon To Tell"

[pokerfan]

20. It's all speculation at this point

We need more data before we can start passing judgment on the likelihood of extraterrestrial intelligence. We don't even know how likely simply life is in general. Finding life elsewhere in the solar system would go a long ways towards filling in some of the variables in the Drake Equation.

All we know is that it's happened at least once. Still, we were perfectly content as single cell life for a billion years before the first eukaryote emerged. And the dinosaurs ruled for 160 million years without developing technological intelligence -- which is about a thousand times longer than modern humans have been on the scene. Perhaps it takes an unlikely chain of events to foment intelligence. 10²² is a big number to be sure but what if the odds of our existence are say, 1:10²³?

The short answer is we don't know. As far as SETI goes, we've only been listening for fifty years and we are only capable of picking up a signal directed at us. We don't yet have the technology to listen in on the inadvertent electromagnetic emissions of the nearest system if they exist. Perhaps ETIs use a form of communication that exploits some physical law we haven't even yet conceived ala Star Trek's "subspace."

Perhaps technologically adept species, provided they survive adolescence, quickly (within a few thousand years) develop essentially god-like powers than render them inconceivable and imperceptible to lesser intelligences. Something akin to the "First Ones" on Bablyon 5. Certainly, they're likely to be immortal in some fashion, perhaps existing as a single intelligence. Maybe they're more concerned with surviving the eventual fate of this universe than trying to communicate with what is essentially a fungus compared to them. Maybe they create their own "designer universes" to live in. Who knows?

Better telescopes (in all bands) are needed. The Kepler project will go a long way towards determining the likelihood of extrasolar terrestrial planets. Better and larger radio telescopes (perhaps one located on the lunar far side or orbiting far away from Earth). Larger orbiting optical arrays capable of imaging terrestrial planets and determining their chemical make up (even evidence of life).

It's an exciting time to be alive to be sure but every now and again I want to hit fast forward and skip ahead about a thousand years.

[Prometheuspan]

34. "The short answer is we don't know."

That depends on who you mean by we, and what grade of information you are willing to settle for.

[Fumesucker]

22. This cartoon pretty much sums up my feelings on this subject..

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. LOL...Their 1.2 billion year head start puts us at the level

of a sponge or the first primitive multi-cell species, if they survived.

I was watching "The Forbidden Planet" last night and the Krells became gods and destroyed themselves just by uncensored subconscious thought.

[Prometheuspan]

33. technology levels and personal power levels

It is likely that personal power evolves more slowly inside of a social system, but there may be sentient creatures out there with vastly more personal power than we have... or vastly less.

there is an interesting paradox there in that species with a great deal of personal power are less likely to rely on or create technology.

On the other hand, if they did create technology we could expect it to be done given their power starting conditions and thus be potentially very powerful technology.

It is a tendency over the long term for all systems including social ones to stray towards entropy, having high technology or vast personal power won't change that.

[Ichingcarpenter]

60. The Original Star Trek- An Errand of Mercy

One of my favorite episodes written by Gene Coon, His credited creations for Star Trek include the Klingons (in "Errand of Mercy"), Khan Noonien Singh (in "Space Seed"), Zefram Cochrane (in "Metamorphosis"), and the Prime Directive.
All excellent episodes.

Anyway the Organians in AEOM were a billion years ahead and evolved into
a light form vs an organic form.

We were just sponges to them but treated us gently

[Ichingcarpenter]

26. Galaxy has 'billions of Earths'- BBC

There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.

Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.

Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter, and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.
But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.
This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.

"Not only are they probably habitable but they probably are also going to be inhabited," Dr Boss told BBC News. "But I think that most likely the nearby 'Earths' are going to be inhabited with things which are perhaps more common to what Earth was like three or four billion years ago."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7891132.stm

[Prometheuspan]

32. number of earths in milky way

thats about right for the number of planets with 1 gravity.

Start adding variables like green zone proximity, chemical viability, and etc, and you come down quite a bit.

There are probably thousands of sentient species in the galaxy but it is possible and even likely we are the only one with
our level of technology. Especially if you fairly count creatures such as dolphins sentient, other species may have less ability
to manipulate their environment finely.

We should not ask ourselves how many earth like planets there are, but how many conditions or variables we can change and still have life. For instance, life could have evolved in a nebulae, without gravity as we know it, or on moons orbiting gas giant planets.

It may be based on different chemistries which means different green zones.

[qazplm]

28. I'd think you'd need metal for civilization

not absolutely necessary but probably necessary.

Which means you need a second or third generation system.

So to me we could very well be one of the first iterations of civilization in our galaxy. Then again, we could be a billion years behind. Really no way to know right now.

[Prometheuspan]

31. why?

biology or technology could be based on a variety of different biochemistries. Or non chemistries.

You could have technologies as nothing more than static written on the artificial branes of microcosmic gravity wells.

Or knit tachyonic wormholes looping a graviton so many times it would think it had a billion virtual identities.

[Prometheuspan]

29. simple answer. Humanz suck.

"Are we the lone sentient life in the universe? So far, we have no evidence to the contrary, and yet the odds that not one single other planet has evolved intelligent life would appear, from a statistical standpoint, to be quite small."

No, the real question is, can you think of one single thing that we as humans are doing which would make us look actually civilized enough to contact? We are at the brink of self destruction ten different ways, we have two wars for oil going and
our politics is composed of team liars.

What in any of that says "come on over for a nice hot cup of tea and chat about the cosmos.?"



" There are an estimated 250 billion (2.5 x 10¹¹ ) stars in the Milky Way alone, and over 70 sextillion (7 x 10²² ) in the visible universe, and many of them are surrounded by multiple planets."


Odds being very high that sentient life exists in thousands or millions of star systems, but its entirely probably that we are the most advanced civilization in this galaxy. However, in the galactic supercluster... thats another story.


"Meanwhile, our 4.5 billion-year old Solar System exits in a universe that is estimated to be between 13.5 and 14 billion years old. Experts believe that there could be advanced civilizations out there that have existed for 1.8 gigayears (one gigayear = one billion years)."

There are dozens of such civilizations, just within our own super cluster. They don't contact us for the reasons I mentioned, and they don't use radio because thats primitive and slow.


"Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, points out that the median age of terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears greater than the age of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial communities."

Yeah, Humanz suck.


"Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, it likely means one of the following:

We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and so very far away we’ll never make contact anyway—making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a practical sense at least.

Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely undetectable by our instruments.

Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area............SNIP.......

or D, we don't look anything like the kind of civilization a billion year old civilization would bother to make contact with.

[Prometheuspan]

30. complicated answer. I'm here. Your too wrapped up in politics and bs to see me.

I spend all of my time...
haunting me and a mirror...
stalking down truths
that for me won't get any clearer...

Wrestling with their demons
on 2 and 50 sidhes
toy soldiers and opinions
and a million propaganda rides

Their carnival of distractions
their number game oh mass media
Thy are the ones who are in power
I'm just angelic and immediate

All of it nothing more than
the effort to ignore me
whose gone down the labyrinth
and crossed tiferets sea...

To come back with the real answers,
not based in ignorance and lies...
to give humanity that one chance
to not by ignorance die...

And Yet all i get is static
from fools addicted to vice
ignorant ideologies and cheap advice
running down traffick
memes spinning in tiferets whorls...
I'm not even dead, Yet I am my own world

Simulations graphic
lite me up gods inner I
strike me with lightning
so that I can fly
rip me asunder and tear me apart
that vulture of zeus
can't get enough of my heart

oh when will hercules
unchain prometheus unbound
and humanity, with that fire;
profound...?

Not self destruct, but instead evolve,
not rush to entropies fate, but resolve

All of those problems mere puzzles
how hard to solve?
If you stop fighting and instead tracking down truth
with resolve...?

Already been there done that 41 times
read maps, seen the sites, read all of the signs,
but humanity, lost inside of fight
can't even get who to let tALK
right.

And you don't know ho it feels
to stretch into the flow and pull back the I
like you'd pull back a bow,
and let the force of attention
fly past malkuts veil
up into the heights
up into macro scale
like an arrow in flight,
aloft farther and higher
than mere mortal sight

But its better than wine
and its sweeter than honey
its richer than gold
and its more fun than money
to be in gods presence
to laugh at mere faith
to converse with the infinite
to spin with a wraith,
to call up gods memory
of ALL THAT EVER WAS
like a google;;; IntraCosmic
not limited by mere mortal technology laws
every mind in the metaverse,
Every I whos ever been
written in the HALO
by an astral pen of ZEN...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. The closest star (Alpha Centauri) is four light years away

Traveling at the speed of light, it would take four years to reach it. I've read that it would take 200,000 years at our current level of technology.

In other words, the Star Trek scenario of having a spaceship fly blithely from star system to star system ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

If travel at the speed of light or faster is actually impossible, then it's no wonder that no extraterrestrial civilization has contacted us.

[Fumesucker]

44. Actually, traveling *at* the speed of light it would take no time at all..

From the point of view of the traveler.

Photons cross the universe instantaneously from their own POV.

Even at 98% of C the subjective travel time would be 4/5 of a year or 290 days give or take.

http://www.1728.com/reltivty.htm

Although it's not within our technological capability at this moment, a Bussard ramjet would theoretically be capable of reaching the kinds of speeds needed to get into serious time dilation effects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet

And even at only one tenth of luminal velocity a vessel could cross the galaxy in about a million years, a virtual eyeblink in terms of even the age of our solar system, let alone our galaxy.

I'm reminded of Clarke's three laws.. While you read them consider that Clarke invented the communications satellite but never bothered to patent the idea since he never expected to see it come to fruition in his lifetime.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

[Prometheuspan]

48. advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

right, which is back to the assorted means that can be used to travel at faster than light velocities, the most useful of which is
just building your own cosm with a spatial analogality to our universe but with cosmological constants rendering that cosm space only say a few light years across.

So you leave our universe, enter an artificial one, and then travel, and then re-enter our universe.

Thats the uber high tech. Before anybody tells me thats impossible, lets get back to square one. "A billion year old civilization..."

But there are other less exotic (and somewhat slower methods) including finding a many worlds universe with a low cosmological constant, so you leave our universe, enter a universe thats only a million light years in diameter, travel, and then come back into our universe.

Then theres star trek type norm space warping, and then theres stargate like hyperspace wormhole tunneling.

The point being that while we have just started the technological adventure, other civilizations have had time to slowly work their way up through holographics for the rest of the particle zoo, and sufficient control of magnetic fields is alone sufficient to generate spatial distortions.

[Fumesucker]

51. I was just pointing out a scenario that did not require FTL travel..

None of the methods of FTL movement are as "sure a thing" in my mind as a Bussard ramjet, that's just a question of sufficient technology, not advances in theory so much.

An FTL drive is not necessary to hypothesize a galaxy spanning civilization or civilizations though it certainly would make it easier for such a civilization to work.

Personally I think the Ansible is a more likely development than physical FTL travel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansible

Which, if the galaxy does indeed have a civilization or civilizations could lead to something like Vinge's "Net of a Million Lies".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fire_Upon_the_Deep

[Prometheuspan]

53. realism and then realism

I agree with you. I think we should focus on the possible given technology we now have or are likely to have in the very near future.

We could colonize the nearest hundred or thousand stars with the technology we are likely to have in the next 50 years. Yes, it might take a few hundred years to reach some of those stars, but it would be worth it.

An ansible is a form of ftl travel. I have hinted at the means by which such devices would work, IE, you build basement universes
and travel happens inside of them.

"Physical?" Meaning what exactly? All methods of potential ftl require us to leave the universe.

[Fumesucker]

54. An ansible is a form of communication, not travel as it is normally thought of..

It's my belief that we will discover ways to "upload" our psyches to some sort of hardware before we develop interstellar travel in which biological humans can engage.

I think we will send avatars to the stars long before it will become possible to physically travel in our bodies.

As for colonization, we live in a solar system full of possible targets for colonization of one sort or another. It's hardly necessary to go to the stars to colonize space.

But we are like Spaniards in 1495 speculating on the eventual colonization of the New World..

[Prometheuspan]

55. prewarp technologies

"It's my belief that we will discover ways to "upload" our psyches to some sort of hardware before we develop interstellar travel in which biological humans can engage."

obviously, nanotech and wetware precede warp technologies on the technology tree.


"I think we will send avatars to the stars long before it will become possible to physically travel in our bodies."

Yes, 100 Gs of acceleration certainly does look like the easy way out of the solar system...



"As for colonization, we live in a solar system full of possible targets for colonization of one sort or another. It's hardly necessary to go to the stars to colonize space."

I so agree, and I have spent quite a bit of my time designing realistic next generation space ships for the purpose of asteroid capture and colonization.


"But we are like Spaniards in 1495 speculating on the eventual colonization of the New World.."


er... yes and no... more like ants on an island in the pacific speculating about colonizing some other islands.

Its hard to compare apples to oranges. This is orders of magnitude larger in scale.

In the end colonizing another solar system is the same thing as colonizing our own, but with a long travel time before starting.

To wrap our heads around that we need to start with simple like cruithne.

deleted from newsvine (just one more place where ignorance rules but they advertise smart just as you'd expect after reading orwell.)

"On the Subject of Space Exploration. The simple facts are that the moon represents a gravity well to fall into and then burn energy to get out of, it is more economical, and more sensible in every respect, to begin a program of asteroid capture, which can then fuel a program of building space stations and so forth. There will never be a permanent moon base or martian base with occupants in it, because of the microgravity muscle atrophy problem. But we can rotate asteroids to derive a 1 G pseudo gravity. Lunar bases are science fiction until we have star trek style gravity plating. Rotating Colonies are things we have the technology to build NOW."

[Prometheuspan]

46. realistic speeds

traveling at the speed of light being impossible...

if accelerating at one g constantly and declerating at one g constantly its about two years subjective time everywhere in the universe.

The problem is, that last tenth of the speed of light you can't get to because your ramrockets are still only mass tossing out
energy, and the ship still has mass.

On the other hand, about one tenth of C is almost certainly feasible with technology we should have in the immediate forseeable future.

However, a full 1 G of acceleration seems currently out of the question.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. So it would take 40 years instead of 4 to get to Alpha Centauri,

which might turn out not to have any planets?

[Prometheuspan]

49. time to alpha centauri

no, about 42 years as theres also acceleration and deceleration time.

Whether or not it has planets is not an issue, it certainly has its equivalent of asteroids, which can be colonized.

[Fumesucker]

56. By the time we're ready to make that trip we'll know all about the planets

Telescope technology is advancing very rapidly..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Extremely_Large_Telescope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Meter_Telescope