Is there intelligent life on other planets?

[mysteryowl]

What's the deal with this? We can't possibly be the only planet with all this life that we have.

Why has it not been discovered?

Thoughts?

[qazplm135]

1. Space is big

We've been looking for like a second.

[mysteryowl]

2. Okay, yet wouldn't other life be looking too?

[Ptah]

3. What makes you think they are not looking?

[NRaleighLiberal]

5. It's really big for them too

[Clash City Rocker]

4. Ah yes, the Fermi Paradox

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

My favorite theory is that any race so advanced to travel to us has destroyed itself before then. Given our current leadership, that isn’t hard to believe.

[mysteryowl]

18. That link has a lot of information.

I will pass on reading all of it. I did browse though.

[hlthe2b]

6. One might wonder if other life forms on other planets would really consider Earth to be

inhabited by INTELLIGENT life. It is all relative, after all.

[mysteryowl]

16. Yep. We have some messed up things going on.

We also have beauty.

[Snackshack]

7. I certainly hope.

That there is life on other planets.

There are a number of very good reasons why we have not found it. Look up the Fermi Paradox for reasons why. IMO opinion it is the distances involved and the small amount of time we have been able to search/listen.

[mysteryowl]

15. I think it is all multi-dimensional

So, there are other planets and beings "here" with us. We just are not aware using our ordinary awareness.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

43. Yes, in the form of cats.

[dweller]

8. not 100% sure it is here ...

so that does it mean it must be elsewhere ?
🤔

✌🏼️

[mysteryowl]

20. Yes, here and elsewhere

[Delmette2.0]

9. I hope there is.

Humans just can't be the most intelligent live in this universe.

[mysteryowl]

14. i'm with you.

[Atticus]

10. Is there any intelligent life on THIS planet? nt

[mysteryowl]

11. I would say about 60%

[Eko]

12. Space is big but the age of the universe also makes it hard.

The universe is 13.772 billion years old, our sun is only 4.603 billion years old. Homo sapiens are only about 200,000 years old. How much longer do you think we will be here? Another 100,000 years? Lets say 500,000 total, of that only 300,000 years we would even be able to search for life on other planets. That means we would only be able to search for life for .002% of the life of the galaxy so far. Add to that the size of the universe as have been previously said.

[mysteryowl]

13. Impressive calculations!

[Eko]

17. I think they are wrong looking at it.

[mysteryowl]

19. Well, who the hell would know the difference?

It is over my head.




Fun though!

[Eko]

21. Yeah its .002% of the time, not 2%.

Updated previous post also.

[irresistable]

31. Also, we have only recently been capable of searching.....

and we could easily destroy ourselves. This capability window could be very small indeed.

[akraven]

22. I hope so, because there's very little of it on this one! nt

[brush]

23. Of course. There are billions and billions of stars...

and many more planets around many of those stars. Space is huge. We're on a small planet on a remote part of a spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.

IMO it's exceedingly earth-centric to think that we are so special. The number of planets in the habitable zone (for carbon-based life forms) around the billions of other planets is astronomically high, so of course life has evolved elsewhere as the chemicals needed for life are rife in the universe—and then there may be life forms that have evolved that aren't carbon-based.

We can't even imagine what's out there.

[mysteryowl]

24. I hope something turns up in my lifetime.

[Hoyt]

25. They may have found us, and decided we are trash. not

[Generic Brad]

26. What is intelligence?

Perhaps our perception of intelligence and consciousness is narrowly defined. I suspect there is higher intelligence in existence beyond our ability to comprehend.

[mysteryowl]

28. Exactly, we can't even see them.

But seriously, I get what you are saying.

[Generic Brad]

35. I knew my Philosophy minor would come into play one day

Today is that day.

[dlk]

27. At this Point in Time, it May be More Important to Ask is There Intelligent Life on This Planet?

[First Speaker]

29. Who the fuck knows...?

...it is all speculation. Medieval, how-many-angels-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin stuff. There is *zero* empirical evidence. I've spent fifty years reading about this, both SF and "scientific" works. I've talked to some Big Names in both the SF field, and the scientific field, about the matter. And my *guess* is--and that's all anyone's opinion can be--is that there's something we're not getting about all this, that there's some very basic fact we aren't grokking about it. And unless we do--or unless some actual empirical data emerges--it's all medieval theologizing.

[defacto7]

34. But ain't imagination fun? as long as no one takes it seriously.

[First Speaker]

36. Agreed. This is why I enjoy UFO literature so much...

...it's like alternate-universe SF novels. Fun to speculate about, but don't "believe" any of it. And some of it--like, say, John Keel's "Mothman Prophecies"--is a great deal of fun, in a berserker, Gonzo-like way...

[rickford66]

30. Just detecting free oxygen would prove some form of life exists out there.

Science is improving methods of discovering and observing planets. We could know withing the next dozen years or so.

[mysteryowl]

32. There are some cool probes way out there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

39. My Son the Astronomer

is currently getting a PhD and does research on exo-planets.

I talk about this stuff with him all the time, and I just love it.

[Anon-C]

33. Make it so!

[MLAA]

37. I don't doubt it has been discovered.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

38. People have almost no concept of just how big our Milky Way galaxy is,

let alone the entire Universe.

I can think of lots of reasons to explain why we haven't yet found evidence of another intelligent, meaning technological species as yet. Probably the most important is that at any given time there may be only one such in our galaxy. Other galaxies are so far away that to expect to find intelligent life there isn't going to happen.

It could also be that an intelligent species doesn't become technological, not in the way we have.

Maybe they just aren't motivated to reach out and contact other species.

Or an intelligent species might evolve in conditions (think Europa) where they don't get a look at anything outside their planet. Or well within the thick atmosphere of a gas giant, and again never get to see that there's a lot of stuff out there. Or they see, hear, and do everything on very different wave-lengths than we do, and so even if they're broadcasting, we might not know it.

Also, any species has a finite life span. Maybe a million years or so. Eventually a species dies out. Even if it doesn't kill itself off prematurely.

Here's another thought. My Son the Astronomer tells me that actually, the Universe is young enough that we may be one of the very first intelligent species to have evolved. Give it another few billion years -- we'll be long gone by then -- and maybe it will be teeming with many intelligent species.

Here's something else I find quite bizarre. SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, is listening to a frequency that is not at all the same one that we broadcast on ourselves. Why they're looking that way completely perplexes me.

So to me, it's really not that much of a mystery.

[hunter]

40. Thoughts? Maybe dark matter is thoughts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter

Perhaps human thoughts will be weighty enough someday to matter.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

41. My question is whether there's intelligent life in the Rethuglicon Party.

[Talitha]

42. I imagine so - Life always seems to take hold wherever it gets a chance.

Maybe life on earth developed from microbes that hitchhiked here in/on asteroids. Earth is in the 'goldilocks zone' of our solar system. Not to hot, not too cold. Not too dry, not too wet. Nicely habitable.

If we got our start via asteroids, who's to say it's not happening all over the universe? Distance and bad timing are probably the reason we've never found anyone else yet. We're still infants, though. Maybe some day our descendants will meet their cosmic neighbors. That is, if we don't kill ourselves first - or puke this beautiful planet we were given.