Intelegent life in the Universe, how common is it?

[child of Thor]

The other problem is that i dont think our current science is capable of solving or providing the answers to this question.
It just leads us around in circles with people proving 'yes there is int life' or 'no there isnt int life'.

We have to accept we are too primitive - even when we look around at what we have built and think we are pretty clever.

Do we understand how our own world works yet - weather systems/climate/pollution/population issues etc? Are we true scientific masters of our fates? Or is still a lot of what happens in our lives simple chance.

I agree with Park Avenue when he said we need more philosphical debate here - to go with the science.

One of the things i find too weird is that we humans seem to be such a huge step ahead of the next 'intelligent' creatures on this planet.

Ok we're +90% the same genetic makeup as some of the apes etc, but when you watch one of those documeteries and see the 'clever' ones smashing fruit with rocks, dont you just look around at your stereo's, computers, fridge's etc and think 'wow!' - that few % and we are worlds apart?

But even then when we shift our attention to the world around us we know so little, we haven't been here very long at all, and our ignorance about our own world and how all its systems work, IMHO means we have a long way to go yet.

So i dont think science will give you the answer, yet.
Still no harm in trying - but dont forget the philosphical in your calculations.

something along the lines of :

'how much life is on this one planet? When i look up at the sky on a clear night and with my naked eye see all those stars.......do i 'feel' completely alone?'

maybe not a great example - but i'm trying to convey an honest attempt at my own wonder at it all, the sheer scale of it all.

I dont like maths very much, but even i have to think on the probability of our planet being the only one

[DanS]

Hmm... An hour and a half after I posted this, the article was slashdotted.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Odin


Life is NOT a freak occurance. It can start anywhere with a source of liquid water, energy (lighting, UV light, heat from hydrothermal vents), and organics.

Apart from the painfully obvious fact that being a freak occurence is not mutually exclusive with "can start anywhere with a source of liquid water, energy (lighting, UV light, heat from hydrothermal vents), and organics", how about presenting some evidence in favour of that claim before presenting it as fact?

[Flinx]

Since the 1960’s we have had the technology to broadcast a radio signal to other stars so that it could be picked up by another civilization at our level.

We have not done so in any meaningful way because it is prohibitively expensive (time, resources, energy, money) to do so. We are listening in the hope that someone else is broadcasting. Why would they be? It is going to be just as expensive for them to broadcast; they are more than likely out there listening too.

The Problem:
How do you broadcast continuously and simultaneously to 100 billion other stars with enough power that the signal will be strong enough to be received when it gets there AND at the same time listen continuously and simultaneously for a reply from the 100 billion different directions of those stars?

The Analogy:
It is like being a room with 100 billion telephones which do not ring so you have to pick up the receiver and listen to see if there is anyone on the line. But this is what everyone else has to do too! If you assume that there is one person at every star picking up phones (and both talking and listening), there is a 1 in 100 billion chance that you will hear someone each time you pick up the phone (the probability that someone is there = 1, multiplied by the probability they have picked up your phone = 1 in 100 billion).

...Flinx leaves work for home to look in his basement for a stats book...

[child of Thor]

Ah yes Flinx - thats the thing, we are sooooooo small in a huge universe - needles and haystacks dosen't even come close to the right scale as an analogy.

Ok it might be about fear too, and about our fear i can only say its a primative echo from our survivalist days when all around were things that did eat and kill us. Primative.

Its a human condition to fear the unknown. So maybe this has a bearing on how people approach the question of their being other int life in the universe. Would you be afraid if there was? Maybe superior to us with death rays and intergalactic spaceships?

I think the level of a species inteligence and reasoning would have direct effects on how they use their technology.

Its the biggest thing we face as human kind - are we going to make it or scew up by destroying ourselves and our one habitable planet? How many other creatures in the cosmos have tried and failed?

As technology advances - so does the danger and risk of messing with things before being ready, and catastrophy cleans away one more failure of life before it can progress to its full potential.

And those that make it through this truely tricky test - how do you think we would have to change as a species to stop being so destructive? would it be an easy change to make? maybe we dont have to? could we survive whilst still being as destructive as we are - say for another few thousand years? and in that time if we didnt change this destructive pattern - what kind of technology would we be producing? would we survive that?

I think to get beyond a certain level of intelligence(technology) as a species, you need to under go changes and just that change would be enough to ensure you probably wont go zooming around the universe in vast battleships killing everything.

Of course i can only form this opinion by using my species as an example - for other life forms that might be out there who can say? but i get a feeling the whole technology/intelligence thing would act as a fairly good 'weeding' out event.

Which might explain why when i go to the pub it's not exactly the mos eisely cantina(starwars) experience

[Dauphin]

NM

[child of Thor]

how long would you have to listen to hear something? how long have we been listening? i think its the tiny durations of time on the cosmic scale that a living creature(if like us) might undertake such an activity that also makes it difficult, i think thats part of what flinx was meaning? it would be like ships passing in the night?

[Flinx]

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by child of Thor
how long would you have to listen to hear something? how long have we been listening? i think its the tiny durations of time on the cosmic scale that a living creature(if like us) might undertake such an activity that also makes it difficult, i think thats part of what flinx was meaning? it would be like ships passing in the night?

The only way for an intelligent species to make know its existence is by some kind of cosmic fireworks which could be recognized by other species as unexplained events first, then as possible messages.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Odin
Some archaebacteria use sulfur insread of oxygen for aerobic respiration, but for the most part, organics burned in oxygen is one of the best sources of energy available to life, since oxygen is one of the most common elements in the universe.

Oxygen is nice to have, because it's chemically active to cause lots of exothermic reactions but not overly active so it kills us.

Though it's not a requirement. Lifeforms such as worms and crabs were found around hot vents and cold seeps at the bottom of oceans that do not require oxygen in an environment remarkably similar to primordial oceans on earth.

[Flinx]

IIRC

Oxygen is not stable in any atmosphere. We have oxygen in our atmosphere because it is a waste product of the photosynthesis process used by plants and phytoplankton. If you removed all life from the Earth, the oxygen in the atmosphere would quickly (geologically speaking) react with everything to form oxides, reducing the oxygen content of the atmosphere to close to zero. Phytoplankton-like organisms are thought to be the first life forms to develop, and only after the oxygen levels in the atmosphere had reached 10% did oxygen breathers start to evolve.

[Urban Ranger]

I think metals in the upper crust was quite well oxidised so that ores, say iron or aluminium, are always some sort of compound.

[Q Classic]

i haven't found intelligent life yet in the universe, this planet included.

[Solly]

Fair enough. You have to be one to know one.

[Urban Ranger]

The "joke" cuts both ways.