Ask Me Help Desk - Do you think there are other worlds like ours?

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Originally Posted by albear

so you do acknowledge that we have traveled in space even if it is just a tiny bit

Yes, like I stated : all we did in "space travel" so far is jumping in a plastic pool on a beach of a gigantic big ocean.

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Originally Posted by albear

actually aliens were mentioned in the op, i brought in space travel in a response to someones post.

Yes they were. But you brought in space travel, advancement, and intelligence.

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Originally Posted by albear

i think you need to rethink you definition of 'alien' look it up on wiki, i.e even a single celled organism can be alien to our world

What has that to do with my "We are ON EARTH an "advanced life form". But how far advanced are we if related to alien species (if they exist) ? I say that the chances that we are a very junior species is extremely high"??
It should be expected that IF we ever meet an intelligent alien lifeform, it has to be much more intelligent and knowledgeable than we are.

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Originally Posted by albear

no they arent but you can't seem to reason why, which seems to be my fault because i dont think im explaining it so that youd understand what im saying.

Again : I question your suggestions that so far are totally unsupported and unrealistic. You still have not provided any logical reasons humanity would be a superior advanced life form. You have no knowledge of alien advanced lifeforms. And if they would be capable of contacting or visiting us, they would be the superior life form, as we can not do the same to them.

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Originally Posted by albear

there are grounds its a simple matter of odds on what type of life form we meet if we meet any, from single celled to multicellular and onwards.

What odds? Why simple? Given enough time everything is possible. And humanity could well be several billions of years behind.

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Originally Posted by albear

you havent explained why you think we'd be the junior species you keep saying you have but you havent

Yes I did. It's all about time and about evolution. After galaxy space got enriched with heavier elements from exploding supernovea, the way was open for planets and life to develop. That could have happened already many billions of years before the solar system was born. So it is us who run behind possible other contenders.
As I stated : I am not negative. I am a realist.
So I look forward to your reply in which you will now provide your reasoning why we are an advanced species in relation to other alternative alien lifeforms.

This is going nowhere, you keep ignoring the things I say or don't understand what it is I'm saying and you refuse to see that what your saying is completely unfounded, so what if there has been chance for life to start before us doesn't mean that it progressed at the same rate we did. And now you've change from meeting aliens to intelligent aliens, (different things )if we meet an intelligent alien species who have been ale to travel in space then yes we stand a higher chance of being the junior species, but as for meeting just an alien species we stand a chance at being the senior. To explain how it's a matter of odds think of all the species on this planet , and we are 1 in however many there are that is a rough estimate of the chance we stand at being the junior species when meeting an alien race. Cya around :)

Given the vastness of the universe it would seem kind of egotistical to assume we are the only intelligent life out there.

True, I agree there has to be some out there and I hope we do one day make contact and they are friendly :)

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Originally Posted by albear

this is going nowhere ...

Albear : how right your are on this! Indeed : we are going nowhere.
It is however you who makes claims that carry no support at all. It is you who suggests a superior advanced humanity. It is you who suggest alien life to be less evolved than humanity. It is you who suggests that "space travel" technology, knowledge, and capabilities exists, something that simply is incorrect. It is you who bypasses the limitations and consequences due to time problems, set by relativity. It is you who seems to forget that earth is running out of means to develop "space travel", both in products, technology, and financial support.
Once more : this is a science board, not a SF board.

How else do you think you could meet an alien species? Please note that they do not come to you, and you can not go to them. We do not know for sure that they exist (though their existence is highly likely), nor where we should search for them. It is realistic and logical to conclude that at least for now "space travel" is too problematic, and the costs involved too high.

You seem to think that the years of spending great quantities of money and materials on space can go on endlessly. But these first mini-moves with "space travel" in our "plastic pool on a beach of a gigantic big ocean" were not based on some innerneed to research the universe, but were financed by the cold war, by military funding and support, by political needs.
Today the world economy is at the brink of total collapse. Nature is also at the brink of total collapse. We are heading towards global warming with rising sea levels.
Whatever funding there is (left) should go towards preservation of the existence of life on this planet. That is what is important! Putting much more money on fusion energy would be a much better idea, than wasting billions on "space travel" dreams. That could solve all our energy, environmental, and pollution problems in one single go !

You seem to think that meeting alien species can easily happen by travelling to far away solar systems. But why would humanity waste it's last energy resources on that? Putting satellites around earth for various activities is possible and often useful. Sending some unmanned scientific satellites out for research of the solar system we can do. But interstellar manned traffic is completely out of our league. We can not do that, and we should not even try that. It's a complete waste of time, resources, and financial means. And it is dangerous (see last lines).

The nearest stars are at about 5 light years. Even if humanity could learn how to travel on a quarter of light speed, it would require a lot of energy and time (years of it) to reach that speed, than about 5 years to travel, than a similar time to "brake" again. Including the return flight that would amount to at least 30 to 40 years (if we could arrange for the energy required for such a trip).
It would require hibernation and reawaken of staff, and reaching 25% of light speed. Both technologies we do not have.
However : the nearest stars so far have not shown to have any "goldielocks" planets, where life as we know it is possible. So we have to go much further, to star systems at hundreds or more light years.
Taken the limitations of distance, the increasing costs of travel, the lacking technology, the impossibility to travel near light speed, "space travel" will remain a hollywood "StarTrek" feature only.

Besides that : even if we could develop technologies to meet all these requirements, and obtain sufficient funds for such a trip : who needs data that is hundreds of years old from one single trip? By that time here on earth we will have developed instruments that provide us the same data also, without all the hassles.
Face it : manned "space travel" is science fiction. And that not only goes for humanity : that goes for all in the universe. That is why we are not visited by aliens (if they exist). The universe is too big. Even our own galaxy is much too big for our (and their) capabilities.

As I already stated earlier : I am not negative. I am a realist.
Real unmanned "space travel" is the best we can do, but I doubt if even that will ever take off, in both meanings of the word. I do not refer to old satellites that visit the borders of our solar system to travel onwards to reach many years in the future some near-by stars. I mean real "space travel".

Your approach - unsupported by any means, reasoning, and logic - is highly based on some romantic views on "space travel" you derived from years of watching Hollywood products. The reality of space is that we simple can not go there, nor have the means to get there.

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Originally Posted by albear

i hope we do one day make contact and they are friendly

The odds are against that. So why risk the existence of humanity? If we take humanity as reference (a species that misuses everything on it's way for it's own gain, even if that means annihilation of other species, and destroying it's own planet), why expect other (alien) species to be different? Our starting point should be realistic and therefore based on the assumption that they are as we are : unfriendly and extremely selfish.
As I commented earlier already : you approach "space travel" from a romantic science-fantasy angle. You should become more realistic and face the real problems, the natural limits, and the possible dangers involved !

Surprise Surprise, more of the same pseudo-scientific dogma

elelmhorst : Surprise Surprise, more of the same pseudo-scientific dogma

No dogma, but unfortunately a very pragmatic and valid observation. Humanity is indeed in the process of destroying it's own habitat. All signs towards that effect are on 'red'.
So it is a fair approach to question the validity of that intelligence. This fauling of your own habitat never can be very intelligent, but is based on disinterest, laziness, greed, selfishness, etc.
That fauling is NOT pseudo-scientific, nor is it dogma. Observations of the situation from many different approaches confirm this to be happening.
Besides that : the enormous differences between the "rich" western world and the ''poor'' third world are increased by it. That brings up the question : when is enough richness enough, specially if it is obtained over the heads of the poor?

You still call humanity "intelligent"??

Created an account just for this. Excellent thread, very interesting!

Sarnian & Albear make a great duo in these discussions.

Okay so a Do you think there are other worlds like ours?

There's every possibility, though as Sarnian there's none close, so we're looking at traveling hundreds of light years to another solar system just to check if there is a earth like planet, which in its self is extremely rare since it's a freak of nature. Not all planets are the same even deep down into the core and this can be seen by Venus our closet planet in the solar system.

As for space travel, its impossible at the moment . Who knows, maybe in X years humans might of created something like startrek or maybe we might of realised by then its not possible at all!

As for Aliens single celled or multi-celled. Aslong as the planet resembles something like ours, with Water the basis of life. Flora to substain life (Though there was life-forms before Co2 on earth). A moon as sarnian pointed out, we need a moon that can control the seas and the earths axis properly without causing havoc and then a sun which isn't to close or to far or even to cold or to hot.. All the possibilities are completely endless. Really you need to agree to disagree because there's no way to make an analysis until we find something. Hopefully Mars will give us some fruitfull finds but again who knows.

Pete

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Originally Posted by SirPeter

As for space travel, its impossible at the moment . Who knows, maybe in X years humans might of created something like startrek or maybe we might of realised by then its not possible at all!

Yes Pete. Or we may have sadly lost the will to use the remaining resources in energy and materials to go into space. The situation on raw materials used for space travel is worse than you seem to think. At last it seems that many start to understand the need to reduce pollution, and think how much pollution is produced for space travel, both in manufacturing the products and in the launch of vehicles. If at all we should launch vehicles, they should be unmanned for "local" scientific use. So better forget the "Startrek" tales.

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Originally Posted by SirPeter

As for Aliens single celled or multi-celled. Aslong as the planet resembles something like ours, with Water the basis of life. Flora to substain life (Though there was life-forms before Co2 on earth). A moon as sarnian pointed out, we need a moon that can control the seas and the earths axis properly without causing havoc and then a sun which isnt to close or to far or even to cold or to hot.. All the possibilities are completely endless. Really you need to agree to disagree because theres no way to make an analysis until we find something. Hopefully Mars will give us some fruitfull finds but again who knows.

Alien single celled life forms may occure on any planet with water in the "goldylocks" zone. Developed multi celled life forms require special conditions of atmosphere and (climate) stability. The moon must be big enough to keep the planet stable in it's orbit. Our moon is abnormally and unusual big for a small planet like earth. You need one celled life forms to produce oxygen into the atmosphere to speed up life processes first.
It took almost 3000 Million years to get all these conditions right, before the most simple multi celled life could develop. So lets not forget that the star must be of the regular long-term type like our sun.

All these limitations and influences reduce the probability of intelligent life in the universe. So we may assume that there are many, many planets that carry single celled life.
Only a small number of these planets may have developed extended multi celled life.
And even if only one planet may have these condition per galaxy, there are hundreds of millions of planets in the universe that have the conditions to carry developed intelligent life. But they will be dispersed very far away from each other. Too far perhaps. And life forms there too may reach the level of problems we have here on earth with materials and energy.

Add lets not ommit to mention the window in the development of intelligent life on a planet. Humanity as an intelligent and developed species exist less than a couple of thousand years. Say 10000 years. But their ability to launch rockets into space is only 50 years old. We may still launch more over the next 50 years. But note that we soon may reach the limit of the period in which we can or will launch space vehicles. So that window may be some 100 years out of a total of 4,3 Billion years.
There is no reason to assume that other intelligent life would proceed much differently, so the windows may well be similar - though shifted and not in synch with our window. That would explain why we do not see 5 armed green alien lifeforms from planet "Zumpa" to trot over our planet, or hear from them.

Of course : exaggerated. But it may learn us that the chances of ever coming into contact with other lifeforms is extremely feeble. Best approach would be good satellites with "Hubble" equipment for general study of the universe, and may be more specialised radio receiving communication in the hope of ever picking up a sign of alien life anywhere in the universe.

Unless we soon find the way to introduce a new energy source by nuclear fusion, I seriously doubt our ability to make "Startrek" fables a reality.

:)

To the op as said before mathematically the evidence suggest yes. I believe its even better odds though than what has been posted. More like (10 to the tenth)x(10 to the tenth)x (10 to the tenth)x(10 to the tenth). <--- and that's only to the edges of our universe we can detect, it being bigger is a possibility.

A couple of other points I thought of when reading the thread were: If I remember correctly our galaxy in the grande scheme of things is not relatively far from where the big bang happened. Making all galaxies farther away than us much older(the big bang was not an instantaneous process). Therefore one can conclude there's a high probability of much older civilizations than ours.

You can say were advanced much further than when we started but with no other reference how advanced we are is subjective at best.

The earth is no where near exhausting all of our energy sources.

There are plausible theories from good scientists that a)weve already come into contact with non-intelligent alien life forms(This idea is old and I personally believe is highly probable, its been discussed here) b) non-carbon based life forms could exist(I couldn't understand any of it)

In the end a lot of what's being discussed here is theory. Research and choose what you want to believe. Its comparable to religion.:)