fiddy. :321GFY

That whole donut hole theory :)

Nothing, all other stars & galaxies just an illusion :Graucho

In answer to the topic title...infinity.

simple:

"A long time ago,
in a galaxy far, far away"

so, you will find that galaxy :thumbsup

The question of whether there is life elsewhere in the Universe depends on what you think of abiogenesis. It's a somewhat popular view that since life appeared here on Earth it must have had a fairly decent chance of appearing.

Problem is we know nothing about whether the origin of life is normal or whackily improbable. We know nothing about the odds of self-replicating molecules appearing. It seems that all life on earth is related enough that abiogenesis appeared only once on Earth.

It might that the odds are extremely high (1 in 10 planets) or it might be that they are vanishingly small (1 in *number of planets in universe*. Sample size is pretty small. 1 known case. We know nothing.

If you come across a really strange object in the jungle, what are the odds you'll find another one? Not a clue with the information we have. Speculating that you found it in the forest you happen to be in and calculating how many other forests there are "just like it" won't help.

Fletch pointed out the ignorance of man and that we have no reason to think we are alone in the Universe. I think we are even more ignorant than he does. We don't have a clue.

this is like when people try to explain God, God is nothing like we ever dreamed of, imagined, or can even come close to picturing, His self is so complex and so simple we could never come close to fathem His truth.

this is just like as you said when it comes to life and in the universe in general, even if we found it we would not know if it was or if their is more. this is my reason why i dont want to die as a human you live to discover the future and if heaven is what people hope it is its not the same place i wish it was. to die and be told all secrets that man has spent an infinite amount of time to even start to understand be handed to you.

so live on and prosper!

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOO. :glugglug

Who is this God guy? Never met him. You mean the judeo/christian gaseous vertebrate?

Well logically, scientifically and theoretically speaking how could it be finite? For it to be finite it would have to have an end. Then what is on the other side of the end? Human minds can't comprehend infinity because it is very difficult to imagine a forever.

But infinity is the only way it can be.

We live on the surface of a 4 dimensional universe.
Just like the surface of a 3 dimensional ball is 2 dimensional.

Imagine you have a ball and draw a man on it, and lets say he lives. he can keep walking towards one direction but he will eventually come back to its original position. He will think the ball is infinitely big since there is no "end" to it.

Now imagine that ball is the universe and but its 4 dimensional, and we are living on its surface since we are only 3 dimensional. Its huge and its still inflating since the big bang. If you go into one direction for over 10-20 billion light years, you will eventually get back to your originial position.
Once they build telescopes big enough to see that far, they will actually be able to see the big bang. If it happened lets say 10 billion years ago, we just need to see 10 billion light years far into the space to see it.

read my post above

I think rather we envision infinity because we don't see the end. I agree more with Colin, that we are clueless. To an ant on an anthill, the earth might seem infinite.

Also Ian, I agree that life on other systems might be completely different to the point where we might not recognize it as life at all, if we are even able to see it.

It's all definitely interesting stuff to keep the monkeys fascinated for a good long time.

Since they say the Universe is ever expanding, then there must be room out there or it's making room. Some how some way.

Life? Hmmm, Odds are there IS some form of life in many other solar systems. Whether it is something we cam recognize is something open for conjecture.

Could they travel here? Having grown up when the original Star Trek series came out,... everyone scoffed at all the neat things they portrayed on that show. But wow, they have made most all of that come true just in these few short years, So odds are, IF there are folks out there, they could hide from us so easily it's not even open for discussion.

If we travel out there with some sort of propulsion to cut down the distance - time thing, they would have SOME sort of (trekkie) tricorder that would hopefully recognize lifeforms or be able to adapt to it.

And as they say, Kree Gloc kahh! Who knows. lol None of us will be alive to experience it. Maybe when Dick Clark finally decides to pass, he will enlighten us what they have found after we have passed. We all know he has about 500 more years of life left in him. :winkwink:

regarding life on other planets,

even if there is life somewhere else, whats the chance of it being intelligent beyond the threshold to have the ability improve itself and produce technology?

there are over 6 million species on earth and only one of them was intelligent enough.

there are so many coincidences that made our existence possible, its one of the reasons that i believe in God.

Some aliens laughing at all of the people on this planet :1orglaugh.

Why? What information do we possess that indicates it is probable? The vastness of space only tells us that if the odds are
better than 1 in maybe 50 sextillion solar systems or whatever other ratio you want to use that it is highly probable there is life elsewhere. We don't know that number though.

Yeah,

Without the KT extinction, mammals would still be scurrying about in the underworld. We didn't have to appear. It is not at all a given that someday intelligence and technology will appear in an evolutionary line.

There's proof of alien life all over the bible.

Providing the stores in the bible are not fiction anyway.

If you believe the things in the bible actually happend here, then you should believe in life on other planets.

If you believe all the stories in the bible you need a reality check.

Someday they'll put people in institutions for believing those stories.

You are missing the possibility of a finite universe with no edge, that is still boundless. If you can get your head around the "surface of a ball" analogy, you're nearly there.

I love it when uneducated porn webmasters (not you in specific, I mean the whole discussion) think they know more than the scientific community. I think there is plenty of discussion available on the level of what people on GFY know, but its odd when it gets to the point when people say "there is no way" the scientists can be right.

poo poo pee pee

There are single cell little creatures living in molten lava.. That's pretty extreme.. :)

Who's to say our technology is something special compared to other possibilities throughout the universe? People thousands of years ago might have thought, "wow, I can hit someone with a stick! what a cool weapon!", which we obviously see as primitive. Life in other parts of the universe could have thought of computers and the internet, which we think of as high-tech, thousands of years ago and would laugh at the thought of us being a high-tech society.

We DON'T know but I think that's not Lane's point. It's really that the possibility of technology-using creatures appearing on any planet that life does appear seems like it would be very small. It's quite possible to rely on tooth and claw alone and be the dominant life form on the planet (you bacteriologists will laugh at me). No asteroid 65 millions of years ago. No humans today.

That being said I think he would say that does not dismiss the possibility in any way.

I agree with Lane on that but not on the creator part.

Well, if I remember correctly from Contact:

The universe is incredibly big and if Earth is the only place with life then it would be an aweful waste of space!

We are not alone in this universe!

wsjb78

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the human race will probably never know.

Eventually we will probably get out far enough to discover some one celled organism and stuff, but the chances of finding any intelligent life are very remote.

The odds of a planet being somewhat close and having intelligent life at the same time frame of our exisitance is pretty much impossible.

So maybe there is intelligent life millions and millions of light years away. By the time we encouter them, Earth will no longer have intelligent life.

If we were to meet intelligent life now, they would have had to come from very far away and would be so advanced we would be like animals to them.

the argument for that is that we are one of the youngest solar systems in the universe.

imagine how much certain animals have evolved over the past thousands of years, whos to say what they could do if they had the timelength of a million years.

if their is other intelligent life they are either so smart they do not even waste their time with us, or their is no other intelligent species at all.

Well, actually, many believes that if Mars would more life friendly, life could be found on it... What are the odds that another planet have similar caracteristics as the earth? Extremely high...
LIfe as we know it might also be different than "life" on a different planet.. where oxygene for exemple is not needed... Where "living creatures" are not formed with molecules but something totally different, ect...


And even if what you say is right... (that we might be some freaks of nature) the odds that there's life elsewhere still remain a big probability... 1:2 ?

"believes", yes. This is a very weak kind of belief and pretty philosophical. What do we know about abiogensis? What is the process by which non-living matter becomes living matter for the first time? We know close to nothing. Any calculation of the odds of non-living matter randomly organizing itself into a modern organism (simplest bacteria) are so fantastically close to nothing that it should not have happened.

So some think that maybe there is some sort of self-organization, an emergent property that takes some fiendishly simple life form go from proto-life to life with odds that are non-vanishing. Then one is left only with the question of how non-life becomes proto-life, which is still going to be damned difficult.

It's a very difficult problem. What is the smallest and most likely molecule that can self-replicate and mutate in the process to eventually become a simple organism?

About the odds. Consider that when such calculations are attempted the odds are on the order of 10 to the 40th,50th,60th, and so forth. Absurdly small. An extremely rough estimate is that the number of atoms in the universe is on the order of 10 to the 80th. (what's the error in THAT? ;-) ). So somewhere in there you get to the point where you say "shouldn't happen so what gives? Why are we here?" Now, maybe there is a trick. Maybe there is a way life bootstraps itself up from non-life to life. No one yet knows.

2. Life is what we define it to be. What makes something alive?

fruit punch. lots of it.

Why do you say that? What if the odds are 1 in 10 to the 200 per second that non-living matter will become something that we would call life? Then it shouldn't have happened and it won't likely happen again. Maybe if it's 1 in 10 to the 100 then it should have happened once (here we are!)

Now I'm not saying I believe the odds are that low. I have no idea. Why do we have any reason to believe it is more likely 1 in 10 to the 50th, 100th, 200th, or even 400th?

The fact that we are here is not evidence of anything.

Maybe the Universe is crawling with life. Maybe there is life in every solar system. We have no idea.

thats why im saying the odds are 1:2 due to our limited knowledge or brain capabilities... (its maybe, maybe not.. based on different theories)



Thats for the scientific aspect of it...

But there's one way to be able to answer your question about probabilities and it is to prove that aliens have visited this earth... Just watch some shows on TLC and you'll see that there's strong evidences proving it that only the ones with weak judgement will refuse to aknowledge...
Im thinking about that belgium goverment and army candidly showing proofs, recorded radar evidences, etc... for exemple

Yeah, there are shows about statues of Jesus in Central America that cry blood and also about the apparition of Virgin Mary appearing in fields. Some people would say that you have "weak judgement" if you don't believe what they believe. Are you a believer? Why or why not?

Want the number of technological civilizations in the universe?
Here: <i>N = R_* f_p n_ef_l f_i f_cL,</i> <i>R_*</i>
Now just go and fill in the variables, and you're done.


And for everyone that has an opinion about this: You're probably wrong. We have no way yet to know what the probability of life spontaneously developing is, and have not yet been able to recreate the event in labs. So, until we know that, you can say very little about chances of alien civilizations existing.

Ok, here's a quick exemple... Your mother, father and brother saw an apparition of your late grandmother... they all heard the same think.. long phrases, etc.., saw the same thing... colors etc... No one was high or drunk.. They tell you about it with great emotions.. your mother is even crying... What are the odds that this really happened? What are the other explanations? Mass allucination? Which is a concept 10x more eccentric and improbable that the idea of human having a soul...

So do you have a tangible proof that this happened? No! However, with your judgement, adding one and one... you'll come to the conclusion that the chances that it really happened are probably 99%.... In my book, that is a reasonable proof... in a court of law, thats a reasonable probability to send your ass in jail...

\

Drake Equation? Not really useful without f_l.

Like you I have no opinion on the odds.

So I'm assuming then that not only do you believe in alien visitors but also Jesus, God, Allah, Vishnu, and ghosts. How many people claim to have witnessed miracles or "felt God"? Mass hallucination?

haha.. felt God? I think your are confusing alot of things...

What you see in some Church about people going to trence is purely mental... like having some sort of orgasm.. elavated stae of mind... nothing paranormal... Mass allucination where people all see THE SAME EXACT THING is an eccentric concept that as never proven.. (and its also extremely rare.. I would be curious if you have any exemple of them)

And concerning mass hallucination, can I ask you why a sceptic would now accept to believe a concept/theory that as never been proven? Because it sounds scientific?

And you didnt responded to my exemple... what would be your conclusion? Mass alucination? And will you be able to explain how can mass hallucination happen?

You say they "all see THE SAME EXACT THING". This is not surprising as none of the "observers" are independent. There's an entire "alien" industry of people selling alien bumper stickers, dolls, books, key chains, antenna balls, figures, and so forth. It's like a mass marketed religion. If I wanted to make up an alien abduction story I know exactly what to say to fit in with the other farmers. ;-)

In the middle ages there were thousands of people that claimed to have been abducted by demons and devils. Now, you'll probably say something silly like those demons were actually aliens. From my point of view, it shows that this sort of thing does happen without it actually happening.

(Sorry, I don't believe in demons or devils).

Remember that millions of people the world over have claimed to see various images of an apparitional Mother Mary. These sightings have been going on for hundreds of years. You can find all kinds of websites with information on them. Do you believe those? Why or why not?

I did not read all the other posts.

If you think life only exists on earth you need to grow up.

The thing that bothers me most about the whole UFO culture is the pictures. Take a look at the pictures taken from the 1940s and 1950s. They are horrible. They are nothing more than a reflection of the science fiction at the time. Really poor looking vehicles. Hard to believe they could even fly.

50 years later, the pictures look like our science fiction today. Note that the change parallels the technological change in our own society and movie industry. Somehow the alien's technology
moves in step with ours.

If this keeps up, you'd think the aliens will be building stealth ships soon - like the United States. Maybe this means an end to the UFO sightings. I doubt it.

Ghosts are another one. Millions of people have claimed to have seen the spirit of dead people walking around. I don't believe that either. Does show that such mass sightings occur when people can read about and hear about each other's stories.

Drake equation with a typo, actually :) (or rather, a copy-o, as in I copied the ,R* at the end, which doesn't belong there)


Ofcourse it isn't useful. We don't know any of the variables right now, and some are not possible to know (for instance, n_e stands for the number of planets per star that are able to sustain life. however, as long as we don't know all possible lifeforms, we don't know what kinds of planets can sustain life).