by Spartacus 20 Replies latest jw friends
I have wondered this myself. It does seem to be a huge universe that would be a waste if there was not more of something out there.
I think it is rather stupid that the WTS says with certainty that there is no other life out there, only based upon the fact that the bible says nothing on the subject.
It is one reason why I believe there is a God and life after death. There is so much more out there for us to experience.
Heres something lighthearted,also yes,I believe there is life out there.
Cheers.Sorry about this,I was trying to put the Galaxy song up for you,woo hoo,I think its worked!.
Rich.
Edited by - TruckerGB on 11 February 2003 18:52:57
Edited by - TruckerGB on 11 February 2003 18:54:21
Edited by - TruckerGB on 11 February 2003 18:56:37
Edited by - TruckerGB on 11 February 2003 19:1:41
Edited by - TruckerGB on 11 February 2003 19:8:27
Why don't they visit,stay awhile and help us out?
Lets find intelligent life on this planet first, before we look elsewhere.
When my husband and I used to go camping out in the mountains we'd sit around a campfire and speculate what aliens would think if they landed in a campground. Would they be amazed at how primitive life was on this planet?
Maybe they visited a campground and left thinking there is no intelligent life on earth...
Warrigal
Spartacus, I love your icon beside your name, so befitting, it made me smile .
Seems like the general concensus is, that many people, including myself, feel that there is some form of life (intelligent or otherwise) somewhere...way way out there.
Before finding intelligent life, perhaps we should find a planet which could support intelligent life. So far we've found gas giants larger than Jupiter. SETI has never reported any response to any radio signals.
Edited by - big tex on 11 February 2003 23:54:21
Yes I think there is a whole lot of intelligent life beyond our Earth. Logic speaks for itself, consider the vastness of the Universe.
Define "intelligent"? There may be intelligent life on Jupiter, for instance, which would not consider us particularly intelligent. Floating gasbags would not be too concerned with the doings of little, grubby, planet-surface dwelling vermin like us humans, as an example.
The question is, how many planets exist in our own Milky Way Galaxy that has an estimated 100 billion stars!? Like our Earth, how many planets that are not too far or too close to their respective stars that can support life? I would bet there are many beyond our imagination!
Life doesn't neccessarily need a planet to start up. Once again, this comes back to definitions. Define "life"?
It would be arrogant to believe that we humans are the only intelligent beings in our Galaxy and in the whole universe.
True. We are probably just fleas on the back of a brontosaurus, cosmically speaking. Smart enough to build weapons that can vapourize our entire planet a hundred times over, but far from smart enough to know not to stockpile and threaten each other with the damn things. Oh, that's smart all right! No wonder our cosmic "brothers" have been ignoring us!
The universe is so vast. Firstly, one light year (LY) is about 6 Trillion miles, Our Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 LY wide. The nearest star to our Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is 4.22 light-years away. The nearest Galaxy to our Milky Way is Andromeda Galaxy which is 2 to 3 Million light years away consider that there are at least 120 billion galaxies denotes how huge the universe is, really beyond our imagination.
This is probably one of the overriding reasons why we haven't been visited (well, officially) by "intelligent life" from other solar systems. It takes do DAMN long to get anywhere in the Galaxy, let alone moving between Galaxies. Perhaps God created the speed of light to prevent a single early-bird race of beings taking over the entire Galaxy? Think how poor the Galaxy would be in terms of it's fecundity of intelligent life if the stars could be easily reached...
I would bet that there are many, alien civilizations that are millions of years old. They probably can inter-stellar travel among other advanced species that have attained the same ability.
Um. See above.
We humans are so damn ignorant about our galaxy, the universe and ourselves. In comparison to some intelligent species that may have civilization for 100s of thousands of years, compared to them we are just babies.
"Ants" is probably a better word. Are you terribly concerned with the goings-on in the ant hill in your back yard? Probably not. Probably these beings feel the same way about us.
Human civilization has existed for less than 6000 years, our modern era is only a little more than a 100 years old, we have been reading and writing for less than 5 to 4 thousand years. Im sure there are intelligent alien species somewhere in our Milky Way that have been civilized for 100 of thousands of years imagine how advanced they must be compared to us.
Or, they could have all reached a stage where they developed nuclear weapons, and blown themselves to smithereens. Perhaps God has placed this sort of factor as a limiting thing, so that only the super-smart species survive. Sort of like natural selection on an interstellar, nay, inter-biospheric scale! (I know, I know, I'm anthropomorphisizing like mad, forgive me....) Perhaps it's very unusual for hot-headed species like ourselves to reach our level of advancement! Maybe the Cold War nuclear stand-off was a blessing in disguise...?
I say again, it is arrogant to believe that we humans are the only intelligent beings in the universe and in our galaxy. To thinks so runs blatantly against logic.
Definitions, definitions!
We as humans have a lot of shiyt to work out and one of the first things that has to go for us to hasten our advancement is Mysticism, which is based on a bunch of myths and lies.
Couldn't agree more. Unfortunately many people will disagree, which is why we're in the sorry state we are.
Are we ready for the truth?
Not even close, mate.
There are social and technical milestones ahead we must achieve, to survive as a human species.
This, if you are a bookkeeper and are working out odds, is unlikely. In fact, the only "sure thing" is that we will soon snuff ourselves. Remember, it's not pessimism if it's really going to happen! Never ascribe to the hand of Ghod that which can adequately be accomplished by human stupidity, is my motto. Hell, never ascribe to Ghod that which can adequately be done by people arguing (mortally) over minute differences in doctrine!!!!!!!!!
Hopefully, we will realize one day that our Earth exists in the wild of space and its up to us to protect it for our own sakes.
Have you heard of the Berserker races? If you believe some Science Fiction writers and their ideas, we're very lucky to even be here to start with.
Every 30 to 40 thousand years the Earth is hit by a major meteorite, one, which eliminated the dinosaurs.
Humans, however, will not need this to snuff themselves. We have developed DIY SNUFFING! Why wait for a giant rock from space when you can do the job so much more efficiently yourself, with a few kilograms of plutonium?
At this point, we can not protect ourselves from large rocks in space, which can end all intelligent life on this precious planet besides the danger that exists from each other. What do you think?
I wouldn't worry about space rocks if I were you.
It was quite fun replying to your post, and I'm looking forward to any more you write in future
if there is a planet on the exact same orbital plane as this earth and its the exact opposite side of the sun so we could never see it
Yeah loogical, WE (observers on Earth) couldn't see it, but there have been enough space probes that would have found it, unless the civilisation that live in the centre of the Earth has loaned them the cloacking technology
Before finding intelligent life, perhaps we should find a planet which could support intelligent life. So far we've found gas giants larger than Jupiter. SETI has never reported any response to any radio signals.
Sorry Big Tex, the reason we can't detect smaller planets than the gas giants we can detect is *drumroll* that they are... smaller. Better technolgy should enable us to resolve planets in the Earth size range. But remember, just as we can't live by deep sea volcanic vents, but there are beasties that can, just because it's not an Earth-like planet, doesn't mean there is no life.
As light travels at only about 189,000 miles per second, and as we have had say a hundred years of radio technology, even if aliens were listening to the radio signals from the direction of Earth, our signals would have only gone 596,030,400,000,000 miles, and we could only expect a reply from those recepients within 298,015,200,000,000 miles, as the message needs to return at the same speed. 100 light years (or 50 light years) is simultaneously very far and not far. Very far to us, 0.1% (or 0.05%) of the galactic diameter
If you get the technolgy sorted out, it's far better to communicate using entagled particles that allow communication at FTL speeds. We know that that might be possible, if it is, then we might be trying the equivalent of using jungle drums to signal to people using radios. As has been pointed out, there could be races with civilisations hundreds of thousands or even millions of years old. If they communicate using the same technology as we do now, it would be like us using runners to carry all our messages.
Alternately, some theorise that this galaxy is just at the age when you'd realistically expect intelligent life to have a chance of evolving. It's an arguement based on the amount of heavy elements available, which in turn is based on solar lifecycles; we are stardust, billion year old carbon.
But we don't know.
Logically, if aliens are here and have travelled at sub-luminal speeds, then we might know about it as their technology would be to some extent comprehensable by us (like a steam engineer could get his head round a internal combustion engine). They'd be likely to have 'screens' (ECM), sensors or weapons much the same as ours. And if they've gone to all the trouble of taking decades on centuries to get here, we can bet they have good reasons above and beyond boldly going, so some sort of parity in technology could be handy. They'd come mob-handed in generation/hibernation ships, and be here to stay, not set up trade.
If they travel FTL, then we could only really know about it if they wanted us to, or if they had a 'mechanical' problem. We would have extreme problems with their technolgy (say the same problem a guy who made a windmill would have understanding a fusion tokamak), and if they weren't friendly, we'd be toast/slaves/food/whatever they wanted. BUT, they might just be boldly going, and have gone past the sociological stage we are at (and any sub-luminal technology could also be at) when violenece is still quite easy, and actually be "coming in peace for all I'eji-uhj-e'poqo-kind".
In view of the above and the lack of any real proof, all UFO sighting are exactly that; either Unidentified Flying Objects or Unaccountable Fantasy Objects, but not aliens. Remember that a few hundred years ago it was as common for people to see great battles and huge divine figures in the sky as it is for people to sight UFO's, and with similar cycles of frequency. It's like witch burning. One decade it's popular, the next it isn't.
As anyone saying they saw the Archangel Gabriel fighting a huge serpant in the sky would be considered rather mad, the ft the things people see in the sky are more credible (to modern tastes) is no surprise.
Better technolgy should enable us to resolve planets in the Earth size range.
Exactly my point. At this point we don't know as a scientific fact that there are even planets smaller than the size of Jupiter in other solar systems. I believe there are. But that is my belief, not scientific fact. At this point we do not know, as a scientific fact, if there are other Earth sized planets in other solar systems. In all probability there are. But, we have been sending radio signals out from this planet since the 1920s and no one has responded. That means either they are unwilling to respond, they are unable to respond, or there is no one out there. Our grandchildren will very likely know the answer to this question, but at this point in our technological development we do not know if it is even possible for life (much less intelligent) to exist outside of this planet.
