/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7133318
Oh there's other shit out there, but no way in hell are they anywhere close to us.
Well, intelligent life, that is. There's probably hella microbes on other planets less than 100 light years away from us

>>7133318
Since we don't know the process of abiogenesis then we have absolutely no way of knowing.

>>7133318
I'd be enormously surprised if there wasn't at least simple life elsewhere in the universe - it's just too damn big. If the current estimate of one planet per star holds true throughout the entire observable universe, there are something like 70 billion trillion planets out there - and while life may be unlikely, I can't believe it's THAT unlikely.

As to whether there's intelligent life ... well, I don't have the faintest idea. I don't think it's THAT unlikely, but I don't know. If there is, it might very well be so far away we could never notice it.

>>7133323
isnt it just molecules folding in exactly the correct way? like, give some hydrocarbons a decent enough environment and a few hundred million years and they'll get it

>>7133327
>I don't think it's THAT unlikely.

I do. Intelligence isn't the end goal of evolution. We should expect that, unless nearly identical conditions exist, other reproductive strategies will be equally favorable.

There is no way that we are the only life out there.
also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0uV5d8tss

ayy lmao

>>7133318
There isn't much we can say about the probability of life other than the lower bound which is 1 planet in 1 universe after an incredibly long time. It could go either way right now.

>>7133334
I agree with you except I think intelligence is too powerful for it to go extinct once it emerges. Humans aren't even that smart and they have become incredibly dominate in a short time. Having even one single processing neuron equivalent in a simple lifeform basically makes it become a god among bacteria.

wouldnt Fermi paradox answer this?

there's probably life.

but the more interesting question is, is there intelligent life? Are there Galactic Empires out there? At this point in time we have no way of knowing.

the mere presence of life on other planets, even within our solar system, is interesting but it's not going to change anything here at home.

we are the Universe , experiencing itself.
disprove it learnedfags.

I think that when intelligent life arises, it quickly (<10,000 yrs) goes into the tech singularity and completely lose interest in contacting "ants" like us.

>>7133330
Almost entirely.

The Miller-Urey experiment, over 50 years, has produced more amino acids than the 20 naturally occuring ones which exist in Life.

3 of the 4 bases in RNA have been produced abiotically.

The only thing that really hasn't been experimentally shown is self-replication starting.

is the universe infinite?

>>7133381
I do not disagree that intelligence is powerful, but at the same time, that does not keep it from going extinct or not progressing to the point of a civilization.

Dolphins, for example. Sure, they are intelligent. They communicate, it's wonderful. Will a Dolphin ever farm? No. Dolphins are limited by their biology and environment.

Also, if correct, the Toba catastrophe, a volcano super eruption, almost wiped out all humans, decreasing the population to about 15,000 people, from which everyone is descended. An asteroid impact, or similar event could easily wipe out an intelligent species.

>>7133381

But the chance of intelligence emerging in the way it does in us is incredibly low, in the fossil record things nature has done right are in there multiple times while our intelligence has only happened once in 7 billion years

Nah we're probably it. Earth is a 1 in a googol abnormality and it's physical properties could probably never be naturally recreated, let alone the variables to take into account with the evolution of intelligent life.

>>7133318

It's essentially certain that there's other microbial life in the universe at arbitrary large distances from ourselves.

Also, panspermia was long thought to be impossible, but after studying interstellar clouds and the dynamics of impact debris within a solar system, it now seems fairly frequent.

Now, our own star is fairly rare. It's in the top 3% of galactic stars by mass; it has 20% higher metallicity compared to its class; and it's unusually stable, again compared to its class. So we're probably down in the 0.1% range, 1 star out of 1000. That means for our galaxy, the number of candidate systems like ours is a maximum of 100 million. If the average separation of stars in our region is about 1 every 5 lightyears, then we'd expect to find a star-similar system pretty much like ours every 5x33=165 lightyears. Well, that's much too far for anything sensible, even communication.

There could be microbial life in nearly every star system, but reaching that life over the average separation of 5 lightyears is essentially impossible for our form of life. We have no combined technological, economic and I'd argue CULTURAL means of accomplishing such a feat. We can't even be bothered to set foot on Mars (a mere few lightminutes away) to actively look for life.

>>7135529
and the universe is fuckhuge with assloads of time
doesn't matter how low the chance of life emerging on a planet is, if it isn't zero it is almost certain to occur somewhere

>>7133318
There are living things out there for sure, but I doubt they're as smart as us.

>>7135530
>you could never have the exact same conditions
>I made tea once, therefore it tea can only be made using my exact stove and pot

>>7135499
This. I had a similar thought that maybe once a tech singularity is reached an advanced civ 'leaves' the known universe. As they'd only be broadcoasting for (possibly) a few hundred years this might be a reason for the 'great silence'.

>>7137705
>this might be a reason for the 'great silence'.
The inverse-square law is the reason for the "great silence".

Several things make the Fermi Paradox less mystifying.
The search for habitable exoplanets isn't very promising. While there MIGHT be life in the waters of Ganymede and/or Europa, such life probably wouldn't be using advanced tools (no fire = no bronze age).
Even if there are intelligent, tool-using, space-faring aliens from such an environment, they probably wouldn't find Earth hospitable, and thus would be unlikely to visit or colonize.

Then there's the possibility that FTL may be actually impossible.
Sure, we'd LIKE to beat it, but what if you just CAN'T beat c?

Lastly, consider the age of the Earth and our amazingly short span of time here.
If the Earth has been visited a million times since it was formed, that's a visit every 4600 years, on average.
That's once, maybe twice, in all of recorded history.

>>7137722
Solid input, thank you.

>>7135499
That or it dies out

>>7137722
The fermi paradox also doesn't really factor in that "life" and "life as we know it" are two totally different things. Nobody knows what crazy principles may be at work out there that consider our radio communication attempts as something entirely different. Or are physically incapable of interacting with it at all and never developed something similar, despite being technological advanced.

Or "dark matter" life, you never know

>>7133318
Can not say for sure until we get evidence. But there are more stars than grains of sand on all the beaches on earth, and C,H,O,N are 4 of the 5 most common elements in the universe, so I wanna fucking search for them sooooo bad.

Soooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaad

>>7135499
I think this is an edgy and wrong idea.

If it's intelligent it should be curious and curious species will want contact of a sort.

>>7135523
If dolphins were even more intelligent they would be frustrated at their lack of hands and figure out a way of doing shit with what bodies they have.
They would also try to make real contact with humans.

>>7137772
Soooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaad

>>7137779
Soooooooooo baaaaaaaaaaad

>>7137777
>They would also try to make real contact with humans.
They probably don't have symbolic language like we do.
Don't forget, hominids were around for almost 2 million years before developing language and tools.

>>7137777
lucky sevens have been checked.

also take panspermia in to your equation suckers

>>7137775

it may be that once that you become a superintelligent being, there's nothing to learn from other lifeforms anymore.

>>7137825
How about the fact that Ravens make tools and even make "toys", or that African grey parrots are capable of basic communication through human language?

>>7133318
It's possible but right now all we have is a lower bound on life which is 1 planet out of 1 universe. We desperately need more data by going to different planets and rigorously checking if there is or was life there or not.

>>7135523
>but at the same time, that does not keep it from going extinct or not progressing to the point of a civilization.
sure, but it does make it much less likely, and once you get past a certain point it prevents nearly anything from causing it to go extinct.

>Will a Dolphin ever farm? No. Dolphins are limited by their biology and environment.
so are humans, but with enough intelligence you can overcome your own biology and environment like humans did

>An asteroid impact, or similar event could easily wipe out an intelligent species.
It could, but with enough intelligence we can surpass even catastrophic events like that.

There is no way around it from the looks of it, intelligence can trump nearly all other features of an animal with exceptions to very specific situations.

>>7135596
Panspermia is shit.
>Comets depositing organic molecules on Earth is some how more likely than abiogenesis.
It's foo-foo "we're actually aliens" crap along the lines of Ancient Aliens. What little evidence that it could have happened, disreguards the simple fact that for life to exist, even Panspermia still requires abiogenesis at some point. Why is Titan or Mars a better place for life to have started than the one world we kno of that still has life?

I dunno but we better get to work building those von Neumann machines to find out

>>7138241
Looking for a laugh?

http://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis

>ITT: people ignoring the vastness of time and space that we occupy which opens a plethora of unfathomable possibilities

>>7138241
>Panspermia is shit.

Well, nobody knows. We do know that complicated molecules exist in interstellar clouds, therefore it's likely such molecules would enter solar systems when they pass through.

Panspermia and abiogenesis could have worked together.

>>7133335
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt0uV5d8tss
1st video I've seen of him and I also read all of Stephens' books.

He has some pretty decent points and knowledge.

Props.

>>7134948
>but it's not going to change anything here at home
Yet.

>>7135523
>Will a Dolphin ever farm?
Not yet faggot. Get your head outta ya ass.

Given the sheer size and amount of time the universe has existed and will exist, it's probably close to a certainty that other intelligent life exists, existed, or will exist. Its just too far away in space or time to be contacted.

>>7135499
I think this idea needs to be popularized more. I've had it for so long, and think it's the most likely explanation.

We know that if an intelligent civilization wished to colonize a galaxy, it would take roughly 100,000 years. They could also begin the colonization of the universe within that timeframe. That is a tiiiiny fraction of cosmological time.

There are literally BILLIONS of galaxies that could have reached us by now. But where are they?

Required watching for everyone in this thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQTfuI-9jIo