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I saw this article on the discovery of a new exoplanet.
Scientists discover a nearly Earth-sized planet
I'm very confident that there's other intelligent life in our universe.
Some of it is no doubt much more advanced technologically than the life on this planet. If there is an exchange of intelligences between earth dwellers and ETs it will be interesting to see how our own technology is influenced.
I take issue with the word "other". It's arguable that there's intelligent life on this planet.
It seems to me that you are then doubting your own intelligence.
I'd offer that the presence of people able to spell 'intelligent' is a
good indicator that intelligent life exists on our humble rock.
As for computers on other planets, well, if the inhabitants thereof
are silicon-based as opposed to carbon-based, would they consider
themselves to be computers?
The question is not if there is other life out there or not... but rather, how long will it take Microsoft and Apple to start marketing to the new market?
-tg
i fail to see how the basis of your anatomy has any bearing on whether or not you are a computer. Scientists here on earth have used proteins to do simple computations. And in the broadest sense, an abacus is a simple computer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoo
That's the anthropomorphic principle. You're assuming that they'll have intelligence and computers... but in their world, the faculties of reasoning and computation can be irrelevant concepts to them as they've bypassed the whole need for learning through external data sources.
I reckon there is life on other planets! It's just that they are camera shy. :lol: Speaking of life from other planets I see Mendhak has sent his avatar back to the planet it came from. :rolleyes:
You believe this, but you don't believe in death... :ehh:Quote:
Originally Posted by EntitiyX
Except as a deterrent in a "three strike" scenario. :afrog:Quote:
Originally Posted by wossname
I believe in the death of the body but I know that our souls live on. I can't prove this to anyone though. Wait and see. Everyone will have it proved to them at so called death when they witness that their consciousness continues when their body no longer lives.Quote:
Originally Posted by wossname
Oh, I believe it.... and I know where I'm going... got my hand basket all picked out already too...
-tg
not to get into a philosophical debate, but could you explain how death doesn't stop consciousness, but an anaestheseologist can? I'm pretty sure i wan't even dreaming when my belly was cut open.Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
In any case, let's say the aliens are silicon-based. They would most likely far surpass us in computational abilities with their brains, rendering external computational devices unnecessary.
It is a very involved subject. I don't know if I really want to get into it here. I'll just say I personally believe that life continues after death. If you believe otherwise that's ok with me. I respect everyone's beliefs.
Boy, that means there are a whole lot of consciousness's floating around out there some where.Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
Hmmmmmm....I wonder if I could hook up with Cleopatra's consciousness....I heard she was a hoot. http://www.vbforums.com/images/ieimages/2006/06/1.gif
Could this be the source of the great enigma -- dark matter?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack
Why would a silicon based life form be smarter than a carbon based life form? Do you really think that silicon has some kind of magical computational properties? If that was true, then Pamela Anderson would be the smartest person alive.
She's not silicon-based.... she's silicon-augmented....
-tg
What could possibly make you confident about this?Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
Out of all the billions upon trillions of stars that exist do you think that our sun is the only one that has a planet near it that has intelligent beings on it? I personally don't. That's just my humble opionion. I also have heard certain individuals that I very much respect express their views on the subject and they also sway me in the direction of believing in other intelligent life in the universe. Isaac Asimov is one, Carl Sagan is another and there are quite a few others that are with me in this idea.
I'm not denying that a non-zero chance exists but there is zero evidence to support it - Ergo, how can you be confident about something for which zero evidence exists?
[not so serious]Because there is zero evidence... clearly they are smart enough to stay clear of us.... Given that the greater number of abduction (alleged or otherwise) happen in .... less populated areas where the gene pool isn't exactly Olympic depths, would seem to support that. I mean, if my first contact with an other-worlder turned out to be Billy-Bob with 6 teeth and missing one finger due to a "huntin' accident", I might think about getting the Tom-Tom updated to re-route around it.[not so serious]
-tg
I thought Pam was silicone-based
Who's Pam and where did she get her implants?
It's a gut feeling. It isn't anything that I could prove to anyone. Here's a scan from a book I've been reading. It's just a large footnote in the book. I was using Paint to crop but didn't see how to rotate just a few degrees so it's a little crooked.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Sell
Zero evidence exists, yet we can be quite confident in saying that we couldn't detect it if it did exist. That's the same as not looking, which makes the universe a black box, in which case, if there is x probability that some situation will arise, then you can say that the situation will arise with x probability. In this case, x happens to be 100%, so EntityX is saying that he is completely confident that a 100% probability of 100% is certain. Nothing special about that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Sell
On the other hand, if we were looking in a way that has a chance of success (SETI will only succeed if alien life forms are both deliberately, and effectively, trying to make contact, it is otherwise hopeless), then the fact that we have not found anything means that the box is not black, and the probability of the situation is skewed by our failure. In other words, if we search in an effective manner for some reasonable amount of time, and find nothing, then the probability that there is something to find keeps diminishing. Since we are not searching, then the probability is not influenced by our actions.
You sir, have a dizzying sense of logic.
Edit: 1st paragraph: "Since we can't detect it, it must exist with 100% certainty..."
You and I are not able to even prove our own existence to someone else positively but yet we know that we exist. So no I can't prove anything. Let's just say I have a very strong feeling that I can't prove to anyone.
Just because you can see something with your eyes does that even prove that it exists. Not really. Maybe the entire universe is just an hallucination that is shared by many people. Even then the hallucination has some reality just as even a dream has some reality. People say, "oh, it never really happened. It was just a dream." But the dream had enough reality so that you were aware of the dream.
My only modification here would relate to "trying to" -- during his firstQuote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
radio transmissions, Marconi wasn't necessarily "trying to" communicate
with ETs (on the other hand -- maybe he was !!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Sell
You misread it, but then again, I wasn't all that clear. A better reading was:
Since we haven't looked, we have no idea whether it is there or not.
Therefore, the probability that EntityX stated makes the probability so near 100% as makes no difference. After all, the determined probability of human level intelligence arising on a planet that can support life is 100% (with an unfortunate N=1). There are billions of stars that are of reasonable type and in reasonable location to have life-supporting planets. We have no means to determine whether or not those planets exist, but we have no reason to think they would not and every reason to think that they would. The one real question is whether or not life would always arise when it could (probably not), and whether intelligence will always evolve where there is life (definitely not). So what is the probability of life arising times the probability of intelligence arising times the number of suitable planets.
We know none of those three factors, yet we know that the first two are greater than zero, and the number of planets is a very large number. I would be quite surprised to find that the multiplication of the first two factors is less than or equal to the inverse of the third factor.
Right, except that the chances of "accidentally" communicating in interstellar distances is pretty much zero. No transmission we have ever made to date could be detected much beyond our solar system, let alone in distant galaxies. The attenuation is too great.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoo
that "pi-r-squared attenuation actually only applies to radial transmissions. a beam transmitted from a directional antenna can extend the distance immensely. Another factor in the range is the frequency of the signal. Higher hz drops off first. This is contact signals always are aimed at a particular star (last one i am aware of targeting is Bernard's Star, approx, 19 lightyears away, if memory serves) and have small data content, as lower frequencies by necessity hold less data.
I really don't see the necessity of transmitting to a distant galaxy since there are billions of stars in ours.
Finally, i take umbrage at country folk being of a lower gene category than city folk. Guess where the higher crime rate is? And don't give me "there's more people" crap. The rate is based on a per-capita basis.
Ummm...yeah...sort of. The distance has to be extended a bit more than "immensely", even if we are only talking about our galaxy. We have never sent a focused beam of reasonable power at any target, though that may be partly because we have never found a target worth a try. With dust, foreign bodies, the galactic core, other starts, etc., in the way, I think the beam would still have to be mighty powerful and mighty focused for it to reach any target a few dozen light years away with enough strength that it could still be detected from out of the background radiation. I said no transmission to date, and that is still true.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Orwell
Umbrage: Good word. You can have all of my umbrage, I haven't been using it of late and you are welcome to it.Quote:
Finally, i take umbrage at country folk being of a lower gene category than city folk. Guess where the higher crime rate is? And don't give me "there's more people" crap. The rate is based on a per-capita basis.
Zombies. :ehh:Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
[QUOTE=Shaggy Hiker;3502684]Ummm...yeah...sort of. The distance has to be extended a bit more than "immensely", even if we are only talking about our galaxy. We have never sent a focused beam of reasonable power at any target, though that may be partly because we have never found a target worth a try. With dust, foreign bodies, the galactic core, other starts, etc., in the way, I think the beam would still have to be mighty powerful and mighty focused for it to reach any target a few dozen light years away with enough strength that it could still be detected from out of the background radiation. I said no transmission to date, and that is still true.
the space between the stars is pretty much empty. Matter tends to clump into bodies, such as stars. If it was even marginally dusty we'd never be able to see the light of other galaxies, let alone far stars.
Also: Straight from Nasa:
This telling article basically says the bigger the receiver, the less power the transmitter needs. And with that 100 light year range, that's around a few hundred stars to check. (http://www.solstation.com/stars.htm)Quote:
Originally Posted by Cosmic Search Issue 04
And of course they are referring to a non-directional beacon.
Finally, if all else fails, there's voyager 1 & 2. (see star trek 1)
You mean she isn't? http://www.vbforums.com/images/ieima...chmentid=37806Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Souls.Quote:
Originally Posted by mar_zim
Mushrooms, the ones you've been eating that aren't benign.Quote:
Originally Posted by entityx
i eat cancerous ones.
Let's say we started to interact with an ET civilization that was considerably more advanced than us. Microsoft and Apple would want to hire ET programmers to advance their software or perhaps they would want to start marketing alien hardware and software.Quote:
Originally Posted by techgnome
The only downside with said interaction is that it would be rather slow..Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
if the ET's were only 1 light-year away, it would take 2 years from the
time Microsoft sent a message to the time they'd get a reply.
Oh wait, that's kinda like customer service right here on our little rock.
only for the first transmission. If they sent us a quantum-entangled electron in the return signal and we managed to capture it, it could be used for instantaneous communications from then on, no matter what the distance. Quantum entanglement is not limited to light speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoo
Does that make Michael Jackson a computer?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoo
You can't, according to the no communication theorem. I personally think that this theorem should have been given a better name.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Orwell
read the comments.Quote:
Originally Posted by mendhak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation
This particular theorem has already been proven.
Read the article...
You're probably thinking superposition.Quote:
It does not transport energy or matter, nor does it allow communication of information at superluminal (faster than light) speed.
This is what i'm referring to. Bell labs and IBM have both done extensive research into this area.Quote:
The no-communication theorem thus says shared entanglement alone can not be used to transmit quantum information. Compare this with the no teleportation theorem, which states a classical information channel can not transmit quantum information. (By "transmit" we mean transmission with full fidelity.) However, quantum teleportation schemes utilize both resources to achieve what is impossible for either alone(emphasis added by me)
I read that. So you are thinking superposition for message transmission. I suppose that could be done if they first tell us what each qubit corresponds to and where they're going to do it. Or maybe they should just teleport a quantum communication manual to us. :D
If the aliens visited us in a spacecraft then the problems of communicating across light years wouldn't exist. I do believe there is a way to communicate across light years instantly though.
what makes you think spacecraft are feasable? We aren't capable of sending a manned ship to other planets in our own system, but we can send signals to other stars. Which is an alien more likely to do?Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
Oh, that's an easy one... visit us in a spacecraft.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Orwell
Sure would be nice if they'd share their results with the network andQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord Orwell
cable news channels.. ever notice the delay when Brian Williams, in NY,
is talking to a correspondent in the Middle East?
Intelligent life? not in this galaxy, maybe not in a billion galaxies (out of around 400 billion in the universe).Quote:
Originally Posted by EntityX
The odds of bacteria taking on mitochondria to produce Eukaryotic cells is low enough. It took 1 billion years just to do that.
I'm sure bacteria might be common, but not much above that, and even less life that can communicate with language.
Think about it, though. We're on one planet, that we think we've aged pretty accurately. Are we the only planet in existence of that age? No. How can you (presumably) sit there and say the chances of life developing are too low to happen anywhere else? Basic probability - given an even remotely equal spread of matter over the universe, isn't the probability of life developing on one planet almost completely independent of any other planet? It developed here; why not elsewhere?
In post # 25 of this thread I posted a scan of a very large footnote from a book. The argument that Isaac Asimov gives is similar to what timeshifter is saying.
There might be another intelligent species out there, but I bet it's one in a billion Galaxies.Quote:
Originally Posted by timeshifter
Around 400 billion stars per Galaxy, 400 billion Galaxies, it'll be hard to find that other planet.
What are you basing that notion on? We know for sure of the existence of (semi) intelligent life on 1 planet out of 9 in our solar system. If it's only that one planet, we don't know. So we've been on Mars and taken pictures of the other planets... how many species are there on our own planet that live miles underground and survive with no oxygen and no light? We've found a couple, and there may be many more than that. Just because we can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. And again, we can present only a lousy probability because we don't really know anything about any of the other planets. We know that at the bare minimum, one planet in our solar system contains life. What if we find life on Titan? Suddenly we have the evolution of life on two different planets within one solar system, one of which we consider intelligent. How many solar systems in our galaxy, how many galaxies in the universe? And you're going to say that even given the 11% minimum chance that Earth had in our solar system, there's a one in a billion chance of any galaxy having intelligent life? We don't even know if we really are the most intelligent species on this planet. Whales and dolphins seem pretty smart. Who knows what else is hiding here?
The point is, nobody on this planet is in absolutely any position to say how many (or few) planets have evolved intelligent life. We know damn near nothing about anything regarding the universe.
I don't think your implication that a given solar system with planets have around an 11% chance of having life is correct (due to Earth being 1/9 or 8 planets).Quote:
Originally Posted by timeshifter
That's like me saying, that because I exist in my family of four, that means in any given family, there is a 25% chance of someone that looks like me, works as a software developer and went to UNC.
Here is why I think it's so rare for intelligent life:
1) It took 1 billion years to evolve the Eukaryotes, one requirement of which is the symbiotic absorbtion of the Mitochondria bacterium (no mitochondria, cells can't power efficiently enough to create multicellular).
2) Even on Earth, the only Family in the tree of life who has created organisms capable of real language, advanced tools and clothing (to adapt to climates) are Primates. This includes the Neanderthals and Humans.
There is no evidence of any previous civilization, nor of any other branches of Animals that come close to a true organized language.
3) Humans themselves almost died out at one point, seen by the ridiculously narrow genetic bottle neck just 10 or 15 thousand years ago.
So you throw all these things together. The chances of alien civilizations capable of Space Travel seems really really really dim.
One in a billion Galaxies might be generous, it could be as few as one in a thousand Universes.
In answer to capsulecorpjx
Life is very adaptable. It adjusts and finds a way to survive and evolve. We as humans are also very adatable. It seems to me you don't think that life can adjust to different environments very well and evolve in other environments than just our planet. I believe that life is more adaptable than most people think and that things are possible for each of us that most people don't think are possible. Life is possible in all kinds of different environments. It isn't as fragile and delicate as some people think it is in my opinion.
I love the arrogance of people who need to feel special about being nothing more than slightly more organised monkeys.