Life on other planets? Computers on other planets?

[EntityX]

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.

[MartinLiss]

I take issue with the word "other". It's arguable that there's intelligent life on this planet.

[EntityX]

It seems to me that you are then doubting your own intelligence.

[Spoo]

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?

[techgnome]

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

[Lord Orwell]

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?

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.

[mendhak]

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.

[Nightwalker83]

I reckon there is life on other planets! It's just that they are camera shy. Speaking of life from other planets I see Mendhak has sent his avatar back to the planet it came from.

[wossname]

I'm very confident that there's other intelligent life in our universe.

You believe this, but you don't believe in death...

[crptcblade]

You believe this, but you don't believe in death...

Except as a deterrent in a "three strike" scenario.

[EntityX]

You believe this, but you don't believe in death...

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.

[techgnome]

Oh, I believe it.... and I know where I'm going... got my hand basket all picked out already too...

-tg

[Lord Orwell]

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.

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.

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.

[EntityX]

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.

[Hack]

Everyone will have it proved to them at so called death when they witness that their consciousness continues when their body no longer lives.

Boy, that means there are a whole lot of consciousness's floating around out there some where.

Hmmmmmm....I wonder if I could hook up with Cleopatra's consciousness....I heard she was a hoot.

[Spoo]

Boy, that means there are a whole lot of consciousness's floating around out there some where.

Could this be the source of the great enigma -- dark matter?

[Shaggy Hiker]

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.

[techgnome]

She's not silicon-based.... she's silicon-augmented....

-tg

[Dave Sell]

I'm very confident that there's other intelligent life in our universe.

What could possibly make you confident about this?

[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.

[Dave Sell]

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?

[techgnome]

[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

[Spoo]

I thought Pam was silicone-based

[Dave Sell]

Who's Pam and where did she get her implants?

[EntityX]

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?

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.

[Shaggy Hiker]

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?

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.

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.

[Dave Sell]

You sir, have a dizzying sense of logic.

Edit: 1st paragraph: "Since we can't detect it, it must exist with 100% certainty..."

[EntityX]

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.

[Spoo]

(SETI will only succeed if alien life forms are both deliberately, and effectively, trying to make contact, it is otherwise hopeless)

My only modification here would relate to "trying to" -- during his first
radio transmissions, Marconi wasn't necessarily "trying to" communicate
with ETs (on the other hand -- maybe he was !!)

[Shaggy Hiker]

You sir, have a dizzying sense of logic.

Edit: 1st paragraph: "Since we can't detect it, it must exist with 100% certainty..."

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.

[Shaggy Hiker]

My only modification here would relate to "trying to" -- during his first
radio transmissions, Marconi wasn't necessarily "trying to" communicate
with ETs (on the other hand -- maybe he was !!)

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.

[Lord Orwell]

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.

[Shaggy Hiker]

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.

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.

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.

Umbrage: Good word. You can have all of my umbrage, I haven't been using it of late and you are welcome to it.

[mar_zim]

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.

Zombies.

[Lord Orwell]

[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:

In 1971, a study group under Bernard Oliver, sponsored by the NASA-Ames Research Center, proposed Project Cyclops, a large ground-based phased-array radio telescope of 10 kilometers diameter, consisting of 1026 dish antennas each 100 meters across, all electronically steered by a complex computer system. Cyclops could detect a billion watt beacon at a mind-staggering distance of 1000 light-years if it is sending in the cosmic "quiet zone" of the microwave spectrum, or leakage signals from a Type I race to 100 light-years.

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)
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)

[Hack]

If that was true, then Pamela Anderson would be the smartest person alive.

You mean she isn't?

[EntityX]

Zombies.

Souls.

[MaximilianMayrhofer]

Souls.

Mushrooms, the ones you've been eating that aren't benign.

[Lord Orwell]

i eat cancerous ones.

[EntityX]

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

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.