Alone in the universe?

[Caradoc]

I thought it might be fun to discuss the question of whether we are alone in the universe. Are there other intelligent beings 'out there'? And have we seen anything of them around here? This is sometimes called Fermi's Paradox.

Robots, Goblins and Alien Amoeba
Answering Fermi's Paradox
© By Rev. Max

Dateline: 1950 A.D. The physicist Enrico Fermi is having lunch with a few colleagues when the subject of interstellar travel comes up. There are countless potential living systems in our own galaxy, Fermi reasons. If even a small fraction of these produced technological civilisations capable of launching manned expeditions, our own humble planet should have been overrun with extraterrestrial conquistadores millions of years ago.

“Don’t you ever wonder where everybody is?” Fermi asked.
In other words, if the galaxy is filled with little green men in luminous flying saucers who travel from star to star colonising other worlds, then why don’t we have any physical evidence of their existence – not even so much as a piece of broken zipper from one of their spacesuits?

This question (known as the Fermi paradox) has spawned a vigorous scientific and philosophical debate whose possible answers can be grouped into three broad categories:
1. Extraterrestrial civilisations do not exist.
2. Extraterrestrial civilisations exist but haven’t colonised the Earth, either because they can’t or because they don’t want to.
3. Extraterrestrial civilisations exist and have colonised the Earth without our knowledge.

As we shall see, the implications for all of these positions are unsettling in the extreme – not so much for what they say about extraterrestrial life, but for what they might say about us.

Are We Alone?

The most straightforward solution to the Fermi paradox is that we are alone in the universe – our planet has not been colonised because advanced alien civilisations do not exist.

Perhaps (as many Christians claim) life is unique to Earth; or perhaps most alien societies ruin themselves through pollution or war, extinguishing life on their home worlds before they have a chance to spread outwards. (Knowing as we do that terrestrial species have a better than 99% extinction rate, this latter scenario is rather easy to imagine.)

Of course, even if most alien species do expire in this way, isn’t it stretching the limits of conjecture to suppose that all of them do?

The Milky Way galaxy alone contains at least 100 billion stable solar systems; roughly a third of these possess Earth-like planets with oceans. The odds against every single one of these being either sterile or suicidal are literally astronomical.

So, Where Are They?

If we suppose that extraterrestrial civilisations do exist, we are left with only two options: either they are somewhere else or else they are here. So why might an alien civilisation choose to colonise the Earth (or not)?

Many researchers seem to assume that an extraterrestrial colonisation effort would be overtly belligerent, taking the form of:
• Imperialism
• Resource Exploitation
• Subversion
• Scrub & Repopulate
• Smash & Grab3

But wouldn’t successful alien civilisations be more patient and cautious than that? Couldn’t they also be:
A. unable or unwilling to launch a full-scale invasion of the Earth?
or
B. here already, and ruling over us by means so subtle as to be almost undetectable?

In fact, some scientists have argued that until we conclusively prove that extraterrestrial civilisations don’t exist, the Fermi paradox isn’t a paradox at all; instead, we aren’t looking hard enough, or haven’t been looking in the right places.

Six of the most widely-discussed scenarios follow:
1. Extraterrestrial civilisations spread via self-replicating AI probes.
2. Extraterrestrial civilisations develop massive virtual reality simulations.
3. Extraterrestrial civilisations have left this universe and developed the ability to manipulate hyperspace.
4. Extraterrestrial civilisations develop xenophobic and/or authoritarian religious forms.
5. Extraterrestrials are biologically very primitive, or spread themselves via biologically primitive forms.
6. The Earth is being deliberately quarantined.

Conveniently, most of the possibilities listed here could plausibly be used to explain either why our planet has been invaded or how it could already have been invaded unbeknownst to us; which outcome you favour really seems to depend on your assumptions about alien motivation.

POSSIBILITY #1 – Extraterrestrial civilisations spread via self-replicating AI probes

Frank Tipler of Tulane University has argued that alien civilisations would probably explore and colonise the Universe by proxy, filling the galaxy with self-replicating AI (artificial intelligence) probes instead of venturing forth themselves. Thus, even a very distant extraterrestrial civilisation should be able to seize, secure, sterilise and strip-mine our entire planet in about 4 million years.

If they existed,” concludes Tipler, “they would be here”; and since we are here instead, they must not exist.

On the other hand, if hives of autonomous, adaptable, rapidly multiplying robotic probes were roaming the galaxy, successive generations might eventually become so intelligent as to far surpass their creators.

In time, as these “artilects” spread throughout the Universe, they could come to abandon their creators’ agenda, preferring effortless communion with their own kind to the laborious conquest of organic, planetary life.

Reflects AI researcher Hugo de Garis:

I suspect strongly that virtually all the ETs out there are in fact artilects, and hence have intelligence levels astronomically superior to the human level. To me, biological technological intelligence is just a fleeting phase that nature goes through en route to creating immortal massive artilectual intelligence, which may be a phenomenon as commonplace as the creation of life from the molecular soup…

The answer then to Fermi’s paradox is that we human beings, being mere biologicals, are utterly unworthy of the artilects’ attention… What’s in it for them? We are very probably not so special and are very, very dumb…

POSSIBILITY #2 – Extraterrestrial civilisations have developed massive virtual reality simulations

Recent trends suggest that it should be possible for an advanced civilisation (either earthly or alien) to develop fully immersive virtual reality simulations like the “Holodeck” of Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek. If such a technology were developed by an alien species on its own planet, the prospect of mingling in real time with a distant and dirty species like our own could seem unappealing, degrading or even boring to extraterrestrial psychonauts. Opines evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller:

Basically, I think the aliens don’t blow themselves up; they just get addicted to computer games. They forget to send radio signals or colonise space because they’re too busy with runaway consumerism and virtual-reality narcissism. They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today.

Alternately, it could be that our own world (and the visible universe which seems to surround it) is itself a vast computer simulation engineered by aliens, some form of artificial intelligence (as in the film The Matrix) or even our own descendants. The planetarium hypothesis holds that we can’t find evidence of alien colonisation because contact with other worlds hasn’t been built into the simulation.

POSSIBILITY #3 – Extraterrestrial civilisations have left this universe and developed the ability to manipulate hyperspace

A third possibility is that alien civilisations become capable of interstellar travel, but learn how to escape this universe soon afterwards. If transcension were common, extraterrestrial civilisations might quickly lose interest in colonising other planets. Why travel to a distant ball of mud and water when you can explore higher dimensional hyperspace instead?

On the other hand, if alien scientists did have the ability to leave our shared space-time and launch themselves into the larger multiverse, they could be here now and we would not be able to see them.

In the same way that a glass pipette might seem – from the point of view of beings trapped in the flat, two-dimensional world of the Petri dish – like an enormous, transparent column which descends from the sky to abduct unsuspecting amoeba out for an afternoon stroll, aliens from higher dimensional space-time could enter and leave our reality at will, seeming to appear and disappear, change shape and pass through solid barriers as they experimented on and/or revealed themselves to us, and all without leaving a shred of physical evidence.

The idea that extraterrestrials are actually multi-dimensional has been an influential one, leading some UFO researchers to conclude that:
This [the UFO phenomenon] is not the product of an alien culture from a nearby star, here to explore our solar system. Instead it is an intelligence which dwells in a different type of reality and moves through hyperspace in such a way as to interreact with us almost as a side-effect. It is an intelligence that is not here to study us but it has been here all along and effectively controls our whole existence…

Advocates of Jacques Vallee’s “control system” hypothesis similarly argue that we may never find the evidence we seek because extraterrestrials aren’t encumbered by physical artifacts like spaceships or ray guns; instead these polymorphous and hallucinatory aliens freely wiggle and hop in and out of our world like angels, demons and gods from the twilight realms of the collective subconscious.

POSSIBILITY 4 – Extraterrestrial civilisations develop xenophobic and/or authoritarian religious forms

A fourth possibility is that extraterrestrial civilisations tend to develop xenophobic and/or authoritarian religious forms. Given the history of our own species, the difficulties such belief systems might present to alien scientists can easily be imagined.

Are Plaeadian professors who promote interstellar exploration passed over for promotion or excluded from alien faculty functions? Are extraterrestrial exobiologists denounced as heretics and electrocuted by otherworldly Inquisitors? If so, then we may never encounter these advanced beings from the stars.

Alternately, it could be that alien conquerors literally walked the Earth’s surface millennia ago and left literary monuments to their endeavours in the form of the Babylonian and Sumerian creation epics and the Hebrew Bible. In this view (the so-called “alien astronaut” hypothesis), the gods and messengers of our own authoritarian religious traditions were not representatives of a supreme being at all, but extraterrestrial colonialists masquerading as gods!

Israeli scholar Zechariah Sitchin’s works are generally representative of this latter position, holding that alien scientists (the “Elohim” and “Nephilim” of the Old Testament) genetically engineered homo sapiens from the great apes in an attempt to create a slave race:

They made us through genetic engineering. They jumped the gun on evolution, and made us to look like them physically, and to be like them emotionally. That is what the Bible says: “Let us make the Adam in our likeness and after our image.” Physically, outwardly and inwardly. So much of what they are, we are.

Are human beings really descended from some prehistoric encounter between the apes and the angels 300,000 years ago? Sitchin is convinced of it. As proof, he points out that humans possess 223 genes found in no other species on Earth. Either these genes were horizontally transferred by some unknown species of bacteria, Sitchin insists, or else they must be extraterrestrial in origin.

POSSIBILITY #5 – Extraterrestrials are biologically very primitive, or spread themselves via biologically primitive forms

600 million years ago, the Earth was ruled by sponges, flatworms and jellyfish. Possessing neither brains nor nervous systems, these simple organisms flourished, surviving nearly unchanged today.

In similar fashion, our universe may be teeming with species hugely successful on their home planets but lacking the complex cognitive skills necessary to build and launch spacecraft.

The flip-side of this possibility is the panspermia hypothesis, which holds that extraterrestrial colonists arrived here billions of years ago, not as bug-eyed monsters in metallic spacecraft, but as spores or bacteria which fell from the atmosphere to fertilise the Earth’s oceans with primitive life. In time, these alien microbes evolved into the many terrestrial species biologists know today, including human beings!

Of course, the panspermia hypothesis doesn’t answer how our most ancient one-celled ancestors originated themselves; perhaps their ancestors too were seeded somewhere else by alien scientists from another solar system.

POSSIBILITY #6 – The Earth is being deliberately quarantined

Finally, the “zoo hypothesis” holds that we haven’t been able to find any hard evidence of alien contact or colonisation because our extraterrestrial overlords don’t want us to – instead they are treating this planet like a farm or laboratory. As early 20th century paranormal researcher Charles Fort wondered:

Would we, if we could, educate and sophisticate pigs, geese, cattle? Would it be wise to establish diplomatic relation with the hen…? I think we’re property… we belong to something… that once upon a time, this earth was No-man’s Land, that other worlds explored and colonised here, and fought among themselves for possession, but that now it’s owned by something… all others warned off.

If this planet functions as a livestock enclosure of some sort, then it makes sense that representatives of the civilisation cultivating and/or studying us would occasionally slip up and reveal themselves. The indignation expressed by the contactee who recalls alien encounters under hypnosis may have something in common with the drugged and dizzy roar of the bear who wakes up to discover a radio-tracking chip stapled to his ear:

Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind (CE-IV): The contactee is abducted by the UFO occupants, taken aboard the landed craft, and subjected to a variety of “tests” and “experiments.” Some investigators claim to have recovered physical evidence of these interactions in the form of scars from alien surgical incisions. Some abductees report memories of devices being implanted within their bodies, typically through the nose.

Conclusion

Perhaps most alien civilisations are unable or unwilling to colonise other worlds, due to their religious beliefs, immersion in video games, or an unfortunate tendency to blow themselves up, but even if 99% were thus incapacitated, this still doesn’t explain why the remaining 1% seem to have left the Earth alone.

On the other hand, if just one ambitious, alien civilisation from among the remaining 1% were to colonise the Earth using any or all of the strategies described above, our seeming isolation would be explained and Fermi’s paradox would stand resolved – as long as they did so covertly.

Are we then, mere talking monkeys in a cosmic cage, simulated serfs in a vast video game or experiments in an extraterrestrial Petri dish, as some of the most plausible solutions to Fermi’s famous question would seem to imply?

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), the “covert colonisation” hypothesis is by definition almost impossible to disprove; in the end, we may have no choice but to test some of these strange scenarios by launching colonisation programs of our own:

Earth has provided a stable platform for the evolution of life over 4 billion years. But that lease is limited; we know for sure that it will expire after a few billion more. Long before that, our planet may become a place where it is no longer suitable for us to live. Increasing luminosity of the Sun may gradually boil our oceans, or more sudden catastrophes may threaten our existence. If we are wise, we will have furnished our new apartments long before that time….

[winterfate]

Wow, that's pretty deep.

Well, the way I see it, we can't be the only species in this universe. The universe is just too darned big.

I believe that aliens are among us, covertly. Perhaps the reason we haven't been invaded is because they're busy with their own wars (or the opposite, they're pacifist and thus do not go to war).

[Kareeah Indaga]

Aliens haven’t invaded because they’re too busy playing video games??? o_O And I thought I was obsessed…

[Wildbear]

There are several weaknesses in the postulates of that paradox.

The first one is about the amount of potential living systems in our galaxy. It is not countless. Not countless and probably very low, it's even written but it looks like they mostly ignore it. Extinction rate and lifespan of the race, contemporaneity, environment allowing such development rather than another one (an "ocean" planet populated with dolphin-like creature would probably give up with the idea of building spaceships) but also technical level and researches in that field giving positive results, having nothing better to do, etc.

In fact, it only means either that, in the lifespan of an intelligent race, interstellar travels are impossible or not interesting. They could be impossible for technical reasons (hyperspace impossible, inadequate materials, incompatible with life, impossible to find the "right" planet to explore, etc), and not interesting for rational reasons (enough matter in every solar system, length of missions making them meaningless). Another paradox would be that all intelligent races give up before trying because they believe another race would have done it already if it was possible.

The second one is that our planet would be in any way interesting. As hinted before, if we're to colonize other planets, we'll begin by our solar system, other intelligent lifeforms would do the same. Now let's suppose those intelligent races ends needing to go further, why would they come on a small solar system like ours? It's once again unlikely, but let's suppose they do. Why would they focus on Earth when it may not be interesting to them?

Now you'll ask, why wouldn't earth be interesting? After all, it has an atmosphere. That's true, but for an interstellar travel, as written in the original post, civilizations would more likely spread via self-replicating AI probes. Therefore atmosphere would not have any interest. The less unstable giant gaseous planets would be more likely to receive the AI visitors, and only if their composition is considered interesting enough and exploitable by an AI. You'll probably agree that makes visitors on Earth even less likely.

Ok, say some of those AI probes reach our solar system and notice our little planet. First possibility: they find nothing (came too soon) and go away, second possibility: they find us. When? It has to be now. Sooner, people would not understand, shout ah my god ah my god on the streets, impossible to contact indigenous creatures, bye bye.

So say it happened these last years. A government who's made useless weapons during a random cold war believes it's being attacked by some invented enemy, probe boned, bye bye. Or it manages to enter in contact, a government makes all witnesses disappear, hides it from people, it's the plot, we'll never know it happened, too bad.

Say it's cautious enough, tries to get orders from the real intelligent lifeforms who sent it, and... their race disappeared in the meantime, or the program was closed, or they're facing a major alien invasion (we've been lucky) and can't answer.

Say they sent anything else, some little satellite-like object like we did. Not randomly of course, they managed to calculate exactly the trajectory to earth from their little planet light years away from here. It even manages to zigzag between asteroids and such, and can resist entering in our atmosphere, doesn't fall in the ocean or a desert place, and it's big enough and noticeable enough for us to see it...

Of course there are tons of other factors, and I simplified things the most I could, but only a handful of points taken from that paradox and made a little more rational make the encounter much less likely to happen.

[Mytical]

Well it really depends on how you look at things. If you believe that the universe has no end, then beyond a doubt there is other life forms out there somewhere. Lets say the odds are 1 billion to 1 (I believe this is a lowball figure, but will do for an example) for life (if you follow the evolution approach) then if there are several billion stars (and if the universe has no end there would be) then at least some intelligent life would exsist somewhere.

If you are spiritual, then a higher being would probably have made more then just ourselves, so there would probably be more intelligent species out there.

Now here is the questions. Which was first? If they are younger, perhaps (if they follow the same path of progression) they have not yet gotten the technology. If they are older, then comes the next question (assuming again they progress along the same path as us). Where are they in conjunction with us. If they are billions of light years away, then they may have not yet developed enough to reach here yet. And this is assuming they progress like ourselves. Perhaps they do not reproduce as quickly, and thus have no need of spaceflight ever. Perhaps they don't pollute their own habitat, or a mirad of other reasons they may have no need or desire to reach for the stars.

Ok lets say they progress like us (which may be far from the case) are as agressive as us, populate like us (all these are doubtful, but again for the sake of argument theorize this is true), and have been arround longer so have space travel. There is distance to consider, wars, disasters (natural or they made themselves), and about a billion other things that could explain why they have yet to make an appearence.

Now lets theorize they actually made it to earth by some astronomical fluke. They were close enough, had the desire, progressed enough, ect. Since they have the technology to do what we can not yet achieve (long distance at least) there is a good chance they have other technology we don't and may not even be able to yet contemplate. So perhaps they could be 3 feet next to you, and you might never see them.

So they may exsist, and do not want us to know. They may have not reached us yet. They may have killed themselves off, or transended, or ..well there are many possibilities.

[asandir]

my take on this is pretty normal I'd say: there is every likelihood that there are other forms of life in other places in the universe

we just haven't found any evidence of them yet

[Wildbear]

Well it really depends on how you look at things. If you believe that the universe has no end, then beyond a doubt there is other life forms out there somewhere.

That's an interesting point. Considering fast enough space travels would be possible and the universe is infinite and so is the amount of solar systems in it (I reduce to solar system, but anything that could let intelligent lifeforms grow would do)... There would be an infinite amount of space travelers in the universe, and therefore the probability to meet one would be close to 100%. My only conclusion is that at least one of the postulate is wrong, and then:
1- fast-enough space travels are impossible, and/or
2- the universe is not infinite, and/or
3- the amount of solar systems in the universe is not infinite.
(note: If 2 is true, 3 necessarily is as well, but the opposite is not sure.)
I'd say 2 is the weakest point.

So all those drawings
with stars in the sky
aren't enough to prove
aliens exist!?

[Gaidal Cain]

I'd say that both 1 and 2 are extremely weak. Heck, even travels within the galaxy is an enourmous feat. It might be that we're forever confined to our solar system, without the means to leave it, and likewise for any aliens.

That doesn't mean we won't ever find them, though. Electromagnetic radiation is pretty damn fast...

[Mytical]

That may indeed be true. Also it could be the fact that at 1 to 1 billion odds of life, could be billions of light years between species also. I honestely have no idea. Supposing this is true, even if they could travel 1000 times the speed of light (which most say is impossible) it could very well take 1 million years to cross the void (again as we have no way of knowing exactly how big the universe is and can only do an intelligent guess at best).

Also even if they can move fast enough by some means we can not comprehend, perhaps they are exploring the universe elsewhere right now? Perhaps only a small percent of the intelligent species has/needs/desires space travel..or again they could be already watching us and waiting till we are advanced enough to understand them. *shrug*.

Lets take some hypothetical, but possible intelligent beings into consideration.

Perhaps they live very long, very healthy lives, but have very few offspring. Where we have billions of poeple they may only have millions, or maybe even less. So if they found us, they might want to wait till we show a peaceful coexsistance before approaching us.

Perhaps they are aggressive in nature. Right now we don't have anything to threaten or interest them, and the cost of war would not pay off enough yet.

Perhaps they have tried to contact us, but are unable do to us being unable to percieve them, comprehend them, or understand them. (multi-dimensional, non solid, or if you prefer 'more evolved').

So many possiblities it boggles the mind. Heck for all we know (though I really don't want to get this discussion going in this thread so consider it a crackpot theory) we are the science experiment of a alien race.

Now though popular theory is that the universe is infinate in size, this of course may not be the case. But even if it cosisted of only a couple billion worlds, the odds of other intelligent life is still pretty good. And as for ever meeting them, perhaps not, but it really does depend on how long they may have been arround. Their scientific progress, species age, luck, all play a factor in if they might be able to travel in space, and how fast (ect).

[arturchix]

I believe there simply have to be other civilizations out there. Not in our solar system but what do people actually know about the whole Universe? Totally nothing. Humans even barely know anything about our Milky Way, but there are believed to be more than a hundred billion galaxies in the Universe. Who knows it anyway?

Maybe these other civilizations are so advanced that they'd consider contacting with humans as much as humans themselves would like to establish contacts with local ants. Maybe they are in such a form that humans won't even realize about their existence.

That's why it's just interesting to watch various science fiction movies with what ideas people come out. In time mankind, unless will destroy itself before it, will probably learn some secrets like traveling in Space but the rest...We will never know anyway so use your imagination.

[Jolly Joker]

I'd like to add some points here:
1) Time. The time frame of the universe is pretty gigantic, 15 Billion years, all in all. Consider the time span we humans a) exist and b) exist in a way to make contact and record it. Even if you disregard the first 10 Billion of that the window for another race to come NOW (or maybe a couple hundred years ago) is SMALL. In these time frames the humans have just flickered into existance on the train station that might be the galaxy. Other races may have come and gone millions of years ago and may come and go in a million years again.
2) Contact may be not a physical or material thing at all - it might be completely spiritual: only the mind or soul or spirit or whatever you may call it might be able to bridge the cosmic gaps. Physical, material space travel as we like to imagine it might not be possible at all; instead it might be a function of the spirit, something psychic - in which case a contact might not be possible because we simply cannot communicate (yet?).

[theLuckyDragon]

The answer then to Fermi’s paradox is that we human beings, being mere biologicals, are utterly unworthy of the artilects’ attention… What’s in it for them? We are very probably not so special and are very, very dumb…

Why travel to a distant ball of mud and water when you can explore higher dimensional hyperspace instead?

A fourth possibility is that extraterrestrial civilisations tend to develop xenophobic and/or authoritarian religious forms. Given the history of our own species, the difficulties such belief systems might present to alien scientists can easily be imagined.

In similar fashion, our universe may be teeming with species hugely successful on their home planets but lacking the complex cognitive skills necessary to build and launch spacecraft.

Are we then, mere talking monkeys in a cosmic cage, simulated serfs in a vast video game or experiments in an extraterrestrial Petri dish, as some of the most plausible solutions to Fermi’s famous question would seem to imply?

Why are the authors of all these hypotheses attributing subjective human opinions to extraterestrial mentalities we know absolutely nothing about? Don't you agree that the bolded parts represent subjective and very human-centered points of view?

Wildbear also uses the term "interesting" in his argument, but how exactly can we determine what is interesting in the mental patterns of a species we know nothing about?

I for one believe we do not have sufficient information to reach an objective and perfectly clear conclusion regarding extraterrestrial life. There are indeed lots of hypotheses, but they are just that: hypotheses, not facts. And even if they are hypotheses, they shouldn't be mingled with subjective human opinions.

In conclusion, I suspend my judgement on this matter until further information becomes available.

===============

Alternately, it could be that our own world (and the visible universe which seems to surround it) is itself a vast computer simulation engineered by aliens, some form of artificial intelligence (as in the film The Matrix) or even our own descendants. The planetarium hypothesis holds that we can’t find evidence of alien colonisation because contact with other worlds hasn’t been built into the simulation.

Obviously. We're supposed to compute the Question to which the answer exists. I mean... Duh!

[Mytical]

The answer is 42, the question is "What is the meaning of life"

Anyhow, I think you are correct. It is all conjecture. Still it is not unpleasant to think..."What if.." or "Why is..". or even "Is there.."
As people grow into adulthood it is almost as if their ability to think 'outside the box' becomes less and less. Is it rigid 'rational' thought? Is it the harshness of life? Who knows, I sure don't. Once everybody realizes there is no box (at all) then we will be fine .

[Veldrynus]

I think the main issue here is the practical difficulties of interstellar travel:

- the spaceship needs a much higher speed than lightspeed. It is not clear whether this is even possible or not. This criteria reduces the number of possible alien civilizations drastically.
- the limited lifespan of a specie could make impossible to reach that technological level.
- the lack of resources needed to create spaceships. This includes economical costs too. The investment could be too high, and the payoff much less or uncertain.
- Even if there are aliens who are capable of this, they might be to far away from Earth or busy exploring other planets.

[Pol]

- Even if there are aliens who are capable of this, they might be to far away from Earth or busy exploring other planets.

Or conquering them.

[pepak]

I think it's quite likely there are many forms of intelligent species in the universe, but:

1) I very much doubt we will ever meet simply because the distances are too great.

2) I am not quite sure we would be able to actually recognize intelligent species even if we did meet. We are rather poorly equipped for dealing with life forms whose lifetimes are measured in millions of years (or couple of microseconds), for example.

[Ethric]

I for one do believe there are countless planets with life. Then some of those would develop what we would label intelligent life. And some of those again should make it and get to be far more advanced than us.

But assuming that barring concious decision to avoid us, the presence of advanced life elsewhere would mean that we were overrun with visits doesn't seem sensible to me. To quote Douglas Adams: space is big. Space is big with a lot of places to go, and travelling space is really not so easy as to say "Engage" and scoot off among the stars.

So even though there might be lots of life around, there probably isn't a lot of life around that's capable of traversing the universe on a routine basis. And then they'd have to actually find this place, by chance or by design, and then decide they'd like to visit. But if they are evolved so far that they have developed the ability to travel between the stars and galaxies, they might have better things to do.

Of course, one might feel the need to develop all sorts of fanciful theories regarding us being quarantined or being in an artificial matrix, but I'll let Occam's razor deal with those

[asandir]

well the idea of extra-terrestrial life is an easy one to accept for many people, but it does give those seeking attention (and the various crazies out there) an excuse, like they need one, to create dodgy ufo stories, I just don't believe a single word of it ....

any believers out there at all?

[Panda Tar]

I think that there are aliens in many ways, but they don't interest us as long as they don't make themselves known to us and I'm afraid the truth out there will take long or will never ever happen.

As Jolly Joker and WB had mentioned some things, it just comes in my mind that some of us have the same notion about the universe vastness and other things like dimensions.

I'm not a physicist at all, and I don't study the universe matters with professional interested, although that's known that there are things such as differences in matter, time, and space. But imagining that going into a Black-hole and ending up somewhere else is just something I'll never believe at all . Mainly because I think that, if there's anything like other dimension, it'll be completely the opposite of our own, like matter and anti-matter: e.g., stars die and suck all the energy, light, materials from this plane around them and throw back to where they come from, understanding by this that our new born stars might come from another plane through the same inverted process - an anti-matter black-hole. So, there might have lifebeings that could live in that plane, but they are unlikely to ever come to say "hi".

There might be lifebeings that don't need water, of course. It's rather annoying watching on the news or reading magazines where they say: "They have find water somewhere! So, there must had had life...". The life we know could be based on water because of all that "ocean-soup" stuff.

Lifespan/time and dimension are, imho, the main barriers for humanity to ever be able to know about outworld beings.
- Lifespan/time: whole civilizations must last 1 microsencond. Like our span is meaningless to Star lifespan for instance, some creatures may have their lifespan in such short manner (for us), that we can't even register their presence, being or not material. There are not our knowledge or creating machines cannot reach, not based on our senses or vision. Ethereal beings, other kind of energies....

I think that many don't want to be alone in this world. So, they just keep trying to find some other lifebeings that we can interact with, not caring much about what may really have outta there - it can happen that some people already know that there are other living things - intelligent or not - extraterrestrial, but for the lack of means to interact with them and maybe even to understand what they are.

I don't care much about it, in spite of myself, though. If there are good. If there's not, good anyway. I'm really fond to know whether they'll throw someone concealed and frozen into space to find intelligent life. Maybe those who exist cannot see us as well...

But that's always funny and somewhat interesting listening of what people have to say about the subject.

[Gaidal Cain]

One interesting thing is the huge difference between life and intelligent life. There have been advanced forms of life on this planet for hundreds of millions of years, but apparantly only one species that has even a slim chance of exploring space. The universe might be teeming with life, but earth might be one of but a few that has "intelligent" life.