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Does anyone here have any personal feelings about this?
There's no evidence of them as far as we can observe, but is there evidence of our existence to creatures living hundreds of thousands (or millions, tens of millions, etc.) of lights years away? For most of the history of Earth there were no humans - signals of our technology haven't even left our galaxy yet, so how much weight does absence of observation carry in this instance?
There are many, many different questions that can be asked regarding their existence: what those planets are life, if life there may actually look similar to life on Earth because of similar environments and similar natural selection, if intelligent, would they eventually expand beyond finite bodies and travel throughout the universe, could they encounter humans - what would it be like? Are there others contemplating these thoughts on a distant world? A planet of happy cats?
What fascinating thoughts (if I may so so myself!)
Of course there are odds are that extra terrestrials do exist. The greater question is if we would ever make contact with them or have we ever made contact? Our own Galaxy has many possibilities – but they are a long ways away.
I could picture us or an alien race creating robots (like 'The Terminator') that take over and launch probes to extract the resources of other planets. As for organic life traveling to other planets; there are many problems (at least with today's technology) – we are having a hard time colonizing our own Moon or Mars. Of course there could be another possibility – that of relying on robots to develop our frozen seeds (embryos) when a ship would get close to a possible living planet. But this is just speculation and we really cannot see the future.
Though they are very far away. They may know of our existence if advanced-Our TV signals alone have been traveling outward for years. (Though if they see some of the reality shows they might think less of us.) Also, Life simply means just that-Life. They may be pre-industrial, Animals, plants or single cell organisms even.
We are only one tiny speck of dust in a galaxy with billions of other planets and solar systems. And our galaxy is only one of billions, across an ever expanding Universe.
To claim that we are, without a doubt, are the only source of intelligent life, is the most arrogant statement a person can make.
After all, until recently, we didn't even know what laid beyond our own little neighborhood
We are only one tiny speck of dust in a galaxy with billions of other planets and solar systems. And our galaxy is only one of billions, across an ever expanding Universe.
To claim that we are, without a doubt, are the only source of intelligent life, is the most arrogant statement a person can make.
After all, until recently, we didn't even know what laid beyond our own little neighborhood
And we've discovered, by way of spending billions of wasted taxpayer's money (and the lives of those in the Challenger) that there apparently isn't anything nearby out there.
And even if there were.. they don't seem remotely interested in us.
How is it arrogant to think that we were solely created to inhabit one planet?
And we've discovered, by way of spending billions of wasted taxpayer's money (and the lives of those in the Challenger) that there apparently isn't anything nearby out there.
And even if there were.. they don't seem remotely interested in us.
How is it arrogant to think that we were solely created to inhabit one planet?
The only reason to think it is wasted is that we haven't spent enough to get us out of our solar system, the longer it takes the more guaranteed our extinction, especially as the universe is expanding, the gulf between us and another inhabitable world is ever growing. So long as people would rather kill each other than work together, I suppose that's fine by me.
It's arrogant to think that the universe was created for us, we who inhabit one tiny planet which we share with billions of other life forms of varying intelligence(Some now known to be nearly on par with us), having had many species evolve and go extinct before us, and likely to have many species evolve after our extinction. Mankind isn't all that special.
1 - is would be almost insane to think that a universe this size doesn't have other life forms (we are here after all)
2 - Drake can go kiss my ass. I can make up numbers and estimates too. . .we don't have enough evidence on scale
So what I don't know is
Is there any life close enough to hit us with communication. . .in any way.
What I do know
Governments love power. THey love to grow.
There is no bigger reason to grow your military than a protection against a alien threat. I think that was Sagan. So what I know is that the Government is, as of yet, unaware of any Alien Threat.
Our current technological capability to evaluate life in the galaxy/universe is akin to taking a civilization 10,000 years ago (say in present day England) and asking them to evaluate any outside of that island. They don't have the means to reasonably travel anywhere else, no method to detect anything at any real distance. But it doesn't mean there wasn't other life, obviously, just undetectable at the time given the current technology.
I don't remember the show or channel it was on... but I do remember a great analogy to the "possibility" of life beyond our own in the galaxy (let alone the universe).
A middle-aged woman (I assume a professor of some sort) was walking along the beach. She was discussing the possibility of life beyond ours in the galaxy/universe, and trying to explain the infinitism (?) of the universe. She then scooped a glass of water from the sea. She looked at it and noted there was no discernable life in it. She then proclaimed that our lack of acknowledgement of the possibility of life in the galaxy/universe would be akin to her looking at the glass and assuming there was no life in the sea.
The profoundness of that analogy itself gives me hope that we're not alone. However, benevolence or malevolence is another debate. But, how short sighted to think we'd have found life already if it existed. If we gave that glass to that person 10,000 years ago on the shore of England coast, they'd say there's no life in it... but we know today that even in that glass of sea water there is life. We just have to know how to look, what to look for, and have the technology to assist in both.
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I think they do...
