http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356376,00.html
Some of the opinions at the end of the article are just plain goofy.
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356376,00.html
Some of the opinions at the end of the article are just plain goofy.
"He claims that any encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence, should we go looking, is statistically likely to turn up civilizations that are far more medically advanced than ours and would have the ability to create life, so they will be indistinguishable from God."
Bigdog, I actually responded to you in the South Carolina/Abortion thread before seeing this thread. This is one of the "intelligence" aspects of the universe I am interested in studying. I think this is undeniable. Based on the age of the universe it is very likely that there are many intelligent civilizations that are further evolved than us. The most interesting aspect to me (more than whether we owe our origin of life on Earth to another civilization) has to do with the next major step in our evolution, which I think will involve us overcoming our biological limitations.
Jordan Mills on choosing Tech:
“It’s a great experience seeing them play. It was a good atmosphere. The fans stood up the whole game and never sat down. They have a great fan base.”
Why wouldn't one of those "intelligent civilizations" have tried to contact us? ....Ever?Originally Posted by Guisslapp
AND if they are so intelligent then why can't they come down here and eliminate the BCS and institute a playoff system?
How many years has intelligent life existed on Earth? Lets just say it is X years.
Perhaps we should not expect contact until the closest intelligent civilizataion could perceive our existence. Only those within X light years theoretically should be able to perceive our existence currently. There are probably no intelligent civilizations in that range. After we have been perceived it would still take probably an equally long time for communication to reach us.
Jordan Mills on choosing Tech:
“It’s a great experience seeing them play. It was a good atmosphere. The fans stood up the whole game and never sat down. They have a great fan base.”
Why make the assumption that they would be more advanced? Wouldn't it be just as likely they could be fledgling civilizations? Just because the universe is assumed to be as old as it is doesn't follow that any life we find out there would be more medically advanced. Also, it's a huge leap to assume that alien life would be humanoid and anything, biologically speaking, like life on earth and that their medical technology could be applicable to us. I also think it's a bit pretentious to assume that there are creatures who would be advanced enough to create life when we don't even know what it takes. Yet, just because a person doesn't believe in God, he's convinced, without seeing them, that there are beings out there that can create life. Sure sounds like religion to me.
There are definitely some civilizations that are not as advanced as us, too. And I am not saying they would be "humanoid" - whatever that means. I think it is much more pretentious to assume that our civilization is the most advanced. What are the odds of that? If statistically it is likely that there are at least 1 million civilizations, you would start out with the odds of us being most advances at 1 in 1 million. Then you take into account other factors (how young the Earth is relative to other planets, etc).
"Creating life" is also a relative term. Some say that these civilizations could have "fertilized" other planets with single celled organisms that would lead to the evolution of more intelligent beings. If you choose to believe that, it is no different than believing in a religion.
Jordan Mills on choosing Tech:
“It’s a great experience seeing them play. It was a good atmosphere. The fans stood up the whole game and never sat down. They have a great fan base.”
Humanoid-having the characteristics of humans.
So the odds should also be 1 in 1 million that we are the most advanced as well considering there is no way of definitively knowing the age of other planets. Also, it's a huge assumption that age automatically determines advancement in civilizations. I wonder how a life form that is not human in any form or fashion would be able to conceive the method to create a human life form or any other non similar being.
(1) Which human characteristics and how many?
(2) It is obviously much more complex than any of that. We do have a general idea of the age of different stars. We know that our sun is about 5 billion years old and that the Milky Way galaxy itself is about 13 billion years old. There should be a strong statistical correlation between the age of a life-supporting planet and the degree of evolved intelligent life. Outside of the planets of our solar system we have very little direct perceptual evidence of what any other planet is like. Most of this is realistic speculation based upon what we can see and measure.
I don't know how many people truly think that life on Earth was seeded by another civilization. I have only seen that some have mention it (as an aside) as sort of interesting possibility. I don't think those that believe in that possibility necessarily think that there was a PLAN to produce "humanoid" beings, but just that intelligent life is the natural evolutionary result of single-celled organisms.
Jordan Mills on choosing Tech:
“It’s a great experience seeing them play. It was a good atmosphere. The fans stood up the whole game and never sat down. They have a great fan base.”
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