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Earth might be the only place with life?


Alan McDougall

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A scientist once quoted that it would be a scary thing if the universe were full of life and contained civilisations,  far in advance of ours on planet earth?

And it would also be a scary thing if in all the boundless and unimaginable vastness of the universe, life only existed in one corner of an ordinary galaxy on a tiny planet, namely planet Earth

What do you guys think?

Regards

 

Alan

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8 minutes ago, Thorvir Hrothgaard said:

It is certainly possible that this is the only place with life of any sort.

It is also possible that the universe is teeming with life of all sorts.

Someday we'll find out.  Personally, I believe the latter.  No proof, of course, so maybe it's just wishful thinking.

I'm of the same mindset. The following is an interesting article about a new equation that calculates the probability of other technological civilizations evolving. According to it, chances are we are not the only civilization to have emerged. As for the 'scary' aspect of being alone, I think we're far to self-involved to even think about it. Indeed, for some people, such a scenario might even be a relief.

http://www.cnet.com/news/are-we-alone-in-the-universe-not-likely-according-to-the-maths/

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I think that when Clarke said that, he didn't comprehend the vastness of the Universe. 

Edited by psyche101
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Are you a universe half full, or a universe half empty person?

I think I'll it the universe is not empty.

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10 hours ago, Likely Guy said:

Arthur C. Clarke, whom you paraphrase, was not a scientist.

That's news to me, I had no idea that I paraphrasing anyone, even so, Arthur Clark was highly respected by the scientific community because his science fiction novels were always are in the realms of possibility.

And I am not sure you are right that this was one of Arthur Charles quotes?

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8 minutes ago, Alan McDougall said:

That's news to me, I had no idea that I paraphrasing anyone, even so, Arthur Clark was highly respected by the scientific community because his science fiction novels were always are in the realms of possibility.

And I am not sure you are right that this was one of Arthur Charles quotes?

 

Clark did indeed say it, 2 versions in fact

Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.
 
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.
 
 
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12 hours ago, psyche101 said:

I think that when Clarke said that, he didn't comprehend the vastness of the Universe. 

I think when Clarke wrote that, he did comprehend the vastness of the universe and it terrified him.

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3 hours ago, Lord Fedorable said:

I think when Clarke wrote that, he did comprehend the vastness of the universe and it terrified him.

I would meet you halfway and say he comprehended the density, but not the distances. Sci Fi has a way of making the Universe look small. When we look at the reality of distances, other civilizations are not a threat at all. It would take centuries to cross enough space to be in such a situation. Even at the speed of light. Far in advance invites certain ideas, but even aliens have to obey physics like we do. 

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11 hours ago, Alan McDougall said:

That's news to me, I had no idea that I paraphrasing anyone, even so, Arthur Clark was highly respected by the scientific community because his science fiction novels were always are in the realms of possibility.

And I am not sure you are right that this was one of Arthur Charles quotes?

It was indeed Clarke.

Cheers,
Badeskov

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9 hours ago, Lord Fedorable said:

I think when Clarke wrote that, he did comprehend the vastness of the universe and it terrified him.

Below is an article I wrote some time ago

The unimaginable vastness of the universe.

Author Alan McDougall.                                            

The distances in space are unimaginably vast beyond human comprehension.

If I try, tell an uninformed that it is so many kilometres to the Sun or moon, will these people be able to comprehend these vastly unbelievable distances. The moon and sun are a mere two light seconds and eight light minutes respectively from the earth. Light travels at 300 000 kilometres a second or seven times around the earth in the same time. 

The moon is a mere 400 000 approx kilometres and the sun about 156 million kilometres from the earth respectively, next-door neighbours in fact. Even this is near distance on the cosmological scale is almost impossible for anyone to truly comprehend.

What about our nearest neighbours Centauri only 4.2 light years away and the next nearest star to the sun. Just around the corner on the vast cosmological scale.

It helps if one understands that the fastest object ever made by man “(spacecraft voyager at 100 000 kilometres per hour)” would take 80,000 years to get there. Then if you understand how amazingly fast that object actually goes one might begin to glean some understanding of how far away Alpha Centauri is.  Moreover, Centauri is our next-door neighbour!

Then we can move further. Let us say, Epsilon Eridani, 10 light years away. That is over twice as far - Voyager would take close to 200,000 years to get there. All evidence of human civilization would be pretty much gone in a few thousand years, given an average society lifespan of about 1000 years or less, we’re talking 200 societies coming and going before Voyager makes it to Epsilon Eridani. Moreover, Epsilon Eridani is right next door.

The Andromeda galaxy, the galaxy nearest to our own milky way galaxy is mere two million light years away. Voyager would take forty thousand billion years (40,000,000,000,000) to get there. That is over 3300 times longer than the currently postulated age of the universe, and that's our nearest galactic neighbour. (I am not sure this is correct so do some calculations of your own to check if I got it right?)

There are galaxies that are estimated to be 12.9 billion light years from earth and the strange objects called quasars even further at 14 billion light years. To reach far galaxies like these unimaginable remote objects, with a Voyager like spacecraft, would take almost an eternity and it is obvious that this cannot be the ultimate method of crossing the universe. 

I foresee instant teleportation or some type of mind contact means as the method used by advanced humanity communicating across the vastness of the universe in the very distant future. To explore the universe by means of a metal spacecraft at present seems science fiction impossibility. But in time present perceived impossibilities might become a possibility

"The universe could be a sphere expanding into the empty void of the original nothingness or maybe multiverse?

By Alan McDougall 15/9/2007

 

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Teleportation is an interesting idea, but don't we have to set up both ends to have any accuracy? 

That kinda removes the practicability with regards to construction. 

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I like to scale it down abit....

Life has evolved to live on every known part of our planet, regardless how inhospitable that may be, and its been hear for millions if not billions of years 

From highly acidic cave pools to the miles deep depths of the oceans, the driest deserts to the coldest regions , life is literally everywhere, and in great numbers with huge variations of adaptation! From bacteria to the mighty blue whale, and all this is going on on our little spec of rock floating amidst billions and billions and billions of other little specs of rock in a possible infinite universe.......... in my opinion life will flourish on the grander scale of the universe just as it does here on earth.....we are not alone.....

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35 minutes ago, Lucas Cooper Merrin said:

I like to scale it down abit....

Life has evolved to live on every known part of our planet, regardless how inhospitable that may be, and its been hear for millions if not billions of years 

From highly acidic cave pools to the miles deep depths of the oceans, the driest deserts to the coldest regions , life is literally everywhere, and in great numbers with huge variations of adaptation! From bacteria to the mighty blue whale, and all this is going on on our little spec of rock floating amidst billions and billions and billions of other little specs of rock in a possible infinite universe.......... in my opinion life will flourish on the grander scale of the universe just as it does here on earth.....we are not alone.....

 

You might be right and then you also might be wrong.

I wonder how a visit to earth by an advanced civilization would have an effect on religion? 

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Alan - just an update on your article - the fastest man made object is now the Juno craft, which journeyed to Jupiter at an eye-watering 165,000mph

Edit - which I work out to be 45 miles per second??!

Edited by Emma_Acid
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We are (most probably) alone.

Why?

The reason we (most likely) are alone in the universe:

If you had put 70 million trillion monkeys on every planet in the universe at the beginning of time and asked them to randomly (at one keystroke per second, 24/7) write the sentence “we are probably all alone in this universe” they would statistically just have managed to do it ONCE (on ONE planet) in the 13.7 billion years the universe has existed.

If it takes that long to make such a simple sentence for so many monkeys over such a long time - imagine how small the probability would be for nature to have put together the right atoms to create DNA/life TWICE !!?!

(human DNA has 3 bn base pairs = 6 bn nucleotides (A, G, C, T) each of which has on average 34 atoms = 204 bn atoms. And even the simplest organism has a few hundred thousand base pairs…)

 

The reason we are (probably) alone in the galaxy:

If an advanced civilisation used ‘generation ships’ travelling at 1% of lightspeed and taking 200 years to build new generationships on the planets they reach – that civilisation would inhabit the WHOLE galaxy in substantially less than 10 million years (and as much as 6,000 stars in the first 10,000 years), this means it is pretty impossible for a civilisation to ‘die out’ when it is established on so many planets (and in flight between planets).

Another way of looking at this is to conclude that a total colonisation of our galaxy only takes one tenth of one percent of the time the galaxy has existed. So why, IF there EVER has been an alien civilisation, don’t we see any signs of it (known as the ‘Fermi Paradox’ – can also be applied to time travel) ?

...and don't get me started on 'Disclosure' - a complete non-starter (hint: 'people' dont do deals with 'bacteria' - I leave you to figure out who is who).

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6 hours ago, Alan McDougall said:

You might be right and then you also might be wrong.

I wonder how a visit to earth by an advanced civilization would have an effect on religion? 

Depends on the religion.  Overall, probably not much of an effect of any type.

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7 hours ago, Emma_Acid said:

Alan - just an update on your article - the fastest man made object is now the Juno craft, which journeyed to Jupiter at an eye-watering 165,000mph

Edit - which I work out to be 45 miles per second??!

 

Maybe you could recalculate and edit the article I don't mind that?

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4 hours ago, poltava said:

We are (most probably) alone.

Why?

The reason we (most likely) are alone in the universe:

 

If you had put 70 million trillion monkeys on every planet in the universe at the beginning of time and asked them to randomly (at one keystroke per second, 24/7) write the sentence “we are probably all alone in this universe” they would statistically just have managed to do it ONCE (on ONE planet) in the 13.7 billion years the universe has existed.

 

If it takes that long to make such a simple sentence for so many monkeys over such a long time - imagine how small the probability would be for nature to have put together the right atoms to create DNA/life TWICE !!?!

 

(human DNA has 3 bn base pairs = 6 bn nucleotides (A, G, C, T) each of which has on average 34 atoms = 204 bn atoms. And even the simplest organism has a few hundred thousand base pairs…)

 

 

 

The reason we are (probably) alone in the galaxy:

 

If an advanced civilisation used ‘generation ships’ travelling at 1% of lightspeed and taking 200 years to build new generationships on the planets they reach – that civilisation would inhabit the WHOLE galaxy in substantially less than 10 million years (and as much as 6,000 stars in the first 10,000 years), this means it is pretty impossible for a civilisation to ‘die out’ when it is established on so many planets (and in flight between planets).

 

Another way of looking at this is to conclude that a total colonisation of our galaxy only takes one tenth of one percent of the time the galaxy has existed. So why, IF there EVER has been an alien civilisation, don’t we see any signs of it (known as the ‘Fermi Paradox’ – can also be applied to time travel) ?

 

 

...and don't get me started on 'Disclosure' - a complete non-starter (hint: 'people' dont do deals with 'bacteria' - I leave you to figure out who is who).

Lets see... After a while, "monkeys" will have all correct words (simple molecules become more complex). Then monkeys start playing with "words" (not reshuffling letters once again), which turns into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into chapters, chapters into book. Voila...

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deleted due to old data

Edited by toast
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10 hours ago, Alan McDougall said:

You might be right and then you also might be wrong.

I wonder how a visit to earth by an advanced civilization would have an effect on religion? 

Depends on the level of inerrancy the religion tolerates.  The higher the level, the greater the chance of self-destruction.

I'm more interest on the effect it would have on civilization.  Generally speaking, primitive cultures coming into contact with highly-advanced cultures have historically imploded within a few generations.  Humans have kind of a problem with rage-quitting.

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35 minutes ago, aquatus1 said:

Depends on the level of inerrancy the religion tolerates.  The higher the level, the greater the chance of self-destruction.

I'm more interest on the effect it would have on civilization.  Generally speaking, primitive cultures coming into contact with highly-advanced cultures have historically imploded within a few generations.  Humans have kind of a problem with rage-quitting.

Old Prussians were wiped out, what can I say...

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21 hours ago, badeskov said:

It was indeed Clarke.

Cheers,
Badeskov

Link...

Cheers,
Badekov

 

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11 hours ago, poltava said:

If it takes that long to make such a simple sentence for so many monkeys over such a long time - imagine how small the probability would be for nature to have put together the right atoms to create DNA/life TWICE !!?!

This isn't how evolution works.  The analogy with monkeys is a strawman.  The genetic code in DNA did not form atoms randomly coming together to form the complex structure we know as DNA.  The whole point behind evolution is how to explain how complexity like life can arise from simpler precursors without relying on pure random chance (or a guiding hand).

Also, it's not a given that life elsewhere in the universe will be DNA based.  There's no reason to think it's inevitable that life will be DNA based and there's various hypothetical alternatives and variations that have been proposed.

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