does intelligent alien life exist

[Captain_Colossus]

a matter of perspective with an ego-centric view of this question: we tend to view ourselves as the 'humans' with the impression that exoplanet lifeforms are the 'aliens' - if you see how that works, then this situation is flipped around:
extraterrestrial lifeforms would regard themselves as the 'humans', or whatever name they apply to themselves, while we are in fact the 'aliens' from their point of view. it is only a switch in perspective

 

- i regard the femi paradox as not a true paradox at all- the absence of a supposed thing does not indicate a paradox in itself. a material paradox is more of the form that something implies its own impossibility which must be possible to begin with, or a profound self contradiction

 

- nothing in itself precludes the rare earth possibility, which i think is a strong argument for why intelligent life does not appear so often or at all even if it exists, that is, the conditions for our solar system which created life are a dazzling mix of unlikely conditions,  an earth neither spinning too randomly, nor too slowly nor too quickly, with an optimal size with the right elements, an optimal distance and rotation with respect to its parent star of optimal size and temperature, a moon of the right size which imparts on the earth tidal influences and affects its rotation, a system of large outer planets which collect or deflect planet killing asteroids at this stage in the game

 

- even if these kinds of conditions are replicated many times given the size of the universe, it just so happens it happens on a large enough scale there is nothing necessary to indicate that we are as un-evolved as we tend to perceive ourselves, it may actually be we are on a normal evolutionary track as any other theoretical species given the same starting conditions, separated by large distances, it may be this same situation is repeated on cosmological scales but separated by vast distances. the answer to the fermi paradox would be that life could be abundant everywhere but the distances

are just as unavailable or inaccessible to everyone else as they are to us; in effect everyone is more or less 'trapped' in similar situations, the same conditions which we see

 

i listened to lectures recently of the argument that the structure of the universe could be described as an infinite fractal pattern which repeats itself in the same way at larger and larger scales- in that sense this exact same situation which we see all around us repeated infinitely on large scales with

no beginning nor end, that is, the alien species 'out there' are actually us - repeated infinitely many times at higher scales, we are alone in a sense, but we are also the very aliens we regard ourselves, we may never actually contact these other selves

 

so at the same time i look at what is going on with AI and what that might be as far as 'alien' intelligence goes, since the AI is really us, the AI 'mind' is the product of the aggregated human minds exchanging and transferring ideas, opinions and information, not a distinct and separate thing

 

[Ssnake]

Enrico Fermi loved estimating, especially things that were notoriously hard to guess because of hard-to-come-by data. The Fermi Paradox absolutely is a paradox in the context of discussing the sheer number of stars in the Milky Way, and if you solve for the growth of a technical civilization once that it has mastered interstellar travel, and terraforming.

Let's say that one space-faring civilization exists, and that every 10,000 years they manage to found a new colony (and every colony reproduces every 10,000 years, too). Then the whole Milky Way gets colonized in under half a million years. Given that at least half of the stars in our galaxy are older than the sun and that it took life on Earth roughly 1.5 billion years to evolve from bacteria to us, it appears unlikely that we'd be the first technical civilization to emerge - however pessimistic you are when setting the factors in the Drake formula (and we now know that planets are the norm for stars to have, something we didn't know until about the turn of the millenium).

So then, where are they? They should be our neighbors, in every direction. So maybe there is a big filter at play, and that's where discussing the Fermi Paradox gets distinctly uncomfortable if you try to secure the survival of the human species.

[Captain_Colossus]

the human species as we think of it does not survive regardless if evolution is true in the sense it is unchanging- it was not there to begin with, nor will it be there in the future the same way as it is now. in a sense all intelligent life regards itself as 'the humans' just as we do now- all members of any species seem to recognize members of their own; intelligent, self aware species will also tend to regard itself as separate and distinct from species on their worlds. in a hierarchy, the intelligent ones which regards themselves as different or at the top will naturally regard themselves as 'the humans' as we have done. the difference is the language or the words to describe this situation, but imagine a situation where an alien species finds us and says, 'well here we have discovered aliens' in the same way we would regard this situation if it happened in reverse

 

to answer fermi's paradox may not be valid but they show that there is not really a paradox at all, for instance, if it is true that all other aliens are just as equally trapped in their individual solar systems as we are in an ever expanding universe, or if we smell and they simply find us revolting enough to leave us alone, the 'paradox' is resolved (not that the correct solution is found to the puzzle); maybe they are there, but the distances are simply prohibitive; maybe there are alien races in the andromeda galaxy and maybe well know in 5 billion years when our galaxies collide or sometime when we approach closer, and so i do not really regard fermi's thinking here a real paradox - but a valid question nevertheless

 

i regard paradoxes in more of a strict sense that than fermi's paradox which is more of a conundrum than a 'true paradox,' - it might be a strong argument but there is nothing in that which is like say, the paradox of time travel where i can time warp into the past and kill my ancestors, precluding my being born to travel into the past in order to do that

 

 

Edited October 30 by Captain_Colossus

[CalAB]

Does intelligent alien life exist…at the corporate level…

That’s the true question that needs to be asked, assed and answered. 

[Grenny]

Does intelligent life exist? Thats the real question.

[Stuart666]

Monty Python said it best...

 

 

[mpow66m]

http://ancientaliensdebunked.com

[Tankleader]

Define Intelligent Life, our standard or theirs?

 

Tanks

[Captain_Colossus]

i considered the problem that there is no difference. that is the gag

 

imagine if you are an alien intelligence and you point to yourself and call yourself human or whatever it is you would call it. it is the same situation whether in this solar system or any other

 

that is to say, any intelligence which calls itself intelligent is the same perspective no matter where it is located 

 

we do not call ourselves 'the aliens', we call ourselves "the humans" -- this is the same situation as what 'the aliens' in some distant star system would refer to as themselves, that is, they are 'the humans', while referring to us as 'the aliens;' the specific words or language or signs used may be different, but otherwise the perspective is the same

 

in a similar way, it is a bizarre feature of all of this that all points of view are at the center of it all; for all observers, it as if the perspective is at the center, and therefore somewhat paradoxically for that reason there is no center

 

for instance, you walk around outside and the sun or the moon appear to follow you and only you around the track, and the same appears to be true for all other observers. each observer is the center

of all experience, and in this way all observers are sort of trapped in the perspective of their own individual universe where everyone else is in their orbit- since everywhere is the center, there is no center

 

 

for some reason or another we have invented an idea that somehow our species on earth is behind the curve and any foreign intelligence must necessarily be appear godlike if we were to cross paths,

though there is no specific reason to believe this other than perhaps ideas in science fiction or some very sketchy opinions that ancient cultures were already in contact with extraterrestrial entities

in the past.

 

to your question:

 

if this story is true as they say it is, then what are you exactly insofar as we have somewhat convinced ourselves to believe we are somehow this backwards stupid organism

 

 

 

 

 

[Ssnake]

1 hour ago, Captain_Colossus said:

that is to say, any intelligence which calls itself intelligent is the same perspective no matter where it is located 

You have a ton of unspoken cultural and human species related assumptions in that sentence. You're extrapolating intelligen life in the whole universe from a sample size of one. Only after we find at least two or three non-terrestrian life forms can we start to make some general assumptions, and even then it's going out on a ledge. If we could find life in the icy moons of our gas giants that developed independently from earth we'd have a much more solid base to decide whether life, in general, is prolific in this universe or incredibly rare. We'd have an idea if the "carbon and water" model is universal. We'd know if DNA was universal. Until then, I can but recommend the highest degree of epistemiological humility.

[Captain_Colossus]

3 hours ago, Ssnake said:

You have a ton of unspoken cultural and human species related assumptions in that sentence. You're extrapolating intelligen life in the whole universe from a sample size of one. Only after we find at least two or three non-terrestrian life forms can we start to make some general assumptions, and even then it's going out on a ledge. If we could find life in the icy moons of our gas giants that developed independently from earth we'd have a much more solid base to decide whether life, in general, is prolific in this universe or incredibly rare. We'd have an idea if the "carbon and water" model is universal. We'd know if DNA was universal. Until then, I can but recommend the highest degree of epistemiological humility.

 

where does this idea that other species from other worlds must be more advanced than us come from other than from cultural attitudes? science has not observed it, so when you plumb into that the source is science fiction maybe from the last 150 years (i might be off here by a decade or so more or less), from what looks like some hack writers who postulate that entities and beings described in texts from the middle east or glyphs and calendar systems from mesoamerica or south america originate with advanced species, rather than say among the ancient chinese who were generally much more literate and could read if they wanted to spread the message why they are visiting instead of vaguely appearing to illiterate cultures. that is really where all that comes from, but nothing actually observed other than "UFOs" in our common understanding of them. even if you want to postulate that it is of the supreme arrogance to assume the rare earth hypothesis as a starting point, you have no other basis to presume from other than your own underlying presumptions, informed by your own upbringing in your own culture and so on. no choice in that, as we all are

 

a rare earth does not mean that there are not many such earths. there could be billions multiplied by billions of rare earths, but on cosmological scales, the distribution pattern is such at they would appear rare from the standpoint that contact is out of reach, hence the fermi paradox is not so much a paradox since it is not actually a self contradiction. they are 'rare' in the sense that they compromise only the smallest fraction of all planets, and basically out of reach from one another because of distance, but they may be endless on large scales. from a practical standpoint, there is no difference whether there are an infinte number of rare earths at any one time, or just one in the entire universe or multiverse if they remain forever out of contact ( i do not predict anything like that happening, but to look at it from the point of view that as a matter of perspective both would be the same experience)

 

as far as the hypothetical question as to 'other forms of life' on other worlds which were made of inorganic crystalline elements or another, we do not see that happening anywhere in our solar system either as far as we can tell- not in any of the extremes found on other planets here in our solar system or on venus, or jupiter, or mercury, nor on our own. we have what looks like a sample of more than just our own planet, we have eight (ticked down from nine officially) going on as the star is in its midlife before destroying all inner planets; it is not out of arrogance that i suggest that might be the default situation anywhere and everywhere, from that standpoint, but the only reference point we have. all the ideas of 'well you just do not know' don't prove a thing but in the interest of sounding 'humble' there is often a specific kind of epistemological humility which i disregard, i.e., the kind found in plato and immanuel kant or rene decartes, the kind which purposefully throw 'common sense' or 'opinions' out the front door, only to let their own version of them back in through the back door; they are not 'real' skeptics to the degree that no one truly is or no one could get out of the bed in the morning, but their version of it is the very sophistry they tend to disparage, it is clear they have agendas of their own and apply their methods only against ideas that they find disagreeable

 

suppose for the sake of argument that other forms of life emerged as say rock compounds as is suggested- if we extrapolate from that the strange kind of problem which might emerge, for example, the rocks, now sentient, rebel against our attempts to walk on them or to use them as building materials and so on; and so i think that might be the key to all of this that everything happening fits within fairly consistent patterns where you do not witness situations like that, which is not to say we do not have other problems- entropy, decay, social problems, or problems arising from greed or what have you

 

 

 

 

Edited Friday at 11:14 PM by Captain_Colossus

[Captain_Colossus]

i do not know the source of these experiments, but i recall more than ten years ago at least scientists have run simulations of the evolution of life from organic particles (of course there are underlying assumptions and all of this should be open to debate)

 

but as i understand it when these simulations are run, the same sorts of patterns are observed as if happening of its own without cajoling or anything controlling it or forcing it to happen, these same patterns emerge in their simulations (again, the caveat with all of this is that it is based on what is presumed to be the case, of course and not proof by itself, but interesting)

 

now this might indicate that whenever these same sorts of conditions are replicated anywhere, where molecular bonds form and are steady enough over long enough periods, more and more complex structures automatically arise as if doing itself. then watch out- life is inevitable when that happens, and of course all the inevitable problems and whatever which comes along with that. there is no choice in the matter

 

 

Edited Friday at 11:10 PM by Captain_Colossus

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

where does this idea that other species from other worlds must be more advanced than us come from other than from cultural attitudes?

Time scales, mostly, and likelihoods:

 

The period from the start of microbial life on our planet to our current technical civilization is 1.5 Billion years long. Assuming that this is a somewhat average duration, the fact remains that this happened here only in the last 11% of the lifetime of our universe. If life is somewhat abundant and does naturally evolve into technical civilizations eventually, there is an overwhelminly lage likelihood that other species have had a head start. And since cultural and technical evolution is much faster than the biological one, not much of a head start is needed. Let's just think of an "Earth B" where life started a mere 5,000 years earlier, a difference of merely a half of a millionth, or .0005%.

"Earth B" would have reached our current level of technology by the time that we here were barely transitioning from the copper to the bronze age.

The stipulation that mankind is the vanguard of technological civilizations in this galaxy requires the fundamental assumption that somehow we evolved faster, or earlier, than anyone else.

 

Our sun is a G dwarf, and about 5 billion years old. G dwarves have a lifetime of approximately 10 BN years. They make up about 10% of the total population of stars in the Milkyway. That means, about 10...40BN G dwarves are currently in this galaxy. At least 5...20BN of them are older than our sun, if ever so slightly. As shown before, if interstellar travel is possible, and if a technical civilization can replicate itself by colonizing a new star system every 10,000 years, the whole milkyway is theirs within between half and three million years. It is not difficult to imagine that of the 5...20BN G dwarf stars, someone, somewhere, got a head start of a few hundred thousand years.

[Captain_Colossus]

25 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Time scales, mostly, and likelihoods:

 

It is not difficult to imagine that of the 5...20BN G dwarf stars, someone, somewhere, got a head start of a few hundred thousand years.

 

it is not difficult to imagine, sure. the trick is to actually observe that. of course we are all probing all of this with our minds. demonstrating it is another matter

 

regarding our own planet, it is easy to imagine that in the age of the earth or say that of the moon- both billions of years old, life could have gotten started much earlier than it did on earth for the same reason as an argument from the timescales involved.  life appears quite recently on earth. the moon is very old with respect to the rest of the solar system and basically inactive- no tectonic or vulcan activity, lots of impact craters suggest an old surface for a long time. why is there no life on the moon, including the inorganic type where they should thrive without interference

 

it might very well be there is a pattern which tends to be the case. we might either be alone or we might as well be given the large scale of everything. that is, the same general patterns where this tends to occur in our solar system is what it is. i'm afraid otherwise the only evidence we have are conspiracy theories and arguments as to what UFOs might be. i want to think i have an open mind on most matters, but i do have a question- where are the stories of UFOs happening anywhere in say, the golden age of hellenistic cultures- why do they appear within the last century only and only in such as a way to be aloof and mysterious now

[Ssnake]

59 minutes ago, Captain_Colossus said:

why is there no life on the moon, including the inorganic type where they should thrive without interference

"inorganic life" is, for all that we know, a fantasy, and IMO not a very good one.

Why is there no life on the moon? Lack of water, lack of atmosphere, lack of magnetosphere. Water simply is one of universe's greatest chemical solvents, allowing for much more chemical interactions on the way to amino acids, lipid layers, and eventually bacteria. Atmosphere is needed to protect from cometary bombardment, magnetosphere is required to keep your atmosphere. Basically, you need multiple layers of protection as well as a suitable energy source to get the chemistry going (be it radiant heat from a nearby star, be it geothermal energy from tidal forces). If we find life in the oceans of Europa and other icy moons, we can say with quite some confidence that where you have liquid water, you'll find life in this universe. But we're not there yet.

[Captain_Colossus]

55 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

"inorganic life" is, for all that we know, a fantasy, and IMO not a very good one.

Why is there no life on the moon? Lack of water, lack of atmosphere, lack of magnetosphere. Water simply is one of universe's greatest chemical solvents, allowing for much more chemical interactions on the way to amino acids, lipid layers, and eventually bacteria. Atmosphere is needed to protect from cometary bombardment, magnetosphere is required to keep your atmosphere. Basically, you need multiple layers of protection as well as a suitable energy source to get the chemistry going (be it radiant heat from a nearby star, be it geothermal energy from tidal forces). If we find life in the oceans of Europa and other icy moons, we can say with quite some confidence that where you have liquid water, you'll find life in this universe. But we're not there yet.

 

sure, that is the organic life; what about the inorganic life that we often postulate as a kind of workaround to the problem of organic life. so if the material is basically the same material on the moon, ionizing radiation or lack of atmosphere or even a crushing atomosphere isn't necessarily a problem. but it appears that we do not see that either

 

i am not predicting anything, but i argue that based on observable patterns, i can make the case that what you see is what we are getting. what we don't see well, what is that. i see elaborate workarounds and ideas, which is healthy, i do not dispute that, it is just that we do not see

that. if it is a reasonable argument that life is not as limited to narrow range as our normal experience, it is just that we are not seeing it, given the other range of possibilities in our own solar system. nor do we appear to be picking up other sources of information from stars within our own galaxy which might suggest transmissions from alien worlds relatively nearby within the 100,000 light year range, say, at least not yet. then this is where we can always close off loose ends- maybe they do not want to be detected or whatever, after some on our planet argue it would be a mistake to broadcast our presence to the rest of the galaxy or we should not presume that anything we encounter might be charitable

 

on that note it is interesting because the UFOs that we do see here on earth are not hidden like that, no cloaking technology or anything like that, notwithstanding the hoaxes, we can see them. so they are not taking care enough not to be seen if that is them; i do not know exactly what it was, but in some of the video we have seen these fighter aircraft have a radar or IR track on these things, or whatever the sensor is (you might know and can tell us here, i am not familiar enough). so they in those cases if those are visiting ET's, either they aren't sophisticated enough to hide or they want to be seen but are playing games with us

 

 

[Ssnake]

5 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

what about the inorganic life that we often postulate as a kind of workaround to the problem of organic life.

I don't think that it exists in practice, even if some people may consider it a theoretical possibility. You need chemistry to get the components of life in the right order. You can't make chemistry if the components are scattered in all directions with no chance of finding each other. Having, on the other hand, everything sloshing around in a watery solution mobilizes the chemical components to eventually bind to each other.

 

5 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

UFOs

I don't think they exist in the sense of actual vehicles of extraterrestrial life visiting this planet. Plenty of sightings in the sky that people can't explain? Sure.

Conflating the two issues with each other isn't going to yield a useful result.

[Captain_Colossus]

16 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Conflating the two issues with each other isn't going to yield a useful result.

 

 

 i mention ufos for the reason that of all the evidence we have, which is otherwise none, ufos are the only candidate for any sort of direct evidence. any discussion about anything other than that has no direct evidence pointing to i. we even have these pop-culture scientists like neil de grasse tyson going on about these things as if they were settled matters and all but fact, dyson spheres located in this star system or that, and then the projections from that grow exponentially. i know this is working on people because i have seen enough conversations from people who regard all that as established fact. and they ultimately rely on the same kinds of arguments even if you point all this out as being purely made up: "well you do not know. how arrogant of you. and it would be naive to think in all the infinite expanse of our universe that they aren't there" - which is alot of effort put into story which proves nothing and which shows itself to

be vapid

 

now this is not to say that i think that ufos are alien technology visiting the earth per se, i am only pointing out that despite our sophisticated imaginations none of that is actually apparent other than the 'ufo's'

 

and again this comes full circle back to fermi- the basic assumption is that alien races are not only plentiful, but that they must be so advanced that from that comes its own conundrum, because we are not actually seeing that

 

not even on the scale of our own galaxy which is by no means large relative to the rest of the visible universe, which in itself is not settled; let us take the idea that there are these aliens, and that they must have progressed to master reality as they must have done. but they aren't there.

 

scenario 1:

 

the ET's have reached a stage that they are essentially 'enlightened', whatever that means, have no need to struggle and out of the bounty of their own efforts want to transmit their knowledge or culture or ideas or technology

 

scenario 2:

 

not as near as generous but maybe sadistic and still equally powerful or advanced, they would sooner enslave the earth or just destroy it like a child would stomp on an insect jut for the enjoyment

 

 

you see neither case, using their own arguments about the age of the universe and the probability of advanced aliens populating it by now, we see neither. again not even within our own galaxy, which is still out of range for us since based on current propulsion technology there is still no practical means to reach the nearest star to make it useful, but should still be accessible of these superb alien civilizations. you see none of that actually happening

 

scenario 3:

 

the aliens are indifferent to us and wish merely to remain out of contact. and so this is often the final conceit when 1 and 2 are no longer available

 

 

Edited Saturday at 10:54 PM by Captain_Colossus

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

you see none of that actually happening

That's not to say that things aren't in motion. Earth started emitting detectable radio waves about 100 years ago, and became a more luminous radio frequency object than the sun some 60 years ago (this ended in the last 20 years, as we transitioned to digital transmissions with much less energy output than analog TV, so the period of mankind being easily detectable was just about forty years).

If the aliens are comparatively close they might send planet killer comets our way right now and we wouldn't see them during our lifetime, nor would our grandchildren - but they may already be on a collision trajectory.

 

If an apex predator species managed to colonize the galaxy, they could very well be quite protective of their status, and rather genocidal in attitude, which in turn would be one of the uncomfortable big filters that can resolve the Fermi paradox.

[Captain_Colossus]

if you apply the reverse scenario with SETI and NGOs and individuals actively listening for alien broadcasts, there really is not much there either

 

and so while the first signals emitted from earth one hundred years ago are waiting for a reply, it is not quite working in reverse either, which it would seem to be the better bet- that we would detect the broadcasts from supposedly longstanding advanced alien civilizations but which aren't there, that is, if we are on the right track at all by listening for these signals, it would seem likely something would have been picked up almost immediately, being that they were already present for a long time, because as the proponents point out these are going to be ancient civilizations already way ahead of the curve. using their argument as a starting point, then where are they:

 

the fact that this discussion exists is a symptom which points to something wrong i think with all of this. we would not have this discussion if the question were whether life in the deep sea exists, because we see that, and it is settled. mariners have seen that for centuries when corpses and things like that washed up on land

 

because it is just plausible enough not to be entirely dismissed like prehistoric monsters in loch ness or something, it appears to be unfalsifiable- there is always some loose end which can be tied off, that is, we're not tuned into the right frequency, they are out of range, they are there but want nothing to do with us, and so on and so forth. and so in the end those who take the skeptical position are simply left holding the bag trying to prove a negative and the pro-view kind of prevails by default- because to take any view other than that is to be 'arrogant' or a troglodyte

 

it looks to me that there is a strong psychological pull that many people want to believe that we are not alone in the universe at least as part of the underlying motive of all this. it does not bother me at all if that were the case, in fact i think it would be fascinating

to see these aliens and take the plunge wherever that leads if it were true. that would be a fantastic show, maybe we will get to fight aliens or something in one case, or in another we will be propelled into some new stage of development like in some movie trope

 

but i do not believe it is the case, or at least nothing that we might ever see except in perhaps another way:

 

suppose it is really we who are the advanced species, which i often point out to and met with ridicule. but suppose we advance to the point that technology and AI run away on some path where we are generating realities like the holodeck on star trek

or something of that kind, and then we artificially generate whatever we want- alien species we can do battle with or whatever. in fact to some extent we are already doing that now with consumer technology and virtually reality and computer software

and so on- just imagine what that might look like in 100 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years and so on

 

 

Edited Sunday at 04:13 AM by Captain_Colossus

[Ssnake]

3 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

if you apply the reverse scenario with SETI and NGOs and individuals actively listening for alien broadcasts, there really is not much there either

As is to be expected, if our own technological advance is an indicator (it's the only one we have, so far). We turned from the Neolithic to the Space age in about 10,000 years. 40 years of which we emitted a lot of (analog) radiowaves that are detectable maybe out to 100 light years around us. That's a relatively small volume of the galaxy, and it's a relatively small detection window (40 out of 10,000 years, or 0.4%). There would need to be a civilization on the 1950s...1990s technological level within 70 light years around us that we would have at least a minimal chance to detect. If they are 100 light years away, we might detect the emergence of a tiny but bright radio source in about 30 years.

[Ssnake]

4 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

that we would detect the broadcasts from supposedly longstanding advanced alien civilizations but which aren't there

How would you detect them?

The whole point of my argument is that in our own history, only analog signals were transmitted with a sufficient strength to be well detectable. Since the technological transmission to digital signals has been made, the bubble of detectability has shrunk to maybe a fifth of the analog age's radius.

Maybe they use quantum communications. At least one SF author suggested high frequency gravitational waves from asteroid-sized black holes with a strong electric charge (feed it a lot of ions, then capture it with an electric field). None of our detectors are suitable or sensitive enought for that.

[Ssnake]

4 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

suppose it is really we who are the advanced species, which i often point out to and met with ridicule.

It's a possibility that I would not ridicule. But it'd fill me with existential dread how incredibly hostile this universe must be to life, and how careless we interact with the olny ecosphere that we have, right now. If life were abundant, at least we wouldn't be the universe's sole candidate even if it might be more dangerous to us as a species. (If, say, the Dark Forest theory was true. Or if there was some other Big Filter at play, per Fermi Paradoxon.)

[Captain_Colossus]

well it could not be a bigger practical joke played if you tried

 

no one actually 'wins,' it is all given and then taken away again, and any biological species is more or less faced with the same situation with the problems of war, maybe with disease which co-evolve with our efforts to eradicate them,

with change and flux and trying to stay ahead of the game in order to survive. and so we might assume the alien civilizations are in the same boat, after a certain amount of time they have to figure out a way to solve more and more problems

as reaching any particular phase doesn't actually solve the problem of death

 

it is very odd isn't it: to survive requires energy and it requires effort and it would be so much easier if there were nothing at all. anyone is in the same situation no matter their capabilities face the

same problems, if entropy is sort of hard wired into things; what is more the life and energy giving properties of the stars are also doing it all in, the stars eventually die or go nova or something, while

resources and living space on planets are not infinite; and it appears that life feeds on life

 

 on some level looks absurd once a species is sufficiently self aware enough to get with that and understand there is nothing that will save you, there is no future where somehow once you arrive there you reach the finish line and then everyone can relax; because it would seem that all of that is actually necessary or otherwise you are confronted with the obvious demonstration of overpopulation, and so what looks like a 'tragedy' on one level is actually necessary to keep the whole system healthy. otherwise the very old would still be competing against the very young for resources, living space, mates and reproduction and so on and it would just sort of wear everything out if it had to go on like that without a break from it

 

and so i think all of this is doing what it should be doing, it is just that with an evolved frontal cortex we are put in the position to contemplate all of this instead of the dumber animals which sort of act more on instinct unencumbered with thinking like that

 

out of this somewhere in the universe a species has arisen which is looking around itself and saying - "what the hell" - or 'what is all this'. and convinces itself that there must be something more to it than what it sees

out of a sort of habit of doing that  it does not see that it is really they who are the 'aliens'- because anyone in that situation would it see it the same way

 

if a species in the andromeda galaxy for example took a look around itself in the cosmos and wondered what its position was, it would be the same perspective as what we are doing here in our galaxy. you would not know in either case anything differently,

you would call yourself in your language whatever it is you think you are, say, 'the humans' , and everyone else are 'the aliens' that species would be in the same position as we are in now.

we just do not know it. like in a similar way if you were in a universe where certain properties were different, suppose in that universe 2 + 2 =9, or that the clouds were made of gold, you would not know the difference than what you are seeing

now, because that is all you would know, it would not seem unusual to you. you would not think you are in a different universe than the one you should be in. so in that sense all perspectives are "this" one, any experience you would have is the one you are having right now, not knowing the difference, not knowing it is you who is actually this very advanced lifeform and you could be the very alien species you think is 'out there' somehow

 

Edited Sunday at 06:04 PM by Captain_Colossus

[Ssnake]