Elladan Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 349.920.000.000 That's the number of communicating intelligent species in the universe... 350 BILLION! Must be wrong calculation... :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maverick Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 all kidding and fantasy aside. do you' date=' in your heart of hearts, believe mankind is alone in the universe?[/quote'] for the moment we are. its not like we can invite the neighbours around for a glass of sherry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VonHelton Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 its only a matter of time before the volcuns make first contact. Except I dont think they have pointy ears. They are green. Their faces in the center of their body. No more pizza & beer for you! You're cut off. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thanatos355 Posted February 4, 2005 Author Share Posted February 4, 2005 Sorry guys' date=' i voted yes because i think that if we are not alone we should have had some sort of contact with something. We've been on this rock for two thousand years + and nothing has happened or will. Sorry but thats just regular fact strange as it is. But anyway maybe if we do colonize other planets their will be other species like us in a few million years. But other than that i think that even if their was life eslewere why would they even bother maybe they are just watching but they have a strict policy that won't allow them to allow direct contact with us. Or maybe they could be more primitive than we are. [/quote'] we've been here for ALOT longer then two thousand years! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elladan Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 we've been here for ALOT longer then two thousand years! To be precise: (website: http://www.wsu.edu contains this nice picture showing the origins of Homo Sapiens) We are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. We are 130.000 years old. We believe we are the only sentient and communicative intelligent species around. We are FOOLS. As you can see on the timetable, we are the product of 5 million years of evolution from a basic primate with little sentient abilities. This website: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~cpd/history.html shows clearly (among loads of interesting but irrelevant information) how many years of evolution it took for life to reach primate level 40 million years ago. 3.8 BILLION years... an awful amount of time. But let's face it, the universe itself is at least 11 billion years old: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/age_universe_030103.html Planets came into being at first after 4, 5 billion years of cooling and inflating (according to theory). I cannot tell how many planets there are, how many support life... and all those things. But I can tell that IF there is another planet capable of sustaining life, it WILL come to contact with us. Be it "friendly" "unfriendly" or "no feeling at all due to 'language' problems"... but they WILL get in touch. Whether they are primates like us? Not likely... but statistically seen, somewhere out there, somewhere far far away... there MUST be some planet like ours... a stellar system like ours... with evolution like ours... I hope. With the greatest respect, Elladan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elderbear Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 Sorry guys' date=' i voted yes because i think that if we are not alone we should have had some sort of contact with something. We've been on this rock for two thousand years + and nothing has happened or will. Sorry but thats just regular fact strange as it is. But anyway maybe if we do colonize other planets their will be other species like us in a few million years. But other than that i think that even if their was life eslewere why would they even bother maybe they are just watching but they have a strict policy that won't allow them to allow direct contact with us. Or maybe they could be more primitive than we are. [/quote'] we've been here for ALOT longer then two thousand years! And unambiguous historical records get us back to 4000 BCE or beyond for some civilizations. Rock art and the like can get us back tens of thousands of years ... but that's not unambiguous (your spaceman could be my shaman & vice versa). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elderbear Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 I cannot tell how many planets there are, how many support life... and all those things. But I can tell that IF there is another planet capable of sustaining life, it WILL come to contact with us. Be it "friendly" "unfriendly" or "no feeling at all due to 'language' problems"... but they WILL get in touch. Whether they are primates like us? Not likely... but statistically seen, somewhere out there, somewhere far far away... there MUST be some planet like ours... a stellar system like ours... with evolution like ours... I hope. Thanks for all that useful info. I love seeing content instead of just off-the-cuff opinion. But intelligent life forms do not necessarily mean that contact will take place. We do know about the collapse of numerous human civilizations, either from Malthusian factors, unsustainable abuse of the environment, or conquest from without (to name just a few factors). Three important factors impact the question of contact: 1) The precarious nature of a technological society. Do civilizations hold together long enough to reach a stage where contact is possible. If so, do they maintain that state long enough for two-way contact to exist? This includes the notion that modern societies may well destroy themselves through warfare, if not environmental collapse. Ask yourself just how likely it is that our current society will continue in 100 years (or 200 years) once fossil fuel reserves have mostly been exhausted. There seems to be insufficient political will to adapt significantly before the fact. What will happen if global warming occurs with 7 or 8 billion people on the planet? Will our system of complex, interdependent societies continue to exist, or will famine lead to chaos and destruction (as it did on Easter Island)? 2) Similarity. Are other civilizations enough like us that we'd recognize their attempts to make contact? Focusing here on earth, I raise the question "Are cetaceans intelligent life forms?" If so, we have yet to make contact, even though we're familiar with them, we don't know how to communicate with them. 3) The rarity of essential technologies. Think of a very basic technology: the alphabet. According to Jared Diamond, only once in the entire history of the human species was the alphabet invented. ONCE! All other writing systems are either ideograms, syllabograms, derivative systems, or arose through exposure to pre-existing alphabets. Had Eurasia not been assembled - through the chaotic processes of plate tectonics - at the time that homo sapiens sapiens were disbursing throughout the world, or even if it had assembled, but with a North-South axis instead of an East-West orientation, it is highly unlikely that any modern, technolgical society would exist today. It is possible that no modern society would ever have come to exist. I'm not ruling out contact! But I am afraid that we may face limiting factors which make it highly unlikely, if not virtually impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elderbear Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 But perhaps we can evolve socially' date=' psychologically, and politically to where it doesn't take an external threat to unite us after all. Such a level of maturity would, after all, make us safe to unleashe upon the universe, beyond the confines of our own solar system.[/quote'] .....Which would then make you vulnerable to a dictator with aspirations of world domination. :thinking: I don't see the vulnerability. In a sane, evolved society, such a person would receive pity and treatment, not political power. But that presupposes a sane society. Perhaps we are left with your choices: dictatorship on our own, dictatorship to face an alien menace, or dictatorship by menacing aliens. I'd like to work for NONE OF THE ABOVE! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elderbear Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 i have to agree with vh here. on alot of points. hell' date=' all of em really. i dont see ANYTHING bringing the entire human race together, except a threat to the entire human race.[/quote'] And unfortunately, that is not guaranteed to bring us together. It may actually increase fragmentation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thanatos355 Posted February 4, 2005 Author Share Posted February 4, 2005 well, i would like to think that in the face of the death of our species, that humankind would come together like never before and at least make the attempt to survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VonHelton Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 I don't see the vulnerability. In a sane' date=' evolved society, such a person would receive pity and treatment, not political power.[/quote'] ......And I would remind you that 1937 Germany was considered quite sane for the time period. :stare: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Engineer101 Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 O.o Von, 5 posts away from 1000. anyways its human destiny to be united. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VonHelton Posted February 4, 2005 Share Posted February 4, 2005 And unfortunately' date=' that is not guaranteed to bring us together. It may actually [b']increase[/b] fragmentation! Perhaps in the 1920's this would be correct. However, in todays communication era, it wouldn't take long to realize that everyone was affected, not just a few. :thinking: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psheldrake1 Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 Good example. This site. We all comunicate without bias. Our thoughts are what we express. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yelluh Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 ......And I would remind you that 1937 Germany was considered quite sane for the time period. :stare: Yeah but by 1941 the whole world knew it was not. :stare: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alone Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 I am Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yelluh Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 I am :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daffydk Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 You guys are all doing your calculations based on our universe. how many different Universes are there in existence? Did anyone see Men In Black where they show that at the end of the movie, our universe is just a play thing in another bigger universe. Thats just one way to look at it. There could be parallel universes, there could be universes beyond our universe or we could be within another universe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VonHelton Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 Yeah but by 1941 the whole world knew it was not. Very true........Unfortunately. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elderbear Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 You guys are all doing your calculations based on our universe. how many different Universes are there in existence? Then each "uni-verse" would be a portion of the "multi-verse" ... which isn't impossible. Some mighty fine SF has been written about it. And, depending on how you swallow your quantum physics, multiple "universes" may actually be required by our current understanding of how things work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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