Are we alone?

[Captain Relativity]

Philboid Studge wrote

Does that answer your question?

Not only does your response answer my question, it was characteristically droll and well worth taking the time to read (as are Choobus's, I might add). Plus, as an unexpected bonus, it gives me a tip on a good movie to rent. Always on the lookout for decent movies don'tcha know.

Captain Relativity wrote

Fine, have it your way. I retract the word "can't" in relation to superluminal speeds other than in the context of contemporary/known science. Now, are you going to stop holding your breath and stamping your feet "like a little girl"?

I agree with you and every-fucking-budy else; who the hell knows what the future may bring?! As it stands however, as you damn well know, we "can't" move matter at speeds anything close to the speed of light. It's hard enough for us to get protons to move that fast for crap sake.

Perhaps an alien civilization millions or billions of years old has solved the problem of going really, really fast, or can somehow move through (or around) spacetime interdimensionally. Who the hell knows. And one more thing, you haven't answered my question, do you do aural?

A spaceship build of photons? That may help...

[Captain Relativity]

Photons are spaceships, aren't they? I mean, right along with everything else that exists and moves through space and time of course. This song just popped into my head. Perhaps you've heard it?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWRmi25_U8U
Don't all old men look the same? The older we get, the more alike we look.
Neil Young is looking like my twin, I have to say. It's uncanny.

[Whisper]

OK, the other half has come up with his explanation for why he thinks Aliens are here amongst us:

We have zoos, right?

[Captain Relativity]

OK, the other half has come up with his explanation for why he thinks Aliens are here amungst us:

"We have zoos, right?"

And here in the US we have Mexico to the south and Canuckistan to the north, right?

[Whisper]

Captain Relativity wrote

And here in the US we have Mexico to the south and Canuckistan to the north, right?

*lol* true

Why aliens would come all the way over here, simply to view us like at a zoo, I don't know. But he seems to think that's one explanation. Ah well.

[lostsheep]

Pethol wrote

I can accept the probability of life somewhere else. This probability of just "life somewhere else in any form" certainly has the highest probability. If we talk about intelligent life the probability decrease. If we talk intelligence and humanoid, even lower. And if it is intelligent, humanoid and technologically advanced - even lower. We know that life can occur pretty much anywhere, like in the sulfur puddles on Iceland.
How life would look out there, If we ever encountered it, would depend on the gravity of the planet, the biological environment; the chemicals domination the atmosphere(if any) and so on. A good example of this is our deep-sea creatures, of which we only know very little of, and we have not even discovered all the probable species that are down there. It is always all right to dream, but one need to always be critical as well. Just because something has a probability, does not make it truth. But probabilities are always interesting to investigate, but one need to always be prepared for a disappointment when coming to the end-result. The hunt is always more fun than the kill.

Yeah!

Yeah, I've always wondered if we could communicate with other intelligent life forms. And that would be assuming it would be an intelligence that would even want to communicate with us. For example, you mentioned "deep sea creatures" and I can't help but picture dolphins singing "So long and thanks for all the fish!"

But what if bacteria have a kind of collective intelligence? I suppose you could limit the definition of intelligence to the kind with which we could potentially communicate. But I don't see other species on this planet building things and threatening the ecology of the whole planet--not saying that's a good thing, but it does imply a certain kind of power/intelligence...or maybe just a perverse kind of success?

lostsheep wrote

Yeah, I've always wondered if we could communicate with other intelligent life forms. And that would be assuming it would be an intelligence that would even want to communicate with us. For example, you mentioned "deep sea creatures" and I can't help but picture dolphins singing "So long and thanks for all the fish!"

But what if bacteria have a kind of collective intelligence? I suppose you could limit the definition of intelligence to the kind with which we could potentially communicate. But I don't see other species on this planet building things and threatening the ecology of the whole planet--not saying that's a good thing, but it does imply a certain kind of power/intelligence...or maybe just a perverse kind of success?

well, i for one am a little lost on this as why the question of inteligent life is asked, first we need to find any life.
i think we evalute inteligent life based on ourselves, and by that standard no other species will match us.
i personaly think that we may find another species that will have societal qualites about us, but we need to find places that have the ability to sustain life first.
all creatures have a level of inteligence, but not all animlas have a view of abstractions that humans do.
i quite strongly belive that we may find bugs on mars or somwhere long before we ever find a so called intelligent life, as to ones we can communicate with.
we can not even communicate to most of the specices on this planet and it is only fairly recently that we even began this attempt at all with the different projects that involved the lingusitc studies involving teaching chimpanzees to use ASL.
we have no way of determining the level of inteligence until we are fully capable of communicating to that species, so finding a species in space, what are the odds that we will be able to know that is even communicating, for all we know, it has some sort of other sensory system than earth cruitters do, and it is by some method we have not even imagned yet that they communicate with ease,we may hit a planet with things that resemple trees, that sway in the wind, determint that it is non inteligent and in reality it is brodcasting thoughts of religion and politics.

[Smellyoldgit]

wohaz wrote

... it is non inteligent and in reality it is brodcasting thoughts of religion and politics.

not sure if you are in agreement or mocking me here git!
but in the spirt of the times, i too shall share a topicly ambiguous pic.

[ubs]

Wohaz, I think you'll like this if you haven't already seen it.

"They're made out of meat."

wow, that was funny, "who wants to meet meat?"
thats funny.
thank you.

[lostsheep]

ubs wrote

Wohaz, I think you'll like this if you haven't already seen it.

"They're made out of meat."

I was so totally gonna post that reference! Great story!

[lostsheep]

wohaz wrote

well, i for one am a little lost on this as why the question of inteligent life is asked, first we need to find any life.
i think we evalute inteligent life based on ourselves, and by that standard no other species will match us.
i personaly think that we may find another species that will have societal qualites about us, but we need to find places that have the ability to sustain life first.
all creatures have a level of inteligence, but not all animlas have a view of abstractions that humans do.
i quite strongly belive that we may find bugs on mars or somwhere long before we ever find a so called intelligent life, as to ones we can communicate with.
we can not even communicate to most of the specices on this planet and it is only fairly recently that we even began this attempt at all with the different projects that involved the lingusitc studies involving teaching chimpanzees to use ASL.
we have no way of determining the level of inteligence until we are fully capable of communicating to that species, so finding a species in space, what are the odds that we will be able to know that is even communicating, for all we know, it has some sort of other sensory system than earth cruitters do, and it is by some method we have not even imagned yet that they communicate with ease,we may hit a planet with things that resemple trees, that sway in the wind, determint that it is non inteligent and in reality it is brodcasting thoughts of religion and politics.

Pretty much similar thought's to those I've had.

I think that there may be many forms of life which we do not yet recognize: it may depend on our definition or understanding of what life is. Also, this could be true of intelligence. Or, as you suggested, we may not be able to recognize intelligent life even if we should run across it. Like I said, it could exist here, but we just aren't seeing it. It may be that a key to intelligence is the ability to communicate intelligently. Or something. I'm reaching here.

However, finding a different form of life--non-human, that is--with which we can meaningfully communicate, as we communicate (albeit sometimes ineffectively) w/ each other would be very exciting. But that would mean that the aliens in this case would have to have a similar basis for language, and therefore similar conceptions of the universe...I think.

i think to establish that thought, we need to be able to really look at how to define inteligent, and not simply by comparing it to us to test its intelignece.
i think the only way we can truly decide on what is inteligence, is how well it has been able to overcome its own limitations cognitivly, outside of phyisical strength, or some physical developmment like a beak or claws, but soly on its cognitive ability to use its physical cappablity to do only the first step.

for example, the chimpanzees useage of tools, one thought to be only a human trait.
any species can pick up a rock, any any species can pick up sticks, but only apes have been able to use the together for levers and hammers.
or another example is the bever, they build complex dams, they cognitivly build them, many species can cut down trees, many can throw themm into the water, only the bever managed to be able to overcome its limitations of strength, by oragnizng a group and planning a construction set up.

but the fact that we can see how they communicate, means that we can communicate with it.
i am willing to bet that we could make a micro bee robot, and set it to perform a dance, and we could get the hive to follow instructions.
the reason that we "fail" to communicate with other creatures, is that alot of animals can not think in abstraction.
for instance apes, they can look at a picture, and say what the picture contains, dogs, they see a paper(as far as i know).

so a species of extra terestrial quality, would not only over come our sensory limitations, but figure out how we communicate, or we them, and one of us would have to be willing to submit to trying to communicate the others way.
i doubt if it would be us, as all of the ligusitics studies that i know of that involve other spcies, involves getting them to understand us better, and there are not as many try to get us to speak in their language.

such as trying to translate whale songs to human languages, or chimps asl.