Aliens

>can you tell if some aliens passed by when our ancestors were swimming in the great ocean? Sentient humans weren't there from the beginning so the lack of alien activity records shouldn't be strange at all;
No, but if it were actually possible to achieve interstellar travel I find it strange that they haven't come back and been noticed.
>moreover why would someone want to contact someone who is inferior to him in terms of knowledge? What would the aliens get from it?
Slaves? Pets? Food? Semi-intelligent game to hunt for sport? There are other reasons for contact other than altruism.
If there were aliens out there and space travel was easy enough I'm certain we'd have heard from them by now, or they would have left some probes or artifacts somewhere on the Earth's surface and we'd have found them.
We're the first life in the galaxy because the universe is fairly young and all sorts of things can interrupt the evolution of intelligent life. We've only had a handful of such events. Other planets evolving life must have it way worse off, so they'll be stuck at the semi-aquatic worm stages of life while we're building von Neumann probes

We could argue over this but that wouldn't be wise. Even if our definitions of the word "likely" are different. you hipocritically claim that it is the other way around. There are two possibilities: either you say something with no basis whatsoever or you attack your own claim. You obviously aren't right.

The universe is pretty young, "they" are most likely very primitive organisms.

You're right, I guess I did miss the part where you can multiply unknown probabilities by large numbers and somehow get meaningful answers.
I'm not claiming it's the other way round at all.

You do have a point, they could use humans for having fun provided that they want it. If the current cycle of the universe is young there is still possibility that there are organisms more advanced than we are as a race but haven't been able to travel in space for useful distances.
Also
>We're the first life in the galaxy because the universe is fairly young and all sorts of things can interrupt the evolution of intelligent life. We've only had a handful of such events. Other planets evolving life must have it way worse off, so they'll be stuck at the semi-aquatic worm stages of life while we're building von Neumann probes
Don't you think that this claim is selfish? In my opinion there is no reason to think that we are first, even though it's possible. I do not disagree that it is possible though.

>tfw there's a chance you could be the spooky ancient race in a scifi setting

>Why do so many people think this? It's just flat out wrong. Nothing about the universe being large implies alien life is "likely".

Individual improbability is cancelled out with a sufficiently large number of attempts.

there's no reason to think we're the first
but i'm just a drunk chauvinist so i'm personally in love with the idea
i wish some ayys would show up and btfo my anthro-supremacist ideals

Nicely put.
If someone for some reason doesn't agree with that, please look at the Bernoulli scheme.

Well now that you said it I have to tell you that it would make me feel a little bit more comfortable if I were to see that I'm more intelligent than everything else out there;, on the other hand I have in mind that that it may not be the most likely scenario; I think that I'll just stick to acknowledging humans as the only rivals in my life up to the moment in which I face an alien.

But how do you know the universe is sufficiently large to cancel out this particular individual probability (which is entirely unknown)?

The Hubble telescope provides us with enough data.

>But how do you know the universe is sufficiently large to cancel out this particular individual probability (which is entirely unknown)?

That's what the Drake Equation set out to answer. Thanks to planet hunting missions like Kepler, we've been able to fill in a lot of the variables. It's exceedingly unlikely we're the only technological civilization to have ever existed, but it's far less improbable that we're the only one that currently exists in this galaxy.

>implying that astronomy has performed an exhaustive audit of the entire universe.

No that would be immature; I only imply that what we see by it's eyes leads us to a conclusion that even if it's young, the universe is dense enough for us to draw further conclusions.

But you're just ignoring what everybody else seems to as well: that's only half of the equation.

We know that there's fuckloads of planets and probably trillions of places where life could potentially arise from non-life. But we don't know what the probability is of it actually happening in any given place at some point over a ~14 billion year time scale. It doesn't matter how huge the first number is if you don't know anything about the second one.

>We know that there's fuckloads of planets and probably trillions of places where life could potentially arise from non-life. But we don't know what the probability is of it actually happening in any given place at some point over a ~14 billion year time scale. It doesn't matter how huge the first number is if you don't know anything about the second one.

online.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2015.1418

>In this article, we address the cosmic frequency of technological species. Recent advances in exoplanet studies provide strong constraints on all astrophysical terms in the Drake equation. Using these and modifying the form and intent of the Drake equation, we set a firm lower bound on the probability that one or more technological species have evolved anywhere and at any time in the history of the observable Universe. We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ∼10^−24, humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved. This constraint has important scientific and philosophical consequences. Key Words: Life—Intelligence—Extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology 2016, 359–362.

Or do we? Many of the necessary elements can be formed in stars other may come from comets or meteoroids and not just one of them, thus given that the probability of every earthlike planet acquiring them is similar to Earth's we can just safely ignore it and it should be perfectly ok for our speculative purposes.

The basic elements that constitute life on Earth are also the most abundant elements in the cosmos. There is no element in the living organism which isn't exceedingly common. Also molecules such as water, amino acids and it turns out simple carbohydrates are also exceedingly common and conveniently delivered by stray kuiper belt objects.

There is no magic pixie dust in life, it is common chemistry.

Why does everyone just pass off abductions and sightings? How many can you pass off?

Have you got any real piece of evidence, sir?
"pics or it didn't happen"

I've seen UFOs with my own eyes. I feel bad for anyone who doesn't know the truth but you some people will not believe even if they see it with their own eyes.

I have my own experiences with ship sightings.
Although I can't verify if an Ayy Lmao was driving.

Eye witness accounts are the least reliable testimony that's admissible in court.

So what if we got the engineering down?

There's actually a neat theory that alien sightings are actually caused by spontaneous release of dimethyltriptamine (DMT) in the brain. It is known that DMT is found in cerebrospinal fluid in small amounts and is made by the brain, though it's not known why or how. DMT is a potent hallucinogen, and a very common report of it in experiments are that people on DMT report seeing elves and shit running around. It's quite possible that alien sightings are caused by DMT being released by some unknown biological pathway.

I've had people try to convince me of seeing UFOs that were brilliant, changing colors, and near the hrizon, just hanging there, motionless. They were of course, bright stars scintillating.
I'll hear out descriptions, but I'm not taking someone's word that they "saw" an alien spacecraft.

When the majority of your sightings have a common mechanical theme occurring, I doubt that every single one is a spontaneous release of a neurochemical.

Your assertion would imply that I'm trying to convince you, when in fact I don't care what you believe. Enjoy your ignorance.

k

Why? Why 'us'?

>Why? Why 'us'?
"We" as in our collective species.

Go back to /r/philosophy

Yes but why are we the one?

>Yes but why are we the one?

You're going to have to be a little more specific.

>We find that as long as the probability that a habitable zone planet develops a technological species is larger than ∼10^−24, humanity is not the only time technological intelligence has evolved.

I can't read the full paper, but I found this in an article about it:

>Frank and Sullivan calculate how unlikely advanced life must be if there has never been another example among the universe's ten billion trillion stars, or even among our own Milky Way galaxy's hundred billion.
The result? By applying the new exoplanet data to the universe's 2 x 10 to the 22nd power stars, Frank and Sullivan find that human civilization is likely to be unique in the cosmos only if the odds of a civilization developing on a habitable planet are less than about one in 10 billion trillion, or one part in 10 to the 22th power.
"One in 10 billion trillion is incredibly small," says Frank. "To me, this implies that other intelligent, technology producing species very likely have evolved before us. Think of it this way. Before our result you'd be considered a pessimist if you imagined the probability of evolving a civilization on a habitable planet were, say, one in a trillion. But even that guess, one chance in a trillion, implies that what has happened here on Earth with humanity has in fact happened about a 10 billion other times over cosmic history!"

This just seems laughably naive, so I assume I'm missing some part of this argument. All he seems to be saying is "boy, a trillion sure is a big number!". How does he know the chance isn't much, much less than 1 in 10^22?

The UFOs I've seen exhibited characteristics incompatible with current scientific theory, leading me to believe that they are extraterrestrial in nature. I find that easier to believe than that there is a secret human program with technology and science which has eluded the rest of humanity for a century.

>This just seems laughably naive, so I assume I'm missing some part of this argument. All he seems to be saying is "boy, a trillion sure is a big number!". How does he know the chance isn't much, much less than 1 in 10^22?

This is unknowable. We're still stuck with a sample size of one.

It can be both.
It's not too hard to make ships that fly around and not tell anyone.

Do you have exhaustive knowledge of "current scientific theory" or are you just saying "that was pretty remarkable and I don't know how it was done".
I've seen aircraft with vectored thrust do things that I thought were impossible. It turns out they're not.
If I was witnessing such things from a great distance and also at night I might be convinced they were extraterrestrial spacecraft, but I know better so I don't think such things.

There's no noise from the crafts though.
They do stupid turns and stop in an instant, and there's no wind movement with their movement.
Also they glow.

how far away were you?

Yes, I do have exahustive knowledge of physics. Thanks for asking.

I want to say 70 meters.
If you imagine a common altitude that you see helicopters at, this ship was a bit less than half that height.

> Aliens develop advanced societies.
> Aliens develop faster than light travel
> Aliens find Earth
Nope.jpg
Toomanyniggers.jpg
> Aliens fly away

Having the necessary elements in place doesn't tell us anything about how likely those elements are to come together in the correct configuration to form basic replicators and kickstart evolutionary processes.

>extraordinary claims

The extraordinary claim is that common elements and chemical process can only lead to life once in the entirety of the cosmos. That people can actually believe this is absolutely horrifying.

What are these, aliens for ants?

why wouldn't it be us? if it weren't us, you wouldn't exist to even care.

too far away for us to detect with our current equipment
maybe in a few decades, once we get more powerful gear

bacteria, almost certainly.

flora and fauna of some sort, less likely, but probably.

technological civilization? took earth 5 or 6 tries alone to get that one right.

if most habitable planets turn out to be even slightly less extinction prone, or incapable of restoring order after extinction, then no, I would say that technological life isn't likely at all.

Oh, you mean "why are we the one species."

Why /not/ us? By some miracle, we're all here, so why not make something great of it?

I'm pretty sure the key question is
>what are the odds that those common reactions turned into a technological civilization
earth has had life for 3 billion years
it has only had civilization for 12000

that could easily be the case with countless alien worlds, teeming with life, but are all mere brute beasts and plants

I don't know but I would love to read a lot more about the subject, specially about the possible exotic biochemistries involved.

I already eated up pretty much everything under atomicrockets and the resources behind this subject, and now I hunger for more since the biochemistry part is quite lacking.

Any suggestions Veeky Forums?

What if aliens just dont wanna hang out with us

They are a wave form superposition of existence. We need to observe them to collapse the wave form into aliens. How we observe them will affect how they will impact us.

ayyy lmao

yes

they are most likely to be very much more advanced than we are