Is there anybody out there?
Your views on intelligent life in the galaxy and/or universe?
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.life, sure. life as we know it? we have to expand our definition of life. intelligent life? not as likely as all that but no one really knows. it certainly isn't impossible.
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genessa
Level 8
Mar 6, 2019
2
In my honest opinion, for humans to think that this planet hold the ONLY life, intelligent or otherwise, in this, as yet, unmeasured Universe is nothing short of absolute arrogance to say the very least.
@Triphid so i said "life, sure." but i do not think it is arrogance to recognize the extremely special circumstances that brought on the extremely slow evolution of what we call intelligent life. i am not sure we should even call ourselves that, but given that caveat, i nonetheless stand by every word i said, without fear of being arrogant.
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@Triphid evolution can go in many directions. what we call intelligence appears not to be the most necessary element for survival, and survival is toward what evolution leans. (our intelligence may be our downfall, in fact.) so it is not a matter of speed. it's a matter of necessity. i STILL stand by what i said.
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@genessa Yes our 'intelligence may indeed be our ultimate downfall, I agree there, but evolution, as we see it, is based solely upon what we have learned and BEGUN to understand from the very LIMITED perspective we have here, is it not?
What has/may happen elsewhere in the very vast Universe unknown to we mortal and fallible humans may be an entirely different matter altogether, may it not?
@Triphid yes of course it may. but i didn't comment on whether or not it was possible. i commented on whether or not it was likely. i don't see its being likely. anything is possible! well, almost anything lol me in a parachute jumping out of a plane, yeah, not happening. but almost anything is possible. i quote myself in toto: "life, sure. life as we know it? we have to expand our definition of life. intelligent life? not as likely as all that but no one really knows. it certainly isn't impossible." see? not likely.
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@Triphid no, not really. well, it depends on the "they" you mean lol. and it's different. one is about our capability, which we worked hard to expand. the other is about something that could be true right now and we wouldn't know. we can't work hard and MAKE their be intelligent life elsewhere.
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@Triphid i would rather think so too, and i agree about our own species. usually when people ask if there is intelligent life out there i counter by asking if we have it in here! but preferring to think something is so... well, we know how that works with religion, right? it doesn't make something so. anyway, we probably won't ever know.
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@genessa Yeah well religion and life on other planets are two different things, i.e. there is a slim probability that intelligent life is somewhere out there, whereas, with religion the chances of there actually having been or ever being a Supreme Omnipotent Being are far less than there would be of mermaid winning the Melbourne Cup.
It is a better than good probability given that innumerable old and ancient cultures/civilisations have numerous legends referring to 'visitors' that arrived/descended from the skies.
A couple of prime and thus far unexplained example are, a ) a map drawn centuries before the earliest circumnavigation depicting the curvature of the earth complete with ALL the continents including accurately, and from a height well above low-earth orbit level,
b) a steel like pillar in the mid -East/ Asian region that does NOT rust or decay in any way,
c) and close to my home, in Australia, Aboriginal legends of i) the Wandjina who came from the night skies wearing strange head wear ( spiky helmet like things), ii) the legend of what we call the Evening Star being a people/persons from the night sky and brought children with hair the colour of the red sand and dust to the aboriginals ( the same hair colour that often occurs randomly amongst the purest of aboriginals to this day btw) iii) the legend that the "Min-Min" lights, (discs of light, whiter and brighter than ANYTHING man-made), that float with ease across the ground about 3-5 feet above it are the peoples from the sky coming to take the unwary back to the skies with them.
Almost every culture from older/ancient times past and even in the last 1,000+ years has had legends of sky beings, so are they ALL wrong?
Triphid
Level 9
Mar 6, 2019
1
The universe being endless in space and time, I think there are surely some intelligent lifeforms living elsewhere. There might even be some of them watching us right now. But like in Star Trek, they're probably following some kind of "Prime Directive" forbidding them to interfere with a primitive civilization like ours.
QuidamOutrepont
Level 8
Mar 5, 2019
0
If intelligent life is or has evolved elsewhere, its survival will be predicated on the absence of religion.
ElusiveMoby
Level 7
Mar 5, 2019
1
If we ever find intelligent life on another planet it will seriously damage religion.
nicknotes
Level 8
Mar 5, 2019
0
I'm not sure that's true. They have an incredible ability to reconfigure their biblical narratives.
You may be right. @ElusiveMoby
Life yes;
intelligent life, hard to speculate.
mojo5501
Level 7
Mar 5, 2019
0
We even find very little of that on this planet.
@ElusiveMoby Yes, especially amongst the religious peoples and politicians of this world.
In the vastness of the universe over the span of its existence, it's inevitable that there is intelligent life. The problem is that even if the distances between solar systems didn't make it nearly impossible to find it, lifeforms could have arisen, evolved, and become extinct before we even existed.
JimG
Level 8
Mar 5, 2019
3
very probable.
Donna_I
Level 8
Mar 5, 2019
3
My thoughts too. Some type of life is a statistical probability. Good chance a number of life forms have formed and died out as well.
@Beowulfsfriend very true! Do you think anything will find the Voyagers?
@Donna_I only after Earth ends
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