Do you think there's a posibility of extraterrestrial life and why? (Not necessarily talking about UFOs, crop circles, or the typical "alien" protrayed in movies). And if you don't think so, why?
By pure statistical likelihood it is more likely than not that there is extra terrestrial life in the universe, be it intelligent or not.
It is equally likely that there is extra dimensional life (if quantum physics is to be believed)
But as yet there is no actual evidence, or none that is widely known, it is therefore best to assume that it is irrelevant to us at this time.
However on purely circumstantial evidence alien life is more likely than god(s)
I believe the limitation of light speed on interstellar travel makes visitation by extraterrestrial life extremely unlikely. On the other hand, I believe the universe is filled with intelligent life.
Just not on Earth.
NO! We are the only ones! We are special in the universe. I was told so,,,,,,by a ,,,,,,,,,invisible man in the sky........so there.
@vjohnson51 And I'm not a monkey either!
When we're shown photos of outer space , and all the billions of stars , knowing that those stars have even more planets , that even our strongest microscopes don't see , to me , it's reasonable , considering the huge variety and immense numbers of life forms on our planet alone , that there are other life forms out there . At this point though , the chances of us ever coming into contact with any of them are extremely unlikely .
"possibility"? How could there not be the possibility? Do we know?...I don't myself but since our universe is, to me, incomprehensibly large I think it's likely. Also, your question simply says extraterrestrial "life", not really specifying whether one thinks there is life that is as complex or....mmmm...advanced as humans. I wonder if less evolved lifeforms are even more likely.
Is it possible? Of course. Because we are.....
One cannot say for sure about much. I truly think that if there are they would have basically the same problems of huge amounts of time and extreme radiation as we would. Most life in the universe is probably microbial.
I recall the Urey-Miller experiments strongly argue for hydrocarbon life developing, but I'd love to know if polymer systems other than DNA/RNA are used. Two major issues relate to Earth's lifeforms, insofar as all Earth lifeforms are related to each other (related by virtue of using the DNA/RNA scheme). No biochemistries unrelated to Earth biochemistries have been seen, so life forms coming to Earth from space don't survive.
Most of the history of life on Earth was stromatolites which don't seem too exciting. It's fascinating to see how assorted flora and fauna developed and then died out in more recent epochs.
It would be good to understand why intelligent species of reptiles didn't develop. It seems like they had a chance. Maybe they couldn't achieve a big braincase inside an egg?
I think it's inevitable that life has developed somewhere else within the universe. While we don't know exactly how life came about on Earth, we know some of the requisites of abiogenesis and the overwhelming size of the universe and staggering number of galaxies makes it hard to imagine that life in some form didn't develop elsewhere.
Considering the apparent size and age of the universe, I assume life has developed elsewhere.
Why not?
But more to the point, why would they have anything to do with a rabid species like us.
Do you walk down a dimly lit alleyway in the most violent part of town after dark?
Common sense says no!
So because we have no contact may mean they are very sensible.
It's possible, but if they can't make bikes fly or bleed acid, what's the point?
Actually, there is a lizard that bleeds out of its eyes. And we can make bikes fly. They are just not much good after they go off the cliff.
@vjohnson51 Frankly, I don't think any intelligent life would WANT to visit us. Let's face it: we're the anus of the universe.
The universe is a big place, but time is also a big duration. So I think it's likely some other place in this universe may be right for the emergence of life, but it's such a rare occurrence that it may be very unlikely that life might emerge in one location that's anywhere near another before the other has already run it's course and perished.