does anyone else ponder on the thought of another advanced civilization in our own galaxy or another, that could be in thier own orbit, doing the same thing as we are?
That’s entirely possible, but we haven’t been able to locate them via SETI.
I don’t think that’s ever crossed anyone’s mind.
anyone think that a discovery like that would greatly change the way people think about life on earth, or if it would make lots more people want to focus on nasa.
Moving to GD or IMHO in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .
OP Yes
f/up 1. Yes 2. Yes
The hamsters snacked on my previous attempt… trying again.
QUOTE]*Originally posted by elementzero1 *
**anyone think that a discovery like that would greatly change the way people think about life on earth, or if it would make lots more people want to focus on nasa. **
[/QUOTE]
It should be in DB. But this is such an old question because it’s a good one, and because we’ll probably never know the answer.
Of course the implications would be profound. There’s no way to know for sure what would happen… but I do believe that we can formulate some expectations by looking at history. The first contact between Europe and the Americas is rich in highly specific examples, that could prove very instructive.
Would we treat the “aliens” any better, if the next time we’re playing the role of the Europeans? And if we’re playing the role of the natives, do we know enough about their reactions to predict much of anything?
History also suggests that many of our “common sense” notions about the nature of life, sentience, and culture will be challenged, to the dismay of many. What these challenges would be, and how we meet these challenges, cannot be foreseen.
In re: the NASA thing: a discovery like this would change NASA’s role and its presence in the world. For example, NASA could officially become a military branch, if there are any suspicion about the intentions of the visitors.
But also consider this. The puddle between Europe and America doesn’t even compare to the distance between stars. For a contact, you’d need two civs to live at the same time, within hailing distance. It wouldn’t surprise me if there have been less than 5 examples in the entire history of the universe. I’m pretty sure they’re out there, looking for us. But I also doubt if we’ll ever know. I’ll be more optimistic after we’ve been able to search for at least 1% of the earth’s history, so ask again in a few million years…
“The surest sign that advanced intelligent life exists in the universe is that they have never tried to contact us” - Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes)
Off to IMHO.
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
True, but exactly how long have we been looking with SETI? 30 years at most?
I think we should give up on trying SETI and start trying VH1
I always ponder such thoughts and would like desperately for them to be true. But I have little hope. My hunch leads me to believe that life is very rare.
One of my more interesting thoughts on the subject was to determine how long it would take homo sapiens to populate the entire Milky Galaxy, starting … right … now, given only our present technology, technology we can already theoretically envision and an everlasting desire to do so. Somewhere between 10 and 15 million years is where I end up. That fact that we have found, seen, heard nothing of alien civilizations yet is telling.
Of course I know I’m on the pessimistic side here. At least in comparison to those I consider optimistic. Most alien thoeries I end up thinking “No alien species would do that!” I, of course, disdain such views that they would or even could be so different from us that we couldn’t comprehend them.