I suspect, given the exponential curve of our technological progression, and the advances of computer, networks, and nanotechnology, that our civilization will be unrecognizable as such in as short as a thousand years. Contrast that with our advances in space exploration- basically, it’s easier to go “in” than “out”.
It may be that the intelligence is ultimately a dead-end; that all civilizations go through the stages we’re going through, and they all find it’s cheaper to simulate the universe and live inside that simulation than it is to actually go out and explore the real one. If this is the case, the odds of us ever contacting another civilization are remarkably low- they’re all already in the “Matrix”.
That said, no- I don’t think we’re alone. My gut tells me that life is incredibly common, and sapience is all over the place. However, I’m inclined to think that we’ll never actually meet another species except through records and ruins… and probably not even that, since we’ll find it’s more efficient to stay on Earth inside a computer.
People seem to use the ‘Universe is very big so there must be many out there’ logic.
I don’t buy it. In Calculus, you can take the limit as x goes to infinity of a function and get an answer of zero…or one…or a handful. That just means that the odds of intelligence evolving is ‘much harder than the observable universe is big’.
My gut feeling? We will find bacteria everywhere. Multi-celled life? Probably not. Non microscopic multi-celled? Doubtful. Intelligent life? Extremely doubtful.
Maybe somewhere in the universe…billions of light years away maybe intelligence has evolved…but maybe not. In this galaxy alive right now? I highly doubt it.
As another poster has said, maybe we are the first. There is some comfort to this as if we are the first there may actually be ways to travel faster than light/teleport/do many things but we don’t see them out there because they haven’t been invented yet because we are the first. It’s not ALL depressing
Yes, but we already know that isn’t the case, because we’re here, and some of us are intelligent. Given the fact that intelligent life exists, the chances are infinitesimal that it only exists here.
The problem here is that if we weren’t here we wouldn’t be asking that. Assuming that we are here means something to argue that there is more than one is not warranted. We could be that flukey, near impossible hit.
Has there been other intelligent life in the universe? That answer is almost surely yes. If the question is, however, is there intelligent life besides us right now in the universe? Who knows? It could be that intelligent life is so rare that we are the only ones right now. One thing I’m totally convinced of is that we are effectively alone in the universe at this time. The vast distances just makes physical contact, let alone any kind of communication, infeasible. So, yes, we are essentially alone in the universe. We should just appreciate how lucky we are to be here.
All they have to do is monitor our TV and Internet, and experience Organized Religion, the Olsen Twins, Balloon Boy, Realtors, anti-vaccinationists, Moms Who Know the Secret To Whiter Teeth, Al Sharpton and the U.S. Congress - and any sentient intelligent life will be walling off our galaxy to prevent contact from ever occurring.
I dunno… we’ve got a pretty exetensive porn collection. One might assume that aliens capable of hyperspatial travel might have neglected technological advancement in other areas, like double headed vibrators and upskirt cameras.
The possibilities for interstellar trade are endless.
No, we’re not alone, and no, I don’t thing humans will contact extraterrestrial life or vice-versa. I think our tenure on this planet will end before that would happen.
Yes, but: let’s say the chances of there being an intelligent civilization at any particular star in the universe is one in a billion. Then there are still billions of intelligent civilizations out there.
I think the most likely scenario is that there are billions of alien races out there, but that, lifeform nature being what it is, their civilisations invariably blow each other up before acquiring the technology required for interstellar travel, so they can never meet.
Once a civilisation harnesses nuclear power, it essentially signs its own death warrant within a few generations (IMHO).
When thinking of the scale of the universe and the likelihood of life arising elsewhere, I think about the origin of life on Earth. It seems plausible to me that the sum total of life here on Earth could have at one point been a small colony of bacteria on the side of a volcanic vent deep in the ocean (or in a single tidepool or wherever). A teaspoon’s worth of bacteria would have made the globe look like an awful waste of space, and seeing one colony of bacteria arise through abiogenesis would prompt one to expect the same thing to happen at thousands or millions of other locales across the globe. That said, one occurrence of abiogenesis would have been enough to lead to a life-covered world.
While it makes us feel good to think that we’re the pinnacle of life forms, perhaps our civilization is still, in the grand scheme of things, primordial. We may be to a barren universe what that first clump of bacteria were to a barren globe.
