No, no…like Jesus, who was reportedly both human and divine, le chat de Schrödinger was both dead and alive, until some fool hypothetical scientist went and opened the hypothetical box.
I prefer to think they “found a universe in a grain of sand”, to quote Greg Bear.
I think they’re in line for the new Star Wars movie. 
“We’re right here, Enrico, but we are disguised as Hungarians!”
—Ah! At last, a reasonable explanation for the Gabor sisters!
“Universe in a grain of sand” was William Blake, not Greg Bear, silly.
Yes and no.
One possible answer, not necessarily the only one, as they told us on In Search Of:
We are essentially on a Nature Preserve & they have a Prime Directive, until we reach a certain level it is against the law to “contaminate” us with the Galactic Civilization extant in our quarter of the Milky Way.
or there aren’t any intelligent aliens within 'hailing distance" or at all.
Which is the more fun thought?
Sorry, *LonesomePolecat, but that doesn’t settle the matter, at least for this galaxy.
Apparently, “any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire Galaxy. Within ten million years, every star system could be brought under the wing of empire. Ten million years may sound long, but in fact it’s quite short compared with the age of the Galaxy, which is roughly ten thousand million years. Colonization of the Milky Way should be a quick exercise.”
There exist responses to the this paradox. But (IMHO) they all hinge on there being relatively few technological civilizations. If there were many, then one might imagine that at least one of them would not be restrained by a Prime Directive. Alternatively, if you believe in a galaxy-wide federation, there should be more evidence for this supposition.
Link: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/shostak_paradox_011024.html
I never thought I’d say this, but:
ROTFLMAO. If I was drinking something, you’d owe me a monitor.
So tell me, heresiarch, how might we determine which one?
From my (limited knowledge of astronomy), I understand tha our solar system lies in a pretty sparse neighborhood…we are pretty far away from stars likely to have planetary systems. What are the chances for planets located ni those star cluster systems? Would there be a greater chance of “hailing” and advanced alien civilization, if you were in a densly-packed star cluster? Or are these star clusters deadly to life (too much radiation, etc.)?
ForgottenLore- nope, I’d have to disagree (to further hijack this thread). I’ve never read Blake.
The last line in Blood Music was “… They’d found a universe in a grain of sand.”
Maybe it was a reference to Blake? shrug
Basically, there are most likely the same amount of arguments for and against the topic of “…Is anyone out there”
I tend to be of the school that says the probability of there not being life out there is low, and there are WAY too many star systems out there for there not to be intelligent life.
When one says “where are all the aliens” well we have only inhabited this planet for a very short period of time. In cosmic time one ten millionth of a blink. And we just need to be patient. They are out there.
I recently audited a class at my Alma Mater called Theories of Irrationality (a grad class) and we interviewed several people who claim to have been abducted. And let me tell you, some are obviously just looking for attention but there were quite a few who were totally convincing. Especially the children under 5 and the adults over 70.
I have no real doubt they are out there, I have no real doubt our government (US) has been studying some of them for at least 50+ years, since Roswell, and a way out theory is that aliens are indirectly responsible for some of the technological break throughs we have experienced in the past 50 years… Granted zero gravity propulsion is not here yet, but I bet in a hanger out there in the desert somewhere, some government cronie is polishing the finishing touches on a hovering vehicle of some sort…we’ll see…
Maybe we’re the ’ First ones’ as someone elequently put it.
But what I don’t under stand is that these alien visitors come down and abduct people who are either unemployed, alcoholics, lead boring lives or live at home with their mother. First things first that Bob lazar is a total fraud and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him. And since I have weedy arms, that aint far!
mabey it is because life is so common and intelagance too. when something is common, who goes around looking at every single one. think of ant hills. who finds them so interesting that they need to go around and study in depth every single ant hill in the world. even with 6 billion plus humans there are trillions of ant hills that no one has ever studyed in the least bit. even other ants only investigate near by ant hills. mabey earth is like an ant hill in the middle of an abandoned lot.