Science There's a compelling reason scientists think we've never found aliens

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  1. SlyPokerDog

    SlyPokerDog Woof! Staff Member Administrator

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    These consequences of human activity could be the thing that prevents our civilization from advancing much further. In a particularly extreme scenario, it could even wind up wiping us from the face of the Earth.

    That may sound unlikely, but it's the answer some scientists are giving to a perplexing question: Why haven't we encountered intelligent alien life?

    The Fermi paradox
    We live in a galaxy with between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, each potentially surrounded by planets. Until recently, we thought there were about 200 billion such galaxies in our observable universe, each containing hundreds of billions of stars and trillions of planets — but new NASA research indicates there are probably at least 10 times as many.

    Even if habitable planets are rare and life is exceedingly unlikely to arise, those mind-boggling numbers suggest there should still be other intelligent life somewhere in the universe. If just 0.1% of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy harbored life, there would still be a million planets with life.

    So, as the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi famously asked of our alien neighbors, "Where are they?"

    Why haven't we heard from aliens or found any evidence of their existence? That question is known as the Fermi paradox, and there are several potential answers (most are fairly disconcerting).

    One hypothesis is that before intelligent life manages to spread beyond its original planet to other nearby planets, it runs into a sort of "Great Filter."

    As the philosopher Nick Bostrom explains, this idea suggests there are several "evolutionary transitions or steps" that life on an Earth-like planet has to achieve before it can communicate with civilizations in other star systems. But an obstacle or barrier may make it impossible for an intelligent species like ours to get through all those steps. That would explain why we haven't heard from or seen any other life.

    Bostrom writes:

    "You start with billions and billions of potential germination points for life, and you end up with a sum total of zero extraterrestrial civilizations that we can observe. The Great Filter must therefore be powerful enough — which is to say, the critical steps must be improbable enough — that even with many billions of rolls of the dice, one ends up with nothing: no aliens, no spacecraft, no signals, at least none that we can detect in our neck of the woods."

    http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-great-filter-fermi-paradox-aliens-2017-7?r=US&IR=T
     
    SlyPokerDog, Jul 14, 2017
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  2. H.C.

    H.C. Well-Known Member

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    H.C., Jul 14, 2017
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  3. Chris Craig

    Chris Craig (Blazersland) I'm Your Huckleberry Staff Member Global Moderator Moderator

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    If there are actual intelligent life out there, they have probably seen and want nothing to do with our species, and are keeping far away.
     
    Chris Craig, Jul 14, 2017
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  4. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    They are throwing 60 lb bags of drugs over the wall onto people's heads.

    barfo
     
    barfo, Jul 14, 2017
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  5. Chris Craig

    Chris Craig (Blazersland) I'm Your Huckleberry Staff Member Global Moderator Moderator

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    The reason extraterrestials have not made contact is because they come in peace, we do not.
     
    Chris Craig, Jul 14, 2017
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  6. BlazerWookee

    BlazerWookee UNTILT THE DAMN PINWHEEL!

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    BlazerWookee, Jul 14, 2017
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  7. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    we don't see them because of extreme vetting
     
    riverman, Jul 14, 2017
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  8. Chris Craig

    Chris Craig (Blazersland) I'm Your Huckleberry Staff Member Global Moderator Moderator

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    Oh yeah the Ban
     
    Chris Craig, Jul 14, 2017
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  9. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    Get off the internet, stay home from work and don't use your phone. Maybe it's you.
     
    bodyman5000 and 1, Jul 14, 2017
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  10. Shaboid

    Shaboid Well-Known Member

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    This is basically the Prime Directive from Star Trek, no?
     
    Shaboid, Jul 14, 2017
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  11. Nate

    Nate #itsokaytobewhite #wakandaforever BANNED

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    Nate, Jul 14, 2017
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  12. Natebishop3

    Natebishop3 Don't tread on me!

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    I can't remember specifically where I saw it, but I think the best reason is because the universe is so vast. Even supposed travel like light speed would take a long fucking time to reach anywhere. We would basically need worm holes to be able to get anywhere. It would take us a long time just to reach of our solar system. 36 years, just to reach the edge. So there could be plenty of life out there, but until they either visit us, or we develop some time of faster than light space travel, we'll never know.
     
    Natebishop3, Jul 14, 2017
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  13. MarAzul

    MarAzul LongShip

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    MarAzul, Jul 14, 2017
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  14. Orion Bailey

    Orion Bailey Forum Troll

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    Ha. I have the whole planet and its' scientists fooled. I'm from Alpha Centari myself...

    Fools...We are already here. You just not smart enough to know it....
     
    Orion Bailey, Jul 14, 2017
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  15. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    just wear a sign that says...deport me! .....OB you blew your cover dude
     
    riverman, Jul 14, 2017
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  16. UncleCliffy'sDaddy

    UncleCliffy'sDaddy We're all Bozos on this bus.

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    No, he's safe. Alpha Centauri is not on the restricted list.......
     
    UncleCliffy'sDaddy, Jul 14, 2017
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  17. PDXFonz

    PDXFonz I’m listening

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    Our reality is a simulation being run to try and solve many (all?) of the problems we have not been able to solve ourselves. We have been learning more and more about how the "code" works. Often times we just call it science, because we are not drawing parallels between the two. As VR technology advances someone will come along and combine VR with induced mindstates which will lend to a simulated reality feeling much like what we experience when we wake up every day.

    Life could (and certainly might) have a predetermined set of circumstances and multiple dimensions coinciding with the outcome of each circumstance. So in a sense you weren't necissarily destined to stub your toe (the variable of free will is absolutely in play without breaking this rule), but because you stubbed your toe the timeline shifts(maybe you missed work, during which maybe you would have bumped into an old friend, etc...) similarly to a train track switch. Or you could look at it something like a choose your own adventure book. An event takes you to page 68, the other option would have taken you to page 43. Eventually it's possible page 43 leads to page 68, and both could lead to page 100....if that makes sense.
     
    PDXFonz, Jul 14, 2017
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  18. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    We may not have the equipment to see alien life with our senses...they may be microscopic.....they may just move about when sports are on television
     
    riverman, Jul 14, 2017
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  19. Dougnsalem

    Dougnsalem not barf

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    My favorite question to ask new chicks I meet- if you could talk to anyone, past or present, who would that be? 90% say "God" or such. My reply when they ask me??? That little grey dude that crash landed in Area 51....

    @EL PRESIDENTE This is a GREAT ONE to add to your lines.... Chicks LOVE it! In fact, most of the time, the buttons start flying off their pants. Weird....
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2017
    Dougnsalem, Jul 14, 2017
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  20. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    Because in real life nobody invented those sunglasses Roddy Piper had in They Live?
     
    bodyman5000 and 1, Jul 14, 2017
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