Surley we are not alone.....

[yusufcam (Colin)]

Originally Posted by ngcles

Hi Craig & All,


Add to that, that even if life did arise, there is no guarantee of complex life and from that, no guarantee of animal life and from that, no guarantee of intelligent life -- in fact quite the opposite.

As I've said before I have no emotional baggage with this subject I neither "want to believe", nor do I "want to dis-believe".

But If I were a betting man I'd be inclined to think that the number of civiisations out there in our galaxy is a single digit number, more likely a small single digit number and might well end up being ... 1 (i.e. us -- alone).

If I'm wrong -- I'm completely fine with that and it has no effect on my world (galactic, Universal) view. No matter which way you argue the toss, there is no empirical evidence that there are in fact other civilisations out there at this stage.


Best,

Les D

yes, these are my sentiments as well.

i would add that since becoming interested in astronomy and discovering the insanely inhospitable nature of space, (regardless of how tough a microbe is (wonder if a cockroach would survive?))

i am also leaning towards the idea its quite likely this is it.

Seti, after 50(?) years has drawn a total blank, and a number of scientists have drawn the conclusion that is a statement in itself.

looked at differently, i believe the whole thing is a spritely lesson given by the universe in how little we actually know (then, how does one weigh knowledge?).

have we even understood what life is?

how tangible are such things?

sometimes, i suspect, not knowing, can be liberating as well.

hardly scientific, o well, LOL

[Analog6 (Odille)]

We will be if we are 'surley' . . .

But seriously, there may be life out there so different we cannot recognise it. We assume (and you know what happens when you do that) it will be planet based. Why? Why not beings made up of some sort of matter floating through the ether? Pure minds?

Or maybe they are out there and have decided we are not worth bothering with, so they are either not answering or blocking themselves from our queries. We may be on the cosmic junk mail list!

Perhaps when our race grows out of the 'terrible twos' we'll finally discover some meaning to life.

[michaellxv (Michael)]

Until such time as we find life out in the universe we are alone. You could even qualify this to say it must be 'inteligent' life that we can converse with.

Even if we find another earth with all the indicators of biological activity we would still be alone because we could not conduct a conversation.

This doesn't mean that we don't keep looking.