Has anyone considered we may be the most intelligent species in the Milky Way?

Ive considered the possibility that we are the most advanced form of life in this galaxy but then i dismissed it as being to boring of an explanation. although i have considered a reason why aliens wouldn't make contacts with humans. aside form the racism, inter-species conflict, and lack of global unity. a visitation by aliens would come as a huge cultural shock. this would halt or stop the mental evolution of the human race. if you were one of the wright brothers trying to build planes and one day some one came out with a jet fighter would you continue building prototype planes. most people would give up. if i was a alien i wouldn't want that to happen especially if i was "combing the galaxy for resources" .because who knows they may learn something from the way we use energy,

We just may end up being that if the oil spill kills all the dolphins...

Oh, and the pigs...

And the "smarter breeds of dog".

Until then, I think we are in no danger of being the smartest species in the galaxy.

If we are the "new" residents in the galaxy, then earth has either escaped discovery or the other aliens didn't need oxygen to breathe. It seems possible for Earth to not be found but highly unlikely if other beings have already existed.

And if there is other alien type things out there, they are around our intelligence level. I base that off the fact that they haven't found us. Or they have, and the Rosewell incident is real and they just don't care we are here.

There is really no way to tell until we fine them, or they find us.

reply to post by SaosinEngaged
God help us if we are just think we can go to another planet and f*&k it up to. Man kind is a plague on this planet.

reply to post by SaosinEngaged


We aren't even the most intelligent species on the planet. I actually think that there are people dumber than rocks.
A simple experiment: a test 1 point if you answer correctly and you lose one if you don't. No matter how simple the test there will be people that will get a score or minus something (even given the option of not answering people will still try to guess and fail). A rock will get nil because it's smart enough not to answer.

Let's consider bees, they have been around far longer than us, but we managed to destroy more of the Earth than they could ever destroy.

Serious now:

We have technology, we are the smartest on the planet, but if aliens exist we will not know (we as in average people). If today Obama goes on TV and says aliens exist and he has met them what would happen to religion and all the people it controls? Riots would follow, we would demand alien technology etc.

Also radio waves as means of communication are crap even today. If we go to mars there will be a delay of a few minutes when transmitting data, and mars is actually really close. We can't pick up their signals because it's like an ant trying to understand what is going on on the space station, just out of our power of thought.

Nice thread!

It is surely possible, but considering that there are several hundred billions stars in our galaxy (300-500 billions according to some estimates) that seems not so probable. But again, who knows?

An important thing you've pointed out is that intelligent species are not necessarily technologically advanced species.
Our civilization made a tremendous progress in exploration of the world around us, but we still don't know much about nature of our consciousness. It is possible that some extraterrestrial civilizations are just developed another way, making progress in research of consciousness instead of technology. In this case such civilizations are able to make discoveries which help them to shift to an altruistic society in balance with nature of their home planets. So they don't need to colonize other worlds.

For example with all our mind blowing technologies, control of desires and emotions is still not a part of common knowledge of our civilization which may be kind of barbaric for a civilization I've described above. We have abrahamic religions that are telling fairy tales and at the same time are prohibiting practical approach to spiritual matters. Isn't it barbaric too? A thought in my signature is referring to this problem btw.

So in my opinion, Kardashev scale isn't the only way of civilization development

reply to post by SaosinEngaged


I nope you are wrong.
Second line reserved to look prophetic at a later date.

This is a very interesting thread.
Aliens are always given very human values and characteristics by the UFO faithful. we do the exact same thing when we create gods.. They come here, make political and military alliances, that seems very unlikly.
They come here because they need something found only here. Unlikley as well.
Or they come for some biological connection.
Extremely unlikely! its very certain we would have nothing biologicaly in common with life that evolved billions of miles away.
It's very possible that other forms of life might have no need of tecgnology, religion or military. we assume they would behave as we do.
We could be the most intelligent measured as intelligence is measured by...us.
A dog or cat seems very intelligent to me...for the needs of a dog or cat!
I don't see why they would want technology. Measurment of intelligence is purely subjective, it depends on who is doing the measuring.

[edit on 11-7-2010 by OldDragger]

reply to post by fixer1967


This is a very good point. You have to consider the fact that the age of the universe is astronomical in timescale, and that intelligent species could have figuratively came, conquered, and been destroyed multiple times either by natural "extinction events" or their own inability to change and adapt to the world around them.

[edit on 11-7-2010 by SaosinEngaged]

reply to post by asher


"halt the mental evolution of the human race"

That's quite a logical leap you took there.

And while I respect your opinion, just because an explanation may be boring or mundane doesn't inherently make it any less likely

Originally posted by g146541
reply to post by SaosinEngaged

 

I nope you are wrong.
Second line reserved to look prophetic at a later date.

I honestly would love to be wrong. I'm not saying I'm right either, just speculating based on what I've learned and observed over the years.

I once considered the same possibility. "Humanity is the greatest civilization in the Galaxy." But I decided it was extremely unlikely after reading an article
that claimed there were planets that had been around in our Galaxy alone that were billions of years older than Earth and quite possibly could have evolved intelligent life long before life was even possible on Earth.
(Though this doesn't have much backing because I can't cite the article. I think it was on New Scientist or Science Daily, I'll try and find it.)

Another thing, it's entirely possible that an intelligent and space faring civilization wouldn't contact us for reasons similar to those that we leave uncontacted peoples in the Amazon - We don't want to unintentionally disrupt there delicate culture and life style, and we don't want to unnecessarily inflict disease upon them.
[www.dailymail.co.uk...]

It could also be that "they" (Should they exist) simply want to study us and see how we progress.

Perhaps they don't consider a species intelligent until it abandons something like say, religion.

I would think it very arrogant, to assume we are the most intelligent species in this galaxy. Out of the millions of planets where it is possible life exists; To assume we are the most intelligent is to me the same as winning the lottery, (and i've been playing awhile). Then if we get into other galaxies, it becomes even less likely.

I guess in the long run it comes down to your belief of our creation. Did in-fact the creator of the Universe, create us? Or did a species far superior to us create us?

The best disclosure I can imagine: Not only does a supreme form of ET Intelligence come down in massive ships. They inform us that not only did they genetically create us, but they long long ago were created by another intelligent species, and according to their history, another species created their creators. Yet all of them have always searched for God.

It would certainly explain why we don't see any large scale E.T projects, where are the superhighways, the large scale dyson spheres, etc? Although I think it's very unlikely we're the most intelligent, considering we're on a little plane in a galaxy and we can only see a few thousand stars.

[edit on 12-7-2010 by hippomchippo]

Although I think it's very unlikely we're the most intelligent, considering we're on a little plane in a galaxy and we can only see a few thousand stars.

Actually, with modern telescopes we can see hundreds of millions of stars.

Originally posted by hippomchippo
It would certainly explain why we don't see any large scale E.T projects, where are the superhighways, the large scale dyson spheres, etc?

Old but interesting science fiction book "The Wanderer" by Fritz Leiber addressed that - they're all Dyson spheres now, pretty much, but the Dyson-ization started on the far side of the galaxy, and the light going out hasn't reached us yet.

From the same book, on the topic of 'maybe we're the first', one of the Wanderers (essentially misfits who've stolen a hyperdrive planet) left the protagonist with a sonnet that ends like this -

Far wiser beasts under far older stars
Have had your sickness, seen their hopes denied,
Sought God, fought Fate, pounded against the bars,
And like you, little Ape, they some day died.

The bough swings in the wind, the night is deep.
Look at the stars, poor little ape, and sleep.

Originally posted by konhachi

Although I think it's very unlikely we're the most intelligent, considering we're on a little plane in a galaxy and we can only see a few thousand stars.

Actually, with modern telescopes we can see hundreds of millions of stars.

Yes but I mean actually finding details about those stars, like how long they've been active, etc, I don't think we've done that with millions, and I doubt we've even done it with thousands.

I have considered it but I hope we are not....

I like to think about the idea of one day being greeted by a technologically superior species who wants to help us learn and gain in our technology.


Now I REALLY hope we are not the most intelligent, morally and ethically, because god knows we are the beyond retarded when it comes to morals and ethics as a species.

Originally posted by area6
I just had freaking crazy idea ...

How could we detect the remnants of radio, etc signals from other planets that have hit the Earth as far back as several million years ago?

Radio waves, as far as I know, don't have the ability to permanently leave their mark in physical matter. They certainly can excite electrons in metals (how antennas work) but that only lasts as long as their is a signal.

Perhaps some day if we can develop Faster Than Light travel, we could send probes deep into space (billion light years) and have the probes then head back to Earth. The theory being if radio waves traveled past earth 500 million years ago, then if we could jump out ahead of them, then we could catch them with the probes on the way back to Earth.

We would probably discover some really interesting evidence.

[edit on 12-7-2010 by harrytuttle]

Originally posted by SaosinEngaged
I honestly would love to be wrong. I'm not saying I'm right either, just speculating based on what I've learned and observed over the years.

Until we have an answer to the Fermi paradox, I think we have to consider your hypothesis as one possible explanation for the paradox:

The Fermi paradox is the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

The age of the universe and its vast number of stars suggest that if the Earth is typical, extraterrestrial life should be common. In an informal discussion in 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi questioned why, if a multitude of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the Milky Way galaxy, evidence such as spacecraft or probes are not seen. A more detailed examination of the implications of the topic began with a paper by Michael H. Hart in 1975, and it is sometimes referred to as the Fermi-Hart paradox. Another closely related question is the Great Silence — even if travel is hard, if life is common, why don't we detect their radio transmissions?

There have been attempts to resolve the Fermi paradox by locating evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations, along with proposals that such life could exist without human knowledge. Counterarguments suggest that intelligent extraterrestrial life does not exist or occurs so rarely that humans will never make contact with it.

First, it doesn't appear that evolution normally results in intelligence, even on Earth. So even if the Milky Way is teeming with life, how much of it is intelligent is debatable.

Second, you make a good point about the extinction events. Let's say we had one right now that wiped out humanity. We could be yet one more species in the galaxy that evolved intelligence but failed to colonize other planets before the next extinction level event. For that reason, it would be nice if we could colonize at least one other planet, so that an extinction level event won't terminate our entire species forever.

But as you can see, we're not making much progress toward colonizing another planet. If it were easy, lots of species would be doing it, but it's not easy.