Is it possible that Humanity really IS the only "advanced" civilization in the Universe? RE: Civil

It's possible our "advanced civilization" is one of many different types of "advanced civilizations." Just like our civilization consists of many cultures, it's likely the universe would also consist of many cultures.

reply to post by xiphias

So basically you are saying the answer the the question in the title is "No, because ... [your answer]"?

Absolutely its possible. This is asinine that people would think otherwise. Don't agree? Then prove it.

reply to post by The Endtime Warrior
Asinine? Perhaps, but I think it's more possible that the argument that it is arrogant and ignorant to think we are the only ones, is itself a defense mechanism that we have implemented to hide the depressing truth from ourselves.

reply to post by inivux


We are talking about probability here. whatever small chance there is that we are alone, it is still a possibility. The arrogance comes from claiming absolutes. So what do we wanna debate here? Probability or blind faith?

reply to post by The Endtime Warrior

I'm not sure how to respond to this; I'm not sure what exactly you are trying to say.

reply to post by inivux


It is not arrogant to think that it is a possibility that we could be alone. It is arrogant to for anyone to think another is ignorant for thinking we are alone. I hope that clarifies my position.

reply to post by The Endtime Warrior
I see. We are in agreement then. If I understand you correctly.

Unfortunately we have already had people in this thread who either took it at face value, or don't have the mental capability to think critically about the concept I proposed.

Quite possible.
Highly Improbable.

Originally posted by The Endtime Warrior
Absolutely its possible. This is asinine that people would think otherwise. Don't agree? Then prove it.

Lack of evidence is not evidence of. Just because there is no evidence of other civilizations out there is not evidence that we are all that there is in this vast universe that we know literally next to nothing about. Proof enough?

Any species, no matter how advanced is bound by the limitations of physics, it's knowledge and it's technological capabilities. Our species is young in it's science and technological capability, there could be means of communications that we are currently not aware of. We must also concede to the fact that again due to our technological limitations, that we are unable to receive transmissions in frequencies we are capable of detecting due to vast distances loosing these signals in background noise. We must also concede to the fact that the largest and most prominent organization that is attempting to detect communications from other civilizations is limiting it's ability to detect transmissions from other civilizations by pretending that any such civilizations would be transmitting in a very narrow range of frequencies. Other life in the universe would not be human life nor would inherently act or think as humans do. Our arrogance to think otherwise is what is truly asinine.

We can certainly entertain the idea that we are alone in the universe, yet I would hazard that such entertainment is borderline narcissism. It's possible, but realistically it is highly improbable given what little we do know already and as we learn more about the universe and the physical laws that bind all species and civilizations, we'll discover that we are not alone nor the most advanced.

reply to post by sirnex


Bunk. Lets quit talking in circles here. I am arguing about probability, you know, the possibility of something. You seem to be putting words in my mouth. It is damn well possible that we are alone....its very unlikely, but there is a chance. Deal with it.

Originally posted by The Endtime Warrior
reply to post by sirnex

 

Bunk. Lets quit talking in circles here. I am arguing about probability, you know, the possibility of something. You seem to be putting words in my mouth. It is damn well possible that we are alone....its very unlikely, but there is a chance. Deal with it.

Talking in circles? I'll call your talking in circles and raise you reading comprehension skills. My last paragraph accepts the possibility, but put's the question into a realistic perspective. All probabilities aside, we still need to deal with reality here. Arrogant narcissism of entertaining the thought that we are the cream of the crop is simply not realistic given that we know very little about our universe and even our own stellar neighborhood, let alone the very planet we call home.

Sure, possible, but realistically, not likely. Are we clear now?

reply to post by sirnex


Abundantly clear, Sirnex. And at the end of all what you said you are still in agreement with me and the OP

Just because we haven't discovered prehistoric intelligent life on our planet, doesn't mean it never existed. I would imagine there are millions, perhaps billions of prehistoric species we haven't discovered yet given the # of species we have already discovered on our planet (alive species).

Also, I think the chances of intelligent life developing in the prehistoric environment would have been slim, as the chances for survival were slim among all species. Let's face it, if you see a 60 foot tall dinosaur plowing straight at you, I don't care how smart you are, you're dead.

Did you know human kind almost went extinct a few times? There weren't even dinosaurs around then.

So basically, my argument is: The reason Intelligent life might have taken so long to appear is because the prehistoric environment was too competitive and thus the chances were severely diminished.

Well considering Earth is 4.5 Billion years old and that the Universe is best estimated to be 13.7 Billion years old, there seems to be plenty of time for other advanced civilizations to have evolved out there.

I've long held the belief that we're either it or the Universe is absolutely teeming with life, far beyond most of our imaginations and that this is most likely.

I will draw readers attention to the 1954 'Miller-Urey' experiment where water, methane, hydrogen and ammonia (materials thought present in very early Earth) were sealed into various test tubes for a week. Miller and Urey discovered that 13 of the 22 required amino acids for life were now present!

The Drake equation is simple and I think sparks alot of thought in most people:

* R* = 10/year (10 stars formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy)
* fp = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
* ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of developing life)
* fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
* fi = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
* fc = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
* L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years).

[Original Calculation in 1961, note this is for our Galaxy, there are millions]

N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10.

reply to post by Caveat Lector

reply to post by xiphias

reply to post by sirnex

reply to post by sliceNodice

I'm sorry to say guys, but you aren't really getting the intent of this thread. Despite what you may think, this is not a thread asserting that we are the only civilization in the Universe. If you would read the original post critically and carefully, and read through my other responses critically and carefully, you would realize that this is more about a discussion on "what if".

Now, that being said I love that equation. Numbers certainly don't lie.

But when you factor in the Civilization Types, it changes things.

I'd love to hear what people like xiphias and sirnex would say, when asked to explain why a Type 3 civilization isn't detectable, either directly or indirectly.

That is, according to that very equation, it would mean that there could be COUNTLESS Type 3 (Inter-GALACTIC) civilizations. If that were true, why haven't we detected them?

Is it because they never made it past the point we are at?

That is, consider notion that life advances at the same rate and started advancing at the same time. Wouldn't that explain why we don't find other civilizations? These other civilizations would be where we are, or would have never made it past this point, due to MAD, etc.

If they are more or less in line with where we are, our inability to contact them is simply because their AND our signals are getting lost in the background noise (the static of the electromagnetic energy) of the Universe itself.

Well, some theorists have ventured that based on the rate of change in an "advancing" civilization is exponential, that the stage we are in is very short.

So, these "advanced" civilizations would often happen and be gone or moved on into a different type of existence in short order.

Robert Sawyer had a book with this in it. So did.....oh the other authour has slipped my mind right now.

For example, that civilizations would advance quickly to the point that they stored themselves into some sort of digital, quantum data format. Then to protect that they would decimate the lifeforms around them first so that new intelligent life wouldn't get the idea to "unplug" them.

reply to post by Caveat Lector


Not finding prehistoric intelligent life may not be a good way of judging a fertile World.

This planet has been "reset" multiple times. If left without these resets, would another species have evolved much quicker?

That said - too nice a planet might not develop intelligent life. What would need it?
Too harsh a planet might prevent more complex development.
Too small won't keep its atmosphere, or can't protect itself from its star or local space garbage.
Too large crushes more complex life and draws space garbage to itself.
Planets too close to their star may be pelted by space garbage.
Systems without large giants behind potentially life-bearing planets may not be protected by those giants drawing garbage, and
Systems where potentially life bearing planets are behind giants may have such deep extremes in climate as to be inhospitable.

On this planet, more minor climate traumas have created one species that is curiously intelligent. And by more minor I mean, the last 250,000 years of non-stop glaciations almost wiping out a candidate species down to few individuals over and over, making that species select for intelligence as a way of surviving the brutal climatic events.

We are distinctly different than our other simian or primate cousins right from the get go. We wander. We wander with the herds. Now we've figured out how to manage the herds. After hundreds of thousands of years of following the herds around.

All the simians are social pack animals to an extent. None of the other ones are HERD social pack animals. Other simians survived - but they didn't become like us.

Life is one thing. Intelligent life - that might something you get when there are repeated strong challenges to survival of a species with few natural advantages, that branches out of its niche.

Originally posted by inivux

Anyway, the crux of my "argument" is that if the Universe is the same age all over (~16 billion years), wouldn't the "proto-life" have advanced at the same rate into actual life, as the life on Earth did? Why would life (and the previous building blocks of life) progress faster or sooner elsewhere?

Well consider that there are stars in the process of being 'born' right now such as in the Eta Carina Nebula. Stars have a limited lifespan so they eventually die, which we see as planetary nebula (just a name, no relevance to planets). My point is before our Sun was even born and well before Earth existed there were other stars that possibly supported Earth like planets but they are now long gone.

reply to post by Caveat Lector
That is an excellent point, that I totally forgot about. Obviously, in those systems, life, if it ever exists, is a long way off from even starting to develop.

But the converse of that point is still an issue. The other systems that are millions of years older each have a chance of having life, maybe even advanced life (Type 2+ civilizations). And if that is true, that means they are inter-galactic civilizations. And if that is true, there are countless inter-galactic civilizations, which would mean that they should literally be everywhere in the Universe.

Now, the reason we may not be able to hear them has been mentioned before in this thread (their methods of inter-stellar communication are net yet understood by us). But if these alien races really were as advanced and intelligent as one would expect their Kardashev Type to allow them to be, wouldn't it stand to reason that they would make their communication methods "backwards compatible"?

Then again, if the backwards compatibility includes the methods we use, which are lost to the background noise of space itself, that explains why we cannot find them or detect them.

But surely these races would know of this, and might of developed another method that is still detectable by "lesser instruments" but not limited of getting lost in the background noise.

To recap:

According to the Drake equation, there are countless chances for life. Of that group, there are countless Type 3 civilizations. Since each Type 3 civilization is either galactic or inter-galactic, they should be everywhere in the Universe, and should have figured out how to transmit detectable messages.

But, nothing? Why?