"They're Definitely Aliens in Outer Space" Michio Kaku

Originally posted by drakus

Originally posted by raj10463

we are alone until proven otherwise

I disagree.
We don't know which one is it.
But it is dead simple to prove they exist. As soon as we find either living people, or indications of civilization.
How would you prove there are no people besides us?

Right now, we-just-don't-know, there's nothing wrong with not having an answer yet.
And it is certainly no excuse to invent stories to hide that we don't know.

Exactly.

There is nothing wrong with saying "we don't know". We could make assumptions and form a belief based on the evidence, but frankly, we don't know. Like I said earlier, I personally think the available evidence (which is by definition circumstantial) is telling me that life elsewhere in the universe exists. I certainly BELIEVE that, but I don't KNOW that. And neither does science (yet).

There is no disgrace in not "knowing" something. I'm not sure why people feel the need to make themselves think that they "know" something when all they can do with the evidence at hand is "believe" something.

And going back to the premise of the OP...Even Machio Kaku does not "know" life exists elsewhere. He -- just like me -- can only assume (or believe) it exists, because the available circumstantial evidence tells us it does.

reply to post by raj10463


Impossible. It is logically impossible that we are the only ones. That is so egocentric its not even funny. I love this analogy: If you went to the ocean and filled up a large bucket with water and had no fish or any other life forms in the bucket do you conclude that there is no life in the ocean? Our little solar system is a bucket in the vast ocean that is the universe. The diversity of lifeforms on our little rock alone says its impossible that there are not other life forms out there. I offer nothing to the argument that they are visiting our planet because I have no proof but the claims of reputable people with nothing to gain and everything to loose if they reveal these things says that they might be here too. The building blocks of life, amino acids, have been found on meteorites from outer space.Water is carried around by comets and Jupiters moon Io is a big ball of ice so water is probably everywhere too. Add a little spark from cosmic lightning and boom. Here comes Frankie and Johnnie.

reply to post by raj10463


It has been replicated in a lab. They took amino acids, some gases and electricity and they grew some brown stuff that had the properties of life. They bio engineered meat in a lab. They are working on growing replacement body parts in a lab. Welcome to the 21st century. Remember Dolly the sheep?

Why is it some people just can't even consider the slight possibility that we may indeed be alone in the universe? In science, we always start with the null hypothesis. That is, we always assume that a given phenomena doesn't exist until we at least have sufficient data that supports the hypothesis.

Probabilistic arguments are worthless if you do not understand the exact parameters that lead to the rise of life in the first place. If those parameters are plentiful and behave in a nonlinear fashion, then it is entirely plausible that we may be alone in the universe as unimaginable as that may be. Given we don't exactly understand what those parameters are at this time, it is entirely unscientific to make statements such as, "they are definitely out there".

Seeing as there is no experiment that can falsify the existence of extraterrestrials, as one cannot prove a negative, then just what would it take for people to accept the possibility that we might be alone in the universe? A 1000 years of SETI turning up nothing?

Originally posted by winofiend
If a pea is lost out at sea, floating on the high waves and crashing down into the never ending turbulence, do you think you could find it, if you had no idea where to look?

If not, why? You're a highly intelligent creature, far more intelligent than any pea?

If that pea is never found, does this mean that you do not exist?

Can you exist, and never find that pea?

We're that pea.

I know my pee exists, and now it's out there somewhere, probably lost at sea.

Originally posted by MathematicalPhysicist
Why is it some people just can't even consider the slight possibility that we may indeed be alone in the universe? In science, we always start with the null hypothesis. That is, we always assume that a given phenomena doesn't exist until we at least have sufficient data that supports the hypothesis.

edit on 20-3-2013 by MathematicalPhysicist because: (no reason given)

But we do know the phenomena exists.
We ARE the phenomena.
The question then becomes, are we the only instance in the Universe of this phenomena?



Ps. I never know how to write Fenomenah...

reply to post by MathematicalPhysicist


My advice, if you care to read about the most persuasive mathematical argument, authored by a mathematician, in lay terms that even a mathematical physicist may understand, is:

Probability 1, by Dr. Amir Aczel. Invest $0.01 -that's right, just ONE CENT for hardcover, $0.12 softcover on Amazon - and check it out.



One of my favorite books on this subject. It has silenced many "we are alone" protagonists. The math is flawless. The math evidence is overwhelming. Irrefutable. And it's a fun read. I buy and give away copies of this book all year long. Leave them on park benches and such. He he he.

reply to post by MathematicalPhysicist


While your argument is sincere, just consider the "Freak of Nature" that you are even alive to be able to "Rationally think" of this dilemma.

Through a complete Luck of the draw, bad luck, universal law, whatever.....75 or so Million years ago, a great tragedy befit Planet Earth, and a huge period of Extinction of life began, AND completely changed the structured order of life, at that time.

It has been argued and proposed by many a learned person, that had the great extinction Not happen, Man and Mammals would NOT be the dominant species on Earth and in Fact Whatever the Dinosaurs eventually evolved into, would be the intelligent species, dominating this planet.

So thru a probably common Universal occurrence, that unfortunately, basically wiped out 500 million years of evolution, and because of pure dumb luck, You exist as a thinking mammal to ponder that very conundrum, "the meaning of life".

Anywhere there is Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon, the building blocks of life.....then the possibility of life is extremely high. Just so happens, as we know now, these building blocks are everywhere in the Universe.

I popped in to make a couple of quick points.
First of all, as others have stated, it is extremely unprofessional for him to make a statement like that without definitive proof of some kind. I believe there is life out there in the vast sea, but that is just my belief. I could be wrong. Science is not supposed to work that way, yet, it does all the time. Many theories (while still referred to as theories) are treated and taught as hard fact. Scientists take the stance that they know for sure it's true, even if they can't prove it. Science got us to this modern world by NOT doing that. There used to be strict integrity with regard to the scientific method, but I guess that's a thing of the past.

Michio Kaku lost credibilty with me for appearing on any show that would pay him. When I first saw "What the bleep do we know?", I thought it was really interesting. I also thought there was some credibility since it featured many people (Michio included). I kept wondering who the annoying woman with the strange accent and constant overdramaticism was, and why they let her be in the film. At some point later, I learned that she is Ramtha, a medium. Not only is she in the film, apparently, it was her film. So why did Kaku take this gig? Much in the film is false and misleading, and the good stuff was covered back in '79 by Carl Sagan (a true scientist) in his special "cosmos".

Originally posted by drakus

Originally posted by MathematicalPhysicist
Why is it some people just can't even consider the slight possibility that we may indeed be alone in the universe? In science, we always start with the null hypothesis. That is, we always assume that a given phenomena doesn't exist until we at least have sufficient data that supports the hypothesis.

edit on 20-3-2013 by MathematicalPhysicist because: (no reason given)

But we do know the phenomena exists.
We ARE the phenomena.
The question then becomes, are we the only instance in the Universe of this phenomena?



Ps. I never know how to write Fenomenah...

edit on 20/3/2013 by drakus because: (no reason given)

Well said, and it's phenomenon (singular) and phenomena (plural). Just as a little thought exercise, let us see who can be the first one to name a phenomenon that exists in the universe which we believe probably exists in only one instance. For example, planet? No, we know there are multiple planets out there. Comet? Nah, pretty sure there are lots of those. Galaxy? Nope, several at least. Come on, there's got to be something that the universe has produced once and once only in it's long history. Perhaps I'm just ignorant.

What is it?

Originally posted by bigfootgurl

Originally posted by drakus

Originally posted by MathematicalPhysicist
Why is it some people just can't even consider the slight possibility that we may indeed be alone in the universe? In science, we always start with the null hypothesis. That is, we always assume that a given phenomena doesn't exist until we at least have sufficient data that supports the hypothesis.

edit on 20-3-2013 by MathematicalPhysicist because: (no reason given)

But we do know the phenomena exists.
We ARE the phenomena.
The question then becomes, are we the only instance in the Universe of this phenomena?



Ps. I never know how to write Fenomenah...

edit on 20/3/2013 by drakus because: (no reason given)

Well said, and it's phenomenon (singular) and phenomena (plural). Just as a little thought exercise, let us see who can be the first one to name a phenomenon that exists in the universe which we believe probably exists in only one instance. For example, planet? No, we know there are multiple planets out there. Comet? Nah, pretty sure there are lots of those. Galaxy? Nope, several at least. Come on, there's got to be something that the universe has produced once and once only in it's long history. Perhaps I'm just ignorant.

What is it?

Me.

reply to post by notquiteright


Of course! The individual is unique, just like every blade of grass and each snowflake. There are plenty of other conscious (we assume) human beings around though. Let's keep thinking.

news.yahoo.com...
Oceans May Be Common on Rocky Alien Planets

And all the life that goes with it, human ape like beings, too!

Not all of them are in the fossil fuel stage some are jetson level or higher.

Originally posted by notquiteright

Originally posted by bigfootgurl

Originally posted by drakus

Originally posted by MathematicalPhysicist
Why is it some people just can't even consider the slight possibility that we may indeed be alone in the universe? In science, we always start with the null hypothesis. That is, we always assume that a given phenomena doesn't exist until we at least have sufficient data that supports the hypothesis.

edit on 20-3-2013 by MathematicalPhysicist because: (no reason given)

But we do know the phenomena exists.
We ARE the phenomena.
The question then becomes, are we the only instance in the Universe of this phenomena?



Ps. I never know how to write Fenomenah...

edit on 20/3/2013 by drakus because: (no reason given)

Well said, and it's phenomenon (singular) and phenomena (plural). Just as a little thought exercise, let us see who can be the first one to name a phenomenon that exists in the universe which we believe probably exists in only one instance. For example, planet? No, we know there are multiple planets out there. Comet? Nah, pretty sure there are lots of those. Galaxy? Nope, several at least. Come on, there's got to be something that the universe has produced once and once only in it's long history. Perhaps I'm just ignorant.

What is it?

Me.

Sorry. I was just trying to be funny. It is an interesting question, though. I have tried to come up with something in the observable universe in which there is only one instance. So far, I can't think of anything.

Michio Kaku is cool and I like listening to him. He does not hold much credibility in regard to aliens though. His take is based on a [near] infinite space resulting in all things even with the smallest chance eventually happening.

However. There is ZERO physical evidence of alien intelligence. We are not talking about finding a marble in the ocean. We are talking about an infinite number of marbles looks in the same ocean for just one of an infinite number of other marbles. We would know.

I think Fermi's paradox sums it up best:

The apparent size and age of the universe suggest that many technologically advanced extraterrestrial civilizations ought to exist. However, this hypothesis seems inconsistent with the lack of observational evidence to support it.

reply to post by ThinkingCap

However, unlike the pea, we are constantly broadcasting messages into space.

You can hardly even see the dot which represents how far our radio signals have travelled. And that's just a picture of our own galaxy, and there's a reasonable chance that we are the only intelligent species in this galaxy.

Originally posted by winofiend
If a pea is lost out at sea, floating on the high waves and crashing down into the never ending turbulence, do you think you could find it, if you had no idea where to look?

If not, why? You're a highly intelligent creature, far more intelligent than any pea?

If that pea is never found, does this mean that you do not exist?

Can you exist, and never find that pea?

We're that pea.

How can we be lost? You can only lose something you once had.

Anyone ever asked the question as to why, if there is this gigantic hot spot in the middle of our galaxy, that we cannot see it from our planet...at all, from anywhere?

Originally posted by neoholographic
1. A belief system. Whether religious or atheist in nature. I actually think some in religion are actually more accepting of these things than atheist and skeptics.

2. I think the Bible and other text are full of Extraterrestrial Visitations and things like missing time.

3. Basically life in the universe has to be started like life on earth. First, there's more evidence for Panspermia than there is for Abiogenesis and secondly there's no evidence that life on earth has some special ingredient that can't be duplicated anywhere else in the universe.

OP let me comment on your originial post

- What this man state is not a fact but his BELIEF. he want to believe extraterrestrial exist with whatever justification he want. its his right to do that but its not a FACT. One person's belief dont mean its FACT. Many people in UFOLOGY have personal belief one way or another. One believe its aliens, one believe its from another dimension , one belief its all man-made. You have to have faith to believe in something, some people have faith on existence of extraterrestrial..

- Some UFOLOGIST misinterpret the bible and trying hard to connect bible text with UFOLOGY to support their BELIEF. In fact the most touted EZEKIEL chapter is not about UFO its about throne of God, shown to Ezekiel in Heaven. Some (Erich von daniken for example) link Jesus's ascendancy with UFO pulling Him to heavens.. This is just another example of trying to fit square peg in round hole.. One more thing, there's not a single scripture that said God dont create other being in place other than earth, what God said is everything will submit to Jesus at the end.

- Probability or Statistic cannot be used to calculate odds if you dont know the limitations. let me give you a simple example : take a 6-sided dice and roll it 1.000.000 times. Whats the odds you will get a 7 in a roll ? Never, because the dice you are using is a six-sided dice with possibility of 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 on each roll.... You get my meaning ? claiming the UNIVERSE is sooo big that life must exist somewhere is moot because we didnt know the paramenters of the odds, which is how life exist from the beginning. Sure we got theory but its just theory and not provable / replicatable in lab.

regards

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by drakus

Originally posted by raj10463

we are alone until proven otherwise

I disagree.
We don't know which one is it.
But it is dead simple to prove they exist. As soon as we find either living people, or indications of civilization.
How would you prove there are no people besides us?

Right now, we-just-don't-know, there's nothing wrong with not having an answer yet.
And it is certainly no excuse to invent stories to hide that we don't know.

Exactly.

There is nothing wrong with saying "we don't know". We could make assumptions and form a belief based on the evidence, but frankly, we don't know. Like I said earlier, I personally think the available evidence (which is by definition circumstantial) is telling me that life elsewhere in the universe exists. I certainly BELIEVE that, but I don't KNOW that. And neither does science (yet).

There is no disgrace in not "knowing" something. I'm not sure why people feel the need to make themselves think that they "know" something when all they can do with the evidence at hand is "believe" something.

And going back to the premise of the OP...Even Machio Kaku does not "know" life exists elsewhere. He -- just like me -- can only assume (or believe) it exists, because the available circumstantial evidence tells us it does.

edit on 3/20/2013 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

I think based on the Drake equation we can claim "knowledge". Even with extremely conservative estimates.

It's a forgone conclusion life has evolved elsewhere, the size of the universe guarantees it.
I think the real tipping point for these scientist is all the planets we keep discovering. To claim less than being sure, would be dishonest.