Odds of other life in the Universe (Page 14)

Rick Prime: The Fermi Paradox predicts that intelligent life exists in abundance throughout the cosmos, but that it is cyclic. Civilisations develop, they advance and finally destroy themselves. It could be nuclear war, the use of nuclear power and the problem of disposing of waste. Alternatively, it might be climate change or the proliferation of a destructive virus, such as in our world now and the covid 19 virus and it's many variants. It requires certain conditions for life to develop and evolve and, considering the the huge volume of inhabitable worlds in the cosmos, it might be that civilisations have come and gone, and they continue to come and go, as is happening to us right now to an extent, and has happened to civilisations on Earth in the past.

Corwin: There is a possible answer to Fermi's Paradox... the absence of these alleged space-aliens could simply be that they're avoiding us.

I mean, look at us. If you were a super-advanced alien civilization, would you want anything to do with us?

XxduckmeatxX16: Rick I don't think the Fermi equation predicts life in abundance because there are too many variables in that equation that we simply don't know. We don't know if planets in habitable zones have any life at all yet. And even if they do, we have no idea if primitive life can ultimately evolve into intelligent life. We maybe a fluke that beat incredible odds to become intelligent. We will never know until we can find signs of intelligent life, maybe the James Webb telescope will find something eventually

Rick Prime: You are exactly correct. We don't know. Why would any civilisation contact us at all? What purpose would they have travelling light years to visit unless it's conquest. We have nothing to offer - our fossil fuels are mostly depleted now. Unless, of course, they're seeking a free lunch, though I doubt they'd travel all this way to eat us. I am certain, however, that pathogens they bring with them, will.

XxduckmeatxX16: Maybe they will intervene if they see us on the verge of destruction. Surely an advanced civilization may have morals and may feel it's their duty to prevent humanity's extinction. I don't think an alien civilization bent on evil could advance far anyway, they would collapse within.

Corwin: @duckmeat -- I think what you're referring to is the "Drake Equation".
A string of variables (mostly unknown) to ponder just how abundant or rare intelligent civilizations could be in any given galaxy. Plug in even the most modest figures and it seems plausible that these civilizations may be in abundance. But without more data to properly fill in those variables, it's mostly conjecture. Some physicists refer to the Drake Equation as a good way to "organize our ignorance".

"Fermi's Paradox" is more the "flip-side" of that argument. Fermi conjectured, "If these civilizations are so allegedly abundant, then WHERE ARE THEY??"

Rick Prime: Yeah, the cosmic god guys, inviting us to join the inter-stellar federation of mostly harmless star systems. Personally, I wouldn't bank on it. Call me a cynic, but life is aggressive, it has to be to survive. Otherwise, why buzz Welsh hill farms? Why drop their cosmic weather balloons at Roswell.? If they do exist, and visit us, I hope they take Elon Musk home with them.

Rick Prime: Corwyn, they exist high above the stratosphere in a region that is stark and stellar with Edmund Anti-Tellar, Carl Anti-Sagan and Isaac Anti-Asimov.

Corwin:

I agree with the possible "hostile" nature of an alleged interstellar species.
It was once conjectured that a space-faring advanced species like that would "have" to be peaceful, or they'd have destroyed themselves long before they advanced that far...
... BUT... evolution is driven by competition. It's the "predator/prey" relationship that has been at work for 3 1/2 billion years here on Earth.

Humans are the most intelligent, most technically advanced, and by FAR the most deadly of all Earth's predators, past and present. Top of the food-chain. The Apex Predator.
Even ol' T-Rex wouldn't have stood a chance against a sufficiently armed modern Human.
Like say T-Rex vs Human armed with twin turbine-jet A10-Thunderbolt -- mini-cannon firing 3000 rounds per minute, and surface-to-air missiles.
Although I think even a foot-soldier with an M-60 and a grenade-launcher would even make quick work of T-Rex.


So let's hope that if there are malevolent extraterrestrials, that they have a "sporting" nature, and would prefer to face us face-to-face in combat, rather than just nuke us all from orbit.
Remember the movie Predator? .... "Get to the choppah!!"

Corwin: My own guesswork when fiddling around with the Drake Equation has an answer to both of those questions, Drake, and Fermi.. Plug in VERY modest and pessimistic numbers into that equation and you come up with only ONE intelligent civilization at any given time in any given galaxy equal or larger in size than our own.
And that would imply, that at the time being, we are IT here in the Milky Way.

Communicating with a planet here in our local spiral arm would be problematic enough... but communicating between "galaxies" ?? That would be nigh impossible, at least any kind of useful communication (even if that kind long distance communication was possible). Send a message to Andromeda and get a reply in 2 million years.

That would explain why the skies are so quiet... BUT still leave the idea up for argument that SOMEWHERE out there they do exist.

lori100:

Corwin: Aliens don't blink? Even when they shine a bright light in its eyes?

That puppet would have looked way more realistic if they had spent a little more and used animatronics to make it blink once in a while.

And the poor quality and poor lighting... oh sure, we're recording the most profoundly significant event in the history of mankind... lets use a really crappy camera and have it really poorly lit. And let's only record its head.
Oh sure, it's poorly lit for the alien's "comfort".... so heaven forbid we use a high-definition camera with say a 6400 ISO -- a camera that would ensure fine detail and ample lighting with mere candle-light.

Fail.

lori100: they can walk thru walls, a light doesnt affect them

lori100: where is your puppet evidence?

Corwin: If a light doesn't affect them, then why did they need to have it so poorly lit?

"Puppet evidence"?

You're shifting the burden of proof here. The one making a fantastic claim is the one with the burden of proving that claim.
Some guys making an alien-looking puppet head isn't particularly fantastic.
Claiming its a genuine extraterrestrial from another planet is a VERY fantastic claim.

Besides, that Hollywood FX guy spotted it as a fake right off the bat, and said he could make a way better one.

lori100: no evidence

Corwin: That is correct. That silly recording isn't evidence of anything, except to prove that there are very gullible people willing to buy just about anything that supports their beliefs.

lori100: dni shown---Dept. of Navy Intelligence

Corwin: Oh sure, I also work for Navy Intelligence.

I'm also a secret-agent former astronaut with bionic limbs.

Rick Prime: Alens from other worlds? In fact, we are the aliens, that is if you support the theory of Panspermia, where life was brought to our world on comets and asteroids, a theory that I personally agree with considering the discovery of amino acids within the Murchison meteorite that fell in Victoria, Australia in 1969. Na noo Na noo and all that. Live long and prosper.

lori100: the trappist 1 system has a red dwarf sun and 7 planets...NASA said they are similar to Earth and may have similar life......the 3rd planet looks like Earth...............a remote viewer viewed the system and saw a several miles long ship there and tall aliens....they seemed to be collecting samples constantly of all life there.....is in the aquarius constellation

Corwin: "Remote viewer".

NASA has remote viewers... they're called space-telescopes. The new James Webb telescope is the most awesome one yet.


Saying an exo-planet is "similar" to Earth is a subjective statement. Similar in what way? Similar is size perhaps? In the correct orbit to be in the "habitable-zone" ?

There, the similarities would end, if we're talking about a red dwarf as its parent star.
Red dwarf stars are much smaller, and cooler, so a planet would have to orbit very closely to be warm enough. This means it would be "tidally-locked" facing the same side to the star as it orbits, rather than rotate on its axis. These are being referred to as "eyeball planets". The dark side would be perpetually frozen, and the lit side scorching hot at the central longitude/latitudes -- with a ring of possibly temperate conditions in the "twilight" area where the two meet.

The other problem with a red dwarf star, is that although they burn for billions of years longer than a yellow dwarf like our own Sun, they are far more unstable, and prone to more frequent and violent solar flare activity. These could possibly sterilize a planet of any life that may begin to form, especially orbiting in such close proximity.

But of course we don't know for certain that life isn't possible around a red dwarf, as we've yet to study planets like this up close. Lori's "remote viewers" don't count.


There have been interesting recent developments at SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), as they've allegedly detected a signal originating from the direction of the nearby Centauri system, that appears to be artificial. Nothing conclusive yet, but still exciting news.

The Centauri system contains three stars, a yellow dwarf binary orbiting somewhat close to each other, and a more distant red dwarf (Proxima) orbiting around the gravitational center of the three. Proxima B is a planet we found in the possible habitable-zone orbiting around Proxima.
We're hoping that the James Webb might have the resolution to detect any possible artificial light sources from Proxima B's night-side. That would suggest civilization.

lori100: look at descriptions of trappist system, and look at my remote viewing thread, govt cofirms it works

lori100: and the webb people have already said what they see is top secret, more liars and hiders of truth

Corwin: They're still busy aligning the mirrors and instruments on the JWST to achieve the maximum quality of the images. And it hasn't yet reached it's lagrange parking orbit, nor have the instruments finished cooling to below 150 Kelvin.

They expect it all to be up and running to full capacity in July, and will make its finding public at that time. They want a dazzling first impression of their new $10 billion toy.

I mean, seriously...photos of distant stars and galaxies aren't exactly a matter of national security.


And who are these "webb people" you speak of? You mean NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency? One big conspiracy of liars intent on keeping pretty photos of the sky a big secret?