Do you believe in aliens?

There are so many other stars in the Universe that to suggest that there is no other life out there is hilarious. Have they visited Earth? Completely different question. Maybe. Our government covers up a lot of things.

I'd have to say yes because given the sheer size of the universe and that any form of life, including bacteria, would constitute alien life form by definition, the probability is extremely likely there are other forms of life. Hollywood aliens? Who knows? Check this video out just to gain a little perspective.

http://stars.chromeexperiments.com/

Milky Way has 200 - 400 billion stars. How many galaxies are there?

Aliens are already here.

See: ToddPhin. :lol:

Other life exists, its just not visited here.

yes, alien life exists. They have already discovered fossils on mars and on comets of alien bacteria. Now, is it as advanced as us or more so? I don't think so.

I think the poll should be more expansive and in-depth, for example do you believe in intelligent life - not just life - and have they visited here....because I most definietly think there is intelligent life out there, I'm just not sure they have been to our planet.

It would be ignorant to reject the possibility.

Difference between life and intelligent life. How are you guys certain were not the most advanced?

Like 99% chance there is more intelligent life out there.

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"Ronnie Bass wrote:

I think the poll should be more expensive and in-depth, for example do you believe in intelligent life - not just life - and have they visited here....because I most definietly think there is intelligent life out there, I'm just not sure they have been to our planet.

Well we certainly have a lack of that here on Earth.

I see a couple of aliens posting in this thread .Its true they do exist and their principal objective is to make Mods lives miserable.

"jdang307 wrote:

Difference between life and intelligent life. How are you guys certain were not the most advanced?

No way to know for sure, but with the unthinkable number of stars, and therefore almost certainly planets, who are out there and older than ours, the odds are certainly in favor of beings somewhere out there (likely lots and lots of them) who make our species look pathetic by comparrison.

"CrunchTime wrote:

I see a couple of aliens posting in this thread .Its true they do exist and their principal objective is to make Mods lives miserable.

I told you that in total confidence, now I have no choice but to abduct you and beam you up to the Mother Ship to have your memory erased. I hope you like sharp needles in unthinkable areas of your body.

"Ronnie Bass wrote:

I think the poll should be more expansive and in-depth, for example do you believe in intelligent life - not just life - and have they visited here....because I most definietly think there is intelligent life out there, I'm just not sure they have been to our planet.

Yeah I was thinking about that. I definitely meant intelligent life. I should have been more specific.

If you asked this a few months ago, I would have said yes. Now I say no. Now, I'm not talking microbials or anything like that. I mean it as intelligent life.

I base this on the argument of the Great Filter, which I find convincing. It basically says that arguments that assert vastness must be incomplete, since despite the vastness of the universe, we can observe no intelligent life. There is a Great Filter that takes these huge numbers used in probability and reduces them greatly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

With no evidence of intelligent life other than ourselves, it appears that the process of starting with a star and ending with "advanced explosive lasting life" must be unlikely. This implies that at least one step in this process must be improbable. Hanson's list, while incomplete, describes the following nine steps in an "evolutionary path" that results in the colonization of the observable universe:

The right star system (including organics and potentially habitable planets)
Reproductive molecules (e.g., RNA)
Simple (prokaryotic) single-cell life
Complex (archaeatic and eukaryotic) single-cell life
Sexual reproduction
Multi-cell life
Tool-using animals with big brains
Where we are now
Colonization explosion.

According to the Great Filter hypothesis at least one of these steps - if the list were complete - must be improbable. If it's not an early step (i.e., in our past), then the implication is that the improbable step lies in our future and our prospects of reaching step 9 (interstellar colonization) are still bleak. If the past steps are likely, then many civilizations would have developed to the current level of the human race. However, none appear to have made it to step 9, or the Milky Way would be full of colonies. So perhaps step 9 is the unlikely one, and the only thing that appears likely to keep us from step 9 is some sort of catastrophe or the resource exhaustion leading to impossibility to make the step due to consumption of the available resources (like for example highly constrained energy resources). So by this argument, finding multicellular life on Mars (provided it evolved independently) would be bad news, since it would imply steps 2–6 are easy, and hence only 1, 7, 8 or 9 (or some unknown step) could be the big problem.[3]

Although steps 1–7 have occurred on Earth, any one of these may be unlikely. If the first seven steps are necessary preconditions to calculating the likelihood (using the local environment) then an anthropically biased observer can infer nothing about the general probabilities from its (pre-determined) surroundings.

"maynard wrote:

If you asked this a few months ago, I would have said yes. Now I say no. Now, I'm not talking microbials or anything like that. I mean it as intelligent life.

I base this on the argument of the Great Filter, which I find convincing. It basically says that arguments that assert vastness must be incomplete, since despite the vastness of the universe, we can observe no intelligent life. There is a Great Filter that takes these huge numbers used in probability and reduces them greatly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

We have only been able to study a mere fraction of the universe Maynard. And we barely know what we are looking at when we do. And you didn't mention anything about sex at all in your post. What's up? LOL

Yes. We're just a little speck in the universe. Probably not even a speck, actually.

"jdang307 wrote:

Difference between life and intelligent life. How are you guys certain were not the most advanced?

"Stringer Bell wrote:

Like 99% chance there is more intelligent life out there.

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The fact that weekly karaoke shows and Honey Boo-boo appear to be very popular on Planet Earth, should be a good indication that there ought to be.

"BlameItOnTheHenne wrote:

Yes. We're just a little speck in the universe. Probably not even a speck, actually.

The vastness is so big it's just something that cannot be grasped. Our galaxy is a spec in the universe.

"CashInFist wrote:

We have only been able to study a mere fraction of the universe Maynard. And we barely know what we are looking at when we do. And you didn't mention anything about sex at all in your post. What's up? LOL

Odd, right? And I was drinking

Btw, here's a better link than the wikipedia one: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

I believe that there is intelligent life in our galaxy. You can run any kind of filter from Drake's equation on down to the most pessimistically oriented version available - the sheer magnitude of the universe would greatly tend toward indicating that the probability of life would so high as to be a virtual certainty. That may not be the case, but I feel that such a case would be an variation from the norm. Even in this Galaxy, the estimates range from 100,000,000,000 to 400,000,000,000 stars, with a high probability that the great majority of those stars will have a planetary system around them, and this is a small galaxy. With the conservatively estimated number of galaxies in the universe have a low value of 100,000,000,000, and a serious number of them larger than the Milky way, and the possibility that more galaxies will be discerned with greater photographic and/or telescopic resolution..... that number slips more and more toward the ludicrously large. That does not take into account that life, even intelligent life has to exist in solely a bipedal, upright, mammalian form, let alone a multipedal variously locomotive corporeal form, and life may even exist in (or, as my profession would dictate the existence of) a non-corporeal form. (Corporeality would tend to make it easier for us to communicate with them, though (I think!) ofttimes there is a question of communication ability between humans!)

It is my belief that such beings do exist, but it may be a very, very long time before we have any form of definitive communications with who ever they are. The current transmission bubble around the Earth is approximately 130 light years in diameter. That is a very long way by current human means of mobility, but is minuscule compared with the galaxy itself. This does not take into account that the reality of a reply would only be only from the most optimist guess of a number of variables from a (we hope) civilization about 37-40 light years because nothing transmitting anything with enough energy to carry a discernible signal originated much before 1935 or so, and if they are intelligent, one could have reasonable doubts about whether anyone reading most of those early signals would want communicate with us.

Now, all of this could blow up like a soap bubble in a prickly pear. Maybe, just maybe, some of the UFO reports are not "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese or a fragment of underdone potato. If so, all bets are off, but it will not affect my thoughts about the existence of life, intelligent, at that, elsewhere than on the Earth.

My vote is maybe.

Basically because in the end it doesn't matter. The amount of energy required to achieve near light speed travel is so fabulous that even if you wanted to try interstellar travel there is no possible economical return on your investment. Add on top of that that the speed of light appears to be the hard limit for physical travel, and it takes years just to get to the closest stars then the time lag makes travel impractical.

Its not just beyond our capacity, to make it practical you need to break physical laws of energy, motion and time to make it practical.

Bravo, Rev. That was awesomely done.

Absolutely. Has to be. Especially if you believe that the Universe is infinite. Not even to mention the whole time it takes light to travel. Such a vast concept. Really blows the mind. I mean, by the time it takes us to travel to another life bearing planet, that planet (or that civilization rather) may no longer be there.

This and "what happens when we die?"... two concepts that I'd like to have answers to. :wink2: