Report, edit, etc...Posted by FatalException on 2007-02-02 at 00:38:18
I agree with NerdyTerdy, it's possible that they aren't advanced enough to go looking for other sentient beings. Not all aliens are like the ones in Independance Day. 
Report, edit, etc...Posted by Syphon on 2007-02-02 at 17:47:45
QUOTE(PwnPirate @ Feb 1 2007, 10:20 PM)
It doesn't matter if the chances of a planet supporting sentient life are 0.00000001. The Universe is infinite and expanding.
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Those aren't oxymorons, are they? If it's infinite it can't be expanding, and if it's expanding it can't be infinite.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by green_meklar on 2007-02-02 at 19:17:03
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We obviously haven't done too badly so far.
Well, we've survived up to this point, but I think we could really have done (and be doing) better.
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Something I've never understood is why people almost always assume that A) If intelligent life exists, it is smarter than we are, and B) If intelligent life exists, it will contact us, rather than the other way around.
Not all intelligent life is necessarily smarter than us or will contact us before we contact it. However, all the civilizations that are bigger and more advanced than ours totally overbalance and swamp out all the civilizations smaller and less advanced than ours. In other words, the primitive civilizations are probably out there, but if we find any civilization it's probably going to be one of the advanced ones. It's just plain easier to find a big civilization than a small one.
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Aliens exist, we cannot predict when they will contact us, or if they ever will. We can predict its going to be awhile before we find them. I'm guessing past my lifetime.
Actually, a number of leading scientists recently got together and decided that they give us about even chances of picking up a signal in the next 30 years. Remember, as time goes on we not only have more time in which to receive a signal, but also our telescopes get better.
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I agree with NerdyTerdy, it's possible that they aren't advanced enough to go looking for other sentient beings. Not all aliens are like the ones in Independance Day.
ARRGGH! Stop torturing me with logical fallacies!
We can assume that there is not just one 'they', but rather probably hundreds of 'theys' right here in our galaxy. Out of those hundreds, if even one was only 0.01% of the age of the galaxy ahead of us, they'd be easily advanced enough to find us rather than us finding them. Saying that some civilizations are more primitive than us makes sense, however saying that all of them are stops making any sense as soon as you have more than a few dozen civilizations total.
To put it simply, if there are aliens out there at all, at least some of them are almost certainly more advanced than us.
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Those aren't oxymorons, are they? If it's infinite it can't be expanding, and if it's expanding it can't be infinite.
Actually, in certain mathematical terms you could have a universe that was both infinite and expanding. However, our own Universe is not infinite. Its spacial area might be effectively infinite, but whether that's true or not its mass is almost certainly not infinite.
Report, edit, etc...Posted by PwnPirate on 2007-02-02 at 21:15:49
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Those aren't oxymorons, are they? If it's infinite it can't be expanding, and if it's expanding it can't be infinite.
I don't say everything literally. You could have safely assumed that I meant the Universe was incomprehensibly large, and I did.
Edit: On a similar note, the Universe expanding doesn't actually increase any chances of us finding aliens, it decreases them. I just thought it sounded catchy.
