board77

Lol! I wondered when someone would pop up aliens...

Iaves, if UFO's can get here from other star systems, I'll bet you we'll be able to do so too, some time!!

Sorry, couldn't resist...but seriously, I don't think we'll ever hit a perfect plateau of scientific knowledge. At least, not for a Very long time. One reason I feel this is because science ignores a lot. Eventually science Will exhaust Most of the stuff that it currently examines...but that isn't very big. Look at the current scientific requirements. They rule out a lot of what happens in the universe. Quantum physics barely qualify...repeatable, unchanging evidence aren't easy to find there. Yet it's one of the most exciting fields out there...science has to deal with these areas, and eventually, they may be the most interesting things to study. I'm not saying the secret to FTL transportation will be found that way, but one thing I learned in Philosophy applies here: Until you know Everything, you cannot say "impossible" about anything.

"If an elderly and distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is very likely right.

"If an elderly and distinguished scientist says that something is impossible, he is very likely wrong."

Is that one of Clarke's?

Yes, here are all three, from the wikipedia:

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Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

I like that last one. As an SF writer, I think about it a lot.

For example--suppose in the future everything one might buy has a tag embedded in it with its identification and price. Suppose people have an embedded chip with their credit/bank information. Suppose all of these can be scanned at once by walking through a doorway. (All these technologies are here or on the way.)

Someone from the recent past who visited such a future would see a seeming utopia, where people needing food or clothing simply walk into a store, take what they want, and carry it out the door.

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I have to agree with you Iavas that I think humans will have sufficient technology in the future to deal with asteroid impacts, ice ages and the like. My main fear is some kind of superbug, but some people may be able to escape even that by quarantining themselves deep underground for a few years.

I would say there'll always be isolated communities somewhere that it wouldn't spread to.. unless it was carried on the wind or something. Even then, the elite would ride it out underground. Humans are going to be damn tough to eliminate completely.

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I had a couple of questions about our chances of getting to another habitable planet. Do you think wormhole technology will ever be anything other than science fiction? And also, what do you think of the possibility of some kind of self-maintaining mobile space colony that could maintain a population for many generations while it traveled through space to a target star system? Photosynthetic bacteria could produce oxygen, but a major problem would obviously be a power source that could last that long.

I think wormholes will forever be science fiction. I hadn't considered a self-maintaining mobile space colony. That is a great suggestion. I don't know if it would be possible to pack it with enough power to remain functioning for long enough, but perhaps in the future we'll have developed an energy source capable of that.

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I tend to agree that we'll probably never actually encounter alien life directly, but I think there's a solid chance of us being able to pick up some kind of signal from another planet. Honestly, I think the only reason we haven't thus far is because such signals haven't reached us yet. I heard a theory that only the latest generation of solar systems have planetary compositions capable of supporting life, so intelligent life, if it's out there, is probably a pretty new development on most other worlds. If we are destined to be around for a couple of hundred thousand more years, I think there's a solid chance that we'll detect some kind of alien signal at some point.

Actually, I don't think the chances are that great. The development of intelligent life on earth was extremely fortuitous. I think any other intelligent life is going to be very far away, perhaps in another galaxy entirely. At that distance, they would have to be aiming a signal directly at our solar system.. out of billions of stars to choose from, that's unlikely.

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For example--suppose in the future everything one might buy has a tag embedded in it with its identification and price. Suppose people have an embedded chip with their credit/bank information. Suppose all of these can be scanned at once by walking through a doorway. (All these technologies are here or on the way.)

Someone from the recent past who visited such a future would see a seeming utopia, where people needing food or clothing simply walk into a store, take what they want, and carry it out the door.

That would be cool - but you have to wonder about the negatives of everyone being chipped too, it could be badly abused by those capable of monitoring the information.


Guru - you are probably right about science not plateauing.. the aliens will always have new things to teach us!

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The development of intelligent life on earth was extremely fortuitous. I think any other intelligent life is going to be very far away, perhaps in another galaxy entirely. At that distance, they would have to be aiming a signal directly at our solar system.. out of billions of stars to choose from, that's unlikely.

Huh! I didn't realize that the signal would have to be aimed directly towards us. I guess that would definitely bring the probability down a lot. IMO, there is doubt that the development of intelligent life on earth was so fortuitous, though. With the billions of years that evolution has to work on a given planet, a part of me thinks that the evolution of intelligent life is an inevitability.

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When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

All three of those quotes are awesome. Clarke was the man.

Yes, any signal not aimed at us--i.e., "waste transmissions" such as we're giving off--is essentially undetectable beyond about 35 lightyears. That means our signals are the same--we really are not broadcasting our location to the pitiless intelligences whose vast machine constructs orbit Betelgeuse.

Our star would be barely visible to eyes like ours from 35 lightyears away (I did the math once, for a story). This is barely next door in terms of the size of the galaxy, which is I believe 100,000 lightyears across. From the other side of the galaxy you'd need one heck of a telescope to see even the sun. And you'd have to have reason to care--to think life might exist here.

And you would have had to think of it 100,000 years ago for the signal to be reaching us now.

All that said, I do not share Iavas' pessimistic outlook about intelligent life.

For several years I copyedited a journal called Microbial Ecology. Some of its articles were about microbial life, bacteria and archaea, surviving under extreme conditions--boiling vents at the bottom of the ocean, crusts of ice on almost perpetually frozen lakes in Antarctica, or six miles down in tiny cracks in solid granite, under tremendous heat and pressure. It doesn't just survive--it thrives.

I'm going to make a prophecy. I think we will find life anywhere we find liquid water. Deep underground on Mars, and in the seas of Europa, right here in the solar system. Life is incredibly vibrant, incredibly opportunistic, incredibly resilient. Some scientists theorize that it arose several separate times here on Earth--arose and was smashed out of existence by a major impact (these were much more common then) again and again.

I hope to live to see extraterrestial life--probably microbes--found in our system. I also have reason to expect to live to see evidence of life found on extraterrestrial planets, with later generations of space telescopes that will be able to actually detect light from Earthlike planets near close-by stars. If that light's spectrum shows evidence of an oxygen atmosphere, we've found life. Oxygen gas is so reactive that it would combine permanently with minerals and vanish from the atmosphere fairly quickly if it weren't being constantly replenished by plant life.

If life is as prevalent as this, intelligent life will not be so rare that we are unique, or anything close to it. I would be surprised if there weren't at least a thousand other intelligences in this galaxy.

The problem is that an alien intelligence would have to be nuts to care about communicating with us, or traveling here if that were even possible. Life spends its energy on perpetuating itself.

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Huh! I didn't realize that the signal would have to be aimed directly towards us. I guess that would definitely bring the probability down a lot. IMO, there is doubt that the development of intelligent life on earth was so fortuitous, though. With the billions of years that evolution has to work on a given planet, a part of me thinks that the evolution of intelligent life is an inevitability.

I read a book called "Cosmic Coincidences" that detailed all the coincidences that led to the development of intelligent life (admittedly most of them related to the earth even forming in the first place). For example, if the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out by whatever did wipe them out, mammals may never have gotten a chance. If you think how long life has existed on earth, and for how much of that time there's been intelligent life, it's a minute fraction. If it took 5 billion years for intelligent life to emerge, it could just as easily have been 10 or 15 if conditions had been a little different, by which time of course the sun would be gone. If it takes half the life time of the star to happen, it's not an inevitability. Evolution is a fortuitous process, where a random mutation can send a species in a new direction. Look at the variety of life-forms we see.. only one out of millions has become intelligent. IMO it took a lucky break for a new branch of primates to split from the rest.


Prim, how did you get your astronomy knowledge?

I guess what I said above answers your points too. I agree that primitive life can probably get a foothold just about anywhere. But on earth, with above average conditions for evolution, it still took half the lifetime of the sun, and millions of unintelligent species, before a single intelligent species appeared. That to me suggests that intelligence does not come easily at all - it takes millions of tries over billions of years. I would be surprised if there were more than 1 or 2 intelligences in the whole galaxy - and wouldn't be surprised at all if we were the only ones. But over the billions of other galaxies out there, other intelligence is virtually certain.

It's quite sad that we'll never get to know what other civilisations might exist out there.. it could be things that would blow our mind..

Iavas, I minored in physics, though I hesitate to claim it because it was an absurdly easy minor. I took two astronomy courses, a night sky class, and one astrophysics course, in addition to one upper-division physics class. Nothing at all, really, especially as it's all obsolete now.

I'm interested in astronomy, though, both as as casual reader and as a science fiction writer. I read Hawking's books and others--"The Elegant Universe," for example, though I'm not through that one yet.

All very qualitative, though--I stopped just short of differential equations, so I'm a math illiterate.

As for the prevalence of intelligent life, well, we can't really draw any sort of conclusion from a single sample--we have no reason to think our own case is average. But once conditions were right, intelligence rose pretty fast--two or three million years ago, barely a sneeze, we were glorified chimps. Our own species has been around less than two thousand centuries. Perhaps the deviation from the norm is the dinosaurs--perhaps on most other worlds the little shrew creatures, or the local equivalents, have a much easier time evolving.

Thanks for explaining. I haven't read "The Elegant Universe", who's the author? Speaking of Hawking, have you seen the BBC drama "Hawking"? If not, I highly recommend it (to anyone, but those who know a bit about astronomy especially).

You are right that we don't know if Earth is a normal case. Personally I would guess it's a very unusual case, where life got far further than on most planets with conditions that allow some form of life. For the small number of other planets exactly like earth, it's more likely that we are a normal case.

The fact that intelligence did emerge so fast shows that the right conditions for that to happen must be rare. Otherwise intelligence would have gained a foothold very quickly at some point in the past when the conditions were also right. If it took 5 billion years for those conditions to arise, and millions of 'failed' species, it could easily not have happened at all.

Prim wrote:

The problem is that an alien intelligence would have to be nuts to care about communicating with us, or traveling here if that were even possible. Life spends its energy on perpetuating itself.

Or, as I vaguely remember someone saying, "The best proof that there is intelligent life on other planets is that they are not trying to contact us."

Iavas_Saar wrote:

The fact that intelligence did emerge so fast shows that the right conditions for that to happen must be rare. Otherwise intelligence would have gained a foothold very quickly at some point in the past when the conditions were also right. If it took 5 billion years for those conditions to arise, and millions of 'failed' species, it could easily not have happened at all.

It's also possible that intelligence, from a purely biological perspective, isn't often worth the effort. Evolution is only interested in survival, and there's no point in paying for intellegence if you can get by without it. Humans have done well for themselves, but not nearly so well as cockroaches or your standard species of bacteria, and the jury's still out on whether we'll be able to "live off our brains" for an evolutionarily significant amount of time. So yes; even if life is plentiful in the universe, it's still possible that intelligence could be a rare thing. Further, even if intelligence is common, there's no guarantee that technology will be. You can't have a technological revolution unless certain preconditions are met, and those conditions might not exist on other worlds.

Here's an interesting thought: are you sure there have never been any other intelligent animals on Earth? Isn't it possible that some ancient reptile or mammal lived in groups, made tools, and had the capacity for something like speech? There were never any raptors on the moon to be sure, but 65 million years is plenty of time for all evidence of a primitive culture to disappear.

Dave_LF wrote:

Here's an interesting thought: are you sure there have never been any other intelligent animals on Earth? Isn't it possible that some ancient reptile or mammal lived in groups, made tools, and had the capacity for something like speech? There were never any raptors on the moon to be sure, but 65 million years is plenty of time for all evidence of a primitive culture to disappear.

There was a fabulous RPG supliment for a game called Conspiracy X about the Dinosaurs building an advanced civilisation which rose and they were able to wipe themselves out in a brutal war which wiped out most of the dinosaur species (it involved an asteroid bomb ) . The only survivors were two fleets of fudeing Dinosaurs who were batteling there way out of the Sol system, they hit a black hole or similar time manipulating object, which returned them back to Earth 65 million years later.

Sounds dodgy, but the science was well constructed, and the background really well done. I loved the way the time effect was shotgunned so that some of them returned in 1947 (yep, Roswell) and the main fleet is still to come

Sorry, that was a bit off track, but I do also rememeber reading somewhere that the chances of intelligent civilisation maturing at the same time as another, and the two species meeting was infinatly small. I think it worked on the assumption that intelligence civilisation was limited in span to a few 'thousands of years', which ids a flicker in time in real terms

Sad, I always wanted to meet an Alien. I met Iavas and that is just not quite there

Well, I still maintain that there are too many unknowns--one's view of how much intelligent life there is really reflects one's philosophy more than any data. We don't even know how many Earthlike planets there are, as we can't detect them yet. But the last reports I've read seem to say that the estimate of how many planetary systems there are (with or without Earthlike planets) has risen sharply in recent years.

And I do believe we've gained a lot of data on the ubiquity of life.

As for the "need" for intelligence to rise, it almost seems that what was needed was bad conditions, not good ones. A theory I remember from university (which may be outdated, of course) were that we developed walking upright because the jungles receded and we could no longer live in the safety of the treetops--we had to survive in open grasslands, which meant standing tall to see in all directions.

This freed our forelimbs to use as manipulators, and tool use developed. Tool use and brain size go in a positive feedback loop, each encouraging the other, with tool users having a huge advantage in food gathering.

But, as I said, all this is more a result of my own generally cheerful outlook than of any significant data. It's fun to think about, though.

Edit: Amazon link for The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene. It was a three-part Nova special a year or two ago, but the book is significantly better and much more informative. String theory, etc.

In regards to the intelligence argument, two bits: in terms of manipulative organs, racoons are doing a Really good job of catching up to us; in terms of intelligence, an organism without a clear manipulative organ is the only other animal which has been documented Creating a tool...a raven.

Based on sheer survivability, evolution is pointless...microbes and cockroaches are both Much more survivable. However, evolution went beyond that. And as the examples above show manipulative ability doesn't mean much...it just means that intelligence can do more.

In regards to how many intelligent species are out there, and all that...the only safe thing you can do now is not make any predictions. Not that long ago, the probability of life on Earth was something like having four million beans, all white, with four red ones, dropping them all in a pile, and havign the four red beans roll out into a perfect line right where you were pointing. So enormously improbable no one thought it would work. That was also the era of the belief that we had one of the few solar systems around. Look at how much has changed...we're finding planets coming out our rear ends, we're finding life places we thought it would never go....and we're still looking. I don't think Any prediction, at this point in the game, will be Anywhere near accurate.

Winged Balrog wrote:

All three of those quotes are awesome. Clarke was the man.

Shouldn't that be "...IS the man." ? He's still alive, as far as I know.

Din wrote:

Sorry, that was a bit off track, but I do also rememeber reading somewhere that the chances of intelligent civilisation maturing at the same time as another, and the two species meeting was infinatly small. I think it worked on the assumption that intelligence civilisation was limited in span to a few 'thousands of years', which ids a flicker in time in real terms

I agree. Unless time travel is possible, it will be virtually impossible to meet alien races. The chances of any two races maturing to about the same level of technological development (close enough to still interact, I mean) at the same time and also close enough to communicate are ludicrously small.

I think Prim is right. Ultimately the answer of whether evolution of intelligence is common or rare can never be definitively answered without having a greater sample size (and so if we never develop the capacity of near-lightspeed travel we'll never know the answer). However, my gut tells me that, given certain conditions, the evolution of intelligent life is highly likely (inevitable was probably too strong). The fact that it's taken 5 billion years since the formation of the earth for humans to evolve is simply because it's been such a long process. First the eons it took for chemical reactions in a primordial soup to become the first truly living things, then the long, slow process of evolution. When you consider that life has moved from the simplicity of early bacteria to the complexity we find in our own brains, it doesn't surprise me it's taken so long.

And when you look at the overall trend, it seems that the net result of evolution is increasing complexity. Sure, the less complex creatures have remained, quite capable of surviving in their respective niches. But when you look at creatures like other primates, dophins, whales, horses, dogs, cats, and a host of other mammals I would consider "intelligent", you realize that self-awareness and complex thought was just the next natural step in an evolutionary process that continues to drive towards greater complexity.

True, the increased complexity of life that evolution has produced on this planet could be the exception rather than the rule. But given the time period over which evolutionary forces are acting, and the sheer diversity of organisms produced (no just currently, but historically, too), I think that intelligence is very likely to come about at some point or another on any world where evolutionary forces are at work.

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The fact that intelligence did emerge so fast shows that the right conditions for that to happen must be rare. Otherwise intelligence would have gained a foothold very quickly at some point in the past when the conditions were also right.

That's the thing, Iavas. I don't think the right conditions for intelligence ever existed at any point prior to the evolution of human beings. Before this could happen, a sufficient level of neural complexity had to be attained in the brains of living things, and that was something that only the long, slow process of evolution could accomplish. However, once that precondition was set, intelligence was able to take hold quite rapidly.

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But when you look at creatures like other primates, dophins, whales, horses, dogs, cats, and a host of other mammals I would consider "intelligent", you realize that self-awareness and complex thought was just the next natural step in an evolutionary process that continues to drive towards greater complexity.

Hummm, all mammels I see. And mostly not problem solvers, like say Crows or Octopi or colonies of ants. But you do assume that mammels are the pinacle of the intelligence stakes? Even given that humans may be better at compleating (human based) intelligence quotas, does not preclude that previous intelligences have devolved.

I am also not sure that most mammels are self aware, I am dubious about many humans I have met as well. I doubt horses are that bright either WB, well except for Mr Ed, Silver and possibly Brago

Oh, and we need to be able to travel at Light speed or faster (assuming its possible) to get anywhere in this universe. Even Proxima is 3.2 Light years away, so at near light speed we are talking a decade to get there.... However, I am sure that one day someody will work out how to link a message board upto another planet and then we can test the intelligence of the universe with our usual panache

All the mammals I know are self aware, and the avians as well. They know who they are, and who I am. They notice the differences between different people, and react differently to each one.

Self awareness is easy. It's abstract thought that is just about impossible for everyone but humans.

I have cats, dogs, chickens, horses and a small parrot living on my place. I can give you instances illustrating self-awareness in each case, but that would take longer than I have right now available to post.

There's a gorilla who's learned sign language- but I don't think she's ever shown any indication of abstract thought. And humans raised by animals DON'T exhibit signs of abstract thought. See feralchildren.com for details.

One of the more romantic notions of space flight and my own personal favorite is solar sails.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/solar-sail.htm
At the end of the article is says some at nasa think with a laser system powering it it could in theory reach a 10th the speed of light.

And heres a link about terraforming mars.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/terraforming.htm

Another idea that seems to be getting a lot of attention is a space elevator
http://www.spaceelevator.com
This of course would give us quick and easy access to space.

All in all who knows what the future holds, I think the next great step is space, and short of a war that truely ended humanity I think we'll get there. It wont be star trek, wars will always be around as long as people have strongly different views, and i don't see hunger and poverty going away, the poor we will have with us always, there is no great shining hope or anwser for humainty in space, we will bring the same problems on earth with us. The people 5,000 years ago varied very little from us, and in 5,000 years I suspect we will still face many of the same problems.
But we continue to move forward, we have too, to sit on earth is a death sentence, sooner or later something will happen to earth, making it if not completely unlivible, then at least throwing us back into another dark age.