You would think that the universe is so vast, and expanding so rapidly, and the length of time needed to evolve into advanced life forms so long, that the odds of humans ever being able to reach out to other advanced life forms is infinitismal. For all practical purposes, we are alone.Originally Posted by LA Ute
Last edited by concerned; 03-07-2013 at 01:15 PM.
I think there may be something to this. Even if we had the technology to go to places which look promising for life, it would be like looking at each of the sands on the beach one by one. That may one day happen, but it is a practical impediment. It may be an impediment to another advanced species having found us.
“The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”
― Carl Sagan
Well, if that study is right, our being along is a good thing.
MarsAttacks-2.jpg
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
If you look at the extremely small window of time wherein we humans have made an appreciable dent in our local environment which could be viewed from a distance, there is essentially less than a needle in a haystack chance that any intelligent life could ever discover us. And then there is an infinitesimally smaller chance they could contact us after discovering us. As far as we know there is no intelligent life within at least a few tens of thousands to a few hundred thousand light years away, and perhaps even farther.
There may well be life within a few million light years of earth by the time our 'noise' reaches them, but at that point what will life on earth be like?
Modern humans have only been around for the last 150k to 400k years. In the far more recent past (20k to 50k years) we coexisted with several 'cousin' species - homo neanderthalensis and homo denisovans, and until 10k years ago we coexisted with homo floresiensis (the 'Hobbit People' because they were about 3' tall, were discovered in 2003).
Some intelligent being on a planet located at the center of the Milky Way galaxy looking at Earth today through a telescope would see at least 4 species of 'humans' populating the planet. All would share a common ancestor, perhaps use simple tools, have evidence of some ritualistic religion (or at least have burial rituals), and would possess a capacity for logic and reason that would set them ahead of all other animals on the planet.
A sentient being from the nearest adjacent (non-dwarf) galaxy observing us today, however, would see an australopithecus hominid who had only (relatively) recently diverged from the chimpanzees and gorillas. He would witness the rise of the homo genus around 2 million years from now, and would see our currently 'modern' world a few million years later.
Last edited by NorthwestUteFan; 03-07-2013 at 12:35 PM.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote