Thread: Do you beleive in . . . aliens?

Originally Posted by Unelias

Well although I will not comment anything about hiding or possible visitors now, it is highly probable that there is other life in this vast universe. Hard to think we are that special. I mean, we? Humans?

I would actually say that it isn't as highly probable as you might think, that other life in the universe does or ever will exist in the timeframe that life on our planet exists. Though the probability that somewhere life will exist, or has existed, isn't more unlikely than there not being any.

Originally Posted by Sandform

isn't more unlikely than there not being any.

Rofl... I had to reread that like 10 times before I got it.

Originally Posted by Unelias

I mean, we? Humans?

This just reminded me of how the notion of aliens has been so romanticized.. That life from other planets is probably so superior and advanced to ours and oh we are not but simple creatures compared to them... That annoys me these days. Humans, as well as other animals on this planet, are damn complicated in my opinion, and it's pretty awesome that we exist in the first place.

Originally Posted by Mes Tarrant

Humans, as well as other animals on this planet, are damn complicated in my opinion, and it's pretty awesome that we exist in the first place.

You misunderstood me. I didn't mean that humans wouldn't be complicated or progressed. I ment we are after all quite sad story about how life has evolved. But we have reigned here for very short time and we shall see how long it will take untill we successfully eliminate each other and destroy this planet.

Life is indeed awesome thing. I have never thought much about any extraterrestial life. There is enough thinking about terrestial life and its problems. :/

Originally Posted by Sandform

I would actually say that it isn't as highly probable as you might think, that other life in the universe does or ever will exist in the timeframe that life on our planet exists. Though the probability that somewhere life will exist, or has existed, isn't more unlikely than there not being any.

mmm.. well time goes on and there is always a chance new lifeforms surface somewhere. Don't know if it will happen while humans on Earth still exists.

Originally Posted by Sandform

I would actually say that it isn't as highly probable as you might think, that other life in the universe does or ever will exist in the timeframe that life on our planet exists. Though the probability that somewhere life will exist, or has existed, isn't more unlikely than there not being any.

I disagree.

In our solar system there's other places besides Earth that may harbor life. And this is just one star, there's at least 200 billion more in our galaxy, and then there's billions and billions of galaxies.

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

I disagree.

In our solar system there's other places besides Earth that may harbor life. And this is just one star, there's at least 200 billion more in our galaxy, and then there's billions and billions of galaxies.

Even on earth where life is possible, it took quite a while to form life.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Even on earth where life is possible, it took quite a while to form life.

Life appeared about 0.8 (or was it 0.5?) billion years after the Earth was formed, that's just 17% of the planet's current age.

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

Life appeared about 0.8 (or was it 0.5?) billion years after the Earth was formed, that's just 17% of the planet's current age.

Conscious life? Because you're arguing against a point I wasn't making if not.

Originally Posted by Sandform

Conscious life? Because you're arguing against a point I wasn't making if not.

You were using just the term "life".

Still, it shouldn't necessarily take as long as it did here for consciousness to appear in some other planet. It could take more, or much much less.

Given their size, it' very safe to assume that there's at the very least one intelligent civilization per galaxy. If intelligence doesn't tend to destroy itself then the number might be much higher.

Originally Posted by kichu

I just don't understand this way of thinking, considering how enormous the world is. It is so insanely huge. I just.....I don't know. It's SO highly unlikely that there isn't SOME kind of life somewhere with it's own history of evolution.

What I'm saying is we don't know how long life actually can reasonable exist on a planet, even our own. When you think of how old the universe is, and how long life has existed on Earth, it isn't unreasonable to say that if live existed somewhere in the universe, it may be over now. Those other planets with their own history of evolution out there, may already be dead. Furthermore those planets that can harbor life don't necessarily actually have to be harboring life. It could never create life, or it could only create life after life is long dead on this planet.

I don't recall at the moment when the first thinking animals existed, but one Internet source says it was something like 550 million years ago.

On a 4.5 billion year old planet, it is only within the last 550 million years that conscious life actually formed on this planet.

I don't know how long life on planet Earth will exist. But given what I do know, it would seem to me that if other planets have created life, it may be possible that the life has already died out. Why assume that life has to be concurrent with our own if it exists or not?

Originally Posted by Sandform

Why assume that life has to be concurrent with our own if it exists or not?

I understand what you're saying. And it is definitely something to consider. But my feeling is that given the vastness of the world, it would be more logical to believe that there are more than one, if not several forms of life occurring at any one time.

But, you could be right too.

Originally Posted by Scatterbrain

You were using just the term "life".

Still, it shouldn't necessarily take as long as it did here for consciousness to appear in some other planet. It could take more, or much much less.

Given their size, it' very safe to assume that there's at the very least one intelligent civilization per galaxy. If intelligence doesn't tend to destroy itself then the number might be much higher.

Originally Posted by Sandform

What I'm saying is we don't know how long life actually can reasonable exist on a planet, even our own. When you think of how old the universe is, and how long life has existed on Earth, it isn't unreasonable to say that if live existed somewhere in the universe, it may be over now. Those other planets with their own history of evolution out there, may already be dead. Furthermore those planets that can harbor life don't necessarily actually have to be harboring life. It could never create life, or it could only create life after life is long dead on this planet.

I don't recall at the moment when the first thinking animals existed, but one Internet source says it was something like 550 million years ago.

On a 4.5 billion year old planet, it is only within the last 550 million years that conscious life actually formed on this planet.

I don't know how long life on planet Earth will exist. But given what I do know, it would seem to me that if other planets have created life, it may be possible that the life has already died out. Why assume that life has to be concurrent with our own if it exists or not?

My bad, I should have morphed these two together.

I was going to edit my post to add this, but it took me a while to actually go see the numbers, anyway:

Even though consciousness appeared recently in life's history, it's not correct to say it developed over billions of years. Evolution wasn't constantly getting closer and closer to conscious beings.

It was just now in the Cenozoic that mammals diversified from the small creatures they were before. So it only took about 65 or less millions years to go from a rat-like creature to the technologically advanced homo sapien sapien we are now.

If we survive for a few more centuries, we'll probably reach the point where long-term survival of the species is assured.

Actually (:
that was not a alien baby. this baby was born with a skin condition, it died immediately after birth.
proof; try typing up 'snake baby' into youtube (:

but i do believe that there are aliens. how could we, humans, be the only intelligent life forms in the whole.. whatever, right?