Jape
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2017
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Some interesting results with a fairly even spread.
I should have been more specific, as I wasn't really thinking about people actually interacting with actual beings, but rather seeing objects derived from them.
I am somewhat surprised by the amount of "No Ways", and do not view the existence of aliens the same way as one would a deity. A deity is a disembodied cosmic mind, and we have never seen one of those, but we have ample evidence of biological life existing on a rock orbiting a star.
It is also true that life existing elsewhere and life visiting us are not the same, and the latter probability would likely be microscopically small in comparison to the former. The scales of time and distance in this universe are too large for our brains to put in perspective. When I try really hard, I feel I hit a wall in my consciousness. Maybe the actual physical limits of my synapses. Perhaps it is easy to overestimate the likelihood of life elsewhere getting here, because we simply cannot grasp the distance, as well as the necessary overlap of them and us in time.
I listened to the physicist Max Tegmark give his case for why we may be alone in the universe, and he used large numbers, and yet acknowledged that the sample set we use to establish our priors in such a statement of probability are woefully flawed. One could say we have "explored" one galaxy and it has life on at least one of its planets - 1 for 1. But that would be fallacious in a different way.
There are said to be 300 million planets in the "Goldilocks Zone" in our galaxy, and there are an estimated 200 billion galaxies in our known universe. The math there is interesting.
I guess part of me sees a pattern in human thought. At one point we did not consider ourselves animals. Later and still, we think we are the only animals that matter. At times we thought we were the center of the universe, and later, the galaxy. Consistently, naturalism breaks our assumptions of our specialness in relation to the rest of our fellow creatures, to our earth, to our galaxy, and perhaps to our universe. It is not hard for me to imagine a universe teeming with life.
Maybe we are nothing but white belts when it comes to our understanding of time, gravity, and space, and who knows. I think that is the crux and the reason it is fun to imagine about. No one does.
As a species, I think one of the most beautiful things we’ve done is send Voyager 1 and 2 into interstellar space. They took a closer look at some of the outer planets than anything else and have been out there over 42 years now, still sending signals back, expected to run out of power in 4 or 5 years when they will finally be out of touch and perpetually growing more distant. Each has a golden disc with greetings from around the world, songs, and scientific information for any thing that may find them - planetary time capsules that will soon be adrift. Sagan referred to them as “bottles in a cosmic ocean”. I see them as the outward expression of the angst of a species, which may be another reason some, including myself, want to believe.
The band, Virginia Coalition, has a song titled "Voyager 2", with the lyrics:
Voyager 2
You're leading the rescue
Send help soon
Well I've seen spirits and children all waiting, waiting for you.