What if we ARE utterly alone in the galaxy?

He's running a series atm, called 'Human Universe'.
It's rather well presented and accurate.
Mankind is not alone - There are millions of lifeforms on earth - No reason to consider ET's until they are proven to be.

I am sure you know that the idea you are describing is also known as "the great filter." Ever since Copernicus, we have been forced by scientific developments more and more to take the position that we are not special. I am very skeptical of the idea that we are so fantastically lucky. There are several hundred billion stars in our galaxy and 10^22 stars in the known universe. That's a lot of chances. However, if we are the only intelligent life, it would really make it a duty to not destroy ourselves.

It's his guess against all the others. It does not seem likely many planets will have species with an intellect equivalent to humanity's. I believe there will be some, but we will almost certainly never know of them.

That's how all people on this planet traditionally thought of themselves until, oh, roughly the time of Copernicus and Galileo and Newton when our understanding of the vastness of the universe began to change and gradually develop into the currently accepted model. There may be statistical reasons and theories of probability which make our uniqueness unlikely; there is, however, no logical reason that there should be other intelligent species out there. What empirical evidence do we have for this notion? None.

(The ending is especially appropriate to this thread).

THEN we r a lot SAFER
than (most likely) we actually r.

IF we R alone in the galaxy,
then we can claim so much of it as we want, as our own real estate,
with no alien dispute.





David

Given the limitations imposed by interstellar distances, and leaving aside the popular fantasies of science fiction, it wouldn't really matter if there were another technological civilization out there. They would likely never visit us and we would likely never visit them. If there were one out there, and they were 50 light years away, what kind of conversation would we have with a century between statement and response?

As for the rest of Mr. Cox's thesis, i agree that complex life forms are far less probable than has commonly been thought, but i don't see any reason to assume that the odds against it are almost insurmountable. Complex life forms may be extremely rare, but i see no reason to assume that they're nearly impossible.

He certainly seems to be rather sure of his blind guess, doesn't he?

I agree with the guesses of the many others that life probably is not confined only to this planet...but I acknowledge it may be that life IS unique to this planet.

In any case, even if the galaxy teems with life...there is the possibility that no evolving life ever gets much beyond where we are right now. Perhaps ALL evolving life gets where we are...where we have evolved technologically to the point where we can destroy all life on this planet but have not evolved philosophically to the point where we DEFINITELY WILL NOT.

And perhaps all evolving life eventually destroys itself and all other life on its home planet.

'What if we're it???' .....

That would in fact be the strongest possibility IF evolution were anything other than a bunch of brain-dead ideological bullshit. The laws of probability would gigantically mitigate against a space-faring civilization ever having evolved more than once.

In real life however, we know that evolution IS a bunch of brain-dead ideological bullshit and that people still defending it are basically just a bunch of academic dead wood as you can easily observe on forums like this one.

In real life, our living world is governed by a gigantically complex information system and there is no reason to believe that such an info system would be limited to our own planet.

Mr. Cox's speculation is not "blind guessing." He is speculating based on the state of the knowledge of biology that we presently have available to us. Nor is there any evidence for a "gigantically complex information system." That must be Gunga Dim's name for god in his intelligent design fantasy.

Cox is not saying that the earth is the only place where there is life. He is speculating on the probability of higher order life, and the probability of sentient, self-aware life attaining technological sophistication. I suspect that he is making some unwarranted assumptions, but there is no way for me or for him to know. It is apparent from the article (which really provides scant information) that he is speculating on the probability of the series of "accidents" which have lead to our self-aware, sentient and technological culture. In response to the naïve and silly Fermi paradox, some people have speculated that we are the first technological species, and others that we are the last. Which leads to the speculation that technological species may be sufficiently uncommon that there never are more than one or two, or a few, in any galaxy at any one time. Our SETI efforts are laughable. We are looking at such a tiny, tiny fraction of the sky that there's no basis for making assumption based on the "silence." Furthermore, as has been pointed out more than once in the last decade, the radio and imcrowave radiation of a technological species is going to be indistinguishable from the background radiation, unless it happened to be beamed directly at us, a very, very low order of probability.

But, from the article, Cox is not basing his speculation of SETI efforts, but rather on the probability of biological events such as those which lead to humanity. We really are working with far too little information about what motivates his speculation. Without a fuller explanation of his reasoning, we're really in no position to reasonably judge his thesis.

I am spectacularly not interested in if we are the only ones. If we are not I hope the other ones are not looking for us and that we dont find them. I have my wife kids and friends as well as pets, I dont need no stinking aliens.

Thay 'd probably regard us
as Ponce de Leon arriving in a Florida swamp encountering mosquitos.

That is without a doubt...A BLIND GUESS.

Anyone who considers that to be anything but a blind guess...either cannot read or cannot reason.

Ah-hahahahahahahaha . . .

Oh yeah, Frank's an expert on reasoning abilities. So you're sufficiently informed about the basis of his speculation to make your judgment? Or you just going on the basis of what a journalist has written?

Gee . . . I wonder if Setanta is picking a fight . . . .

Setanta...how can it be anything more than a blind guess.

Here is what is reported that he says:




How can that be anything but a blind guess???

That sounds like a reasonable question. . . .