Is Anyone Out There?

However, i think it is very unlikely that this planet has been or is ever likely to be visited by a space-faring species.

Setanta wrote:

However, i think it is very unlikely that this planet has been or is ever likely to be visited by a space-faring species.

Specially if they are an intelligent species..

Do you believe that there are other planets in the cosmos with intelligent life, or do you think that we are all there is?

I believe the universe is teeming with life. There are 200 billion stars in our galaxy. There are 200 billion known galaxies. And we are the only ones? That makes me laugh!

The great silence does not bother me. I can't get a radio station 25 miles out never mind 25,000 light years. And it's possible that many of the unknown light in varying wavelengths astronomers are seeing all the time are forms of alien communication.

If one were a "primitive" living in an obscure mountain valley in Papua, as yet unvisited by western man, one might experience a "great silence." It's not as though one expects them to capture and interpret microwave-based communications. It is entirely possible that there are communications which we do not hear.

At the same time, i revert to the unescapable isolating factor of interstellar and intergalactic distances. Just as it is unlikely that anyone has or would be inclined to make the massive energy expenditure necessary to visit us, even were our presence known, why would a species send out a message when they might have to wait centuries or even millennia for a response?

Our own culture is probably less than 100 years away from developing self replicating machines. Machines which will replicate and spread for millions of years.

When Fermi spoke of a 'Great Silence' he wasn't just talking about EM communication, he also meant, 'why aren't they here already'. And he was right. When you compare the distances involved to the TIME the Universe has been here, the distance are small. For example, at only a fraction of the speed of light, our entire galaxy could be crossed in a million years, and the galaxies are probably at least 10 billion years old. So with regular old inertial propulsion, they could have colonized 10000 times over by now. And that's assuming just one space faring race in all the galaxy.

rosborne979 wrote:

When Fermi spoke of a 'Great Silence' he wasn't just talking about EM communication, he also meant, 'why aren't they here already'. And he was right. When you compare the distances involved to the TIME the Universe has been here, the distance are small. For example, at only a fraction of the speed of light, our entire galaxy could be crossed in a million years, and the galaxies are probably at least 10 billion years old. So with regular old inertial propulsion, they could have colonized 10000 times over by now. And that's assuming just one space faring race in all the galaxy.

This is, dare i say it?--naive to an extraordinary degree. Why would anyone have come here? Ours is a small planet of a small star in the galactic boondocks. Why would anyone have come here? What purpose would it have served to have randomly sent out sufficient interstellar or intergalactic vessels to have stumbled across this planet? The required energy expenditures to have covered all the possible star systems in which intelligent life could have arisen would be ruinous. The distances combined with the number of possibly life-supporting star systems make the effort prohibitive. That smacks to me of a childish conceit. How many people of our six billion are sufficiently interested in such an exercise that they are willing to sacrifice the energy surpluses of the entire planet for thousands of years to come on a crap-shoot attempt to find intelligent life elsewhere? Why should we assume that any other intelligent society is going to be any more inclined to make such sacrifices just on the off chance of coming across intelligent life? In particular, what is so special about Sol and its planets that anyone would have come nosing around here?