Are Aliens Listening? Evidence for Intelligent Life in Space

[happyhacker]

I like to think that it is probable that any life on other planets will have evolved (given the same Big Bang time scale, same physics applying, etc.) at the same rate everywhere. If there is intelligent life on an adjacent star(s) then I assume they would be at the same technological state of advancement. Therefore our signals would have crossed and if detectable and the source descernable a response would be most likely to be returned (would humans?). Then we are stuck exchanging information likely to little effect until a common language is devised. I would be interested as to the best way of transmitting these signals - a powerful xmtr. on the moon perhaps?

Do we invite some advanced race to come and see what a mess we are making of things? Unlikely there are such beings IMO as above. But if the are let's hope they don't have the conquering mindset of us humans!

 

[phinds]

I like to think that it is probable that any life on other planets will have evolved (given the same Big Bang time scale, same physics applying, etc.) at the same rate everywhere.

that is a completely unwarranted assumption and extremely unlikely (the rate, not the physics)

If there is intelligent life on an adjacent star(s) then I assume they would be at the same technological state of advancement.

Particular nonsensical.

 

[happyhacker]

Justify your responses! And how can it be unwarranted in this context?

 

[berkeman]

Justify your responses! And how can it be unwarranted in this context?

No, it is you that must justify your assertions by showing us links to the mainstream scientific articles that are making such statements. That's how the PF works...

 

[Bandersnatch]

I like to think that it is probable that any life on other planets will have evolved (given the same Big Bang time scale, same physics applying, etc.) at the same rate everywhere. If there is intelligent life on an adjacent star(s) then I assume they would be at the same technological state of advancement.

Consider the timescales involved - humans as a species have existed for a few hundred thousand years. Civilization for a few thousand. Technological civilization a few hundred.
Even if you assumed* that it takes precisely the same route for life to go from abiotic to civilization capable of communication on each and every planet, all you need is for their stellar system to coalesce from its molecular cloud a mere million years earlier or later to put unimaginable technological distance between us and them. What if it happened a billion years earlier?

*this assumption is similarly implausible, since there's no good reason to think that for civilization to develop life must go through the same evolutionary path and same extinction events, and same glaciations, same tectonic history... pretty much everything is a free variable.

For example, imagine where Earth's life would be today if there was no K-T extinction event (because the asteroid missed the planet)? Would descendants of dinosaurs develop civilization millions of years earlier? Or maybe intelligence would never appear in the form necessary for technological societies?

 

[happyhacker]

Thanks for you response. I'm wondering how the OP justified those points made.

 

[phinds]

Thanks for you response. I'm wondering how the OP justified those points made.

He absolutely did not. He made an assumption (a very unlikely one) and discussed what might happen if his unlikely assumption just happened to be true. That is not even remotely the same as categorically stating, as you did, that the assumption is valid.

He said

if aliens were searching the heavens ...

 

[rootone]

It is completely plausible that elsewhere in the Universe a life form could exist that is similarly or more highly advanced to what there is on Earth.
The problem is that it could be long in the past or future, and so far distant in space that communication is not remotely possible.

 

[stefan r]

It is completely plausible that elsewhere in the Universe a life form could exist that is similarly or more highly advanced to what there is on Earth.
The problem is that it could be long in the past or future, and so far distant in space that communication is not remotely possible.

I think the physics question should be "what range is it possible". Of course somethings might be further away. Expansion of the universe will also cut off a lot of places and prevent them from ever receiving a signal from earth.

Might help to narrow down to one signal. The Taldom transmitter broad casts at 261 kHz with 2.5 MW. Wikipedia says this is the largest on earth. Perhaps limit receiver size to diameter of planet earth.