Public announcement of sentient(and possibly advanced) life outside our planet.

[AK-14]

I for one wish for this to happen before I die. I was wondering if anyone else had thoughts or inquiries or info about the topic. I just want to know what everyone thinks. My ultimate goal is to see humankind colonize, but not overtake(nor mine or strip of resources) of a new planet capable of sustaining human life before I die. This is very unlikely, however, one can hope, yes? What do you all want to see happen? Any thoughts or ideas are welcome. =) I just want to see what people think.

[Hateandhatred]

I barely have an opinion about this...

I wouldn't know what to think if advanced form of life (even just a few unicellular eukaryot individuals). Itd be cool but trivial to me, in all honesty...

[Reincarnate]

Not going to happen any time soon, lol.

The nearest exoplanets that are capable of sustaining life are lightyears away. Even our fastest manmade object, Helios 2, which hit 252,792 km/h (over 157,000 mph), is only 0.000234c. AND it's unmanned -- let alone the complications and costs of accelerating a bunch of people + all relevant resources.

One candidate for a possible inhabitable planet, Gliese 581, is 20 lightyears away. One lightyear = 9.4605284 * 10^15 meters. From an observer on Earth, it would take 20*9.4605284 * 10^15 meters / (0.000234*c) = 85,470 years for Helios 2 to reach Gliese. Even if you were a man inside the craft, time dilation would have a virtually negligible effect (less than a day saved).

There are likely at least 600+ million planets capable of supporting life in our galaxy alone. To give you some perspective, too, of just how many galaxies we know about:

And yet our odds of visiting most of them in the foreseeable future is hopelessly low. Heck, even if you wanted to leave our galaxy, roughly 25,000 ly away (we're about halfway between the galactic center and the edge), the trip will take you 25000*9.4605284 * 10^15 meters / (0.000234*c) = 106,837,607 years. And that's just reaching the edge. The Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest major galaxy to ours, is a whopping ~2,000,000 ly away.

So I mean, these numbers start getting ridiculous. It seriously hurts sometimes to try to make sense of them. The odds of encountering intelligent life is very low, but that doesn't mean the existence of life is low, too. It's likely incredibly high -- it's just too far away to meet. There are plenty of ways for us to detect the existence of life, but it's still a very high-variance journey.

You could also terraform Mars, which has its own challenges.

[hi19hi19]

Originally Posted by Hateandhatred

I barely have an opinion about this...

I wouldn't know what to think if advanced form of life (even just a few unicellular eukaryot individuals). Itd be cool but trivial to me, in all honesty...

Really this.
We've exhausted pretty much all areas where life could be that are close enough for me to visit (i.e. within our solar system)
So if there is some bacteria living 4 million light years away... then it's cool, but makes little difference to me practically.

p.s. that's not stopping me from secretly hoping for some Mass Effect-style easy FTL transport to be invented in my lifetime heheh

[AK-14]

Reincarnate- Can I ask how you know those calculations that well? Are you someone who studies this type of stuff? Edit: I saw the Youtube video but i'd still like an answer.

hi19hi19- Do you only think that it could be bacteria? Even if we've no hope of getting there, I just want it announced. If it were announced, and it weren't bacteria but beings with consciousness, how would you react?

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by AK-14

Reincarnate- Can I ask how you know those calculations that well? Are you someone who studies this type of stuff? Edit: I saw the Youtube video but i'd still like an answer.

It's just basic distance = rate*time, nothing fancy. Time dilation is something you learn in high school physics, t = T/(1-v^2/c^2)^.5.

I don't study physics officially, but I'd consider myself scientifically literate.

You learn a lot of stuff by just reading science books (there are many good ones at any science/astronomy section at B&N) or looking up certain facts online when you're learning.

[Tidus810]

And what about the possibility of a subglacial lake on Europa? It's something of interest, albeit difficult to observe...
edit: The tidal forces created by Jupiter's gravitational field make liquid water a good possibility.

[AK-14]

See, I feel a bit left behind because I wasn't given the opportunity to study physics in high school. Of course one can gather information from the internet, but.. I don't know. The simple answer to learning more and erasing possible falsehoods simply lies in the knowledge gained by simple Physics classes?

Tidus: Does the idea of water, liquid water in space, or even in our solar system make you hopeful for the possibilites of life? It was widely believed earlier in human history that water was indeed the basis of life, however it was simply small eggs that were given the ability to reproduce and so life forms evolved from it. I forget the name of the philosopher right now.. but.. Any responses?

[UserNameGoesHere]

Am I the only one who clicked this thread and was disappointed? Thread title made it sound like life was found elsewhere in space. I was like "really?" with a curiosity, excitedly clicked thread expecting perhaps a link to a reputable news source or scientific journal with further details. Discover such a discovery hadn't actually happened. Disappointment.

And Reincarnate/Rubix, I don't know what kind of high school physics you had, but that certainly wasn't taught in my high school physics. Time dilation as things approach the speed of light seems a rather advanced topic for a high school physics class I would say. Certainly you could learn many things from self-study though.

As to the original question, it seems like AK-14 is asking two separate things. The first question deals with life on other planets. The second seems not to have much (if anything) to do with the first -- colonizing other planets. If people do colonize another planet they will overtake it, mine it, strip it, etc... You won't have one without the other.

If what you want is for people to colonize other planets, life pre-existing on such planets probably would discourage it. At worst it would be seen as a threat and at best it would be seen as just getting in the way, so a non-inhabited yet suitable (for Earth life) planet would be preferred.

What will advanced life on other planets mean? It will depend to a large extent on if contact or communication is possible with it. If it's so far away this isn't possible, it won't mean much to humans. If somehow we can contact or communicate with it, this will be a big deal.

Basically it's looking like we'd need some sort of faster-than-light travel or the alien life forms would need some sort of faster-than-light travel. If that's not possible then it's probably not possible to communicate or contact even if they existed.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by AK-14

See, I feel a bit left behind because I wasn't given the opportunity to study physics in high school. Of course one can gather information from the internet, but.. I don't know. The simple answer to learning more and erasing possible falsehoods simply lies in the knowledge gained by simple Physics classes?

Not necessarily. Relativity was only briefly covered at the end of Physics back in HS. Most of the time, the class was about Newton's Laws/mechanics/electromagnetism/etc. We didn't really get into quantum physics or astronomy at all whatsoever. You'll also encounter a lot of stuff if you take the SAT2 Physics test and get a good study guide. A lot of astronomy can be learned with a good book or simply dicking-around on Wiki for a few hours.

In other words, just read everything you can find. You don't have to be a physicist or take a fancy class to learn something. You can also join sites like physicsforums.com -- lots of smart guys there who can help resolve scientific ignorance.

Regardless, there are plenty of great books for self-study. Michio Kaku, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Brian Greene write books that are largely aimed at making science easily accessible to people -- without the need for handling dense mathematics. It also helps to watch videos on YouTube. This goes for any other subject, too. Finance, computer science, mathematics, music, etc -- it's just a matter of reading a lot, joining a ton of forums, asking a lot of "stupid" questions, reading, watching videos, etc.

Understanding evolution of the universe/life is also a really good way to begin learning about a huge array of different scientific subjects.

[Squares, the Cube]

Going back to the original post here:

A public announcement of sentient life outside of this biosphere would never happen upon discovery. Seeing as most of the world is still religious, there would definitely be an uproar from this majority. It would literally blow the minds of billions. To avoid this, the government would slowly have to leak information into the public in small amounts over a large period of time; a very effective way of avoiding mass histeria.

I, an aspiring physicists and secular humanist, would only be interested in learning more about the discovery. I would be excited, but I know that isn't going to be happening in my lifetime.

The second part of the original post is dealing with the colonization of various planets. Once again, this isn't happening anytime soon and would be well after the a public announcement of sentient alien life. As stated by one of the above users, humanity would first need a faster means of transportation and perfecting that means.

[AK-14]

I apologize for the misleading thread title. I was afraid that would happen but I went ahead with it.

I want to point out that the second point I kind of rambled on about for a second was that I want it to happen. Not that it could, will, or is possible. Like I said, I know it won't happen as a few of you have pointed out.

I want to introduce another idea- The idea that humans were engineered by a much more advanced and ancient civilization. So, if that were true,(which before everyone flips out I am not saying) they would have the means to come to us, but only once we've reached the peak in as far as we could go by ourselves as a human race. Once again, the idea in that is that we'd all have to collectively come together, which is happening, but in no way in the magnitude that is required for any of the previous sentence to be true.

I was simply (attempting) to discuss some of your ideas and see what you all thought.

[Reincarnate]

Originally Posted by AK-14

I want to introduce another idea- The idea that humans were engineered by a much more advanced and ancient civilization.

No.

Originally Posted by AK-14

So, if that were true,(which before everyone flips out I am not saying) they would have the means to come to us, but only once we've reached the peak in as far as we could go by ourselves as a human race.

No. Besides, how do you even define what that "peak" is? There is no "peak." Just infinite frontier.

[AK-14]

No. Funny. Sigh.

[Squares, the Cube]

Originally Posted by AK-14

So, if that were true,(which before everyone flips out I am not saying) they would have the means to come to us, but only once we've reached the peak in as far as we could go by ourselves as a human race.

Starting to sound like a religion there. Instead of ancient civilization, substitute in the word god.

I can't even ponder on your last bit. Humans were not "engineered." We weren't created like this from the start. I know too much about evolution to even think otherwise.

[Cavernio]

I think it highly unlikely we'll encounter human-like life in space, but it seems likely there'd be 'high-levels' of it in some shape or form.
Life is defined very clearly by biologists, but metaphysically, life is not defined well at all.
For all that humanity is looking for water and then hoping to find life, I find it hard to believe that all life must follow the same sort of evolutionary path that exists on Earth. Water hardly seems necessary for the idea of life, or intelligence, or consciousness.
If we stretch the scope of what life could be, some people consider something like the Earth a living thing. We only consider things that are alive in a certain time-frame: if something's been around for too long, it's not alive. Also, if something's too small, it's not alive. If something's too big it's not alive. If something only exists for a second, it's not alive. Simply because it's too far outside of humanities' scope or perception of what something living is.

The big bang could have been initiated by something outside our universe. Imagine humanity creates conscious, intelligent life that exists purely online, and was created following evolutionary principles. Those beings would be engineered, would they not?
Perhaps our universe is simply, in a very loose sense, another lifeform(s) computer.

Of course it's imaginative, but so is most theoretical physics. Unfortunately, physics has yet to give us a good (or any) measure of life. There do exist theories that include multiple universes though.

My hs physics didn't touch relativity at all. Most things I know about physics beyond simple newtonian forces is from books, tv and the internet.

"No. funny. sigh." I don't get it