Re: OP

As per, Dawkins, it's propable that there is life out there.  Maybe not intelligent.

I think people cling to hope (religion) regardless and would continue to do so even in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

A finding of life elsewhere would probably increase nationalism.  If it were really cool it could be like Indepence Day.  We're not that lucky though, I think.

I just want to add that just because we haven't detected any alien signals, doesn't mean there aren't any. We've only been scanning for less than what 50~ years, which is nothing compared to the millions of years such a signal might take to reach our planet. It is likely that if there was a signal, we have either missed it, or it won't get here for a long time.

We can't assume faster than light travel is even possible. Maybe the alien civilizations are bound to sub-light travel like us, which means we will probably never meet another space faring species.

True. Others have said that, and thats a valid point.

lets add this into my room. You don't know how you got there in the first place. And also, the room is "massive" even though you don't no exactly how big

While just assuming that since the room is so large that something else must be there isn't the most logical aproach to that situation. In its defense however, there really isn't a better aproach to take.

And that compared to the alternative, i haven't found any one yet so therefore no one exists, the possibility of others is more resonable.

And it was really only that one statement that you made that ticked me off. the rest of what you said is basicaly just as valid as what (Almost) every one has said.

That said, i personaly believe that if there isn't already, some form of higher lifewill eventualy come into being. Maybe there isn't any now, but a 100 trillion years from now, when every single star and planet in existance has died and been replaced with new ones, the universe will get to try again. Assuming the universe never dies, it has infinate time and a massive area to work with. Even if the odds are 1 in 10^99, if you have unlimited tries eventualy you'll get it.

Going with that, i think there is a good chance that some form of higher life already exists, just far away, and we ill never come into contact with it. As much as it pains me to say this, i don't think we will ever leave our solar system, in a mass colonization effort, so when are sun goes, so do we. which is kinda sad if you think about it. eventualy all of our triumphs and failures, everything that we have, and will ever do, will ultimatly be errased. first we will die and then the sun will eat our planet, not even ruins will be left. the next race that comes along, even an ultra advanced one with some from of FTL travel will find nothing that shows we even existed in the first place.

First of all i beleive there is intelligent life in the universe, theres too much out there for there not to be. Also i don't think any of us will be around if and when we do meet them, atleast hundreds of years unless they luck out and stumble across us. Any equations or formulas cannot be used at the minute to work out if there is life anywhere else, we simply don't know enough. The only place we have been succsessfully outside Earth is the moon, which isn't even a planet, and by succsessfully i mean sent people to. How do you know we weren't a fluke and somehow evolved quicker than we were supposed to and we are the most intelligent life in the universe (but unlikely i think). I think if aliens found us they would observe us, see how we live and then after seeing us constanly at war(i think but i'm not certain i remember seeing it somewhere that there has only been one year since world war 2 where there hasn't been a war somewhere in the world) always trying to kill eachother for so many different reasons, they would probably just destroy us to spare anyone else the trouble. But lastly i think that anyone who rules out faster than light travel now is being absurdly short sighted, just because we can't do it now doesn't mean we will never be able to. You go back two thousand years and show the average scientist/inventor any modern day transport method a plane, a car, even the train. They would look at you very confused, who knows what we'll be able to do in another two thousand years.

The question is, which equation is correct?

You can't determine that by counting how many equations there are.

This is not a "democracy of equations."

Pure speculation.

How can I do math if I no statistical samples to determine which fraction of planets have life?

YOU CANNOT PROVE THIS CLAIM.

I'm sick of this "sheer scale" argument.

Let's pretend the chances of getting life is 10^-50. How much life would you expect in the universe?

"Sheer scale" is not an argument. AND it assumes that life rose accidentally via naturalistic mechanisms. Which is also something we think is true, but haven't proven.

actually when dealing with statistics and probability, "sheer scale" is a very valid arguement. no fraction of a chance means anything without knowing where to stop. if the odds of finding life are 1/2 then you would expect to find 1 alien lifeform on every other planets or so, but if you are only counting 1 planet, then it doesnt realy mean anything. if the odds are 1/100 and you stopped at 10, then you arent likely to find much if anything. whereas if you searched 1000 you could find many different aliens.

We don't even have a ballpark figure for the order of magnitude for the probability if life appearing, assuming there's even a chance at all that life could appear. So I'm not really seeing the validity.

But in any case, it appears that repetition is the order of the day and most people seem to be thinking that repeating themselves somehow makes them right, so I'm just gonna leave.

1) other Eath like planets will form. (similar atmospheres, water, metals, other elements, etc...)

2) Test have shown that using elements available in Earths early atmosphere basic organic compounds (amino acids) will form.

3) we dont know how life started on our planet but we know the type of conditions it does form in. we can asume it will form under similar conditions somewhere.

Also people throw out random probabilities of life not existing elsewhere, but you dont cite a link to the source or at least explain how the probability was formed. Or how old the estimate is for that matter.

From **our** perception of the Atomic principles.

Forget Quantum mechanics & String theory here for a moment and speculate along with us that the multi-dimensional Universe spreads around soooooo many different sub-atomic particules and, as a result, variable elements (as perceived by **their** Laws of physics) that the current stable situation has evolved at some point - or continues to do so.

Then, what if anything triggered the appearance of Life (not necessarily Intelligent by our standards, btw) here. Darwin's odds or lucky Rubik cube scrambling (as someone mentioned elsewhere)? God? Geophysic conditions? DNA? Comets slamming the surface? Amino acids? Carbon mutation?

Any other probabilities? Seriously, to be objective you HAVE to consider alternate situations & conditions.

If Life differs anywhere else - i'd say any of the hypothesis (for & against) have been multiplied by a factor of 2 or **more**.

Conclusion? The human made periodic table fits our own rational reality. I claim there's MUCH more than one.

ok first off, we aren't even able to detect earth-like planets and we won't be until sometime in the next decade (new telescope going up).  Second, without an example of non carbon based life, we have no idea what chemical signals to look for to be certain of life.  This problem has already arisen, as the chemicals predicted by certain theories have been found to be produced through non living mechanisms.  Likewise, even if we did find something we thought was evidence of life, it is quite possible we would not be able to recognize it.  A friend of mine studied martian rocks that had what appeared to be fossilized bacteria in them.  This hypothesis was discounted because there was no way to prove what they were looking at was not created through geological activity. 

So basically my point is, when it comes to detection of life, certain things need to happen for it to matter.  First, it has to be very very close to home.  If it is outside of our solar system it is virtually meaningless given current technology.  Second, it has to be in such abundance that life is undenyably present.  Third, it has to be similar to known life, otherwise people will debate whether or not it is really alive (viruses are one example, advanced AI and robotics are another).  Finally, it has to be extremely primitive compared to us. 

The last point is based on an argument presented by Ray Kurzweil.  No doubt you have head somewhere about the "technological singularity."  Kurzweil summarized this as a double exponential growth curve reflected in almost all areas of advancement.  He argues that, given current advancement rates, humanity is due to achieve "singularity" somewhere around 2033.. that is, the amount of knowledge gained per period of time will approach infinity.  This is based on advancements in computer technology and human computer interaction.  We already augment ourselves with computers.. we do research, communicate, buy things, and are generally more efficient with computers than we would be otherwise.  We can "remember" more than ever simply by looking it up online.  The problem is we are limited to the clunky interface provided by our fingers, ears, and eyes.  Based on advancing brain scan techniques, living tissue to silicon interfaces, lab grown cells, and so on, Kurzweil believes that the way in which people interact with computers will advance to the point where we are able to interact directly with the machine.  In any case, developments that allow us to more efficiently use computers and software developments that make computers easier to use converge to offer true augmentation.  People may have memory chips embedded in their skulls, or perhaps wireless transmitters.

This matters because it will allow researchers to augment themselves to become better researchers.  This is where the true double exponential becomes most apparent.  Scientists working to create faster and better computer interfaces and faster and better software programs will benefit from their own developments, meaning that they have the potential to become much "smarter" and thus much more able to make breakthrough advances.  This cycle will continue until some kind of physical limitation prevents further development.  Until that point, however, advancement in all fields will occur at an amazing, breakneck speed. 

This will be the new race of humanity, the self augmented human.  This race will be to evolved, social humans as evolved humans are to non-social animals.  The advances introduced by the augmented humans will come so quickly and will be so influential that most people will be left behind, just as our social and cultural development has completely left behind the animal kingdom.  Modern humans will be as able to adapt and respond to augmented humans as an elephant can adapt and change to modern humans.  That is, basically not at all.  In the time it would take modern humans to reach a decision and take action on it, augmented humans will have made the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of years of advancement.

This is the singularity.  Once humans achieve true augmentation, we will very rapidly have access to all knowledge that can be gained from our vantage point in the universe.  It is absolutely impossible to know what this knowledge will be, or how much it will change us.  Kurzweil predicted this to happen by 2033, but even if you are not so optimistic, and it happened within 100, 200, 500.. even 1000 years, these periods of time are small beans on the universal scale.  In essence, life on earth will have evolved very slowly over millions and millions of years, only to suddenly change completely within an extremely small period of time. 

This discussion applies to the current argument because of the following:  Any sufficiently advanced alien society will rapidly approach a state of singularity.  Once such a state is reached, light speed or faster travel will or will not have been developed.  Likewise with time travel.  If such things are not developed, than interstellar travel remains a very long and difficult undertaking.  As modern humans, this would mean that even if we did detect such a society, we would be almost entirely unable to interact with them, and likewise they could hardly interact with us.  More likely, we would reach singularity ourselves before they could send a message across space to us.  The second option is that time travel and faster than light travel are discovered.  In such circumstances, an post singularity society would rapidly gain access to and use resources throughout its galaxy.  If a post singularity society existed anywhere in our galaxy or even possibly neighboring galaxies, we would know it.  Unless they didn't want us to know.  In that case, there is probably nothing we could do to detect the society, thus meaning the universe would look empty.  Because of the extremely short timespan between achieving society and achieving singularity (10,000 to 15,000 years from primitive man to knowing all there is to know), it is quite unlikely that we'll find another race anywhere within this brief window.  Life will either be undeveloped bacteria like organisms or masters of the universe..  If we're lucky we might find large animals..

So, possible realities: 

-we are the first race to achieve this level of advancement, and may be the first to achieve singularity. 

-we are not the most advanced race, therefore someone else has already achieved singularity.  Since we have not detected them, either they do not want to be detected, are too far away from us, or were not able to develop faster than light or time travel.

In the first scenario we have a unique advantage, truly unique and possibly worthy of religion.  The universe may well have been made for us.  In the second, we are more or less screwed.  Either there is already a massive post singularity society around us that doesn't want to be seen, or there is no easy way out of this solar system.  Our only hope would be that post singularity societies live in harmony.

CobraA1, are you completely ignorant?!

Even with your huge numbers like 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000 or whatever and 10 to the -50 power that still leaves so much of the universe that would have alien life. You amaze me that you just cant comprehend the size of the universe. Where do you even get these numbers anyway. How do you know that its not 1/100000000 which is small compared to the universe.

And Overseer, I agree with you completely. If I can help prove your point I will.

Based on our knowledge of solar system formation we know how planets will form. When a supermassive star dies it is because it has begun to use Fe as fuel for fusion reactions. Basically they bern there way through the elements starting at H and work there way down. When the reach Fe they no longer gain energy as they do with H or He etc..

When a star goes supernova the rest of the elements down to Uranium will form as atom in the star ram into each other. the remnants of stars form the nebulas that are composed of all these elements. Most nebulas are composed of H, He, and O. And so The star will begin to form as gravity pulls it together. Around the star an ecretion disk will form composed of the same elemnets. Eventually globs in the ecretion disk begin to form and eventually planets begin to form.

In our solar system we had 2 planets that formed with water. (Yes Mars had and still does have water) Mars was a smaller planet and it is believed the iron core failed and its atmosphere was swept away by the Sun.

Now the planets are comprised of the every element in the ecretion disk. So planets will just vary based in their concentration of elements. Also H2O is composed of the 2 most abundant elements so water is by no means a rarity in this hole process. Now when you take into acount the size of the Univers it is illogical to think other planets will form the same way in other solar systems. (specially when you realize there are 2 planets in our solarr system.

Now carbon and other elements needed for life will eventuall form organic compounds due to electromagnetic forces present on planets. Eventually life forms (either because of God or blind forces... take your pick, this not the topic at hand)

EDIT:

Take it form NASA: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-027