Life & the Universe

[The_One]

I find myself reading alot lately and in the book I currently (re-)reading I found this rather interesting passage:

'You mean there are intelligent creatures that have evolved in a vacuum? How can that be possible?'
'Your an atmospheric Chauvanist,' The Eagle replied. 'Like all creatures you limit the ways that life might express itself to your own.'
'How many Spacefaring species are there in our galaxy?' Richard asked a little later.
'...Remeber there are more than a hundered billion stars in the Milky Way. Slightly more than a quarter of them have planetary systems surrounding them. If only one out of every million stars with planets were home to a spacefaring species, then there would be twenty-five thousand spacefarers in our galaxy alone.'

Whilst the figures may not be 'acurate' they may have some basis in the truth, the book is 'The garden of Rama' by Arthur C Clarke & Gentry Lee from the Rama series (its the 3rd, Rama, Rama II, this one and final, Rama Explained)

I strongly recomend these books to anyone with even a passing interest in Sci-Fi, they are excelent, and becasue they are writen by himself (of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame) and Gentry Lee a NASA scientist type, I dont find myself constantly thinking 'thats imposible, wrong or the calculations are bullshit'

Oh and I added an extra machine or 2 to my 'fleet' so as it stand currently:

650MHz PIII - 24/7 (server, the Q)
1GHz Athlon TB@1.2GHz
1GHz PIII
800MHz PIII
750MHz PIII
650MHz PIII
350MHz PII

Obviously the machines arn't all mine!!! & I do have permission to run S@H on them

 

[Freewolf]

Clarke is always a good read and he always researches his facts before he writes anything. Some of his non fiction books are also very good.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Ooh, I really liked the RAMA series. I couldn't put the first one down when I started reading it!

And nice additions to the fleet!

 

[Soggysocks]

Speaking of Clark...I found this editorial he wrote on SETI

 

[RaySun2Be]

Thanks Soggy, nice article.

Unfortunately, although we've tried to find intelligent life in Washington DC, so far we've failed.

*sigh* so true, so true......

 

[blcjr]

I imagine it is heresy among this group to say it, but I don't actually expect SETI to ever find anything. Of course, I could be wrong, and if so, so be it. But I personally believe that intelligent life is unique to earth. So why support SETI? Well, I believe the Popperian Principle of Falsifiability, that true science is based on falsifiable hypotheses. My hypothesis -- that intelligent life is unique to earth -- is falsifiable, and SETI is a process by which it could be falsified. So I support SETI.

Besides, it is fun. (I'm interested in it more from the purely DC point of view, as a demonstration of the power of DC.)

As for the Sagan-like argument found in Clarke's novel, may I suggest that it is extremely simplistic and controversial? Before accepting it, one should at least be aware of arguments to the contrary. Some recommended reads:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_1_020715.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

http://www.theness.com/articles/seti-nejs0101.html

http://www.skeptica.dk/arkiv_us/pa_us021.htm

http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/~pine/mayr.htm

http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/Contact/debate/default.html

For starters...

-baz

 

[Intelligence3]

A good book to try is Rare Earth, which is not very optimistic about those numbers, but a good read.

 

[Assimilator1]

Hey nice little fleet you've got there Russ ,more than I thought you'd get ,I guess I won't catch you up this decade then

Baz
Personally speaking I think the universe is just too vast & varied for there not to be life elsewhere ,as to whether we'll find it in our lifetimes is another matter ,but if you never look you'll never find
I'll check out those links when I have 3-4hrs to kill!

Btw ,check out my sig ,3rd line

 

[KifArU]

With this topic-title, I was thinking

Life, the universe & everything????


The hitchhikersguide to the galaxy!!!!

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: KifArU
With this topic-title, I was thinking

Life, the universe & everything????


The hitchhikersguide to the galaxy!!!!

Same here!

Similar thing, different (and VERY FUNNY) intepretation!

The trilogy of 5 are the best books i've read in the past couple of years!


Garry

 

[Soggysocks]

Well ..............I have a theory.......
At one point in time, Mars had or sustained life in one form or another, Microbs or some form of complex life.
Due to a cosmic event (collision with an asteriod or comet), matter containing these life forms was thrown into space and arrived at earth during its premortial state, a time when our atmosphere and oceans were forming. From there, these life forms started to develope into what life is today.
We have learned much over time, yet, very little. It's people like Aurther C. Clark, Issac Asminov, Ray Bradbury, that drive us forward in search of answers.

Of coarse, as with all theories, time will prove or disprove.

With that said, we all have theories......................anyone care to venture?

 

[Smoke]

Well, I've read through all of that ... thanks for the links, Baz.

The winnnnnnahhhhh is ... CARL SAGAN

IMHO, of course.

 

[sinthon]

Yep, clarke.

 

[RaySun2Be]

Editor?s Response:

Mr. Blumenfeld?s criticisms are primarily based on the false notion that SETI is ?based? upon assumptions, such as those found in the Drake equation. Such speculation, however, is mere thought experiment, and both sides agree that any such assumptions are based upon extreme speculation and very little data. SETI, however, only requires that it is possible for intelligent life to exist outside the Earth. SETI is a field experiment which proposes to definitively answer the question of extraterrestrial intelligent life by looking for the only manifestation of such intelligence that we currently are able to look for - radio signals.

I attempted to track down the ?2%? figure to its original source to discover its derivation, but could not find the source. I therefore inquired with the SETILeague to ask what their most current estimate is of the fraction of the sky which has been searched by SETI efforts to date.

An excerpt from their reply is printed below:


?The search space includes five dimensions: the traditional x, y, and z coordinates (that is, azimuth, elevation and distance) plus time and frequency. Although we have probably looked in most of the possible ?directions? at ?some? frequency for ?some? period of time, we?ve so far only looked reliably out to a distance of perhaps 200 light years. But our galaxy is 100,000 LY in diameter. So in terms of the volume of interstellar space, we?ve seen less than one fifteen millionth of the volume of the Milky Way.
But it's worse than that. Up until now (that is, until The SETI League launched its Project Argus search two years ago), SETI was done with giant radio telescopes, very sensitive instruments which look at ?extremely narrow? slivers of sky. One such instrument (and there are only half a dozen or so of them in the world) can see one part in a million of the sky. So if you happen to be looking on exactly the right frequency, at exactly the instant the call comes in, there?s still a 99.9999% chance you?ll be pointing the wrong way.

Now let's talk about those frequencies. ETI communication could conceivably occur anywhere on the radio dial. But our searches to date have concentrated primarily on a handful of ?magic frequencies? where we hypothesize other races may be trying to communicate. If we guess wrong, then it doesn't matter how much of the sky we cover -- we?ll never hear anything. So recent SETI projects have tried to increase the frequency dimension of the search. The best in this regard is The SETI Institute?s Project Phoenix search, which covers all frequencies from 1.2 to 3 GHz - a rather small fraction of the total radio spectrum.

Now comes the time dimension. The late NASA SETI program (launched in October of 1992, and cancelled by Congress in October 1993) included an all-sky survey component, which amassed all of 1000 hours of observation before the plug was pulled. What fraction is that of all time, or even of all human technological history?

So the official SETI League answer is not answered in percentages. We can't count that low. Not only have we not yet scratched the surface, we haven't even felt the itch."

H. Paul Shuch, Ph.D., Executive Director, The SETI League, Inc.

:Q


You know, the whole argument for and against SETI evolves around equations and assumptions that can neither be proved or disproved.

I agree with those for SETI, why not search. After all, how many adventurers, dreamers, early scientests were scoffed at, jailed, or even killed by those who disagreed with them that chose to ignore the masses and go ahead with their endeavors. I know that it's not the greatest analogy, but what would have happened if they hadn't gone ahead?

I think it is an extremely remote possibility that SETI will find extraterrestrial life. But because of the factors, that doesn't negate the possibility that ET exists.

Besides, I'm just a stats junkie.

 

[blcjr]

I'm not opposed to SETI. Afterall, I'm doing s@h on nearly 100 machines. And I don't deny the possibility of ETI. I just think it is unlikely, and am more persuaded by the arguments for life on earth, especially intelligent life, being unique.

The point, I think, that SETI proponents typically do not get is that intelligent life on earth is itself improbable. The fact that there may be millions of earth-like habitats (and that has not been demonstrated), does not make intelligent life elsewhere any more probable.

There is a common statistical fallacy at work here. Here's an analogy. Suppose the risk of an airplane crash is 1 in 10,000. That risk stays the same, no matter how many times you get on an airplane. It doesn't increase if you fly more often. If intelligent life is improbable upon earth, it doesn't become more probable just because there are millions of earth-like habitats elsewhere.

That is why I think the kind of comments made by Clarke and Sagan are facile and misleading.

-baz

 

[Freewolf]

All the thinking in this thread is making my head hurt

 

[networkman]

While SETI is looking for intelligent life, I'm simply interested in proving ANY life exists outside of Earth, intelligent or not. That, IMHO, would set the pace for determing whether to continue the search for intelligent life in the cosmos.

And given the recent discoveries that have been made of organisms living around geothermal vents that have evolved in such a way as to not depend on sun light at all, there are greatly increased odds that such life can develop in other places off of Earth as well.

 

[Soggysocks]

And speaking of intellegent life <FONT face=Verdana size=1>blcjr, I read this article quoting Story Musgrave.

Hope you can link to it without too much trouble.
</FONT>

 

[Smoke]

Originally posted by: blcjr

If intelligent life is improbable upon earth, it doesn't become more probable just because there are millions of earth-like habitats elsewhere.

-baz

Improbable: unlikely to be true

But there is intelligent life on earth.

The premise is incorrect.

 

[Assimilator1]

Suppose the risk of an airplane crash is 1 in 10,000. That risk stays the same, no matter how many times you get on an airplane. It doesn't increase if you fly more often. If intelligent life is improbable upon earth, it doesn't become more probable just because there are millions of earth-like habitats elsewhere

I think your missing the point Baz ,The probabilty of it occuring doesn't increase with more potential habitats true ,but with more habitats those odds will take a shorter time,there'll be a target rich enviroment .
Its like flying in a plane ,the odds will stay the same but if you fly more often then that 1 off crash is more likely to happen to you in the same time period.
Same as driving a car ,say the odds of having a crash were 1 in 500 ,the higher mileage you do the more likely it will happen in a shorter space of time because you are exposed to the risk more often.
Which is why insurance companies ask your annual mileage these days!

 

[Spacehead]

I have to agree with Assimilator1 & networkman on this topic.
I think the Universe is just too vast for Us to be the only life out there.
And finding evidence of any life, intelligent or not, outside of Earth would be a monumental discovery to Man.

I never really expected that the S@H project would find any evidence in my lifetime, if ever.

 

[beemsg]

I have a slightly hybridized opinion. I don't believe that SETI will actually detect the signals of intelligent life, mainly because of all the requirements for their detection - we must analyze the right frequency range, control for self- and space-induced interference, scan the correct region of the sky, be within a certain distance, be listening when light reaches us from the species emitted during that critical time period between intelligence manifestation and self-destruction (I DO believe in evolution, at least until something better comes along), etc. However, I feel that to NOT search for signals is a cosmic mistake on our part akin to the hubris of armchair (ie, non-experimental) physicists.

A note about statistics: what Baz said about the probability of an event remaining constant is true ONLY FOR THAT ISOLATED EVENT. If many events (flying an airplane over and over, driving longer, more habitable panets) accumulate, the probability that they will all return the same result as the one probable for an individual event DOES decrease (exponentially so). In the end, however, these are just statistics and can't tell us anything except relative certainties. That said, it makes sense to me that intelligent life will evolve elsewhere, but there are no guarantees that it will be within our almost infinitely narrow band of detection.

Thanks for braving the fire and presenting your view Baz.

-Grant

 

[Assimilator1]

Interesting points all round ,& no flame wars!