Where are they?

Been waiting a loooong time.

Why should they look like us when we are just discrete lumps of chemical scum?

They got stuck in traffic. They're on their way though.

solazy wrote:Been waiting a loooong time.

No we haven't.

solazy wrote:Where are they?

Been waiting a loooong time.

Why should they look like us when we are just discrete lumps of chemical scum?

My bold. That's an interesting question. Almost like asking why we have 5 fingers and not 3.

solazy wrote:Where are they?

Not here. Probably pretty much for the same reason we're not there.

Been waiting a loooong time.

Nowhere near long enough to be able expect the probability of visitation to approach one given the distances involved.

Why should they look like us when we are just discrete lumps of chemical scum?

There is no reason why aliens would look like us as they would have evolved independently from us in a totally separate environment whether they're "lumps of chemical scum" or not.

Complex life else where in the universe may not physically resemble us in any way. But it would still be
made from the ninety two elements and stars would have to die for it to exist just as they had to for us

surreptitious57 wrote:Complex life else where in the universe may not physically resemble us in any way. But it would still be made from the ninety two elements and stars would have to die for it to exist just as they had to for us

Always a good point to make that the stars died for us, and not only Jesus.
And don't forget the atoms in your right and left buttocks are from different stars.
However, all life on earth is just a very precise arrangement of atoms. What are the chances any other arrangement could produce intelligent life on a stable planet like the earth? And it takes a very long time by selection.
The universe is BIG, but basically all it is, is a gravitational field with very dispersed lumps. These lumps (galaxies, stars, planetary and other debris) are contractions of space-time.
There doesn't appear to be any obvious reason why life should be common throughout the universe.
SETI have found nothing. So they start complaining they are looking at the wrong part of the sky.

solazy wrote:
SETI have found nothing. So they start complaining they are looking at the wrong part of the sky.

They're complaining?

SETI has barely been active for any time at all. The length of time it could takes for our signal to reach anywhere capable of hearing it could be hundreds of years. Which would mean hundreds of years before we get a response. Or we could catch onto a signal from somewhere else in the galaxy which, depending on its source, could've taken hundreds of years to reach us. We could beam a message back and it will reach it target in hundreds of years. By which point there may be no one left to receive it and we might be gone before we ever reach a response.

SETI are not complaining they are looking at the wrong part of the sky, because that would suggest anyone has an inkling as to which part of the sky might be more likely to receive a message than any other part.

solazy wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:Complex life else where in the universe may not physically resemble us in any way. But it would still be made from the ninety two elements and stars would have to die for it to exist just as they had to for us

Always a good point to make that the stars died for us, and not only Jesus.
And don't forget the atoms in your right and left buttocks are from different stars.
However, all life on earth is just a very precise arrangement of atoms. What are the chances any other arrangement could produce intelligent life on a stable planet like the earth? And it takes a very long time by selection.
The universe is BIG, but basically all it is, is a gravitational field with very dispersed lumps. These lumps (galaxies, stars, planetary and other debris) are contractions of space-time.
There doesn't appear to be any obvious reason why life should be common throughout the universe.
SETI have found nothing. So they start complaining they are looking at the wrong part of the sky.

SETI listens for signals that would indicate a level of technological advancement that took our planet 4 billion years to acquire. In all that time, we've only been able to produce the kinds of thing SETI searches for, for about 150 years. Some "thinkers" have posited that intelligent life will only exist for a couple hundred years after developing the kinds of technology SETI searches for before it destroys itself with technology. So, we aren't just looking for a needle in a haystack... we're looking for a needle in a haystack that only exists for a split second, relatively.

solazy wrote:
Why should they look like us when we are just discrete lumps of chemical scum?

Smaller costume budget for the science fiction productions.

Sendraks wrote:

solazy wrote:
SETI have found nothing. So they start complaining they are looking at the wrong part of the sky.

They're complaining?

SETI has barely been active for any time at all. The length of time it could takes for our signal to reach anywhere capable of hearing it could be hundreds of years. Which would mean hundreds of years before we get a response. Or we could catch onto a signal from somewhere else in the galaxy which, depending on its source, could've taken hundreds of years to reach us. We could beam a message back and it will reach it target in hundreds of years. By which point there may be no one left to receive it and we might be gone before we ever reach a response.

SETI are not complaining they are looking at the wrong part of the sky, because that would suggest anyone has an inkling as to which part of the sky might be more likely to receive a message than any other part.

SETI does not depend on getting a reply, only on distant civilizations starting well before ours, leaving time for their signals (deliberate or otherwise) to reach us.
EDIT: There is a power issue: the ony reason we can detect the emissions from distant stars above the background noise is that stars are extremely powerful radio sources, so our aliens would indeed need to go to great lengths to harness the power of a star if they were to succeed in sending us a message from a distance much greater than the nearest few stars.

Life as we know it has good chances of looking like us is my bet. Life as we do not know it, well, might communicate through ESP and operate machinery telepathically, right?

tuco wrote:Life as we know it has good chances of looking like us is my bet. Life as we do not know it, well, might communicate through ESP and operate machinery telepathically, right?

Why do you say that? Out of the billions of species on Earth, only a few really look like us- and that's with common ancestry. Why should we expect any sort of resemblance at all given the odds we observe here and without common ancestry?

I read.

ScholasticSpastic wrote:

tuco wrote:Life as we know it has good chances of looking like us is my bet. Life as we do not know it, well, might communicate through ESP and operate machinery telepathically, right?

Why do you say that? Out of the billions of species on Earth, only a few really look like us- and that's with common ancestry. Why should we expect any sort of resemblance at all given the odds we observe here and without common ancestry?

True, BUT we're not just taklng about any old aliens, we'r talking about technologically sophisticated aliens, and that rules out, eg, fully aquatic species, because technology requires the mastery of fire, and that doesn't work too well under water!

Piers Anthony covered some of these issues faced by SETI in his book Macroscope. Of course, the great Carl Sagan did also in Contact.

The ones advanced enough to come by for a visit don't live in the real world anymore. Why would you want to? It's dangerous, and incredibly slow. One of the assumptions of the Drake eq, and the Fermi Paradox, is that an advanced civilization would want, even need, to expand. I don't see this, the evidence we have so far is that the more advanced the nation, the less the reproductive rate. Japan and italy, to name a couple, have negative population growth.

George Carlin summed this one up.

What, you don't think aliens can appreciate a bunch of creepy necro pervs?

What anyone thinks is pretty much irrelevant ;)

Lets define life shall we. Oh wait .. lets narrow it and lets define life where such definition would not include reproduction.