JRMcC
Active Member
Sharpest ever view of the Andromeda Galaxy
You should all have a look at this if you haven't already.
You should all have a look at this if you haven't already.
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Unbelievable
- Thread starter JRMcC
- Start date
Sultan Of Swing
Well-Known Member
Wow indeed!
I voted 'Yes' on the other intelligent life in the universe question. However my thinking is a little different than most who voted 'Yes'. I view the universe as having many planes/realms beyond the physical. Residents of those planes are intelligent life in the universe to me.
Usually this question is asked from a materialist perspective; if you believe on some planet through chance events intelligence emerged. I don't believe this even happened on earth. I believe physical life is formed by higher beings/nature-spirits evolving higher forms. Whether that type of process has occurred on other planets is something I wonder about but if it happened I think it would result in something so different from us that I don't know if we would think of it in terms of physical life.
Usually this question is asked from a materialist perspective; if you believe on some planet through chance events intelligence emerged. I don't believe this even happened on earth. I believe physical life is formed by higher beings/nature-spirits evolving higher forms. Whether that type of process has occurred on other planets is something I wonder about but if it happened I think it would result in something so different from us that I don't know if we would think of it in terms of physical life.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Sure as heck seems that way. If beauty is your explanation for the need for a designer, you are way off.
Great picture. Thank you.
As for the poll question: I have slowly migrated from "I tend to doubt it" to "it seems to be an intriguing possibility," but things are not always as they seem and so I'll leave leave the voting to those with a false sense of certainty.
As for the poll question: I have slowly migrated from "I tend to doubt it" to "it seems to be an intriguing possibility," but things are not always as they seem and so I'll leave leave the voting to those with a false sense of certainty.
Why?
JRMcC
Active Member
I would say two things:
1. If life came about here by chance there must be other life in the universe. And to be honest, I think if don't agree then you don't understand how big the universe is. But on the other hand
2. If you believe life here was created, the creator would be whacko for only putting life on this tiny speck when the universe is so big.
1. If life came about here by chance there must be other life in the universe. And to be honest, I think if don't agree then you don't understand how big the universe is. But on the other hand
could be reasonable too because after all, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.
2. If you believe life here was created, the creator would be whacko for only putting life on this tiny speck when the universe is so big.
Again, why?
JRMcC
Active Member
It's just a matter of probability.
Edit: I'd imagine Judaism has an answer to this question that doesn't line up with Richard Dawkins-like thinking. Is that where you're coming from?
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Spectacular, how on earth could anyone think we are the only intelligent life forms in all that ?.
For the record: I'm a Jew with a mild preference for Stephen Jay Gould. But let's move on …
Can you give me a definition of probability that renders extra-terrestrial intelligence more likely?
JRMcC
Active Member
"the extent to which an event is likely to occur, measured by the ratio of the favorable cases to the whole number of cases possible" So if life was created by chance: There are certain conditions necessary for life to form on its own, and they were met early in Earth's history. So we know there's at least one case of this happening, and that the number of possible cases are beyond comprehension. So it seems that there must be other basic life.
And then I guess you just have to do the same thing again for intelligence. Each planet with life, how many come up with intelligent life due to evolution. I tend to think the amount of planets with basic life on them is so large that there must be other intelligent life other than us.
BYW: the SETI Debate is a good read.
We're an extremely average planet, orbiting an extremely average star, in an extremely average solar system, in an extremely average portion of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Life on Earth is composed of the exact same 5-most-abundant-elements in the universe. We're not made out of an isotope of Bismuth, as Neil deGrasse Tyson once said. The universe is also X Billion years old, which means the requirements we know must exist for our type of carbon-based life, have been around for a long time.
It may not be exactly inevitable, but I would be far, far, far more concerned if we are the only life in the universe rather than just one of many.
I suspect that many view intelligent life as exactly that, inevitable, rather than the unintended consequence of an unimaginably large number of interactions. Here is a bit more useful reading.