Comments on: Are We Alone? http://www.tinmanic.com/archives/2009/08/12/are-we-alone/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:46:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Daniel http://www.tinmanic.com/archives/2009/08/12/are-we-alone/comment-page-1/#comment-133729 Daniel Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:07:40 +0000 http://www.tinmanic.com/?p=3901#comment-133729 Did someone say anything about "It'll never happen?" Did someone say anything about “It’ll never happen?”

]]> By: rob adams http://www.tinmanic.com/archives/2009/08/12/are-we-alone/comment-page-1/#comment-133728 rob adams Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:05:38 +0000 http://www.tinmanic.com/?p=3901#comment-133728 There's always been one fatal problem with the "it will never happen" faction of our civilization: innovation. Rest assured it is highly improbable that we are alone, and that it's equally improbable (given the rate of innovation) that our experience will always make the less than optimistic of our species think so. Those that live contrary to the "that's impossible" faction have always been our future, and history's favorite sons. rob@egoz.org There’s always been one fatal problem with the “it will never happen” faction of our civilization: innovation.

Rest assured it is highly improbable that we are alone, and that it’s equally improbable (given the rate of innovation) that our experience will always make the less than optimistic of our species think so. Those that live contrary to the “that’s impossible” faction have always been our future, and history’s favorite sons.

rob@egoz.org

]]> By: Daniel http://www.tinmanic.com/archives/2009/08/12/are-we-alone/comment-page-1/#comment-133727 Daniel Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:46:26 +0000 http://www.tinmanic.com/?p=3901#comment-133727 Without any means of surpassing or circumventing the light barrier, you are for all practical purposes correct. Even though we do not have such technology now nor do we really have any idea how such technology could even be developed, that does not mean that such technology cannot be developed at some point in the future. It is also possible that another sapient species has achieved the technology for interstellar travel. However, there are just too many variables. We can't know when (or if) we will develop practical interstellar travel. Even if we did, there are millions of stars in the galaxy and the odds of coming across a system with sapient life are infinitessimal. Likewise, the odds of a space-faring sapient species finding us are negligible. The greater the samples and the greater the time, the probability of even the unlikeliest scenario approaches 1. I think there probably is sapient life somewhere else in the universe. But if we have no means of contacting it and it has no means of contacting us, it effectively does not exist. This is why I vastly prefer alien-free science fiction ;) Without any means of surpassing or circumventing the light barrier, you are for all practical purposes correct.

Even though we do not have such technology now nor do we really have any idea how such technology could even be developed, that does not mean that such technology cannot be developed at some point in the future. It is also possible that another sapient species has achieved the technology for interstellar travel.

However, there are just too many variables. We can’t know when (or if) we will develop practical interstellar travel. Even if we did, there are millions of stars in the galaxy and the odds of coming across a system with sapient life are infinitessimal. Likewise, the odds of a space-faring sapient species finding us are negligible.

The greater the samples and the greater the time, the probability of even the unlikeliest scenario approaches 1. I think there probably is sapient life somewhere else in the universe. But if we have no means of contacting it and it has no means of contacting us, it effectively does not exist.

This is why I vastly prefer alien-free science fiction ;)

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