[Football] Aliens and the beginning of time

[Renegade1]

If the Universe is never ending then there must be trillions upon trillions upon trillions of galaxies unless you get to a certain point out in space where there are less and less planets until there are no more.Maybe at a certain point planets cannot form or be sustained.However space goes on forever.How can it possibly end.It's impossible.

 

[father_and_son]

I just done a quick re-run of the Drake "equation", https://www.space.com/25219-drake-equation.html following the recent flurry of discovery of exoplanets in nearby solar systems and come out with 125,000 intelligent civilisations in our galaxy. The current best estimate is that there are 100 Billion galaxies in the observable universe.

Personally, I think the odds of us being alone are vanishingly low. Whether any of those civilisations will develop the technology to either transmit radio waves or to travel physically at faster than light speed is another matter entirely. On current knowledge, one would have to say that neither is physically possible - but then until very recently we humans believed the sun went round the Earth, so hope springs eternal.

Given that, in cosmological terms, humans have (and will) only exist for the blink of an eye, although the possibility of life on another planet is sufficiently large that 'intelligent' life [capable of understanding and harnessing electromagnetic radiation] seems highly probable, the chances of any form of communication (even one-way) is extremely remote because both species would have to exist at precisely the right moment in time or be inconceivably long-lived. Distance and Time diminish the probabilities of any two species knowing about the other back to negligible levels.

 

[Blue3]

Aliens have do and will exist the question is has does will intelligent life exist at the same time humans have been on earth about 200,000 years dinosaurs about 500 million years T Rex and Diplodocus lived further apart in time than humans and T Rex.

 

[father_and_son]

If the Universe is never ending then there must be trillions upon trillions upon trillions of galaxies unless you get to a certain point out in space where there are less and less planets until there are no more.Maybe at a certain point planets cannot form or be sustained.However space goes on forever.How can it possibly end.It's impossible.

Consider space to be the surface of a balloon. As the balloon expands (as the universe is), every point on the surface gets further away from every other point, but the same number of points continue to exist.

Space is (to our best understanding) finite but expanding... there is no end, no boundary, but it still remains finite. Mindboggling, yes. Endless, no.

 

[DavidRyder]

If the Universe is never ending then there must be trillions upon trillions upon trillions of galaxies unless you get to a certain point out in space where there are less and less planets until there are no more.Maybe at a certain point planets cannot form or be sustained.However space goes on forever.How can it possibly end.It's impossible.

My brain literally hurts when I think about infinity and the universe!

 

[lawros left foot]

I hope they arrive before Brexit, if they don’t, they won’t be allowed in.

 

[Insel affe]

My brain literally hurts when I think about infinity and the universe!

Think of poor me, mine still can't work out or trust contact less card payments.....

 

[Renegade1]

For those who believe in God and that he created Earth you have to ask therefore if you believe that who do you think created all the other billions of planets.If it wasn't God then each planet must have it's own God because how else would planets be formed.If you believe God created everything then that means we are not unique.We are just one of trillions.Nothing special.More importantly,if you believe God created Earth or everything then there is no hope for you.

 

[dangull]

For those who believe in God and that he created Earth you have to ask therefore if you believe that who do you think created all the other billions of planets.If it wasn't God then each planet must have it's own God because how else would planets be formed.If you believe God created everything then that means we are not unique.We are just one of trillions.Nothing special.More importantly,if you believe God created Earth or everything then there is no hope for you.

Some religious people would say God created the universe just so the people of Earth could be awed by this creation. But Earth was the most special place.

 

[dangull]

I think you mean 500 million years. Makes a bit of a difference.

Yes that's what I meant.

Another mind boggling stat- there are more stars in the observable Universe than there are grains of sand in all the beaches of this planet.

 

[Igzilla]

Yes that's what I meant.

Another mind boggling stat- there are more stars in the observable Universe than there are grains of sand in all the beaches of this planet.

From Wikipedia: On November 4, 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way galaxy. 11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting Sun-like stars. The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away.

 

[brakespear]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk

 

[maffew]

Makes my brain hurt even thinking about this, that's all

 

[Renegade1]

When you think of the numbers,the distances,etc,it totally puts everything about Earth and our existence into perspective.
We are so so so so totally irrelevant.We are just a minute spot in existence.However we have to live our lives like
we are so important because how else can we.

To think our existence of Earth has so far been very brief and very soon,maybe within 3000 years we will be gone
and Earth will possibly exist for millions or billions of years after that.Maybe in a billion years Earth will be discovered
by beings from another galaxy and they will settle here.As for now they are nowhere near existing.

If we are discovered by beings within our lifetime let's hope they are friendly.let's hope within their make-up
they understand friendliness,compassion etc otherwise we could be in deep trouble.

 

[Pavilionaire]

Have you done the maths as to how far they would have to have travelled and how long ago they would have to have set out. And why would they have set our for our region of nothingness, as that long ago there wouldn't have been any life here.

"You f**king idiot, I told you to travel one thousand light years and land on the BLUE planet, but you picked the red one!"

 

[Thunder Bolt]

How do you explain sites like Puma punku, tiwanako, the nazca lines and so many other sites?

There seems to be an assumption that humans get more and more intelligent, when some ancient discoveries show that our knowledge is only valid for two generations at best.
The Romans built roads, water aquaducts, sewers, central heating etc, but the knowledge was lost when Vandals & Goths sacked Rome. There was all the knowledge in Persia, Egypt (the library at Alexandria) and the library of the Aztecs.
One of our own Nsc users has the name of Antikythera mechanism, which basically was an analogue computer in the Greek world and is over 2000 years old, but could accurately predict astronimical eclipses etc.

If you stop sending children to school for two generations, all the knowledge we have now, will be 'lost' and have to be rediscovered again.

There is a difference between knowledge and intelligence.

 

[The Clamp]

There seems to be an assumption that humans get more and more intelligent, when some ancient discoveries show that our knowledge is only valid for two generations at best.
The Romans built roads, water aquaducts, sewers, central heating etc, but the knowledge was lost when Vandals & Goths sacked Rome. There was all the knowledge in Persia, Egypt (the library at Alexandria) and the library of the Aztecs.
One of our own Nsc users has the name of Antikythera mechanism, which basically was an analogue computer in the Greek world and is over 2000 years old, but could accurately predict astronimical eclipses etc.

If you stop sending children to school for two generations, all the knowledge we have now, will be 'lost' and have to be rediscovered again.

There is a difference between knowledge and intelligence.

There is some truth to this. It was not so much that knowledge was lost but destroyed or covered up. For example when Christianity started usurping other religions or civilisations they destroyed anything they perceived as a threat to the power they wielded, ie rational knowledge based on science rather than religion. Most societies did this and still do.

 

[dingodan]

 

[Papa Lazarou]

There seems to be an assumption that humans get more and more intelligent, when some ancient discoveries show that our knowledge is only valid for two generations at best.
The Romans built roads, water aquaducts, sewers, central heating etc, but the knowledge was lost when Vandals & Goths sacked Rome. There was all the knowledge in Persia, Egypt (the library at Alexandria) and the library of the Aztecs.
One of our own Nsc users has the name of Antikythera mechanism, which basically was an analogue computer in the Greek world and is over 2000 years old, but could accurately predict astronimical eclipses etc.

If you stop sending children to school for two generations, all the knowledge we have now, will be 'lost' and have to be rediscovered again.

There is a difference between knowledge and intelligence.

Yep, I would agree with this to a degree. The working assumption, based upon a certain amount of imperial arrogance is that 'modernity' marks the peak of civilisation. History doesn't go back far enough to challenge this view. There ARE ancient remains that could challenge this linear view of progress, from South America, Iran / Iraq (Sumeria / Mesopotamia / Akkadia), Egypt, Japan etc, but as the commonly held view is of a gradual upward progression these can be dismissed as aberrations and flukes.

I'm NOT saying that ancient aliens were responsible, although some of the ancient creation myths from Sumeria / South America could be interpreted that way (the Anunnaki in Sumerian religion for example) but they may point to ancient civilisations and sophistication that doesn't fit the accepted model.

The longevity of 'modern' humans (about 200,000 years) leaves a lot of room for earlier civilisations to arise and fall, and remember we've had a couple of ice ages, melt floods since then. I'd expect that were we to get another ice age, and the sea levels drop, there would be quite a lot of ancient remains / sites exposed that were inundated in the most recent sea level rise.

Also, it's worth noting that there have been periods of enlightenment and darkness even within recorded history, with a series of Eurasian / African civilisations rising up, and possibly due to climate changes, diminishing and disappearing.

 

[Igzilla]

Yep, I would agree with this to a degree. The working assumption, based upon a certain amount of imperial arrogance is that 'modernity' marks the peak of civilisation. History doesn't go back far enough to challenge this view. There ARE ancient remains that could challenge this linear view of progress, from South America, Iran / Iraq (Sumeria / Mesopotamia / Akkadia), Egypt, Japan etc, but as the commonly held view is of a gradual upward progression these can be dismissed as aberrations and flukes.

I'm NOT saying that ancient aliens were responsible, although some of the ancient creation myths from Sumeria / South America could be interpreted that way (the Anunnaki in Sumerian religion for example) but they may point to ancient civilisations and sophistication that doesn't fit the accepted model.

The longevity of 'modern' humans (about 200,000 years) leaves a lot of room for earlier civilisations to arise and fall, and remember we've had a couple of ice ages, melt floods since then. I'd expect that were we to get another ice age, and the sea levels drop, there would be quite a lot of ancient remains / sites exposed that were inundated in the most recent sea level rise.

Also, it's worth noting that there have been periods of enlightenment and darkness even within recorded history, with a series of Eurasian / African civilisations rising up, and possibly due to climate changes, diminishing and disappearing.

There was a documentary on C4 (I think it was called Life After People) some years ago that asked the question about how long evidence of our current civilization would be detectable. As I recall, I think the last traces would be things along the lines of Mount Rushmore. What was surprising would be how quickly things would get buried and decay. Most cities would be unrecognizable in just 1000 years, just a few piles of rubble buried in jungle.