Alien visitation

pie · 09-29-2005

"John Von Neumann hypothesized that sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial civilizations would be capable of constructing artificially intelligent robot probes to scour the universe."

"These intelligent Von Neumann probes would also be capable of universal replication. They would be programmed to utilize whatever elements they encountered in their travels to fabricate endless copies of themselves. After a long enough period of time had elapsed, the galaxies would be teeming with them." - If so, then as Fermi famous comment: "where are they?"

We should have found evidence on earth the moon, and mars if these Von Neumann probes ever happended.

"Lack of evidence does not mean no evidence," However, we may be being visited from other times dimensions be these probes. Which may account for the 5% of unidentified UFO incidents.

Boerseun · 09-29-2005

Maybe the aliens capable of producing these Von Neumann machines have realised the danger of constructing something that could multiply exponentially, eventually consuming the whole universe so that everything is just clumps of Von Neumann machines - and wisely decided not to build them. Then again, to rephrase the old statement: Absence of Von Neumann machines is certainly not evidence of their non-existence...

If they are in our solar system, they (in my opinion) will most probably be found in the asteroid belt where they are floating silently, recording, observing, watching - they might have an order not to interfere with any life found in this corner of the galaxy; analogous to NASA sterilising and disinfecting a probe sent to Mars so as not to contaminate any *possible* life, such as there might be. Maybe they've got a directive not to contaminate us intellectually - although we seem more than capable of doing that ourselves, what with ID and all...
But I digress - if they are in the Asteroid Belt, it will be virtually impossible to detect them at all.

With regards to UFO sightings, it is interesting to note that a graph of UFO sightings/dates is almost identical to a graph of advanced aircraft tests/dates.

DietAnthrax · 10-12-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by pie

"Lack of evidence does not mean no evidence," However, we may be being visited from other times dimensions be these probes. Which may account for the 5% of unidentified UFO incidents.

Unidentified UFOs? By definition all UFOs are unidentified. (And, incidentally, none of them are aliens).

pie · 10-13-2005

Boerseun - You stated that Von Neumann probes would be "most probably be found in the asteroid belt where they are floating silently, recording, observing, watching." - Do you really believe that advanced alien civilizations would be waiting this late in the game?

Our earth is late to develop any type of advanced civilization. If there were type 3 civilizations, they would have had time to visit earth before life developed on earth.

Either we are a zoological experiment by a type 3 civilization or we are all alone.

I suspect that we are alone, and there are no other advanced civilizations in our universe.

Yes, there is the probability that life starts with protoplasmic evolving to its highest levels in the Jurassic worlds, except we are the exception to the rule.

In my opinion, we are freaks of nature, with a 1 in a billion change of a comet hitting earth that selected for lower primates to inherit the earth.

We look into the universe, and the only reflection we see is ourselves.

Csongor · 10-13-2005

I still looking forward to find proofes on the earth for an existing alien civilisation....

Csongor

Boerseun · 10-14-2005

Let's make a few assumptions:

Let's assume that Life is universal, and that there are other intelligences 'out there'.
Let's define intelligent life (using the Earth as an example) as life able to use energy extrasomatically, i.e. able to build machines, etc. Not only the ability to use tools.
Let's imagine that Life is restricted to the habitable zones of single-star systems.

There's a lot of other assumptions we can make to let the Drake Equation swing in a positive direction as far as life in our Galaxy is concerned.

But whatever the case might be, and however common life might be, the distances involved is simply such that advanced communication between different space-faring cultures and species is impossible. Say, for instance, that there's an advanced culture living on a planet 50 light-years away from Earth. That's pretty close, considering the size of the Galaxy. They have only just received their first television pictures from earth, and as every year passes, they can follow technological progress on Earth. Eventually they'd think that Earth is powered by commercials. They won't be far off. Sending a signal to Earth might be done as an Alien PhD-exercise kinda thing. Provided the Alien in question is willing to wait 100 years for the answer, to get his PhD. Physical travel is impossible, because even travelling at 50%c, it'll take them a hundred years to get here. And then fifty years to beam back to their home planet their findings, and then another fifty years waiting for an answer, or new instructions. I don't know about you, but imagine receiving a signal from somebody from 1855, asking for new instructions? That's like, ten generations ago. Would we remember to actually listen? Would we care? I suppose that huge star-strewn civilizations can exist throughout the galaxy, without having any contact of a usable sort between themselves.

And that's ignoring the fact that we will not be in technological lockstep with any one of them at all. We're either going to be very far ahead, or very far behind. If we accidentally run into an alien civilization, chances are that we're going to be very bored with these primitive idiots, or vice versa. The more advanced species will probably be very patronizing towards the less advanced, to the less advanced species detriment. 18th century colonization in the Third World is a case in point. But I digress.

The distances is such that we can live out our lives as a species, thinking that everything was made for us, and us alone, and eventually disappear, without knowing that we've been living right next door (relatively speaking) to a species so advanced that they have transcended radio back in the day when we were still clubbing each other to death with an ass's jaw. Things change so quickly; imagine trying to have a discussion with your grandfather about the state of the World. You are literally living in two different worlds. Imagine trying that with a bona fide alien?

I don't think we've ever been visited, and I think the chances of ever being visited is roughly zero. I also think that the golden plaques pasted on Voyagers 1 & 2 is probably the dumbest thing NASA's ever did. Space is just too big, empty and lonely for that. Nobody will see it, nobody will listen to the scratched recordings on those golden 7-singles. As a case in point - NASA sent a record into space, not a CD. Shows you how quick things change. Another ten years from now and nobody will understand why NASA didn't send an iPod.

So here's my final conclusion:

We are alone, so incredibly alone, in a universe absolutely teeming with Life. And there's absolutely nothing we can do about it.

ldsoftwaresteve · 10-14-2005

Beorseun:

Quote:

But whatever the case might be, and however common life might be, the distances involved is simply such that advanced communication between different space-faring cultures and species is impossible.

Kind of a big assumption isn't it? We don't understand light very well because we haven't learned how to use it to send and receive information other than using the same photons at both ends. That limits the communication to the speed that the photon moves through whatever medium it's being moved through. We have not explored the possibility of using the contiguous character of light, in that photons are likely connected back to a light source. That, if true, might give us a whole different way of doing it. Of course, we're going to need better detection technology, something which an advanced species would probably have.

Enescu · 11-26-2005

Enough with the alien talk.
Ther is no proof just imagination..and that's how it will always be.

For one must understand the question in other to be able to answear.

People speek of aliens without fully understanding the meaning of the word.

ldsoftwaresteve · 11-26-2005

It occurred to me that we make assumptions about the nature of alien 'probes', that they would be able to replicate, etc. and overlook the fact that what has been described is a life form.
What if life is a form of alien probe? At least consider the possibility that some forms of life are probes. What better way to do it?
And design the probe to download the information that it has gathered periodically, say, at night when it's dark and there is a lack of sensory input. Have it download its data while it's 'sleeping'?
How's that for a probe?