Do you prefer the notion that we are alone with sentience in the universe, or not?

[Deleted]

If you literally mean sentience and not Sapience, its probably pretty likely, considering theres plenty of sentient life on Earth that isn't human.

If you mean sentience as in Sapience, then thats a tricky question. Its entirely possible we can encounter sapient life and never know it - life that is so different to what we understand or can conceive that any interaction is beyond the frame of human comprehension, thats the kind of thing the universe could end up throwing our way. I'd say that, with how vast the universe has to be there is likely something out there, probably many different forms of that something.

The real question is if humanity, if it survives long enough in universal terms, would be capable of realising anything thats simply too alien. Its not really a question of preference for me considering statistically the odds are in favour.

[madmanx]

If they can make it here I must assume that they are substantially smarter than we are so....how will they view us?

The same way we view a cow? Pass the pepper please.

[Theodon]

It's possible that the Universe is full of it, but because it's so incredibly vast, the laws of the universe may not allow it to travel those distances and reach us. Perhaps all of the theories that we come up with to traverse huge distances in an instant have also been developed by far older races out there, and they just found it isn't possible in the end.

It may be that expansion through stepping-stones over the course of millions or billions of years may be the only way many races will encounter each other over the vastness of space. The conditions for life lasting long enough to continually develop may be the biggest struggle all of those races face. We're pretty self-destructive when it comes to both advancement and maintaining quality of life, and that may be a fundamental flaw with any species that reaches our level of sentience.

We are still extremly young when it comes to how old other forms of life may be in the universe too. It might just not be worth travelling the distance to visit us for the next million or 7 years. I prefer the notion that the universe is full of life, but we are just too young a race to have that fact revealed to us by other races bothering to say hello.

[Annoying]

"probability"....oh dear. No, as we have no way of judging the likelihood of life beginning, achieving multicelluar forms, becomming sentient.....then we really cant judge if probability says there should be more life out there.

If there are 1000000000000000000000000000000000000 planets suitable for life, but the change of life evolving on anyone of them is 1 in 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 then the chances are we are the anomaly.

And that probability is just as likely as any other at this point, as we have no basis to assign the probability a value.

Yep. We have equations (drake equation), but we have no actual idea what the chances of things are.

[Kalis]

Rare is subjective imo. If the entire size of the universe was quantified as the number 1,000,000, and life was 0.1 out of that 1,000,000, it might seem small, but consider then, the total size of the entire universe, then by that logic, life should be throughout the universe.

There is a major issue with using any numbers, as our sample size is one - a bigger sample size would answer the question, of course.

Over the course of this planets existence, as far as we are aware abiogenesis has occured once. Now if the circumstances that require abiogenesis only happened for 1 minute in the entire 4.5bn year existence of this planet, then the odds of life being elsewhere are extremely small to a point that makes my calculator explode.

We don't have the numbers to make any calculation and 0.1 in 1,000,000 sounds extremely high to me considering the only sample we have is nothing like that high as far as I am aware.

[Felya]

I find both to be equally pointless.

[Grimbold21]

Your belief is based on the assumption that life can only occur under the same conditions/circumstances it does on Earth.

A bit silly, the known size of the Universe don't you think?

[Annoying]

There is a major issue with using any numbers, as our sample size is one - a bigger sample size would answer the question, of course.

Over the course of this planets existence, as far as we are aware abiogenesis has occured once. Now if the circumstances that require abiogenesis only happened for 1 minute in the entire 4.5bn year existence of this planet, then the odds of life being elsewhere are extremely small to a point that makes my calculator explode.

We don't have the numbers to make any calculation and 0.1 in 1,000,000 sounds extremely high to me considering the only sample we have is nothing like that high as far as I am aware.

1min/4.5bn years = 4.228x10^-16.

~60billion habitable planets in the milky way. 200 billion galaxies in the universe. So ~1.2x10^22 habitable planets.

1- ((1-4.228x10^-16)^(1.2x10^22)) would be the probability of abiogenesis occurring elsewhere in the universe. For reference, that is so close to 100%, that if you only looked at 1/1000000 of the planets, you'd still have a 99.7% chance of finding life elsewhere.

Of course, as you said, our sample size is 1. 4.228x10^-16 could be a massive overestimation, or a massive underestimation. We don't actually know what that number is. We do, however, know that it has to be stupidly small to preclude life elsewhere in the universe.

[Tharkkun]

With some of the studies now theorizing that the solar systems outside our galaxy are moving further away from us it's highly unlikely we'll ever make contact to confirm either way. That is unless we find a way to travel faster than the speed of light.

[Kalis]

1min/4.5bn years = 4.228x10^-16.

~60billion habitable planets in the milky way. 200 billion galaxies in the universe. So ~1.2x10^22 habitable planets.

1- ((1-4.228x10^-16)^(1.2x10^22)) would be the probability of abiogenesis occurring elsewhere in the universe. For reference, that is so close to 100%, that if you only looked at 1/1000000 of the planets, you'd still have a 99.7% chance of finding life elsewhere.

I made up the 1 minute figure, it could be less than 1 second over the estimated lifetime of this planet and not just the length of time it has existed. It could be anything, that's the problem with having a sample size of one and not knowing the odds of abiogenesis happening.

[diddle]

What role does preference make in this? It should be left up to probability and mathematical theory. Why would anyone prefer to be alone? It's a large and vast universe, there is a chance, albeit detrimentally small, of life in some distant unknown planet somewhere.

It's purely a question of how certain people regard the concept, there is a difference in what you believe and what you prefer.

[bluelegend]

I don't prefer being alone in the universe because that then means we have such a tremendous responsibility to further life. And if our humanity fails, I personally don't want that to be the end of intelligent life

[nôrps]

I would prefer the notion we were alone if and only if I could then leave, alone. Since that isn't happening, I prefer that we aren't alone.

[Deleted]

I hope we're alone, other races are just competition.

[Kraenen]

I hope we're alone, other races are just competition.

I think that competition would either make us improve or die out, being a good thing overall.

[Shinra1]

We are alone. The bible says so.

[Hammerfest]

As a Christian, I know we're not alone.

[Deleted]

There is no way to know for sure.
Do I believe there is life out there? Yes.
Do I believe it is sentient and more advanced than us? No, not really.

[Vizardlorde]

I prefer the notion that we are alone cause im a depressive misanthropic bastard but thats just me.

[Deleted]

no because if this is as good as sentience gets? as in humans..

wow- ill pass on that train thanks