Do you believe that aliens from outer space walk among us?

[Gaaz]

Due to sheer size of the Universe, I am certain that other intelligent life exists. If a system has one in a billion chance of developing life, and then there is one in a billion chance that it becomes intelligent, that means that there are a billion intelligent civilizations in known universe.
But also due to the same size issue, I really doubt that anyone actually visited us, or is even aware of our existence. After all, since humanity started transmitting into space we made a blip of about 200 light years. That covers about 150000 stars. Following the one in a billion rule above, that means that there is about one in 6.67 trillion chance that an intelligent civilization is within our transmission radius. That is a bet of about $1 vs a GDP of a couple of large European countries. And if a civilization is advanced enough for interstellar travel, it is unlikely that it needs anything Earth has to offer. Any and all resources that we have are much easier harvested outside of a major gravity well that our planet is, and our development has little to offer them otherwise.

[PC2]

Due to sheer size of the Universe, I am certain that other intelligent life exists. If a system has one in a billion chance of developing life, and then there is one in a billion chance that it becomes intelligent, that means that there are a billion intelligent civilizations in known universe.

You shouldn't be certain though because nobody knows the odds and all the numbers I've seen are pulled out of thin air. For all we know the odds could be one in 10^10000 and not one in 10^9.

[Gaaz]

You shouldn't be certain though because nobody knows the odds and all the numbers I've seen are pulled out of thin air. For all we know the odds could be one in 10^10000 and not one in 10^9.

Sure, these are just guesses. But if we can create most life components from inorganic materials by just arcing electricity in a sealed jar for a couple of days (Miller-Urey series experiments), chances are that this is well within a general ballpark. More likely than not is that chances for life are much higher than that.

[PC2]

Sure, these are just guesses. But if we can create most life components from inorganic materials by just arcing electricity in a sealed jar (Miller-Urey series experiments), chances are that this is well within a general ballpark. More likely than not is that chances for life are much higher than that.

Not necessarily because even if the components to life are easy to come by and exist in every galaxy or solar system we still don't know the odds of those components turning into the intermediary molecules that lead up to the first replicators. Getting the base components could be the easiest part and we have no way of knowing until people can find all the missing links that are in-between the base components and RNA/DNA plus its cellular machinery.

[Gaaz]

Not necessarily because even if the components to life are easy to come by and exist in every galaxy or solar system we still don't know the odds of those components turning into the intermediary molecules that lead up to the first replicators. Getting the base components could be the easiest part and we have no way of knowing until people can find all the missing links that are in-between the base components and RNA/DNA plus its cellular machinery.

Granted that there are many missing links and we have a sample of 1, our planet being the only one that contains life for certain (a question about intelligence is still open to debate), there are many question marks. But we do know that our planet developed life extremely quickly once conditions allowed for survival of more complex structures. Earliest fossils of single cell organisms border on times when liquid water on a surface was a brand new idea for the planet, 4.1+ billion year ago. Information that we know allows for speculation that life may be more common than thought previously. Missing links are just that - missing links. We have few reliable ways to estimate how they might affect life development chances. after all, we do not have a luxury of a hundred million year planet wide Miller-Urey experiment. But what we do know, in my opinion of course, points to life being not only possible with a high degree of probability, but bordering on inevitability.

[RampageBW1]

Do I believe, considering how vastly, absurdly big the Universe is, that exists another planet similar to ours that sprung forth intelligent life? Yes, the Universe is so big, it's kinda hard to believe that we're the only "intelligent" life out there.

Do I believe that they are walking among us on this planet? No, I do not. If some scientists are right and that it would take an absurd amount of resources to power a ship to be go fast enough to make travel between galaxies relatively short, then at worst, it would be a bad thing if they were here. For they'd notice we're using up our resources and decide to kill us and take the rest of our resources for themselves. At best they ignore us and try to harvest the resources they need elsewhere.

[PC2]

Granted that there are many missing links and we have a sample of 1, our planet being the only one that contains life for certain (a question about intelligence is still open to debate), there are many question marks. But we do know that our planet developed life extremely quickly once conditions allowed for survival of more complex structures. Earliest fossils of single cell organisms border on times when liquid water on a surface was a brand new idea for the planet, 4.1+ billion year ago. Information that we know allows for speculation that life may be more common than thought previously. Missing links are just that - missing links. We have few reliable ways to estimate how they might affect life development chances. after all, we do not have a luxury of a hundred million year planet wide Miller-Urey experiment. But what we do know, in my opinion of course, points to life being not only possible with a high degree of probability, but bordering on inevitability.

Well yes obviously that is the case but it's not very remarkable in my opinion. As soon as the first form of life became allowed(possible) from one time-state to the next time-state then it must become realized instantaneously without regard for probability. All that tells us is that life on Earth was not possible while it was in a molten state and it needed to cool down first.

[Shadowferal]

Granted that there are many missing links and we have a sample of 1, our planet being the only one that contains life for certain (a question about intelligence is still open to debate), there are many question marks. But we do know that our planet developed life extremely quickly once conditions allowed for survival of more complex structures. Earliest fossils of single cell organisms border on times when liquid water on a surface was a brand new idea for the planet, 4.1+ billion year ago. Information that we know allows for speculation that life may be more common than thought previously. Missing links are just that - missing links. We have few reliable ways to estimate how they might affect life development chances. after all, we do not have a luxury of a hundred million year planet wide Miller-Urey experiment. But what we do know, in my opinion of course, points to life being not only possible with a high degree of probability, but bordering on inevitability.

*nods in agreement*
The odds are there. It'd be sheer hubris to think this big ole universe only has...well, us.

[Ursus]

Baker Mayfield believes: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/b...ent-saw-a-ufo/