Alien life, has it ever visited?

[KungFooBob]

I always like the Dark Forest theory...

The dark forest theory is a hypothesis that suggests that many alien civilizations exist in the universe, but they are silent and hostile because they fear being destroyed by other civilizations:
The theory compares the universe to a dark forest, and technologically advanced civilizations to hunters.
It argues that it's best to shoot first and ask questions later to avoid destruction.
The theory explains the lack of encounters with extraterrestrial intelligence.
The dark forest theory is a solution to the Fermi Paradox, which asks why no one has visited Earth yet. The theory is named after Nobel-prize winning physicist Enrico Fermi, who wondered why no one had come to visit us.

Basically, keep quiet or be wiped out.

[MingtheMerciless]

We better hope they don’t turn up, using our planet as an example, the local indigenous people have never faired well when an advanced technology “culture” has arrived on their doorstep.

Fortunately our current understanding of physics says FTL isn’t possible.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Why does the speed of light need to be exceed? Surely it can be bypassed by technology? Black holes, wormholes, bending of space?

Plus, when you say "can't be exceeded" surely you mean 'within the capacity of our brains and technology currently ' ?

Don't see why it needs to be a factor at all.

You're limiting it to human perspectives too. If for example you were an immortal being perhaps taking 100,000 years to make a journey ain't a big deal.

It also forgets about time dilation. For the person doing the travelling, time passes much more slowly. If you made a trip of 100,000 light years at 99.999% the speed of light it would 'only' take you (from your POV) about 450 years to make the trip.

Queen wrote a song about it!

[Count Steer]

Why does the speed of light need to be exceed? Surely it can be bypassed by technology? Black holes, wormholes, bending of space?

Plus, when you say "can't be exceeded" surely you mean 'within the capacity of our brains and technology currently ' ?

Don't see why it needs to be a factor at all.

You're limiting it to human perspectives too. If for example you were an immortal being perhaps taking 100,000 years to make a journey ain't a big deal.

'Immortal' sounds a bit god-like.

Could just be a copy of a downloaded consciousness that stays dormant until the ship detects something of interest then uploads into a suitable 'body' for a bit of a recce. If you're essentially software, time is irrelevant. (As long as the Y2MK software changes worked ).

[KungFooBob]

If you evolved into digital beings living inside a matrix type setup and you could control your own environment, why would ever physically go anywhere?

[Mr. Dazzle]

'Immortal' sounds a bit god-like.

Or Bacteria

There doesn't seem to be a fundamental reason life has to be mortal in the sense we know, Jellyfish and Bacteria manage to be close to functionally immortal in some cases. It could just be that the particular life chemistry which evolved on Earth is a bit shit

[Count Steer]

If you evolved into digital beings living inside a matrix type setup and you could control your own environment, why would ever physically go anywhere?

Why would you cease to be interested in stuff? Thirst for knowledge, experiences etc etc.

[Count Steer]

'Immortal' sounds a bit god-like.

Or Bacteria

There doesn't seem to be a fundamental reason life has to be mortal in the sense we know, Jellyfish and Bacteria manage to be close to functionally immortal in some cases. It could just be that the particular life chemistry which evolved on Earth is a bit shit

I've had my suspicions about them tardigrades for while.

[MrLongbeard]

Just hop on / in a Einstein-Rosen Bridge and tool around the galaxy at your leisure.

Time to travel between places is only an issue if the aliens with enough knowledge to pootle about the galaxy are biological, they may be AI, they may upload their consciousness into a mainframe and download it into a fresh printed / grown body when they get where their going, they may exist on a higher plane or elsewhere in the multiverse and popping over to our dimension is no more taxing than hailing a cab.

[KungFooBob]

If you evolved into digital beings living inside a matrix type setup and you could control your own environment, why would ever physically go anywhere?

Why would you cease to be interested in stuff? Thirst for knowledge, experiences etc etc.

I'd be interested in stuff... If it wasn't for this holodeck orgy program.

Hedonism will do advanced cultures in in the end.

[Count Steer]

If you evolved into digital beings living inside a matrix type setup and you could control your own environment, why would ever physically go anywhere?

Why would you cease to be interested in stuff? Thirst for knowledge, experiences etc etc.

I'd be interested in stuff... If it wasn't for this holodeck orgy program.

Hedonism will do advanced cultures in in the end.

I dunno, even the holo-delights of the Triple Breasted Whore of Eroticon 6* start to pall - after a millennium or two.

* and the Leather Goddesses of Phobos

[Buckaroo]

Good that the value of c is reducing with time. Another quintillian billion years and it will be so slow it'll seem like a Marks and Spencer's queue!

[Mr. Dazzle]

Our bodies self repair DNA all the time though. Oncologists love pointing out that you get cancer every day, it's just that your body is mostly effective at spotting duff DNA and fixing/cleaning it out.

Besides, there's no reason to think advanced species wouldn't be able to artificialy fix theirs.

The point I was making is that limitations which apply to use aren't fundamentally written into science.

[Count Steer]

Our bodies self repair DNA all the time though. Oncologists love pointing out that you get cancer every day, it's just that your body is mostly effective at spotting duff DNA and fixing/cleaning it out.

Besides, there's no reason to think advanced species wouldn't be able to artificialy fix theirs.

The point I was making is that limitations which apply to use aren't fundamentally written into science.

Reminds me of the tendency in some quarters to talk about evolution (and disease, cancers etc) as if they driven by some sort of will or intelligence. You know the sort of thing 'The virus is very clever' etc.

Nah. Just change constantly and scrap all the many, many 'failures' and it just looks like things are driven to succeed.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

Anyone who's been to Stowmarket knows that aliens exist, they're just not very bright

Around here it's Barstow. It's not the end of the Earth, but you can see it from there.

I've been to Barstow, worst Mexican food I've ever had

[Mr. Dazzle]

Nah. Just change constantly and scrap all the many, many 'failures' and it just looks like things are driven to succeed.

And the bodies we have aren't good design, they're just the least shit version of what Evolution came up with by blind chance

Aliens might be luckier.

[Timmy]

What if aliens have bypassed our self-imposed limit of travelling at the speed of light? Just because we can't do it doesn't mean 'they' can't. Perhaps they don't travel in straight lines but can curve time and hop across the two ends of the curve? Why would they come here anyway? If they're that advanced they'd be looking back in time to what they would class as basic life forms, not worth bothering with.

[Timmy]

Perhaps they can and have, that's my point. We are at the limit of understanding at this time. Once upon a time the wheel and fire was as good as it got.

[Timmy]

I would encourage you not to stray into the realms of fantasy where aliens are using something other than electromagnetic waves. If you do, you might as well "what if" they're using invisible unicorns farting rainbows.

Open your mind man, just cos we can't etc. Anyhoo, I'm sounding like a broken record now. I'm sure if they are capable of advance things they wouldn't be messing about contacting this rock.

[Count Steer]

The Great Filter explains why the Fermi position isn't quite right...maybe. Fermi thought (back in the 50s) there should be loads of other planets developing sentient, space travelling, life forms. Like 'Where is everybody?' 'Why haven't they come a calling?'

Maybe lots of them spark up, like we have, and run out of resources, bugger up the neighbourhood before they get to the 'Hey, let's go visit the neighbours stage'.

In SETI terms it's all over in the blink of a celestial eye and we haven't been looking for long, or very far. Ditto, anything that ever detected us may be long gone.

I'll admit to a certain optimistic bias here. ie I can't quite believe that Earth and humans represents the best that infinite space and time can come up with.