What do you think?
Inb4someonestalksaboutimmigrants
Inb4ancientaliensguy
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4 RepliesEdited by The Cellar Door: 11/14/2014 6:07:20 PMYes, [i]in my opinion[/i] it is a [b]near[/b] impossibility for us to be the only form of life in the universe. To give you an example how big the [i]observable[/i] universe is currently, if you shrunk the Earth down to the size of a [u]single influenza virus[/u] (~ .00010 [b]meters[/b]) the [i]observable [/i]universe would be the size of [u]our solar system[/u] (Sun-Neptune ~ 4,503,000,000,000 [b]meters[/b]). Now to give you an example of how long [i]human[/i] life has been around, in comparison with the age on the universe, if the timeline of the entire universe was scaled to the size of an [u]American football field[/u] (not futbol/soccer; handegg if you wish) the first humans emerged [u]at the very last blade of grass at the very end of the field[/u]. Just looking at the age and size of the universe puts it into perspective how small we are, it seems ridiculous to say there isn't anything else out there. There are literally [b]billions[/b] of galaxies like the one we live in, and we don't even know if there is other life in our galaxy or not. Now comes the intelligent naysayers, the ones who use logic to disprove the possibility rather than a book from antiquity (Not bashing religion as illogical btw, bashing humanity's scientific intelligence 2,000 years ago). It's called the Fermi Paradox, which basically says that it is a paradox to say that there [i]has[/i] to be life out there, if you explain your claim through the age and size of the universe. If the universe is so vast, and so old, then we would have evidence of something else out there by now, considering how quickly humanity has been able to advance as far as space travel, in relation to the age of the universe. I [i]personally[/i] disagree with this for multiple reasons. - Because of the properties of light, and how we see things from distance after a period of time that the light takes to travel to us. This, compiled with the age of the universe, means that we literally could have "missed" an interaction, or we simply are unable to detect one yet. The former is more likely, and contradicts what Fermi is saying, using the period of time humanity has existed against the paradox. - Our laws of physics and perception of "life" [i]could[/i] simply be inadequate to observe advanced life out there. This sounds pretty "Sci-fi-esque", where there could be blobs of consciousness out there that do not fit our understanding of life. However it could very well happen, because there is literally [i]nothing[/i] to stop the possibility, and [i]nothing[/i] to disprove it. This is a weaker argument than the former, because the same can be said about anything (think Russell's teapot), however it cannot be ruled out in the situation of extraterrestrial life, as humanity only understands what it has perceived. The planets we look at for life for now, are planets that [i]we[/i] could live on. Now, don't get me wrong, Fermi was a brilliant guy, but well...I don't think his paradox should rule it out as a high possibility, and scientists who have disagreed with brilliant predecessors that seemed 100% right beforehand, have been right. My best example is Einstein disagreeing that Newtonian physics was the answer to everything in the universe, which he was right, and helped create quantum theory with his disagreement.