Are we alone in the universe?

.............."That silence is maddening. Not just because it compounds our feeling of cosmic isolation, but because it makes no sense. As we inevitably find more and more exo-planets where intelligent life can exist, why have we found no evidence — no signals, no radio waves — that intelligent life does exist?

It’s called the Fermi Paradox, after the great physicist who once asked, “Where is everybody?”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

I think where we go wrong with this whole paradigm is to assume that other intelligent life will seek to broadcast it's existence. Only the other day I read an article on the big experiment with the Hubble space telescope. Astronauts pointed it into what was presumed to be empty space and for a period of 11 days collected data. It was risky since the cost and time for the Hubble telescope is so great. If they found nothing it would have resulted in ridicule, but instead they discovered thousands of the most distant galaxies yet imaged (deep space). Each galaxy holds billions of stars (presumed). Given the vastness of space, the richness of planets around stars and the enormous number of stars themselves within a single galaxy, it seems unreasonable for other life not to exist in the universe. However, the distance between galaxies and even stars in our own galaxy is duanting enough to make an active search in the words of the Borg :futile". I expect we will discover life elsewhere quite unexpectedly.

Rockdoc Franz wrote: I think where we go wrong with this whole paradigm is to assume that other intelligent life will seek to broadcast it's existence.

I do not think it is so much that they would have to be seeking to broadcast their existence. It is that if they live in the same physical universe as we do they will have to have a similar electromagnetic signature. I have been on ships that for tactical reasons have tried to zero out their electronic signature (emcon condition alpha), it ain't easy. We used to loose war games to the Aussies because they were so much better at it than we were. For a whole civilization to do it....?

Rockdoc Franz wrote: I think where we go wrong with this whole paradigm is to assume that other intelligent life will seek to broadcast it's existence. Only the other day I read an article on the big experiment with the Hubble space telescope. Astronauts pointed it into what was presumed to be empty space and for a period of 11 days collected data. It was risky since the cost and time for the Hubble telescope is so great. If they found nothing it would have resulted in ridicule, but instead they discovered thousands of the most distant galaxies yet imaged (deep space). Each galaxy holds billions of stars (presumed). Given the vastness of space, the richness of planets around stars and the enormous number of stars themselves within a single galaxy, it seems unreasonable for other life not to exist in the universe. However, the distance between galaxies and even stars in our own galaxy is duanting enough to make an active search in the words of the Borg :futile". I expect we will discover life elsewhere quite unexpectedly.

I still can't over, that a photon traveled 13 billion light years only to strike a light sensitive plate in a telescope orbiting our earth ,thereby turning its self into a bit of digital energy. I don’t think we are alone, however the distances may be so great that we will never know of each other. Much like the penguin will never know the polar bear.

If you missed the video it's posted Here on AHWBound.com

No we are not alone. Silly to think we are the only ones.

What qualifies as life? Does it have to be carbon based and look like us? It very well could be that there are life forms on Earth that we don't know of yet and may never interact with because of our preconceived notions of what a living being looks like and/or is composed of.