Do you believe in possibility of life in other galaxies?

[WalsallWeather]

I can’t imagine how there isn’t, somewhere in the vast open space that we will never reach, there isn’t a similar solar system where everything is just perfectly placed for another earth. 
 

I don’t for one minute think that they’re heading towards us in flying saucers beaming people up and taking them away though. 
 

I hope they’re more intelligent than us though and realise how lucky they are that they’re on a planet just in the right spot for life and try to look after it and everything on it instead. 

[Scuba steve]

13 minutes ago, The PIT said:

We are not that intelligent as we destroy our environment. There's also other intelligent life on earth

I did consider that after I made  my post 

[lassie23]

squirrels and spiders are intelligent, one solves puzzles the other plays deeed

[danm]

Professor Brian Cox, well worth a watch:

 

[Fen Wolf]

Life apart from humans and what you see on Earth is everywhere in the Universe, you just don’t see it because humanity’s technology is not great.  
 

But yes, alien life is everywhere and in forms and places you wouldn’t really expect or understand sometimes & often too.  
 

Let alone the other galaxies, this galaxy has billions upon billions of civilisations just within the 5000 light year radius, most likely most of then not even out of diapers (as in not a type 1 civilisation yet) but the search continues for another being like our own

[Dark Horse]

 Fen Wolf Yeah I don't think were as advanced as we think we are. Sure we've moved away from more primitive living in every way but medicine still isn't amazing either, improved for sure but there's a lot that we still don't understand about our bodies, how they dysfunction, how they break down nor how to cure more complex diseases that are connected to all that and how to fully rejuvenate our bodies, organs and everything else to perhaps live well into our 100s without too much mobility problems. Maybe we will........in a few hundred years. At the moment it's very very slow progress, but it's still progressing non the less, it's just we still don't understand or know enough yet. Humans are perhaps just not clever enough? we may think we are... but are we? we can only compare ourselves to other animals on the planet and we are streets ahead of them, whereas other more intelligent civilisations, should they exist in the universe, could've cracked lots of stuff in tech (things that are way over our heads) and also in medicine, should they be anything like us, physically that is. They could put us in our place so to speak.

[lassie23]

I think there is life on Mars and beyond the Milkyway but it is a Marathon journey to get there

[Scuba steve]

 lassie23a rare image of the Milky Way taken from the surface of mars

[Fen Wolf]

 Dark Horse humanity and Earth is basically a day trip or a zoo to passers by like Aliens who want to see early civilisations.  At the current rate it would take humanity a million years to become a type 2 civilisation despite what they think or say.  
 

We just cannot get past always wanting to go to War with each other and everything is about making money.  More more more, we need to learn to accept each other, everyone and live as one species and find global inner peace before we can and are able to mature to even the type 1 phase.  
 

Humans have a very long way to go and a huge task ahead of them, if they succeed then the stars belong to them too but currently we just seem to want to nuke each other.  Saddens me and very much disappoints me

 lassie23 yes, mars will be one of the first places they discover life, likely the micro organisms that live within the water under ground, in cave systems that are warmed by the magma beneath it; hence causing a perfect solution for life to exist as you see on Earth

[Dark Horse]

 Fen Wolf that's a brilliant reply yeah I think about the zoo thing too like they might be observing us, seeing our development. I don't usually delve often into space conversations with people, especially not with people I know they would think I'm going mad lol. I couldn't hold a conversation about physics and other things like that. My natural habitat is hairdressing and related stuff! haha. But for whatever reason this subject has always intrigued me. What's that saying "there's a whole other world out there". I hope people start to think about it more as well. And other people are free to believe what they want too.

[Fen Wolf]

 Dark Horse yes, they are definitely watching and seeing if humanity can make it.  Every civilisation has to do it themselves to earn their place.  

[In Absence of True Seasons]

A previous comment said "We are not that intelligent because we destroy our environment. And There's other intelligent life on earth"

Firstly, I don't think that intelligence and destructive capabilities are mutually exclusive. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they're intrinsically linked, at least where humans as a species are concerned. The main reason why we are so destructive is due to our intelligence. The only other animals on the planet who possess an inkling of actively destructive capabilities / desire are Chimpanzees and Dolphins, who are -  uncoincidentally - the most intelligent animals after ourselves.

"I think, therefore I am" is the hallmark of sentience. The recognition of "I am" manifests in "I want", aka an ego, leading to "I can / I will, because I want". This in-turn ensures we consistently and relentlessly undertake the pursuit of increased comfort and ease, often to the detriment of A) our environment, and/or B) other humans). Of course, all animals pursue comfort, but their lack of sentience/ego coupled with hyper-social skills (which is humans' winning combo) means they do not innovate or create or adaptate in order to achieve this like we do. Sure, chimps might use sticks to help eat termites but they don't build stone axes to chop down trees for wood to build a fort/shelter... 

On the topic of 'other intelligent life' on earth, you could make the argument that pretty much all life possesses some form of intelligence. But it really depends on what barometers/qualities we want to determine 'intelligence' by. Dogs can be pretty smart, but they also eat their own poo and do not recognise themselves in the mirror, for example. Ultimately, sentience is the real measure of true intelligence, which is what most people think of when we refer to "intelligent life on other planets". Aka another species that creates, innovates, adaptates and is social, alongside recognition of a "self" and demonstration of that in the physical world. The interesting question for me is not whether such life exists elsewhere (of course it does) but rather, the ways and means in which such life could manifest in environments with different pressures and conditions to Earth's. Are there only certain types of creature that can evolve to be sentient and social due to the constraints of such traits? (E.g. they *have* to have some sort of face with recognisable traits due to the social element of the species). Or could another planet's environs be so different to ours that sentient life could successfully evolve in a manner that we could barely recognise and not be able to communicate with? Invisible to the human eye, even.

[alexisj9]

 Methuselah my understanding is the other way around. For those who believe in such things

[Scuba steve]

Maybe one day 

[alexisj9]

 In Absence of True Seasons i feel you underestimate the intelligence of most or perhaps all animals/organisms.

Even dogs if left to roam free, would survive in packs, and act sort of like hyinas/jackles/wolves. They all have the skills they need to survive, that infers intelligence. What do dolphins do that's destructive, I've missed something somewhere. All living things have the intelligence to do what they do. 

 Scuba steve perhaps lol,  it very unlikely to look anything like the enterprise if we do.

Edited February 14 by alexisj9

[Scuba steve]

 alexisj9 lol, that’s Ai for you

[lassie23]

One thing is for sure, we won't be getting any visitors from Uranus that place is too hostile for life as we know it.

[cheeky_monkey]

 lassie23 oh i dont know... met few people from Uranus on the roads this morning 

[Fen Wolf]

 Scuba steve war of the worlds scenario from the musical Jeff Wayne & originally HG Wells

 

Although this likely did happen many thousands of years ago to give humanity the spark and to teach on how to cook, love & build; among other things.  

[cheeky_monkey]

My question is if superior beings (aliens) exist why do they always appear to be naked ?..maybe they couldn't get passed the flared trousers and platform shoes stage and reverted back to birthday suits ..maybe that's the great filter? if so are we the first species to get past it? 

[matty40s]

 Scuba steve that's Morecambes new leisure centre.

[Scuba steve]

 cheeky_monkey also a bit action mannish where it counts must be a bugger for procreation

[78/79]

Pretty sure my first Mother in law came down in a Flying Saucer, come to think of it, V was on at the time  I caught her adjusting her human mask .