The Astronomy Thread

Cybsled · Feb 20, 2019

Intelligence isn't unique on the planet. There are lots of species that use tool, are self-aware, etc. We basically just mean stuff on our level. For all we know, there was life as intelligent/advanced as humans in the very distant past. 10s of millions of years erases most evidence and fossilization is a rare occurance.

The bigger issue with finding other life in the universe, intelligent or not, is complicated by time and distance. We've had the radio for about 100 years, receivers capable of detecting signals from space even less of that time. Assuming the reason we haven't found shit is because of a "filter" that cleans up civilizations seems like a big assumption.

a_skeleton_05 · Feb 20, 2019

Cybsled said:
The bigger issue with finding other life in the universe, intelligent or not, is complicated by time and distance. We've had the radio for about 100 years, receivers capable of detecting signals from space even less of that time. Assuming the reason we haven't found shit is because of a "filter" that cleans up civilizations seems like a big assumption.

The filters are just a part of it all. I think there are people who think that ultimately, they claim all civilizations, but that's just one line of thought. I tend to sway towards it just being one part of a wider range of things that will mean we'll probably never meet another civ, such as you mentioned: time & space being so vast.

I've always found this video to be a big help when it comes conveying the idea of time & distance in this topic to friends/family that don't spend much time thinking about it:

Mudcrush Durtfeet · Feb 20, 2019

Intelligence that makes civilization is fucking rare on this Earth. It's been around for only a tiny fraction of the time that complex life has. The existence of complex life is no guarantee.

It's not tool use, it's not knowing putting a meaning into a sound (plenty of animals do this), it's (imo) the highly complex syntax of language that sets us apart. No other creature on Earth currently does this, our attempts to teach this to other species have done very poorly. When you think about it, random chance seems very unlikely to do it.

Mudcrush Durtfeet · Feb 20, 2019

LachiusTZ said:
Why do you think intelligence would be rare within the set of complex organisms?

On a planet basis. Would make sense to have at least one fairly intelligent organism on any given planet once there is complex life.

The benefit is too large for it not to happen

The ratio of duration of our civilization to the duration of complex life's existence on this planet does not support your assertion.

LachiusTZ · Feb 21, 2019

Mudcrush Durtfeet said:
The ratio of duration of our civilization to the duration of complex life's existence on this planet does not support your assertion.

How do you know? We are mid stream. If the Earth was vaporized then your would have a book end on your data set, but you don't.

Looking at time, the jump to large complex life from simple single cells took billions of years. From large complex to moon base is like half a million years.

And my assertion requires a larger sample size than 1. It's that on any given planet with a billion years of sizeable complex organisms, I think you are likely to find fairly intelligent life because the benefit to intelligence is great.

But in the simulation, there is no need to render any alien civilizations at a resolution where we could tell

Mudcrush Durtfeet · Feb 21, 2019

LachiusTZ said:
How do you know? We are mid stream. If the Earth was vaporized then your would have a book end on your data set, but you don't.

Looking at time, the jump to large complex life from simple single cells took billions of years. From large complex to moon base is like half a million years.

And my assertion requires a larger sample size than 1. It's that on any given planet with a billion years of sizeable complex organisms, I think you are likely to find fairly intelligent life because the benefit to intelligence is great.

But in the simulation, there is no need to render any alien civilizations at a resolution where we could tell

I mean, before humans, in 800 million years or whatever, how many civilized species were here on Earth. Zero. So you could have come here at almost any point when their was complex life and NOT found a civilization of any kind.

LachiusTZ · Feb 21, 2019

Mudcrush Durtfeet said:
I mean, before humans, in 800 million years or whatever, how many civilized species were here on Earth. Zero. So you could have come here at almost any point when their was complex life and NOT found a civilization of any kind.

Not saying it's common to species, but to planets with large complex life after a given period of time.

Cybsled · Feb 21, 2019

Mudcrush Durtfeet said:
I mean, before humans, in 800 million years or whatever, how many civilized species were here on Earth. Zero. So you could have come here at almost any point when their was complex life and NOT found a civilization of any kind.

As far as we know. I'm not saying "yes, there were pre-human civilizations", but it is entirely possible such a thing could have occurred and we wouldn't know about it. For a mental exercise, lets say there was a dino-human equivalent during the cretaceous...maybe 65-66 million years ago. And we won't even assume advanced to the degree of modern humans in the sense we have space craft/internet/a global civilization...let's say stone age/copper age level civilization and let's assume they lived in a similar environment to early humans (forest -> grass lands). Let's say the most advanced structures they built were simple stone constructions, but most people lived in wooden structures. They mostly lived in a local area, ie like Mesopotamia for humans in terms of civilization.

After 65-66 MY, there would be pretty much no record of those structures. Fossilization in grass lands and forests is extremely rare because the conditions aren't right, and unless they build structures in a swamp/massive floodplain/in the shadow of a volcano that erupted pyroclastic style (hot ash vs. lava), the probability of preservation before the elements/natural processes break everything down is small. It's part of the challenge paleontologists have with early hominids...the places they lived SUCKED for fossilization and that's why we have such a shitty fossil record. And that is only dealing with stuff that is 3-1 MY. Multiply that by 20 or 60 and you start to see how it becomes increasingly more difficult to have hopes of finding anything. Even with dinosaurs, paleontologists know we are only seeing an extremely small snapshot due to a combination of undiscovered fossils, but also the fact that many species may have never even fossilized to begin with.

pharmakos · Feb 21, 2019

Cybsled said:
As far as we know. I'm not saying "yes, there were pre-human civilizations", but it is entirely possible such a thing could have occurred and we wouldn't know about it. For a mental exercise, lets say there was a dino-human equivalent during the cretaceous...maybe 65-66 million years ago. And we won't even assume advanced to the degree of modern humans in the sense we have space craft/internet/a global civilization...let's say stone age/copper age level civilization and let's assume they lived in a similar environment to early humans (forest -> grass lands). Let's say the most advanced structures they built were simple stone constructions, but most people lived in wooden structures. They mostly lived in a local area, ie like Mesopotamia for humans in terms of civilization.

After 65-66 MY, there would be pretty much no record of those structures. Fossilization in grass lands and forests is extremely rare because the conditions aren't right, and unless they build structures in a swamp/massive floodplain/in the shadow of a volcano that erupted pyroclastic style (hot ash vs. lava), the probability of preservation before the elements/natural processes break everything down is small. It's part of the challenge paleontologists have with early hominids...the places they lived SUCKED for fossilization and that's why we have such a shitty fossil record. And that is only dealing with stuff that is 3-1 MY. Multiply that by 20 or 60 and you start to see how it becomes increasingly more difficult to have hopes of finding anything. Even with dinosaurs, paleontologists know we are only seeing an extremely small snapshot due to a combination of undiscovered fossils, but also the fact that many species may have never even fossilized to begin with.

hodj can probably chime in and give useful insight on this discussion.

Mudcrush Durtfeet · Feb 21, 2019

LachiusTZ said:
Not saying it's common to species, but to planets with large complex life after a given period of time.

It's a single data point that only exists because WE exist, it took a long time to happen and very well might not have if not for the extinction event that decimated the dinosaurs. We'd need to see more examples of this sort of thing (ie other planets with life and civ) before we can say that it DOES happen over a given period of time. Right now, we don't have any evidence that we AREN'T unique.

LachiusTZ · Feb 21, 2019

Which is essentially what I said.

Earth might be rare, but on "Earth's" I would assert intelligent life is fairly common.

But you and I will literally never know. Barring aliens coming to tell us

Mudcrush Durtfeet · Feb 21, 2019

LachiusTZ said:
Not saying it's common to species, but to planets with large complex life after a given period of time.

But you can't give any examples of this outside of Earth. That's what I'm saying, the only evidence we have is OUR planet, and if you were to randomly pick a time period when there was complex life on this Earth, odds are overwhelming that the time period specified has no civilization here. Over an 800 million time span, assuming (let's be excessively generous here) that our civilization is 100,000 years old (just for argument's sake), then the chance that a randomply selected time period has intelligent life is 8000 to 1.

It may be that we're unlucky and intelligent life develops sooner in most cases, but it might be the other way around, that we are lucky and that it normally doesn't happen in the time elapsed in this universe so far.

Until we DO have more data sources, it's just not possible to provide a definitely accurate answer to this question.

MusicForFish · Feb 21, 2019

Mudcrush Durtfeet said:
But you can't give any examples of this outside of Earth. That's what I'm saying, the only evidence we have is OUR planet, and if you were to randomly pick a time period when there was complex life on this Earth, odds are overwhelming that the time period specified has no civilization here. Over an 800 million time span, assuming (let's be excessively generous here) that our civilization is 100,000 years old (just for argument's sake), then the chance that a randomply selected time period has intelligent life is 8000 to 1.

It may be that we're unlucky and intelligent life develops sooner in most cases, but it might be the other way around, that we are lucky and that it normally doesn't happen in the time elapsed in this universe so far.

Until we DO have more data sources, it's just not possible to provide a definitely accurate answer to this question.

No offense fellow warrior. You need to do much more digging. We have the evidence. I would be much more specific, with documents from our government, but I dont have the time today.

LachiusTZ · Feb 21, 2019

Mudcrush Durtfeet said:
But you can't give any examples of this outside of Earth. That's what I'm saying, the only evidence we have is OUR planet, and if you were to randomly pick a time period when there was complex life on this Earth, odds are overwhelming that the time period specified has no civilization here. Over an 800 million time span, assuming (let's be excessively generous here) that our civilization is 100,000 years old (just for argument's sake), then the chance that a randomply selected time period has intelligent life is 8000 to 1.

It may be that we're unlucky and intelligent life develops sooner in most cases, but it might be the other way around, that we are lucky and that it normally doesn't happen in the time elapsed in this universe so far.

Until we DO have more data sources, it's just not possible to provide a definitely accurate answer to this question.

Which is why it's what I *think*.

Do you have some Hodj disease?

meStevo · Feb 21, 2019

Launch in an hour.

Mudcrush Durtfeet · Feb 21, 2019

meStevo said:
Launch in an hour.

I think that was the third launch and landing for that particular first stage.

Cybsled · Feb 21, 2019

Good shit. Can't wait to see the Heavy.

meStevo · Feb 22, 2019

pharmakos · Feb 22, 2019

Where are all the aliens? Struggling and hustling, just like us

Kind of same old-same old ish but it's a new paper relevant to the recent conversation here, so I figured some might be interested

meStevo · Feb 22, 2019

The best images taken of Ultima Thule are here.

One person's attempt at coloring:

The Astronomy Thread

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