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In the multi-trillions of years before us, who knows...but in a split-second (universe time - more like a few billion to us) we appeared and grew from a single cell to our present culture. Assuming that we are able to travel to space and enhabit other planets, this will likely occur in the time period of another 'split-second' (say, a few million years). Now, we have gone from nothing in the universe to a culture that is rapidly expanding across the universe in an extremely short time period, absolutely speaking. Therefore, if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe they must either be 1)not much more advanced than us, 2)very far away, 3) hiding themselves from us, or they don't exist.

you probably think i pulled that out of my ass just now. i'll try to explain this a bit...

Now, since we came into being and expanded so fast, it seems unlikely that another civilization exists right now, because they would have had to spontaneously form at essentially the SAME TIME as us (remember, a million years is nothing...), which is highly unlikely. Ok, so what if intelligent life does exist? Well, from the first case, we'd have to assume that they've had a LOT of time to advance, seeing as how they would have been around long before us. Which means that they'd almost definetly have developed some means of inhabiting other planets (one star only lasts so long). Now, after inhabiting a few solar systems, their ability to colonize should rapidly improve, to the point of exponential growth (over millions of years). If this is the case, they should have expanded so far that they would have covered all of the universe (is that possible?), or their transmissions would cover a great part of it (i'd think they would be interested in other forms of intelligent life, too). so this couldn't have happened unless they are Very far away...even after they've had millions of years to colonize galaxies, at an exponential rate. Otherwise we would have picked up a signal by now. It seems unlikely that we wouldn't have discovered some evidence by now, if they are ALL OVER THE PLACE (just not around here, heh). This would only leave the third choice, that they found and are watching us, but are hiding so that we can't see/detect them ... or that intelligent life doesn't exist anywhere else right now..

in any case, that was a rant-and-a-half

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"It's not peer pressure, its just your turn." - Unknown

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[This message has been edited by darksol (edited September 22, 2000).]

now if you just mean other life in the universe, then statistically, there really is almost no way there isnt. not only in our general area, but when you take into consideration the infinite space theorem(see below) theres probably an infinite amount of "intelligent life" living up my ass right now.

infinite space theorem: electrons, neutrons and protons make up atoms. there is space between these particles. the idea is that there could be a lot more space or a lot less, and that would severely change the size of the atom. so like if our atoms have 1 unit of space, another set of atoms could have 1(put lots and lots and lots of 0s here) units of space btw the particles, and our universe can fit nicely inside that space. if this doesnt make sense, watch men in black, and at the end, thats kind of what im talking about.

if anyone has the textbook definition of this, please correct me...

Also, hyperponic, it might do you good to pay more attention in science. This universe is not believed to be multi-trillions of years old, evidence so far suggests it is more in the 15-20 billion year range.

More seriously, if there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, then the chances are pretty high that at least a few of those stars have a planet with conditions that can support life of some sort or another, and with 100 billion galaxies to chose from in the observed universe, there's also a fair chance that some of them might have developed life; whether it is like anything on earth is anyone's guess. Depending on how many such fertile planets there are, there might or might not be a planet (or hundreds of them) with life in similar stages of evolution to our own planet.

The fact is we don't know for sure if there is sentient life out there, and speculation on the matter is more the stuff of science fiction than science. *Cue Star Trek theme music* We would have to in some way visit or observe these sentient beings, or see evidence of their existence before we could be sure. But until then, I'm sure us humans will be more than happy to continue to "boldly go where no man has gone before" in our attempts to learn all the hidden secrets of the vast universe we live in....

Sorry, I guess I watch too much SciFi and Science shows.

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Just your generic meaningless signature. Mix with 2 quarts water and stir till evenly coated.

If there is a God that created our universe and started life, then maybe we are just here to serve him and our lives hold no other purpose. But then again maybe God loves playing around with life forms and created thousands of other life forms all over the universe...and he's just waiting for us to discover each other...

(I'm telling you it's a big sim universe, and God is ..well..playing God..)

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