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For how many trillions of planets, there is the universe to say were the only ones with life is ridiculous.
Have you got a source for that? I’d love to read the explanation.
I don't but I think it was on one of the programmes in his last series, not that long ago IIR.
I was really disappointed cos when I look up at the gazillions of stars I always used to think, 'we simply can not be alone in the universe'.
He never said we weren't the only ones but explained how It's more likely that we are.
Intruiging.
I love Prof Cox me.
Other astronomers disagree with that position, I think.
Might be this one.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000wnk3/brian-coxs-adventures-in-space-and-time-series-1-2-aliens-are-we-alone
I REALLY want there to be some other life in the whole universe!
I quite enjoy the fact the human race is going to self destruct, so many nobheads are going to get it, including myself. 😜
The only way we can be saved is if footflaps comes up with a plan.🙂
Why is it imperative for the human race to survive?
Not sure you will live that long to witness whatever future will look like.
... Prof Cox ...
He is better off simply sitting on the fence in regard to ET. i.e. just say don't know as nobody expects him to solve the puzzle of the Universe. His logic that nothing is out there is comparable to the flat earth of the past. Who knows very far in future (Star Trek reality) Cox will be a laughing stock with his argument just like the way we laugh at those flat earth "intellectuals".
As for most people who are concerned with future human race, this simply does not sound logical or consistence. Why concern? You will be dead in this life time and that's it. End. Nothing. Turn to dust. Your machine has come to the end of it's life. Whether you are concerned or not you will not live to see it. You will Not exist in anyway or form. The only way perhaps is to prepare your children for the things to come, so that they don't curse you for being lazy and idealistic without giving them a head start to survival. Therefore, unless you believe in afterlife or reborn again as human being, there is really no logic for you to justify the future as far as this limited life you still have. Clock is ticking ... your material shell is slowly wearing out.
However, I believe in afterlife or take a future rebirth whatever which sucks! Why? Because I might be reborn in a time of future apocalypse where there will be intense suffering and I might end as a slave to some "amazonian" women as a reproductive machine where there are limited men around. I will be doing it every hour of my living time until such time as I am unable to perform and they use machine to extract ... you know artificial insemination.
Therefore, the logic of your concerned in the future of mankind is inconsistent if you do not believe in afterlife or reborn as some form of life. Your life end in this life and whatever others think of you is irrelevant good or bad. You are dust by that time.
His logic that nothing is out there
He never said that & he wasn't using logic. He said It's unlikely & explained why.
Maybe you should watch the episode where he explained it.
He said It’s unlikely
We currently haven't nor in the current future have the ability to send a person looking. We currently use telescopes to search the solar systems with earth-like exoplanets that have the possibility to sustain life. Bearing in mind we don't even know if life exists under Jupiter's Europa moon or not which compared to other planets is only a stone's throw away.
Hopefully, the new James Webb telescope which is 100 times more powerful than Hubble can help find answers.
Galaxy not Universe
He went on to say he was "sure there are other civilisations out there in the universe" - there are, after all, two trillion galaxies that we know of.
The question for many, including Prof Cox, is how often intelligent life comes into being, and how widely spaced out it is.
He said: "I think they're very widely spaced, and I think there are one or two per galaxy as an average."
So several trillion alien civilizations then.
The question is many have conquered inter-galaxy travel and how many haven't gone beyond pedal power and landing on a nearby moon?
He's only giving his opinion that even he can't truly answer. The real question is life, no matter how simple. Even humans originated from the most basic form of life.
He said: “I think they’re very widely spaced, and I think there are one or two per galaxy as an average.”
So several trillion alien civilizations then.
Most of the galaxies we observe are millions and billions of lightyears distant. The nearest is 25,000 lightyears. So unless there is other intelligent life within our galaxy, we could be waiting an awful long time for any signals.
Most of the galaxies we observe are millions and billions of lightyears distant. The nearest is 25,000 lightyears. So unless there is other intelligent life within our galaxy, we could be waiting an awful long time for any signals.
Never mind about awaiting for signals, if they have been travelling at half the speed of light for the last 50,000 years they could be arriving any day now.
I just hope they come in peace.
I think they will be very disappointed and turn straight back around and head back home.
Never mind about awaiting for signals, if they have been travelling at half the speed of light for the last 50,000 years they could be arriving any day now.
On the other hand there could be millions of civilisations of a similar "advanced state" to ourselves. In which case they will only just be sending primitive robotic craft beyond their solar systems and the oldest radio signals they have sent out will still be 24800 lightyears away from us.
I think they will be very disappointed and turn straight back around and head back home.
Yup, it was probably worth visiting Earth 50,000 years ago when they first set off. Before we trashed it.
Mind you they might be on their second visit.
That will be a disappointment for them.
On the other hand there could be millions of civilisations of a similar “advanced state” to ourselves.
That means the suffering continues if I reborn there 🙁
You're not going to be reborn anywhere.
I am sure there are aliens, but I'm equally sure we're never going to meet any since I don't think FTL travel will turn out to be possible.
Why would they need FTL travel? Why the hurry?
Why can't they travel for thousands of years?
Yeah! Sub light was good enough for the Pak Protectors and look where they got!
You’re not going to be reborn anywhere.
You are turning into dust.
LOL! For me it is just as " ... same rubbish different place ..."
So Prof Cox doesn't know anything but you know you will be reborn. Think I know which person I will be listening to.
The op question instantly reminded me of this article about this idea of Longtermism.
https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo
Still havent finished reading it though its long.
Edit just noticed it can be listned to as well.
I had to take my dog out for a wee in the middle of the night last night.
It was a clear night and the sky was full of stars. Like jam-packed full.
As I looked up to the sky looking at the stars, focussing further away and noticing even more stars, I thought to myself, I don't give a damn what Prof Cox said, there's no way we're alone here 😉
Obviously I've no idea really. Haven't actually listed to what Prof Cox says but well, I'm just a bit disappointed. I always presumed that there was all sorts of different life out there and to learn that someone who knows much more than me about it, thinks not, leaves me a little sad.
Damn you, Prof Cox and your big brained knowledge!
He could be wrong of course. I'd like to think so at least.
We are and can only be self-referential, so humans are the only ones who can decide what’s good and what’s not, of course.
That makes zero sense to me!
(Life) we can give it any meaning we like. I choose my own meaning which is to have a good time and help others have a good time, without doing too many things that people don’t like.
So then you must agree that some things are ‘better and worse’ for other lifeforms than your self-referencing self? And if you were to stop doing things that they don’t like, then it’s better for them?
Are they though? Who’s to decide that increased biodiversity is ‘good’?
I was specifically referring to ‘better off’. ‘Good’ will sort of suffice though. Again, it comes down to definitions.
1.
to be desired or approved of.
"it's good that he's back to his old self"
2.
having the required qualities
So in reference to ‘who’s to decide?’ , for sake of argument let me choose an obvious example in troops/families of orangutans in a rainforest
They have been suffering from palm oil plantation-owners setting fires to clear the forest cover/habitat, so the orangutans (and nearly every other living thing) are forced by desperation now to search for food elsewhere (often human villages) where they are then captured or killed by farmers who treat them as ‘pests’. An orangutan will be treated in the same fashion as a pesky bug, partly because the human has a cultural belief in it’s supremacy/divinity over it’s nearest cousins.
I’d argue that if the farmers were to disappear overnight then the orangutans are both objectively and subjectively better off because they (like us) objectively and subjectively desire to thrive, eat, reproduce, raise family, be happy, live life and care for their family and friends.
I’d argue that they really wouldn’t care for your sentiment because they’re. 1. Better off eating their food than not having access to their food 2. Better off having somewhere to live as they evolved to live, and 3. Better off not being separated from their families and killed/injured/having to watch their family and friends be killed/injured/taken away.
I’m fairly certain that they don’t care or even have the ability to care what you or I think about this/yours or my sentiment (unless that sentiment was expressed via direct conflict or relief)
I’m also fairly convinced that I’m being neither self-referential nor sentimental by referencing their plight. They are (objectively and subjectively) sentient and they also (objectively and subjectively) have needs to bet met in order to have fulfilling lives.
I mean I’d like the planet to continue to support life.
There have been periods in the distant past where the planet came very close to losing all life above the level of bacteria, or maybe tardigrades! There was ‘snowball Earth’, when the snowcaps increased dramatically, and expanded almost to the equator! There have been a number of massive die-offs where 90%+ of the planets life pretty much vanished, but came back in new and different forms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event
I don’t give a damn what Prof Cox said
Haven’t actually listed to what Prof Cox says but well
Prof Cox and your big brained knowledge!
Just so you don't have to waste your time actually listening to what Prof Cox said, he didn't say there is no life elsewhere in the universe.
Why would they need FTL travel? Why the hurry?
Why can’t they travel for thousands of years?
How could they do that! They would need either some sort of hibernation system, that could protect and nurture the sleeping crew for eons, or use vast colony ships where the crew have families and continually produce new crew, but that would require remarkably sophisticated systems for maintaining the health of the occupants, as it would, by definition, be a completely closed-circuit system. There are any number of SF stories involving such concepts, probably one of the most extreme is the Puppeteer system in Larry Niven’s books, where their entire home system of a number of identical sized planets are equally spaced in orbit around their sun, and the sun has been turned into a propulsion unit, and is being flown out of the galaxy! Great concept, that.
There are a number of reasons we can’t detect any signs of life from other systems, the first, as Coxy says, is that many, many solar systems just aren’t suitable for either developing and/or sustaining life, at least in a sophisticated form.
The others could be that really sophisticated civilisations have got to the point where their home systems have stopped being wasteful of the energy from the solar body, and are either using Dyson spheres, or have surrounded the star with a spherical cloud of processors, ‘computronium’, to quote one writer, and uploaded themselves into the cloud itself. That cloud could also be a Matrioska system, an expanding series of shells, each one using the waste heat being radiated out by the inner shells.
Not that I read much SF, you understand… 😆
An update on the layout of the Puppeteer system, which is a Klemperer Rosette:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers
In general, humans perceive increased biodiversity as better because it gets closer to how things were in the beforetimes, before we started messing with it. But that's not universally good for everything. The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone is a resounding success for biodiversity, but not so much for the deer. Which is the same reason the wolves were eradicated in the first place - the humans didn't want the predation.
I still think the drive to restore ecosystems and increase biodiversity is purely a sentimental drive from humans. That's not to denigrate it, though - it's a sentiment I share 100%. But none of it still matters in a purely objective sense. That raises the question of how useful absolute objectivity is in this context.
The other question is that even if FTL travel is possible, how much faster than light would it be? If intelligent civilisations are spaced ten thousand Ly apart on average, if they can simply travel at 2c then it's still a 5 thousand year prospect. Unless they are extraordinarily long lived it'd still be a fairly unattractive proposition to them for the same reasons it is to us.
So Prof Cox doesn’t know anything but you know you will be reborn. Think I know which person I will be listening to.
His guess of what is out there especially the future is as good as mine.
I could end up being reborn as alien, LOL! (prefer Predator like).
Scientific logic dictates that you turn to dust in this lifetime. End. Future of mankind or earth has nothing to do with you in scientific term because you cease to exist. Therefore, you should not be concerned about the future.
For me, the stake is higher than you because I have to contemplate on being reborn again in some life form whatever. The logic is that I should be more concerned about the future earth as I might have to go through the same rubbish life again, perhaps in other universe or galaxy whatever, while your concept of turning in dust upon expiry of life simply stop in this lifetime. Whatever future has installed for earth there is nothing that should concern you because you have no more existence.
Hence, the person that should be concerned is me as I might have to come back again to this messy place caused by mankind. For those with scientific logic such concerns is illogical.
Therefore, you should not get stress up in whatever is remain in life and enjoy whatever left because this is the last of your existence. Your only concern now should be when the moment of death come, just pray that it will be a peaceful one with the memory of joy in life. Then you turn to dust once cremated (saves space is the logic and burying people is just taking up more real estate).
P/s: if I have the scientific mind, I would probably enjoy myself with no limit. Eat all the shark fins soup I can get my hand on. Eat all the best food in the world that I can afford. Do whatever that my body can take and enjoy myself to the hilt that I can get away with. Why should I be sad or moral when I know this is my last existence? Why should I care about what mankind or earth should be in future? Sort that and enjoy as much as I can get away with.
Machine has no moral nor feeling as it just consumes everything in it's path.
Oh ya as one of my engineering friend once said he only needs to survive his retirement until his life expires without hardship (he is loaded!). Enjoy his remaining life without pain while the rest he does not care.
I asked him to will his property to me because logic states that he will have no used for whatever left (property, money etc) after his death. Moral question should not be his concerned but logic states that I am his friend and perhaps expires later than him, so I should continue the enjoyment ... somehow he hesitates for some reasons LOL!
@chewkw. I admire your logic. It makes sense to me as let’s be honest once your dead you don’t need or care about anything
Why would they need FTL travel? Why the hurry?
Why can’t they travel for thousands of years?
How could they do that! They would need either some sort of hibernation system, that could protect and nurture the sleeping crew for eons, or use vast colony ships where the crew have families and continually produce new crew, but that would require remarkably sophisticated systems for maintaining the health of the occupants, as it would, by definition, be a completely closed-circuit system.
I think you are thinking of human experiences and limitations and applying it to all the possible trillions of alien civilizations.
We would they need some sort of hibernation? We have organisms on Earth that are thousands of years of old. There is no reason to assume that lifeforms can't simply live indefinitely by simply replacing/regenerating whatever it is that needs replacing. Or simply never needs replacing.
but that would require remarkably sophisticated systems for maintaining the health of the occupants, as it would, by definition, be a completely closed-circuit system.
What if this "completely closed-circuit system" was the size of Mars, or even bigger? What if they are tiny? What if 10 years to us was 1 hour to them?
What if their civilization started 2 billion years ago? Which is perfectly feasible, planets have been around longer than that.
Humans developed powered machines ( other than by wind and water) about 300 years ago. During that period development has never stood still, ever. From a steam engine that was able to pump water out of coal mines to advanced military aircraft.
What if an alien civilization has been developing technology for 50 million years?
The survival of the human race isn't imperitave in the grand scheme of things. The universe doesn't really care.
However, knowingly damaging the environment that supports us is illogical to any species intelligent enough to understand that, no matter how slow the decline.
The whole thing comes down to some really basic discipline, and I'd argue many of the changes we need to make to avert climate change would actually improve many lives. It's the equivalent of not eating chocolate all day, every day, just because you like chocolate, but on a societal level. And that's exactly where we're at now, over-indulging in everything just because we can, without any consideration for the consequences or the effects it has on our daily lives. The question is whether we carry on like junkies, or apply at least enough discipline to create an environment where we can thrive. I'd like to think we're smart enough to choose the latter.
... over-indulging in everything just because we can, without any consideration for the consequences or the effects it has on our daily lives.
^^^ the problem is disposable products which do not last and can't be repaired but require constant consumption / use of raw materials.