"Cliff Smith" <cliff(nospam)smith23@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:UaKOa.5597$ju6.101641@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net...

Here are some of my thoughts on the existence of alien life.

My only original point was to point out how, for at least two decades,
debunkers often used whichever of the two explanations that I mentioned
depending upon whichever suited their needs for that particular debate. I
also pointed out the irony of how, when you really think about it, their own
explinations really supported the proponant side of the debate more than the
sceptical side all along.

But I also love discussing these kinds of subjects, so...

In assessing the probability of other advanced civilisations existing
elsewhere in the galaxy, it's important to maintain both a sense of
perspective and a firm grasp of the laws of physics and chemistry, at

least

as far as they are currently understood.

The laws of physics and chemistry as we know them today. Even the most
stuffy scientist will tell you that these change or are added too from
time-to-time. So we are probably just making wild guesses based on very
little real information at the primitive stage that we are currently at,
having barely entered space at all.

So far, 115 planetary bodies with a mass less than 18x that of Jupiter

have

been discovered orbiting Sun-like stars relatively (in astronomical terms)
close to our own. The search is ongoing, and detection techniques are

being

constantly refined.

Thank god. Do you realize that, for years, the most ardent of the debunkers
would question the existance of any planets outside this solar system
because none had been discovered. Can you believe that?

It is consistent with current theories regarding planetary formation to
suggest that smaller, denser planets might accompany these gas giants so

far

detected. Giant planets can be detected because of the perturbations they
cause in the movement of their respective stars. Smaller Earth-like

planets

don't cause enough movement to be detectable with our current instruments,
but still may be present.

Just think what the instruments of a species somewhat like us, but two or
three hundred thousand years more advanced, might have. I bet they could at
least detect large bodies of water from great distances, possibly even the
whole galaxy. But even if only an area 50 light years in every direction...
a dozen or so exploration ships with that equipment. If life is rare, they
are looking for us. If it is not... end of debate. Does any of this make you
rethink your idea of how long it might take just one race in this galaxy to
find us if they are looking for us? Remember, we are one of the younger
systems.

As is well understood, the chemical elements that make up our environment
were produced from lighter elements by the fusion processes within stars,
processes that are apparently consistent in most stars, therefore it is
likely that any solid planets orbiting other stars would be made up of

much

the same elements that make up the planets in our own solar system.

It sure is...

There are very few of those chemical elements with the range of complex
bonding characteristics necessary to support the types of molecules

required

for life as we know it to exist.

Then it sure is fortunate that, assuming you are correct, we have the right
combination in so many places. There could be life all over the place:-)

It is possible that silicon-based
biochemical molecules could exist at higher temperatures, and even that
ammonia could form the basis of an alternative biochemistry, but carbon is
more stable at a wider range of temperatures, and therefore much more
likely. Therefore it is not unreasonable to assume that if life exists
elsewhere, the majority of it will be carbon-based. Speculations about
ethereal beings, machine intelligences and super-intelligent shades of the
colour blue are unhelpful and are best left in the realms of science
fiction. If we want to make contact with aliens, we need to be able to
recognise and communicate with them, so it will be helpful if we at least
have a basic biochemistry in common.

Yes, but I suppose we'll have to settle for what we find... or finds us.

However, having established that life on other worlds is possible at least
in principle, we must turn to the likelihood of our ever being able to
communicate with, let alone visit, these hypothetical aliens. If life on
other worlds must obey the same rules of chemistry as us in order to

exist,

then it must also obey the same laws of physics. For nearly a century, it
has been an established axion of relativity that information cannot be
propagated faster than the speed of light, which is as far as we know a
constant throughout the universe. We cannot travel faster than light, and
neither can the aliens. While we might be statistically certain that there
are other civilisations in distant solar systems, we will almost certainly
never be able to visit them and they will never be able to visit us.

Well, actually we probably can. You see, even our own primitive science and
culture, which has barely even entered space at all, has already postulated
a few different ways of "cheating Einstien" (assuming his information is
even complete). As far as I am aware, all of these ideas have one thing in
common and that is that they "effectively exceed the speed of light without
actually exceeding the speed of light". The most famous of the concepts is
the wormhole, the artificial version of which is often called a "Jump Gate"
(even before Babylon 5). There's also the warp drive, essentially a ship
capable of opening it's own wormhole. The problem doesn't appear too be some
type of "Light Barrier" (that sound barrier was a killer, wasn't it...). The
only problem is generating an amazing amount of power, but not an
unimaginable amount of power, since we've also already postulated several
ways to produce that much power (containing a fusion reaction similar to the
sun's, for example). The actual problem for us seems too be that we are
primitive tribesmen when it comes to space. If we could generate the power,
I have little doubt that we would be moving ships from point A to point B at
what appeared too be FTL speed. We might even just flat out be moving faster
than light some day, but that isn't necessary to effectively exceed the
speed of light. If we've already thought of this much, at this primitive
stage, I don't see how we couldn't be at least close too it 100,000 years
from now. As an interesting side note, there only needs to be one species in
this entire galaxy too have reached this stage for us too be located by that
species in short order (a thousand years at most).