On Galaxys and Civilizations.

[Shatokan]

All right, reading another thread i came across these words that provoked strong emotions in me.

Okay the politically correct version is this. There is absolutely nothing special relative to the universe, about the human species. we are just a random collection of molecules with no meaning and no purpose. The universe is full of others like us.

However, the fact is there is absolutely no indication, despite decades of searching with sophisticated technology that there is any other intelligent life in the universe. One would think that a species with a couple billions of years of technological advances could have found a way to send a signal to such as us.

It would seem logical at this point in time to assume we are alone in this galaxy, at least, simply because there is not one iota of evidence to suggest otherwise. Oh sure theoretically and according to the numbers there should be a great number of intelligent species. Well maybe in this case the "Great Oracle of Numbers" is mistaken.I always feel people that use this excuse are sorely misinformed. Humans as a civilization are not smart, if an alien race came to earth humans would not accept it openly, consider movies about aliens, how many are hostile compared to friendly?

A solid reason humans would not be contacted by intelligent life is because we are still not even considered a level 1 civilization according to the Kardashev scale. As said by Dr. Michio Kaku humans being contacted by a level 3 civilization would be the same as humans contacting ants.

He explains the 3 types of civilizations:
YouTube- YouTube Dr Michio Kaku 3 types of Extraterrestrial Civilizations

Traveling at light speed, the nearest galaxy, Alpha centuari is 4.7 years away, and yet humans can only currently travel at 252,792 km/h and that is with the help of the suns gravitational force, traveling .29 AU from the sun just inside the mercury orbit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_probes). An AU is the mean distance from the earth to the sun(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit).

Using that speed, it would take roughly 20,000 years to get from earth to that galaxy. (correct my math if i'm wrong please http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light)

And yet people assume that because no other species has contacted earth there is no other life out there, this is the same as assuming there is no god because he never talks to me personally and there is no proof of him being in the first place. (Though there is also no proof he DOESN'T exist.)

Looking at another universe, the nearest spiral galaxy The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years away (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy), meaning even if we COULD see what was happening in it, we would be seeing 2.5 million years into the past, any radio waves we picked up should be even further back. So assuming there is intelligent life in another galaxy, would we even be able to see them. Or would they be primitive life forms, such as we were 2.5 million years ago.

Scanning for "signals" is ineffective. as Dr. Michio Kaku explains.
please watch these videos as he explains better than me.
YouTube- YouTube - Michio Kaku On Aliens On Physics ...

I need to stop or i'll keep going.

EDIT: As you can see, i like Dr. Michio Kaku. He's one of my favorite physicists. Astro physics is one subject I'm very passionate about.

[Agent Intellect]

I agree with all that was said. I would also add an addendum that we have only been broadcasting for 100 years or less, so our radio signals have not even scratched the surface of our galaxy yet - it's perfectly possible that whoever is out there is not aware of our presence yet.

I also liked where he was going in the second video; we assume that another civilization will have to travel through the same three dimensional space that we are confined to when in fact they might have mastered a way to traverse time as if it were just another direction in space (they occupy various points in time the way we do with space), or found a way to bypass spacetime itself, possibly with warp drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive) in which they use the fabric of spacetime itself to propel them, or even literally going around spacetime via wormholes or some method we haven't even conceived of yet.

It's also possible that the organisms (or trans-organisms if they've merged with their technology, which I would assume anything sufficiently advanced would have) don't even perceive existence the way we do, or process information the same way. It's possible that earth itself is actually in some way a component of the aliens intelligence, or even a signaling beacon (think Sirens of Titan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirens_of_Titan)). The way our molecules are aligned, or the way our brains compute, may just be a cog in the vast type 3 civilizations cosmic computer.

[Cognisant]

The way our molecules are aligned, or the way our brains compute, may just be a cog in the vast type 3 civilizations cosmic computer.
I suppose that would be god then.
Unless one wants to believe in some sort of entity that existed before the existence of existence and somehow straddles the distinction between existence and non-existence in order to maintain a universe of inherent meaning.

That's all I've got, I agree with everything else written thus far.