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Absolutely, yes. We as people take a lot of things on faith, I think. I'm not a "flat earther" or a "moon landing fake-er", but I'm also not equipped whatsoever to prove to anyone my position on those two things. I believe the earth is a globe and that we landed on the moon, but to a certain extent, those things are taken on faith.
I understand that you can endeavor to hunt down evidence and proof of both of those things (especially the globe-earth, lol), but the moon landing, for example, I have done zero "due diligence" to prove to myself they've done it, but I believe it anyways.
It reminds me of an article about how NASA "disproved" people who don't believe we went to the moon by releasing 25,000 photos that were taken on the moon/during the project, and I remember my first thought being "if you already think NASA faked the moon landing, 25,000 new photos definitely are *not* going to change your mind."
I don't know. I've had a few conversations with a friend about this topic. I think we do take more things on faith than we think we do.
Well you solved the whole mystery
It actually comes down to maths: if the Universe truly is infinite, then life elsewhere must exist because almost all possibilities will be out there if you go far enough.
I could be wrong here, but I think we've discovered that, rather than being infinite, it's expanding outwards at the speed of light or something? So, practically, but not truly infinite? :P
But I agree with you, as my statement earlier in the thread:
In a (practically) infinitely large universe, the possibility of extra terrestrial life is infinitely high, and our chances of meeting them are infinitely low.
Yes, but only if you take it for granted that creation of life is a natural chemical process which happens if the right elements and circumstances allign. So far we can only assume that's the case, but we won't know for certain until a) scientists are able to create life from scratch or b) we discover life elsewhere (preferably in other solar systems, as life may have traveled from different planets within our range).
If you have proof that life must exist outside of our Earth, you need to get in touch with NASA with your findings, not a James Bond message board.
Well I don't know really: theoretically if the universe is infinite (and as Nick points out, that's not necessarily true) then the same conditions, natural or not, will exist elsewhere.
It's kind of fascinating really: there are only a finite number of combinations of atoms possible, so therefore in an infinite space, each combination (for example you or I) will logically happen more than once. So if you travel far enough in an infinite universe, you could meet another version of yourself! :)
No idea what point you're trying to make, sorry.
I don't think you entirely understood my point. Life as a concept, and how it occured to begin with, is something we don't truly understand. We cannot know it is the result of a natural chemical process until someone is able to demonstrate that process. It is true, as you say, that if the universe is infinite, we know that similar or even identical conditions as on earth will exist elsewhere. What we do not know however, is if identical conditions equals or guarantees the creation of life. Until proven otherwise, it could indeed be the case that life is a truly unique, freak occurence, or a 'miracle' if you like. We can make an educated guess it is a natural chemical process that has and will take place in other solar systems, but at this point it is nothing more than guess work. There is no way of knowing until we can prove it with either one of the examples I presented in my previous post.
unless the universe was designed to only have life on one planet...
now if you will excuse me i will use @Dragonpol as a human shield and jump out the window in a daring escape.
https://majesticdocuments.com/
And there we get to the logic-trap that is the design discussion: who designed it then? That in itself implies there's a designer, which must be then a thinking entity that in any way, shape or form would itself be 'alive'. So, who 'made' the designer and where is (he,she,it) living?
So even the design thesis forces another (inter)galactic lifeform upon us.
Now, nature is far more creative than the human mind, we know that for sure. Those who believe in god (there we go! Living creator!) and say we were made in his/her image then just think a little too much of themselves (are you really capable of designing new planets/ life forms?) but still end up with the same basic problem. Because, who created god (if it wasn't us).
But, as said, maybe nature has another way of dealing with this. Fact is this planet is teeming with life. So, any planet in a similar position to a simiar star would possible be a habitable one, and they found plenty of those already. Then there's the question of 'how did life start', which we just don't know. But it's unlikely there's only one planet where this happened as it must've been a natural process (see above).
So, all in all, it's most likely that there are other planets (teeming with) life. Of all the billions of species that live on this planet, a few managed to become rather intelligent: dolphins, elephants, apes, but one species had the advantage of the opposing thumb (sorry Dolphins), combined with varied communications and living is social groups that propelled the use of intelligence (with i.e. the right amount of agression).
Let's propose that on planet x two species had the same development: they'd probably kill eachother, or they'd be so closely related they'd merge. Sort of homo sapiens and neanderthals.
so, it's still very likely another planet had/has a similar development. What else do we need? time and space: how likely is it that these two species of two different planets developed in about the same timeframe (we've been around for tens of thousands of years, only able to contact, if they exist, others for the last 3,4 thousand and record it) whilst life has been on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. Maybe our next-door aliens visited during the jura and then decided they didn't like eating t-rex steak.
and our records of the last 4k years hasn't been that good either, maybe they did visit, or one of them did, and decided it was better to leave us primitives alone. The next solar system might have had far more interesting 'people' live in it.
ANd, finally the last factor, considering the deadliness of our technology, it isn't a strange thought that we might destroy ourselves as a species way before we can seriously start travelling out of our solar system. ANd if that counts for us, it most likely counts for any other species on any other planet.
Yes, I also think its quite arrogant to believe we are the only living things in the entire universe. What is more surprising is that no one has visited us yet, either in `person' or via a radio signal (as far as we are aware).
If another lifeform is finally able to reach us, then their technology must be far advanced than we are, figuring out how to travel and survive across the vast universe.
You shop at Wal-Mart?
Not quite. There are a few factors that will make meeting other lifeforms difficult. Let's take our own planet. Billions of lifeforms, a couple of billion years and yet only one species managed to get out of its atmosphere.
Now, this solar system of ours has 8 planets, and only one habitable. The next solar system is only reachable with technology that takes you at faster-then-lightspeed travel, or you need a pretty long lifespan. Now let's say that only one in ten solarsystems produces a species that does manage this. Then they also need to go to the right planet (earth) to meet us. With billions of billions of planets to choose from, why would they want to go to earth? If they could. perhaps they can only travel 100.000 lightyears, and that isn't enough to reach us. Perhaps they found earth, saw the dinosaurs and decided to let them be? So as likely as it is that there's life outside this planet, and intelligent lie on other planets, it's increadably unlikely that they'd be bothered to come over here.