RE: When do you think we will have extraterrestrials visit us? visit us
June 8, 2012 at 5:06 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2012 at 5:08 pm by Mister Agenda.)
We have no way of estimating the likelihood of other sophonts in the universe. Too many variables are unknown and we currently only have one planet as an example. That said, I would be surprised if the only life in the galaxy was on our planet and the only sophonts in the unverse are us. However, I would not be surprised if the only sophonts in our galaxy are us. Even if life is common, spontaneously sophont life may be extremely rare.
Were we to acquire the means to travel at 10% of the speed of light, we would be able to colonize the entire galaxy in less time than it took us to transition from Homo habilis to Homo sapiens. I suspect we'll eventually be able to do better than that, I'm being deliberately conservative. If we do manage to start to spread, there will eventually be thousands, if not millions of sophont species either descended from us or made by us (or more likely, by our machines) in our galaxy. This would seem to put an upper boundary on how 'far ahead of us' a civilization capable of interstellar travel could be. It may well be that WE are the elder progenitor race of the Milky Way galaxy. Assuming we're not too short-sighted and lackadaisacal to make the effort to colonize away from our planet.
That said, I hope we have lots of friendly or indifferent neighbors. I just don't expect it.
What is the reason for projecting the opposite onto them?
Were we to acquire the means to travel at 10% of the speed of light, we would be able to colonize the entire galaxy in less time than it took us to transition from Homo habilis to Homo sapiens. I suspect we'll eventually be able to do better than that, I'm being deliberately conservative. If we do manage to start to spread, there will eventually be thousands, if not millions of sophont species either descended from us or made by us (or more likely, by our machines) in our galaxy. This would seem to put an upper boundary on how 'far ahead of us' a civilization capable of interstellar travel could be. It may well be that WE are the elder progenitor race of the Milky Way galaxy. Assuming we're not too short-sighted and lackadaisacal to make the effort to colonize away from our planet.
That said, I hope we have lots of friendly or indifferent neighbors. I just don't expect it.
(June 8, 2012 at 4:59 pm)Chuck Wrote: Okay, we are 100 times more intelligent than Chimpanzee and within only the last 100 years or so we suddenly decided it was somewhat unseemly to shoot them for sport. This temporary condition of our section of human population (Africans still kill Chimps for meat) is appropriate for projection onto something that might have 6 legs and 8 eyes and secrete acid as phormone for what reason?
What is the reason for projecting the opposite onto them?
