Life outside of Earth (UFOs and aliens discussion)

[jimmy jazz]

This fascinates me and scares me.

I thought I would post this thread where we can discuss the possibility of a few things. Life outside of Earth is pretty much nailed on imo, the better question is whether it is intelligent life and whether it has already visited Earth or communicated with us.

What do you reckon? And how would you react if you encountered something strange yourself? What if they asked you to hop into their craft and go for a tour round space, would you accept?

There are plenty of videos of grainy footage and anecdotes but nothing that really proves anything which to me says it all. Surely by now in the era of 4k recording on your phone there'd be something credible of aliens had visited us like many people have claimed.

Post all the videos, documentaries, articles, opinions and whatever else you like.

A nice video:

👽

[Janszoon]

I absolutely think there's other intelligent life in universe. I don't think it's very likely that any of it has visited Earth though. It would would be pretty amazing to make contact though, if it were possible.

[Seven]

I don't believe in intelligent life outside of Earth, but I truly believe in other species (animals), large or small. When I was a kid I thought that aliens would destroy the idea of religion, if they were around us. Yeah, crazy.

[Janszoon]

I don't believe in intelligent life outside of Earth, but I truly believe in other species (animals), large or small. When I was a kid I thought that aliens would destroy the idea of religion, if they were around us. Yeah, crazy.

Why do you think Earth would be the only planet to develop intelligent life?

[Lexi Darling]

One of my big problems with a lot of religious mythos is how they assume that, despite the universe being so impossibly vast, the only part of it that matters is one blue pipsqueak of a planet. Like why does the rest of it exist, then? Is God only the god of Earth, or is he the god of the universe as well? Seems kind of silly to create a such a massive thing if 99.99% of it was all just going to be empty nothingness.

I think it would be wicked dope if God was real, but aliens had their own god as well, like how Namek had its own dragon and set of dragonballs.

[Seven]

Evolution, weather conditions and other things. Also, in my mind is so hard to believe on those perspectives. Despite so much material and controversies, why this intelligent life never talked to us or something?

[Nimbly9]

Before we worry too much about aliens, we should search for intelligent life here on Earth.  Cause if I was an alien, I'd watch a few TikToks and immediately want to turn around lol.

[jimmy jazz]

Can you imagine the day it is fully confirmed and announced worldwide, breaking news all over, that we've been in contact with intelligent life from outside of Earth?

It would be like when we walked on the moon x 50.

I honestly can't think of anything that could top it.

Freaks me out this does.

[degrassi.knoll]

It'll never be announced - if I've learned anything from X Files it's that mankind cannot be trusted with the truth.

[degrassi.knoll]

Evolution, weather conditions and other things. Also, in my mind is so hard to believe on those perspectives. Despite so much material and controversies, why this intelligent life never talked to us or something?

In philosophy we speak of the "unmoved mover" - i.e. the finger of god set the domino line tumbling into motion, and Chaos determined the rest. Some consider the event of the Big Bang to be god itself.

[Guybrush]

^I like it when people reduce the idea of god to something simpler, perhaps just a force without intent or some event.

It's still not as good as getting rid of the notion altogether, but it does cut out a lot of the bullshit you tend to get with religion.

Small steps.

As for aliens, I'd have to assume there's an unfathomable multitude of life out there that occasionally also evolves intelligent life, though I expect that to be extremely rare considering how long it took planet earth and the potential for intelligent life to be self-destructive.

Intelligent life from out there visiting us isn't something I currently believe in, but perhaps it's possible for us to see/detect something distant (like a Dyson sphere) or pick up some signal.

[degrassi.knoll]

^I like it when people reduce the idea of god to something simpler, perhaps just a force without intent or some event.

It's still not as good as getting rid of the notion altogether, but it does cut out a lot of the bullshit you tend to get with religion.

Small steps.

I earned degrees in Religious Studies, Philosophy (x2 - ancient and modern western lol) and Social & Behavioral Sciences. Outside of academia I often forget that people don't approach religion as an anthropological study in cultural evolution.

I grew up in Mormon territory, but was excommunicated as a child (lol). Growing up near Yellowstone National Park, I've always found god in nature, and I worship at the altar of chaos.

That said, I find the existence of intelligent life to be a mathematically logical possibility. I don't think there are necessarily parallels to our interpretation of what currently constitutes "intelligent" - I believe there is life out there, but I also believe communication is/will be improbable.

[Guybrush]

I earned degrees in Religious Studies, Philosophy (x2 - ancient and modern western lol) and Social & Behavioral Sciences. Outside of academia I often forget that people don't approach religion as an anthropological study in cultural evolution.

That sounds like a good approach.

I mention this every now and then, but I'm a biologist and learning about how life evolves and adapts to the environment does seem to generally reduce religious faith.

Then we also learn the basics of critical thinking as it's of course integral to science. Biologists use principles like Occam's Razor to try and find the most parsimonious phylogenetic trees (the evolutionary stories that make the least amount of unbacked assumptions).

Most of us will inevitably read The Selfish Gene and be exposed to people like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.

For cultural evolution, Dawkins' meme theory (where the word meme comes from) makes sense to me. It says an idea (or meme) has the important traits of a gene. It can replicate, mutate, be replaced by a competitor in a competition for a finite resource which is human minds / attention. They can work together for mutual benefit and form complexes (like cultures and religions), much like genes can work together to form organs or entire organisms. Hence, we can apply our knowledge of evolution to explain and predict the evolution of things like culture and religion.

Meme theory's more thought exercise than science, but like how evolution neatly explains those weird things about life, meme theory seems (to me) to have the power to explain many of the weird things about religion and culture.

I grew up in Mormon territory, but was excommunicated as a child (lol). Growing up near Yellowstone National Park, I've always found god in nature, and I worship at the altar of chaos.

Ooh, I'd love to hear more about your excommunication 🙂 I hope you'll make a thread about it!

On principle, I'd say we don't know that there is a god and we don't know what science we'd need to explain a god. Assuming there is one when we know so little will inevitably lead to us making wrong assumptions. Rejecting god us a way to reduce the risk of being wrong. Then we can believe in god when it's the most parsimonious explanation.

For example, we saw something weird going on in the universe, so we've figured out there must be some matter we can't see (dark matter).

But before we actually see the effects of dark matter and need it to explain something, we shouldn't believe in it because we won't know anything about it and would risk filling our physics books with drivel.

This certainly happened to religious scripture. And even if there is a god, you could likely reduce erroneous assumptions by rejecting god until you know where it fits in.

It's extremely pragmatic, but considering how human belief shapes our world and cultures, I think more people should be pragmatic about this.

That said, I find the existence of intelligent life to be a mathematically logical possibility. I don't think there are necessarily parallels to our interpretation of what currently constitutes "intelligent" - I believe there is life out there, but I also believe communication is/will be improbable.

Yes. With the vastness of space, a civilization may be long dead and every trace of it entirely wiped out and eroded by the time they'd get our reply.

[tristan_geoff]

I want to believe

[Psy-Fi]

Can you imagine the day it is fully confirmed and announced worldwide, breaking news all over, that we've been in contact with intelligent life from outside of Earth?

It would be like when we walked on the moon x 50.

I honestly can't think of anything that could top it.

Freaks me out this does.