If It's True......

Hootsmon · September 2023

that we are indeed ALONE in this vast universe........that makes us VERY,VERY special,no?

Hootsmon · September 2023

Bonus Comet alert

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/66726486

Devil#20 · September 2023

I very much doubt that we are though. However, the probability of making communication with aliens is virtually zero when you consider all the terms in the Drake equation.

S56035 · September 2023

Hootsmon said:

that we are indeed ALONE in this vast universe........that makes us VERY,VERY special,no?

Not everyone, no.

merlin · September 2023

And maybe it is true that we are special. We're also pretty fucking stupid as a species.

rze99 · September 2023

We are special. I’m special. You’re special.

thecolourbox · September 2023

It depends if you see that kind of coincidence as special or just a rare error or anomaly in the system

Sporky · September 2023

Some of us are more special than others.

AK99 · September 2023

Being deemed a wee bit 'special' in Norn Iron terms has its own particular meaning - not necessarily what you might aspire to ..

tony99 · September 2023

rze99 said:

We are special. I’m special. You’re special.

Speciaaaal, so special, speciaaaal.

spev11 · September 2023

And the more everybody writes "special" the weirder it looks

theatreanchor · September 2023

I’m not special.

Sporky · September 2023

theatreanchor said:

I’m not special.

And that's what makes you so very special.

Sassafras · September 2023

We're all special needs.

ICBM · September 2023

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” - Arthur C. Clarke

Personally, I believe we are alone.

GoFish · September 2023

I want to believe that life is pretty commonplace throughout the universe, wherever ther's water really (or any suitable chemistry). Even in that scenario, distance and time are pretty big obstacles. After all that, even if our universe is crammed with sentience, the chance of anyone wanting anything to do with us is near zero. So forever alone it is....

Bonus science outreach sentence of the day, from the linked BBC article:

The comet takes around 437 years to do one lap of our solar system - for reference it takes Earth one year.

AntonHunter · September 2023

I need to believe there's something out there, otherwise my hopes of ever joining a rogue band of intergalactic rebels travelling the galaxy in a pimped out starship battling against the dark side are never going to come true.

ICBM · September 2023

I believe that *life* is commonplace wherever conditions allow it, but complex multicellular life is extremely rare if not unique to Earth, and intelligent life capable of communication or spaceflight is unique.

We are indeed very special, but most of us without the understanding of why that matters.

TheMarlin · September 2023

We are not alone, never have been.

Every culture in the world has a tale about gods coming to earth, and teaching agriculture, astronomy, mathematics etc

what interesting is that if you go back to the earliest versions of the Old Testament (or Jewish Tora), the white haired bearded benevolent ‘all seeing god’ of the Abrahamic religions isn’t there. There is no One-God, there are dozens, potentially hundreds of gods. Each area (Sumaria, Egypt etc) had its own god who covered locally.

That ‘one god’ of monotheism never existed. It’s an invention. There are dozens of ‘em. Dozens!

ESBlonde · September 2023

You are unique just like everyone else.
Even if conditions are suitable for life elsewhere whats to say they are on our timescale geologically, we'll probably destroyed ourselves before they evolve to communicate. We've only been flying and using radio about a century and the earth is how old?

Timcito · September 2023

If we are alone, maybe there's something 'supernatural' going on after all.

Benm39 · September 2023

The surest indication of there being intelligent life in space is that it hasn't bothered coming to us.

dazzajl · September 2023

All facts and evidence put aside for a moment, the idea that all the universe has created is us, is far far too depressing to comprehend.

Woodandwires · September 2023

We haven’t always been special, for many thousands of years we were little more than pond life. For a species that is supposed to be so special, we are doing a great job of f@#king up our special planet in pursuit of greed. So we haven’t evolved that far.

littlegreenman · September 2023

I'd say yes, we are special. We, as a species, are probably the only one on our planet to altruistically adopt other species purely for mutual happiness stuff.
Yeppers, other symbiotic relationships exist, but not just for the "Woo, kittens/puppies make me laugh and go Squeee!"
Other than that though, no. We're all fucked and are most likely doomed to extinction.

fretmeister · September 2023

Hootsmon said:

that we are indeed ALONE in this vast universe........that makes us VERY,VERY special,no?

Special? No. Unique, yes.

There are, as far as we know, A Billion Billion stars. That means that even if the odds of life are as laughably small as 1 in a Billion (you'd never get the bank to lend on those odds!) that still means a Billion systems with life.

The issue is - did that life happen somewhere else a billion years ago? Is it there now but so far away we really don't exist to each other in any practical terms?

I seriously doubt that at no time in the approx 14 billion years the universe has existed there wasn't some other form of life somewhere. With that time scale odds of 1 in a Billion Billion gives just us. It only needs 2 in a Billion Billion to be more.

I do doubt that we'll ever meet them though. The universe is just too big.

fretmeister · September 2023

TheMarlin said:

We are not alone, never have been.

Every culture in the world has a tale about gods coming to earth, and teaching agriculture, astronomy, mathematics etc

what interesting is that if you go back to the earliest versions of the Old Testament (or Jewish Tora), the white haired bearded benevolent ‘all seeing god’ of the Abrahamic religions isn’t there. There is no One-God, there are dozens, potentially hundreds of gods. Each area (Sumaria, Egypt etc) had its own god who covered locally.

That ‘one god’ of monotheism never existed. It’s an invention. There are dozens of ‘em. Dozens!

Those entire things are inventions.

If we we all completely lost our memories of everything before tomorrow morning then none of those holy books would ever exist again. There would be brand new stories that had nothing to do with what we had forgotten.

But we'd still discover all the science we know now, because it's testable and repeatable.

JezzaSnr · September 2023

Josh Clark’s End of the World podcast is well worth a listen.

sinbaadi · September 2023

Special to whom?

An outside observer may think of us humans as no more interesting than the gases of Jupiter, or the dung beetles of Africa.

If it's that we should feel that we are special then I'm not sure I agree with that either.

Those of us fortunate enough to have the luxury of existential contemplation should feel lucky rather than special. The planet is precious as are all of its inhabitants and we certainly don't treat it as such.

notanon · September 2023

In the same vein

Strange if there is a God, even stranger if there weren't.

[Is that correct use of the subjunctive in English?]

Timcito · September 2023

dazzajl said:

All facts and evidence put aside for a moment, the idea that all the universe has created is us, is far far too depressing to comprehend.

Especially when you consider what a mess we've made of the little paradise we were given!

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