Alone in Space?
How many times did you look up to the sky at night, watching those twinkling lights and wondered: Are we alone in the universe? Have you considered the odds? Is it really possible that we are the most intelligent species in this huge space? A discovery of earth-like planets may hold the key to the mystery that long ago captured the minds of many. Suggesting that we find earth-like planets, what are the chances we will find a civilization there, one we can communicate with? Is intelligent life the rule or the exception in the cosmos? I have some thoughts I would like to share on this matter, you might find them to be interesting.
Our planet Earth is a small world, a global village. Out in Space, there are massive worlds in what seems today as an indefinite number. The universe is enormous, gigantic; in fact, I am not sure we have a word that would describe how vast it really is. Observing that by these terms, Earth is actually indiscernible.
In order to look for life out in Space, we need to think out of the box. Visualize intelligent type of life just like us on other planets, that went through similar technological revolution. Only that they went through the industrial revolution one million years ago. Such forms of life may be entities that we can’t grasp, so we can try to imagine an abstract concept by a tangible example. Imagine a form of life that you can’t sense in any way, but is able to see you, read your thoughts, utilize virtually unlimited memory and processing power, communicate with other entities invisibly to you and move rapidly (say 100 times the speed of light).
So let’s try to apply some logic, look at some facts and stats to try to examine the possibility of life outside Earth.
First – Our knowledge is limited:
We feel in the comfort zone about things we already know (e.g. we know that we can get to the moon). We feel less secure about things we know that we don’t know (e.g. up until recently, people in NASA were anxious to know if there is water on the moon). But what about those things that we don’t know that we don’t know (the unknown of the unknown). This is where we are constantly being surprised. Nassim Taleb in his book The Black Swan narrates a story about how people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white, until the discovery of Australia, where for the first time, a black swan was observed. A single observation of such black swan was enough to refute the absolute reality as was observed before. What I come to claim is that being unaware of other forms of life, does not mean they don’t exist. We simply don’t know, and mostly don’t even realize what we don’t know.
Second – Visitors from space on Earth?
Just as we crave to know if there is life on other planets, visitors from outside might be doing the same thing. They may hold much more knowledge, as some of them could be far ahead of us. There are many claims of people who saw UFOs while governments constantly deny withholding any evidence. In general, we know that governments censor certain information, when it’s in their interest. Are there things that we are not being told? Why is the US government investing so much in its space projects? What do they already know that we don’t? Is Area 51 a myth or do they want us to think it is? I believe that soon in our times the truth will be revealed. I would like to bring to your attention Paul Hellyer, Canada’s former Defense Minister, in quite an amazing disclosure.
You can read most of the speech here: Alien Contact – Speech Script
Third – Our senses are limited: Since our senses are limited, our ability to experience the reality first hand is highly reduced. We have five senses, and we use them to acquire information about our surroundings. However, as great as our senses really are, they lack much skills that even other species in our world have. Here are a few examples:
- Bats are blind, but have an echolocation (Sonar like system) – they make a high frequency sound that hits an object and bounces back to the bat. Just like a radar. Scientists were puzzled for long about how bats manage to navigate long distances in the dark.
- Dolphins can hear frequencies up to 100,000 Hz. Humans can only hear between 20 and 20,000 Hz. Dolphins use sonar-like system to “see” under water but they also have excellent vision with their eyes. They have eyes on the sides of their heads that allow them to see in front and in back of them.
- Sharks have special cells in their brains that are sensitive to the electrical fields other creatures generate. This ability is so refined in some sharks that they can find fish hiding under sand by the weak electric signals their twitching muscles emit.
- For moths, the term “love is in the air” is something to be taken literally. The furry insects can detect chemical love signals, called “pheromones”, emitted by the opposite sex from up to 10 KM away. Some studies show humans also detect pheromones, but the effect seems to require close encounters.
In addition, we have to at least assume that there are other senses we are unaware of. Even bats have capabilities we don’t possess, and it took us a long time to understand how they do it. There could be things that we just can’t grasp with our senses.
Fourth – We use technology to aid our senses:
Through experiments and ideas generated by the power of thought, we are creating new technologies, some of them are aiding our senses which as described aforementioned are limited. For instance, we created radars to identify flying objects, telescopes to help us zoom into space, satellites to aid in navigation, microscope to look at tiny forms of life and so on. We recently showed that a simple thoughts can be read using MRI machines. We made major technological progress over the last century, in fact we made more progress by a few orders of magnitude than the previous century. We are still far far behind exploiting our potential, and we prove that every single day. It is inevitable that major technological progress will be made in the 21st century, unless a catastrophic will occur. It therefore makes total sense to conclude that we are very modern compared to 100 years ago, yet quite primitive compared to 100 years from now.
Fifth – There might be dimensions we can’t grasp:
Humans live in a three dimensional world. We see vertical, horizontal and depth. Imagine that we would live in a two dimensional world, where everything is flat and there is no depth dimension. To try to understand it better, take a piece of paper, and draw a circle on it. Now, imagine that you are this circle living on the surface of that paper and there is a pen laid on the paper. Being able to see everything from the two-dimensional perspective is enclosed behind walls, and remaining completely invisible by standing a step away in the third dimension. You can move anywhere on the paper, but you are not even aware that there is up and down. The pen seems to you like a a blockage (a wall) on your way. From your perspective as a circle, a three-dimensional being has seemingly god-like powers, such as being able to grab the pen without your ability to see how and even understand that it is a pen. By applying dimensional analogy, try to imagine that there are species that live in a four or more dimensional world (other than the time axis). In such environment, all we can sense is that shadow of a pen.
Sixth – Statistically we are not alone:
Scientists have long been working on the definitions they believe are basic prerequisites for the existence of life on a planet. In essence, life needs three basics, liquid (e.g. water), molecules that can complete “us” and an energy source. There are many conditions in which scientists believe that life cannot be produced such as an optimal temperature: it cannot be way too hot or too cold. We also need to keep in mind that these estimates are not necessarily true; the way we understand and define life might not be the only way for existence of forms in the universe. But looking at the stats, the size of the universe is just not something we can really comprehend. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is estimated to comprise between 200-400 billion stars! It is one of billions of galaxies in the “Observable Universe” (i.e. galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day), which could be (and is probably) just a small fraction of what is really out there. These assumption are based on life as we (humans) define it, which is may be fundamental mistake. But even considering that, out of the trillions of stars, statistically, a great number would respond to today’s scientific assumptions which can support life.
Final words:
The universe we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far reaching that we were ever to know until this point in time. We are just a drop in the bucket. It is my belief that we are not alone in this enormous universe, I actually think it is pretentious to think we are. However, since science is based on evidence, and there is no real hard evidence available to the public on other life forms outside Earth, all I can do is believe and assume. Since human nature is to rule and survive as was constantly demonstrated in the few previous millennia, finding intelligent life could completely change the world’s political agenda. Such forms of life, could be so far ahead of us, which might have created all of us in the first place. A lot of long books and stories can be written on this extraordinary subject. I hope I was able to provide your mind with some liberty to imagine the possibilities.
