Do You Really Believe There Is Life In Space?

[Salty80]

If there really is smart life on another world, why don't they make an effort to contact us?

[Neveracrossword]

No.

[sandyRoe]

Their civilization may have developed and then collapsed. There could be somewhere where an alien Columbus is setting sail to discover a new continent in his world.
Time is infinite as is space.
We've probably missed them.

[brian j john]

So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bug ger all down here on Earth!

[brian j john]

Carl Sagan — 'The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.'

[JimF]

I certainly don't believe that somewhere there is an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters writing the entire works of Shakespeare.

But the odds against there not being life somewhere else in the universe are so infinitesimally small to be essentially negligible.

[ToraToraTora]

Yes, 100% there is life but we will never see it or communicate in any way. Most people just do not comprehend the distances involved. Here's a sample, Betelgeuse is a well known local star, a mere 620 ish light years away. That means our earliest radio signal is a third of the way there and that is the garden gate in Galactic terms and that's just our own Galaxy.

[Canary42]

/// If there really is smart life on another world, why don't they make an effort to contact us? ///

There is, and it's too smart to contact us.

[Atheist]

No-one on Earth admits to knowing whether or not there is smart life on other celestial bodies (apart from some who claim to have personal experience that there is and that they communicate with and walk among us, and some who claim to know that there is not because they feel that science precludes it because of technical difficulties in overcoming the problem of distance.)
My hunch is that there is intelligent life out there, and that communication could take place. But although there is significant evidence pointing to the existence of 'visitors' in our near-earth space, there seems a reluctance to communicate openly. Entities which could manage to visit (physically or digitally) would be far ahead of our technology, so far ahead in fact that they might well see us as interesting ant-hills harbouring primitive life, to be observed but not interfered with.

[jourdain2]

I don't think there is. We are special, privileged and alone.

[jourdain2]

^^ The OP said 'smart life'.

[Atheist]

jourdain; In what way do you think we are special?

[Gromit]

There are 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, and 100 million stars in the average galaxy. Our star has 12 planets and 214 moons.

There has to be life somewhere else.

[Atheist]

Gromit; my hunch is that there is life out there, but a sample of one (i.e. our planet) provides no evidence other than that it is possible for life to have arisen and evolved. Of course, the 'arisen' leaves room for 'creation' explanations to be used.
Our current physics seems to rule out faster than light travel, but I doubt if that is actually an insoluble problem.

[ToraToraTora]

21:52, there are at least 50 Billion stars in the average galaxy and yes, the universe is teaming with life, we cannot ever know.

[jourdain2]

Atheist - simply because I believe we are alone. I accept that somewhere in the vastness of space and galaxies other life-forms can exist or did exist (who knows?) but they are not/have not developed in any way we can know.
Yes, you are waiting for 'God so loved the world' - well our world is very different from others in our system, you have to acknowledge that. It makes no real difference because 'God' could love others somewhere and I'm not wanting to introduce a religious element.
All I am saying really is that - mysterious puzzles and earthworks apart (and I am at a loss to explain why and how they exist) I cannot see any reason to believe that we are not alone.

[ToraToraTora]

... when i say we cannot ever know, I mean we cannot ever meet or even communicate in any way.

[Atheist]

22:01
"yes, the universe is teaming with life, we cannot ever know."
Spot the mistake?
Perhaps "yet if" instead of "yes"?

[DTCwordfan]

They already have you marked, salty - watch your back...and your front....

[Khandro]

The big question is where did OUR 'life' come from ? It certainly
didn't originate on this planet, as asserted by the arch-clown Richard (“happy chemical accident”) Dawkins.

No, the origins of life is somewhere 'out there', & well beyond the comprehension of the 2 pounds of grey matter behind your eye-balls, which originated on the African savannah just 2 million years ago.

[Atheist]

jourdain...
None of us knows the answer to the OP. But it can be interesting to explore possibilities or probabilities.
I don't see a need to bring god into it. The fact is that any life which evolved on Earth would evolve within an environment and would thus be compatible with that environment - no need for a creator to provide a 'safe place'. And of course, the terrestrial environment has undergone huge changes which have hugely modified the living beings which live here.