First. As a member of the human race, I cannot think of a greater scientific discovery than discovering the existence of intelligent life in the solar system. However, when you start to think about the implications that the discovery would provide, it begins to seem that a discovery is not so much fun.
Just think about it. The intelligent life discovered outside the earth would be enormous. The greatest discovery of the century, possibly in the entire history of mankind. The world’s religions and belief systems that say humans are the only intelligent life out there would be broken, there would be many skeptics and conspiracy theorists who would question it as they did with the moon landing. Every last detail that was made known by revealing to the public about our visitors from the stars, would be criticized and analyzed.
Now there is a lot of information and theories about how it would go, but I want to find the realistic data and the true facts about how it would go. It was a bit difficult, but I think I found it and you probably won’t like it.
Let’s take a look at the main form of communication that we think would be effective in communicating with these other worlds. Radio waves. Also, for some reason many people think that our super powerful telescopes are capable of looking at the surface of a planet, what people do not realize is that the astrophysicist uses these telescopes to look at the atmosphere of a planet. They do this to look for atmospheric signs of life. Like when you look at our planet, we have an atmosphere rich in oxygen and nitrogen because we have plant and animal life that breathes it. There would never be an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen for no reason, this makes a big hole in the original Star Trek, because nature only does something for a reason. So let’s say we think there is life on Mars, we put our giant terrestrial satellites in position with Mars and send a signal there. We get no response, which is not very surprising, but why? Well, you have to look at it from the point of view that we expect extraterrestrial life to have intelligence, technology, innovation, and advancement of that technology, all at the same time, and we hope that they can decode a message and send one back to earth. That is great hope that the aliens are as advanced as we are. Now let’s go back 200 years in human history and say that aliens find a way to send a radio wave to earth in the Earth year 1800. Now, by our intelligence terms, we were still considered an intelligent species in 1800 , but we didn’t. I don’t have the technology and innovation at that time. So what makes us think that aliens do too? Earth has been around for 12.4 billion years (roughly), and intelligent life has only dominated this planet for the last two thousand years, and technology and innovation have been around for maybe a couple hundred years. So you see the extremely small time span where intelligence, innovation, and technology are all prominent in our world or in any world for that matter.
Another point is that if you ask any UFO scientist or theorist they will tell you that the salient characteristics we are looking for in extraterrestrial life is intelligence. Let’s take a quick look at the definition of intelligence. Intelligence: the ability to apply knowledge and skills.
Now the word intelligence was created to communicate the concept of applying knowledge and skills and until we find a better way to communicate these concepts we will have to deal with primitive verbal language. The ONLY reason human beings are considered intelligent is because we invented the word. On our own terms, yes, we are smart. But we don’t really have a way to measure intelligence because it is a strange and ambiguous concept. But what makes us think that we are intelligent for a being from another world? I’d like to add this little quote from my personal hero and astrophysicist rock star Neil Degrasse Tyson which I think sums this up pretty well “Our top scientists work with chimpanzees for years and years, and after all this work, chimps can stack blocks and create very primitive tools, which is what our toddlers and babies can do very easily. Now what makes you think that extraterrestrial scientists wouldn’t advance Stephen Hawking and say “this human can do quantum mechanical equations in his head , just like our little alien kids and babies. “Now what I get from this quote is that perspective is everything and that as a species we need to think more about that.
Now another really interesting little fact about civilizations is that when you look at a civilization that wants to expand into an interplanetary species, you run into a lot of trouble. Any civilization that wants to expand in that way is self-defeating and self-limiting. The question then arises as to whether an advanced alien civilization would want to explore and become an interplanetary species. Let’s look at an example using the human race, we want to colonize Mars. Now, if we look at the physical and financial effort required to fully colonize an entire planet, we have to analyze why we want to colonize another planet. We want to get away from the earth because let’s say that if the earth is destroyed we still have another planet with the species thriving for the species to continue. So let’s say that to do this we send a billion people to Mars, but before that we need to become the dominant life form on Mars, we need to stabilize the atmosphere to support that huge amount of human life, and we need to perfect space. travel enough to be able to move large amounts of human population to another planet. That by the way the trip to Mars is approximately 9 months. So we need to refine the air supplies, artificial gravity for these spaceships that carry the population. In addition, the human condition must be taken into account. Now, looking at all those factors that you must take into account, the idea of traveling and living on another planet becomes very cloudy. Now in the counterproductive stuff section. When you look at the approach we would take to be an interplanetary species, you can just look at our countries on earth as an example. Every country wants to be powerful, have influence and acquire territory. It’s kind of a flaw in our thinking, we’re greedy and we have a pretty bad track record when it comes to staying in power because at any moment someone stronger can defeat you and then they wipe you out of existence. And when you get into the same species on different planets, you run into the problem of competition. Humans have this strange desire to seek competition and we tend to be destructive in our desire to seek it. Many people argue that competition fuels innovation and new discoveries and yes that may be true, but from a sociological point of view it can also lead to territorial disputes and if you work together and a species towards a common goal, I feel that that would progress. faster. than competition between the same species. Now, any species that understands that competition leads to destruction and destruction to war, this species will be ahead of the curve and may not even feel the need for exploration.
Now taking all this is. It makes me think of the Elon Musk quote “We want to go to Mars because a future without Mars is boring.” I agree with him on that, a future as an interplanetary species is really exciting. Thinking about it fills my imagination with spaceships and a sense of adventure as we, as the human race, are becoming more and more. Although it seems like a child’s dream. Now, another big question is what would happen if aliens visited our planet and determined that there were no signs of intelligent life. As I said before, we are an intelligent species according to our definition of the word intelligence. What gives us the right even to speculate that we are a relentless force of intelligence seeking to discover other life forms like ourselves? We can’t even get over our own man-made dilemmas here on earth, but we think we’re ready to expand our horizons and explore the galaxy. It seems ignorant and naive.
You also look at Stephen Hawking, who is one of the smartest humans out there today, he has even speculated that if an alien life form discovered our planet. Either they would enslave the human race or they would just kill us all like a child with a magnifying glass to ants. Now what makes you think this? The reason you think this way is that you see human hostility throughout our thousands of years on this earth and it is plagued by war after war after war. You are not wrong in the sense you get from looking at human history that you see war and it is not wrong of you to expect that same hostility from another life form, but there is literally no evidence that aliens are hostile like us. Also, if we encounter another intelligent life form then there are strong predictions that they are not like war, the reason for this hypothesis is that if a species is truly intelligent and truly advanced then they would not view war as a primary form. . to gain territory or influence. Most likely they are very contained, as they would not see the scientific benefits of the things we humans do as missions out of curiosity.
This brings me to my final point. What if we are simply not worthy in terms of intelligence or innovation as a species, would these aliens consider us worthy of contact? I mean, think about it, what is the main drive behind wanting to find alien life? It is the curiosity and the feeling of being afraid of being alone in the universe. I’m about to ask some big questions, but the only way to find the big answers is to ask the right big questions. Should we live to be an interplanetary species? Would it benefit our world as a whole? Shouldn’t we focus on trying to protect our species only at home, or should we keep window shopping for a new one? I think it would make our species counterproductive in the sense of how many things can go wrong. I mean, let’s say we successfully colonize Mars, which by the way, if we have the ability to terraform Mars, then we have the technology to make the Earth healthy again. My big concern is that people start arguing and before we all know it. Humans are waging an interplanetary war with ourselves and in that sense we would be counterproductive. I feel like we are entering the space age in hopes of benefiting our species and I think we might succeed in that dream in some way, but I don’t think it will be beneficial to the continuation of our species in the long run.
As human beings, we are the most successful and destructive planetary species that ever lived. We have to realize as a species that the only way we can all continue to have a home is by taking proper care of the only home we have.
Ps Actually, astrophysicists believe that in approximately 5 billion years our sun will completely implode and vaporize the earth and the rest of our solar system will be left as a black nothingness, a graveyard of the 8 divine planets. So actually, it makes no difference if humans die tomorrow or 1000 years from now. Just say.