Turin… don’t shoot the messenger… I’m just entertaining idea’s here so please dont get all skeptic and scientific on me because without imagination and creativity, brilliant technology such as the internet would have never been created in the first place.
[mod]Ranting and mild flaming removed. 
[/mod]
Rad… the thing is… ION drives will not transport HUMANS to another star system any time soon. Even travelling at the speed of light would still take approx. 8 years to reach even the closest star. And as i was saying before, even if you could travel at the speed of light, stay alive in the space-craft for 8 years… the space-craft would not make it there intact unless you had some super-dooper plasma shield. Many scientists have also said that its impossible because the thrust and mass reach infinity… I just think they are looking at it all the wrong way and money is being wasted that could be spent on saving fellow human beings e.g. all the poor and sick people in the world.
Trolling removed.
GAH , stop spamming aroung !!
anyways, i think that there is indeed live on other planets , also that they aware of the existence of earth , but the never will visit us 
Apparently you are trying to spell ultimate end of our scienific progress in near future, but you aren’t then only one who attempted at it. Just recall Enlightment age or beginning of XX century: it was pretty common to believe that all mysteries of nature will be solved soon. Plus, such ‘decadential’ thinking isn’t exclusive to science, if we mention Fukuyama’s “The End of History”, for example.
So personally, I don’t worry that our technological progress will be thwarted in near or further future and thus I also assume that existence of highly advanced (much more than us) civilisations is perfectly possible.
You have probably misunderstood the meaning of ‘god-like’ if have used previously. Artur C. Clarke stated that any sufficiently advanced technology can be mistold as magic and that’s what I meant. If you would present any of inventions being in common use currently to most of people living few hundred years ago, only single ones would probably try to find any explanation of their functionality that would be at least slightly scientific. Still we - creators of those inventions - are probably very far from harnessing all possiblities given by laws of universe we live in. Therefore a subjective perspective of highly advanced aliens as ‘gods’ has more in common with relative difference between them and us rather than their absolute state of development, probably capped by laws of psychics such as speed of light being the upper bondary for all velocities.
And since I can’t hestitate:
It took me a while to recognize which phrase evolved first 
As a species we are arogent to think in a universe so vast with so many other galaxys like are’s and also not like ares that there couldn’t be life. We haven’t the techknowledgy both in the detection of other species/intelegent life or the ability to traverse space itself to even remotely say that we are the only species in the universe. This is not a belief mearly a true statement if life can happen on this planet then it can happen in others somewhere else in the universe.
Maybe I wasn’t clear. I don’t think we’re currently near the fundamental limits of progress – in fact, I’m making the exact opposite argument elsewhere right now – but it’s entirely possible that there is a limit (somewhere) of progress that may be closer than Clark’s “magic.” But more importantly, the limit of technological progress for our particular species may not be THE limit. Several (sobering) possibilities exist:
I would love to be wrong on any of these, of course. But I suspect either the first one or the last one will be the result (as the last one can trump the middle ones).
It is indeed possible. Let’s treat the three “doom” scenarios as one and assume that we were lucky enough to avoid being wiped out. Plus, let’s also assume that at the point when AI would be possible to create, we would use associated technology rather to enchance capabilities of our bodies (and brains), effectively merging with our technology and pushing the evolution further (and therefore removing the variant of our species being not intelligent enough) . Ultimately, if we avoid extinction we may reach a state when we could only say: “There is nothing more to discover and invent as the universe itself limits us”. Pretty depressing scenario, I must say.
Fortunately it’s probably either false or - as I described above - very, very far. I think that answering on this problem is more like philosophical challenge rather than a scientific one. It’s kind of “metascience” - investigation of scientifical development using scietific methods. Even if we have means for it, we don’t have many specimens to investigate 
[mod]Flaming removed. [/mod]
Sure. In fact, I know an AI researcher who posits that “downloaded” human brains seem likely right now to be the first AIs. His research group is trying to beat that effort with “true” AIs, of course, but there are some fascinating dangers associated with that work. That being said, the scenario you’ve outlined actually means we’re talking about a transhuman species, so technically homo sapiens would be extinct.
Why’s that? If it’s a fundamental limit rather than a practical one, then whatever species has access to it would have mind-boggling energy resources. Enough to give a whole species of space-faring AIs until the heat death of the universe to see new sights and explore new things, have new experiences. Sounds wonderful to me. Just because you have run against the limits of physics doesn’t mean you’ve run into the limits of experience. Just because you’ve discovered all the fundamental laws of the universe doesn’t mean you’ve tried every possible application of those laws. Not by a long shot.
By way of analogy: Julia Childs knew everything there was to know about cooking, but that didn’t stop her from trying new food.
I highly doubt it’s useful in terms of achieving any practical results… but that’s like the least important point of (m)any discussions
What’s that? I heard about speculations about “uploading” ‘content’ of human brain into a computing and carry on living as ‘AI’ in virtual reality. But opposite direction? Programming human brain like a computer?..
That’s an inhrenent part of evolution 
Fair enough. And physics is not the only science out there. For example, a case of society knowing all fundamental laws about the universe would be intriguiting as a subject of social examination.
Ah – well, this researcher refers to the artificial replication of an existing human brain as “downloading,” but it’s precisely what you’ve described as “uploading.” Although technically it’s structure not content; there is no content separate from structure, unless you believe in a soul (in which case, how are you downloading that!? ). Same thing. You’re “uploading” the brain into the machine and “downloading” from the brain into the machine. Up/down are arbitrary naming conventions in this case where we don’t have an explicit server/client relationship.
Sure. In fact, a species that really did know all the fundamental laws might finally have enough computing power available to actually model complex social structures with accuracy (kind of like Seldon’s “psychohistory” from the Foundation series). I bet such a species would see “okay, we’ve figured out all of physics” as just the beginning!
Doh, you got me here! I big, stinking monster of duality just oozed from my subconcious and leaked into this ‘content’ statement However, at this moment we are - as it seems to me - arguing over terminology, which isn’t quite a good reason to deliberate at all. So getting back to the topic: I don’t think replicating human brain’s structure could be that easy. It may require a whole new concept of computing - and no, I’m not thinking about neural networks 
Same goes to AI, actually.
Model social structures or even simulate their whole past… Just think on this a bit more and like Bostrom in his essay you may conclude, that right now we are living in such a simulation…
And RC won’t help here at all
every cell contains the whole- geez that sounds like a hologram to me ^.^
Merged from the Life?!? topic, since this one is the one in which we discuss extraterrestrial life; while that one is for extradimensional life. I’ve changed the topic titles accordingly.
Huh!!! This isn’t quantum physics (which by the way is just a theory largely disputed over by scientists, just like the strings theory, and the theory of evolution!!!)
Secondly what about extraterrestrial life in this Dimension
I think that it is highly possibal but i think that it is probaly unsofisticated one-celled organisms
Why?
If Earth’s evolutionary chain produced multi-cellular plants and animals, what makes you think it logical that out of the entire universe that we exist in, Earth, somehow, is the only planet with the necessary setup for advanced life as we know it?
The components that make up the Human body really aren’t all that special, and they certainly aren’t scarce in this particular universe.
I think so because of how perfect the earth is for life. There are very few planets we know of that is similar to earth. Most of the other planets scientist feel can sustain life as we know it are under extreme conditions only letting the hardy bacteria survive.
So basicly I am not saing that complex life would be impossibal I am just saying bacteria would probaly be 10000’s of times more probable as they might live on 10000’s of times more planets than a complex organism might
Earth didn’t come perfectly suited for life. Life began on earth (probably as hardy bacteria as you’re saying) and it evolved and adapted to the particular conditions of earth. Scientists love to mention how there’s bacteria in earth’s harshest climates, like deep-sea vents and under Antarctic ice. It’s quite possible for that bacteria to evolve into more complex life forms even on our own planet, given the time. In the search for life, we shouldn’t focus on planets exactly like our own, though there are some givens like the presence of liquid water and certain elements. Even there we have to consider non-carbon-based life.
Of course, if scientists believe only bacteria can exist on these extreme planets, we again run into that time-difference problem. Perhaps they haven’t evolved yet. That would play into the probability you suggested.
Which reminds me… how do we know we have to find complex life? Isn’t it possible for a community of alien bacteria to be self-aware?
[mod]I have cleaned this topic from an assortment of trolling, bashing and flaming. The members involved were officially warned. Should this thread heat up again — and, quite honestly, given the subject, I’m surprised it did once already — it is going to be locked. [/mod]
This is just an opinion: It’s a discussion, there’s bound to be some arguments, its normal.
on track, i believe there is a far greater chance of there being INTELLIGENT life out there, than chances there is not. It’s a big universe out there…
What I am saying is that earth IS lucky and conditions are not very extreme. Life exists where it is very cold in frozen ice but could it survive if in 6 hours it would be hotter the Calahari Desert
Also about the non-carbon life, scientist have (supposedly) found non-protein based organisms which is more astounding that without carbon.
Also earth didn’t come perfect to life, yet life just appeared once conditions were favoriable. We have only found life after (supposedly) the atmosphere changed to oxygen instead of volcanic gases
I am getting tired of saying supposedly
Especially when we try to define what intelligence is. Could we even count dolphins and chimps, since they have language and can understand human language? (even dogs can understand up to 200 words, though I can’t cite this and so I’m unsure about the source’s credibility)
Let’s say that there are three “intelligent” life forms on this planet: humans, chimps, and dolphins. Take the Drake Equation. Optimistically, it predicts there are 10-10,000 communicating, intelligent life forms in the universe. But the Drake Equation assumes there is only one proven intelligent species on this planet. Also, if we wish to ignore the time-difference, what about Neanderthals and other human relatives?
Is the chimp lineage simply blessed? Or is some-what intelligence common in evolutionary history? We only have 100,000 years of experience as a civilization, yet 1 million years ago there were other intelligent life forms on our own planet. Isn’t it possible there were intelligent dinosaurs, like Troodons, that could have had language like dolphins but didn’t have a true civilization?
If humans evolved over a span of 1 million years or so, I think it’s ridiculous to think it took 3 billion years for intelligence to first come about.
True. Assuming carbon and water based life, Earth does have excellent conditions.
I know you said “supposedly,” but do you have a cite or link? I’d love to look into that! (We’re just now learning proteins in my Bio II class. ^^)
I always thought the first plants produced mass quantities of oxygen, leading the way for animal evolution, but I could be wrong. But if plants had produced fluorine instead, life could have taken a much different path. (considering fluorine is another highly reactive gas, but don’t ask for my chem. reasoning because I took that class two years ago. 
I’m a bio person these days)
And then there’s viruses to think about.