Let's be safe and greatly scale down our prediction and say that there are only a few races per galaxy. This still means that there are billions, upon billions of races that have reached our level. Even if you divide this by ten, it's still an astronomical number.

The following is merely speculation.

Let's say that there are, in a gross underestimate, only ten races that make it to our level per galaxy. This is 1.25 trillion.  

Now let's say that only one hundreth of these make it to 'starfaring' status. That's 12.5 billion. Another hundreth make it to intergalactic status. 125 million. One thousand make it to 'super race' status (The human race being one atom, and their entire civilization by comparison being a cubic inch of matter). 125 thousand. Even if this is grossly overestimated, the numbers are still huge.

I'm not forcing my opinion on anybody, and I'd appreciate if flames were kept to a minimum. The point is that even if this is a gross overestimate, there are many, many other lifeforms that have most definately reached our 'level' of civilization.  

Kind of makes me feel insignificant, I guess. But whatevs.  

Discuss?

Post edited at 7:09 pm on Nov. 14, 2006 by DoomMaker

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Actually, scientists have only seen very few galaxies. They only estimate they are there through advanced calculations and theories. Also, there has never ever been any contact with any alien species. No one has confirmed any secret operations. I speculate you have watched too many Conspiracy Theories.

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Post edited at 7:14 pm on Nov. 14, 2006 by DoomMaker

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Post edited at 7:13 pm on Nov. 14, 2006 by DoomMaker

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A concept that I've already entertained is that sentient species are essentially a cancer upon their planets and that through their course of actions they result in their own extinctions, hence why we have yet to see any solid evidence of sentient life.

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It is possible given the number of stars and planets and the potential capacity for life for many sentient species to have arisen.  

A concept that I've already entertained is that sentient species are essentially a cancer upon their planets and that through their course of actions they result in their own extinctions, hence why we have yet to see any solid evidence of sentient life.

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You should read my topic on that. A lot of high ranking officials and astronauts have come out about a topic that is considered a 'joke' amongst the community, risking much more than any idiot wishing to spread conspiracies would have to.

I would not call it 'rock solid' until I saw it with my own eyes, but it's fairly close.

Post edited at 7:24 pm on Nov. 14, 2006 by DoomMaker

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Even if they/us came up with a method of near-light-speed travel, the distances we'd have to travel to get to those galaxies are still mind-boggling.

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I don't doubt that there are other intelligent races in the universe, I just think it's highly improbable that we'd ever come in contact with these creatures.

Even if they/us came up with a method of near-light-speed travel, the distances we'd have to travel to get to those galaxies are still mind-boggling.

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If a race is thousands of years ahead of us, sure.

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There are many, many theories of the ability to travel faster than light, but all involve circumventing the laws of physics, or temporarily warping them.

If a race is thousands of years ahead of us, sure.

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I've actually read whole books on faster-than-light travel.

None of the theories seem that promising though, at least at our level of technology.

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Or it could be taken from research done on recovered alien transport vehicles, but I assume such would still take time.

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If for example, there is -- a good number of light years away -- a planet almost identical do earth, if so, perhaps life followed the same/similiar evolutionay tract.

then again, evolution could be so comparitivly absurd it is beyond our comprehension.

the possibilites are endless. but my guess is, that someday we will find some sort of bacteria/fungus in the realms of space; stupidly bring it back for reasearch, and then foolishly finding ourselves infested with it.

And also doom-maker, as I have argued before, there are a number of much more plausible explantions that UFO's for what the majority of claims made by people (i.e. astronaughts) as a  LW intellectual i wouldn't expect such a feeble point to be made.

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The more different a planet's evolution and history vary from Earth, the more varied the intelligent 'life form' will be, I'd guess.

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You made a very poor argument according to many and ignored the links. Let's keep that to that thread.

The more different a planet's evolution and history vary from Earth, the more varied the intelligent 'life form' will be, I'd guess.

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Very poor according to many?

how many?

and how many would be willing verfiy that claim>?

or was it just you?

...And yes --- I did ignore most,  if not all your links --

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