Stephen Hawking: Aliens probably exist, but leave them alone

[sgreger1]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7107207.ece


Stephen Hawking has a new Discovery channel documentary out where he discusses the fact that, if his math is correct, aliens (both intelligent and not) have to exist in some abundance throughout the universe.

But his take is: We need to try to NOT make contact. Look at evolution, the strong overpowering the weak to exploit their resources, aliens visiting us would be like Christopher Columbus landing in the America's, and we are the indians.



What do you think. Do you believe that Aliens, if they existed, are "higher" life forms and peaceful, or do you believe that they will use their superiority to take advantage of earth and take what they came for and then roll out, possibly destroying us in an avatar like scenario?


Personally, I think that the next decade of science will prove to be interesting. I personally think there is at least early stage earth type life in the oceans of Europa and I think that we may find out that our own solar system may be different than we currently perceive it. At first we thought water was specific to earth, and now it seems that wherever we look, from our moon, to mars, to the moons of saturn, it is abundant. I think the same thing will happen in regards to life, though I would postulate that 99.9% of it is at the microbial level.

[Mordred]

Do I believe aliens exist?

It's probable.

Do I believe that there is any danger from aliens?

Unlikely. You have to be aware of the distances involved. Unless these aliens happen to be VERY close to us on a cosmological scale, they would likely receive our messages thousands, if not millions of years after we sent them. And it would take them as long again to even get here.

I find it strange that Stephen Hawking would forget about that.

Now, you may argue that these aliens could have amazingly superior technology that allows them to travel to Earth quickly enough for it to be relevant and thus might conquer us à la Avatar. But really, if they have such a technological edge over us, why would they bother? There's no "unobtanium" on earth.

Not so long ago, a tribe of savages was discovered (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_104290.html). Now, is anybody bothering to go out an conquer and enslave this tribe? Absolutely not. Nobody cares about them. I believe that an alien species, with technology vastly superior to ours, would treat us the same way: a curiosity, worthy of an aerial survey, maybe send in a scientist or two and that's it.

So, to sum it up: Either they're too far away to get here and harm us or they're so vastly superior that they won't bother about us.

[Darwin]

Some of what Hawking was saying seemed to imply that he did not consider the speed-of-light barrier as sacrosanct as a lot of physicists currently do. An FTL drive puts a different picture on the whole alien encounter business because it puts trans-planetary travel on a far different time footing than would otherwise be the case. If we, or any putative aliens, can get around the galaxy a lot faster than currently doable then a near infinity of possibilities come into play with half of them unpalatable to us savages hunkered down out here in the galactic boondocks.

Hawking is invoking the "precautionary principle" when considering alien contact, that is to say we should hedge our bets on the side of protection of our species. I tend to agree with him but I'm not dogmatic about it. Que sera blah blah blah. If the FTL barrier is never cracked then we have little about which to concern ourselves. Interstellar differences are simply much to vast to allow serious exploration or the prosecution of hostilities to be practical.

[Mordred]

Some of what Hawking was saying seemed to imply that he did not consider the speed-of-light barrier as sacrosanct as a lot of physicists currently do. An FTL drive puts a different picture on the whole alien encounter business because it puts trans-planetary travel on a far different time footing than would otherwise be the case.

It still seems highly unlikely that a civilization with access to FTL would go out of its way to harm us. And even if they did, it's not like not talking to them is going to make any difference whatsoever.

As for the precautionary principle, it's a load of bull. Any time you reverse the burden of proof, stupid things happen. It's the reason for many stupid decisions and, generally, an insane belief that every tiny inch of progress must be proclaimed safe beyond a shadow of doubt, otherwise, it's rejected.

Seems to me like Stephen Hawking is becoming senile...

[Liandri]

I've ALWAYS believe in some galactic contract set in place by those who are far more intelligent than we are (and if we're one of the most intelligent than i feel so sorry for our universe) in the case of new planets/resources/space travel.

This contract would protect new planets, allow freedom of exploration, and scientific study of space and nearby planets with little to no interference. Kinda like the second we leave our solar system a group of ships will be ready, put us in our place set the "Rules of space". Kinda like a "Are you SURE you wish to continue? If so you must abide by these rules, sign your planet into our roster and any illegal activity deemed within this contract will make your planet forfeit to protection/interference/raiding/etc. Hundreds of Billions of year your planet has been around do you HONESTLY think we weren't aware of your presence?"... "Wait wut? HUNDREDS of BILLIONS?!?!"..... "Don't even know the age of your own planet?! Like I said, ARE YOU SURE YOU WISH TO CONTINUE?!?!?"

Also our rules of physics can be completely different than that of a different world, species, atmosphere, etc. The wonder of physics is that it is always complete theory when used in a single situation. That situation would be our train of thought and the rules we must abide by in in the limited knowledge of space and atmosphere we currently live within.


Yes I've thought about this for a long time and this is just the more bare ass piss poor description of my train of thought. Can't rule it out though. Seems cool though.

[tom502]

I believe the universe is so vast and unending, there is a myriad of species of unlimited levels of attainment.

More locally, I believe Mars is still inhabited, though they may have moved underground, but the ruins of cities and ancient monuments adorn the surface, along with rivers and lakes and forests, and a blue sky, I am kinda think breathable air.

Also, I believe there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon. Which is still active. The moon may also be hollow, and an artificial satellite. Also, I believe that aliens, which I always mean to be humanoid-like more advanced beings, live in the Earth, in hollow areas, and in the oceans.

I also believe it's highly possible that Mars' moon Phobos may be an ancient craft, as it's surface displays an artificial design, emits and energy, is hollow, and has a monolith on it, which Buzz Aldrin recently mention, that we should explore it.

I also believe it's possible that 2012 may be the return date of the Venusian Quetaquatzl, I know I misspelled that, but it's easy to look up. It's the Mayan Sky Gods, of a reptilian nature, that visited them, and are to return.

[truthwolf1]

I think they are already here or our military is way beyond what anybody could imagine.

How did it get that way?
Numerous Alien crash sites and they are trying to replicate the technology.

There also might be a another dimension which sometimes intermingles with our own and could be reason for sightings etc..

The disks that people see flying directly into the ocean and the Bermuda triangle mysteries are probably related to Atlantis but also on a somekind of strange dimensional field.

[Mordred]

I believe the universe is so vast and unending, there is a myriad of species of unlimited levels of attainment.

More locally, I believe Mars is still inhabited, though they may have moved underground, but the ruins of cities and ancient monuments adorn the surface, along with rivers and lakes and forests, and a blue sky, I am kinda think breathable air.

Also, I believe there is an alien base on the dark side of the moon. Which is still active. The moon may also be hollow, and an artificial satellite. Also, I believe that aliens, which I always mean to be humanoid-like more advanced beings, live in the Earth, in hollow areas, and in the oceans.

I also believe it's highly possible that Mars' moon Phobos may be an ancient craft, as it's surface displays an artificial design, emits and energy, is hollow, and has a monolith on it, which Buzz Aldrin recently mention, that we should explore it.

I also believe it's possible that 2012 may be the return date of the Venusian Quetaquatzl, I know I misspelled that, but it's easy to look up. It's the Mayan Sky Gods, of a reptilian nature, that visited them, and are to return.

Dude, you need to lay off the Extra Stark's...

[Darwin]

[quote=As for the precautionary principle, it's a load of bull. Any time you reverse the burden of proof, stupid things happen. It's the reason for many stupid decisions and, generally, an insane belief that every tiny inch of progress must be proclaimed safe beyond a shadow of doubt, otherwise, it's rejected. [/quote]


100% agree.

[sgreger1]

I subscribe to two possible scenarios, each of which i believe has evidence to back up the possibility of it being the right answer:

Logical/Science explanation: I believe that in a universe so vast, the probability of life not occurring elsewhere, given that the universe seems to be abundant in all the compounds required by life, seems unlikely. And we know life evolves and eventually becomes intelligent, so it would sound fair to me to say that intelligent life of some sort is probably extremely abundant in our universe. However, the distances involved are so mind boggling, that absent some hitherto unknown version of physics, it seems unlikely they would ever be able to reach each other or us. The speed of light is pretty engrained and no one has really been able to think of a way to get around it. It's not even a propulsion problem but a problem where if you go that fast you turn into photons, so retaining the same physical form of whatever you propel to such speeds would be impossible according to modern day science.
So life has to exist, but likely will never interact.


The second school of thought: I personally believe there is significant evidence that something odd is happening on earth. The UFO phenomenon is too large to deny that SOMETHING is going on. I think that a lot of the UFO craze is people observing top secret military prototypes that the gov hasn't released yet, but the problem is that the UFO sighting thing goes back to time prior to us having even jet propulsion, so unless they had warp drives in the 1800's than I don't think it can ALL be explained away by secret test-aircraft.


In regards to what Liandri said, I think that if (in theory) life did exist elsewhere and they solved the FTL travel problem, there would likely be an "intergalactic UN", and if I were to subscribe to the belief that aliens are here and UFO's are real, I would have to postulate that we are in a massive wildlife preserve right now, gated off from other species. I think that there is a "don't feed the animals" rule in place and that's why we see UFO's doing some kind of observation, but they never really interact or do anything to interfeere with our species. I noticed that around the time man invented nuclear technology and the Atom bomb in particular, the UFo phenomena started increasing, so I think if they exist, they are monitoring our progress and nothing else, as we are slowly starting to find ways of leaving our little blue marble. Due to the warlike nature of our species I would imagine it is being watched closely.


But the problem is, it's just too hard to know at this point. Even if life were all over the place, we couldn't ever see it. For the light from a spaceship or planet in another galaxy to get here would take millions of years at the least, right now we see only a snapshot of the past through our telescopes. Furthermore, our telescopes aren't precise enough to be able to see earth sized planets very far out, which is why all the "earth-like" planets they have been discovering recently are all much more massive than earth. So we don't even have the means of seeing them, even if the universe looked like the Jetson's.


I think that a sufficiently advanced species would be a able to find a way around traveling vast distances, perhaps by bending space time itself or utilizing some other technology that gets around the FTL travel problem, but again this is all speculation.


As for them being hostile, I really do believe that there is something to the UFO phenomenon and they don't seem to be aggressive, they tend to be seen but never heard, so probably not too much of a threat for now at least.

[tom502]

I thought this footage was very good:

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xb7sWonvCqY&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed>

[sgreger1]

I seen a way cooler one from Mexico where there is one big light and then it turned into like 100 smaller lights and they are blended and morphed with each other. It was shot by a police officer in Mexico or something, there was no way to explain it away as venus or an airplane or something and it went on for over an hour, all on video.

[Roo]

I had the sound turned off, but that video looks like some kid lost her grip on a fistfull of white balloons.

sgreger re: your theory. How could an advanced species invest so much time and resources to come all this way just to observe from a short distance? No way man.

Thinking there is not life outside our solar system is ridiculous in my opinion. I also think that believing aliens have made contact but the government is covering it up is more ridiculous. There's life out there, they just don't know how to get here either. But alas, I will not even try to expound on my tame views to a partial audience who believes aliens live underground and invented the human race and have secret moon bases. It must be fun to honestly believe in shit like that.

Edit: woah, tom502 I'm sorry man, I really did not mean for that to sound so condescending. I was trying to say that seriously, the world must a look a lot more interesting with those beliefs. I do think you're barking mad, but I wasn't trying to be mean about it.

[texasmade]

so did anyone catch the time travel episode after this one?

as for aliens...i'll keep my views to myself for the time being as i don't feel like typing a lot

[Liandri]

I noticed that around the time man invented nuclear technology and the Atom bomb in particular, the UFo phenomena started increasing

I can see then all huddling around our planet giggling and saying stuff like "Remember when we first developed those?" Or "They've progressed already to Nuclear reaction already? Typical of a tribal race such as them would first think about weapons".