We Are Being Watched

[BahadirArici]

Universe is more than three times older than Earth.

So, if there is life outside of Earth, there must be Type 3 civilisations that are billions years ahead of us.

With our very limited technology, we keep observing everything, from animals to black holes in the Universe.

We observe and even tag the migratory birds, wolves, lions and many others and try to understand everything about them.

Furthermore we record and even name each individual of these animals.

We observe them very personally.

Now lets step back and think how a Type 3 civilisation might be observing us.

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

We observe them very personally.

They live in the same environment from us. 

3 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

Now lets step back and think how a Type 3 civilisation might be observing us.

If such a civilisation exists (and there is no evidence for that supposition) then they may be to far away to be aware of our existence.  Maybe in another galaxy. Maybe not even in our local cluster. Maybe not even in our observable universe. 

5 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

So, if there is life outside of Earth, there must be Type 3 civilisations that are billions years ahead of us.

May be, not must be. 

[koti]

13 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

Universe is more than three times older than Earth.

So, if there is life outside of Earth, there must be Type 3 civilisations that are billions years ahead of us.

With our very limited technology, we keep observing everything, from animals to black holes in the Universe.

We observe and even tag the migratory birds, wolves, lions and many others and try to understand everything about them.

Furthermore we record and even name each individual of these animals.

We observe them very personally.

Now lets step back and think how a Type 3 civilisation might be observing us.

Considering the billions of billions potential life harbouring planets out there it isn’t controversial imo to think that we are not alone in the universe. But type 3 civilizations observing us is far fetched, if they exist they probably don’t care about us because they have more important things to do. Also remeber that a type 3 civilization would also be bound by Einstein so if they are really far away they couldn’t observe us at present moment.

Edited March 1, 2018 by koti

[BahadirArici]

7 minutes ago, koti said:

Considering the billions of billions potential life harbouring planets out there it isn’t controversial imo to think that we are not alone in the universe. But type 3 civilizations observing us is far fetched, if they exist they probably don’t care about us because they have more important things to do. Also remeber that a type 3 civilization would also be bound by Einstein so if they are really far away they couldn’t observe us at present moment.

Haha so true. maybe they are not that far away than. 

 

These are all opinions but i dont understand people who think "They have more important things to do" Observing other intelligent beings must be highest of all sciences. Noone would ignore such a thing. This doesnt make sense to me.

[koti]

22 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

These are all opinions but i dont understand people who think "They have more important things to do" Observing other intelligent beings must be highest of all sciences. Noone would ignore such a thing. This doesnt make sense to me.

Let me give you an example...if you were to sacrifice all your energy and time to observe an ant which you are not even sure is there, would you do that or would you spend your life on more productive things? 

[Silvestru]

Just now, koti said:

Let me give you an example...if you were to sacrifice all your energy and time to observe an ant which you are not even sure is there, would you do that or would you spend your life on more productive things? 

Well to be fair, we already know most of what we can know about ants. But if we discovered another civilization, even if it was less developed than us on a general level, it might have much more knowledge in other fields.

Kind of how like each civilization here on earth had something to bring to the knowledge table.

[BahadirArici]

9 minutes ago, koti said:

Let me give you an example...if you were to sacrifice all your energy and time to observe an ant which you are not even sure is there, would you do that or would you spend your life on more productive things? 

Comparing ants to humans is something i dont get either. We are intelligent beings on the verge of Singularity and colonising another planet. You take us too lightly. We are very interesting.

[koti]

2 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

Well to be fair, we already know most of what we can know about ants. But if we discovered another civilization, even if it was less developed than us on a general level, it might have much more knowledge in other fields.

Kind of how like each civilization here on earth had something to bring to the knowledge table.

I’m not saying that a potencial alien civilization is lacking curiosity, I think that they would have to be explorers and scientists and that means they’d be very much curious of whats around them. What I’m saying is that the vastness of the universe and Einsteins relativity prevents the civilizations from meeting often and that is probably our case. By the time a civilization gets our signals sent from the SETI program we will be long gone...and they will not get it because they will be long gone too.

4 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

Comparing ants to humans is something i dont get either. We are intelligent beings on the verge of Singularity and colonising another planet. You take us too lightly. We are very interesting.

Thats probably what an ant thinks  

[swansont]

59 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

Universe is more than three times older than Earth.

So, if there is life outside of Earth, there must be Type 3 civilisations that are billions years ahead of us.

But some other civilization does not actually have a 10 billion year head-start on us. There's a period of time where complex life simply could not have arisen. All we had was Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium. And even after stars started forming, they had to die out and go supernova before we would see some of the heavier elements. And the ones beyond iron needed another generation of stars to pass, and for the elements to disperse and form new galaxies. And without heavy elements, how is an advanced civilization to form?

[Silvestru]

9 minutes ago, koti said:

I’m not saying that a potencial alien civilization is lacking curiosity, I think that they would have to be explorers and scientists and that means they’d be very much curious of whats around them. What I’m saying is that the vastness of the universe and Einsteins relativity prevents the civilizations from meeting often and that is probably our case. By the time a civilization gets our signals sent from the SETI program we will be long gone...and they will not get it because they will be long gone too.

I totally agree with you. But you mention :

24 minutes ago, koti said:

if you were to sacrifice all your energy and time to observe an ant which you are not even sure is there, would you do that or would you spend your life on more productive things? 

You made me think what other more productive things are there to do? I mean as a species. Aside from developing technology to explore the Universe and how it works? I really couldn't think of anything better from a science perspective. Of course there are things like World peace and all that but it's not much lower on the productive scale.

[BahadirArici]

23 minutes ago, swansont said:

But some other civilization does not actually have a 10 billion year head-start on us. There's a period of time where complex life simply could not have arisen. All we had was Hydrogen, Helium and Lithium. And even after stars started forming, they had to die out and go supernova before we would see some of the heavier elements. And the ones beyond iron needed another generation of stars to pass, and for the elements to disperse and form new galaxies. And without heavy elements, how is an advanced civilization to form?

you are almost going to say we must be the most advanced civilisation out there. 

[koti]

1 hour ago, Silvestru said:

I totally agree with you. But you mention :

You made me think what other more productive things are there to do? I mean as a species. Aside from developing technology to explore the Universe and how it works? I really couldn't think of anything better from a science perspective. Of course there are things like World peace and all that but it's not much lower on the productive scale.

They might be struggling with contacting us just like we are struggling with contacting them. By better things to do I mean we (earthlings) will not be putting out trillions of dollars on some endeavour which is not guaranteed to succeed...or even if guaranteed to succeed  - they might be in a similar situation. After all, energy costs money and a finite amount of both has to lead to priorities emerging. They might also be making contact with other civilizations closer to them - hundreds of millions or billions of light years from here. Type 3 civilization if it exists is statistically too far away for any chance of communication with us...unless we go the "Interstellar" route but lets face it, as amusing and interesting as the film is, its too far fetched even for speculations. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing I would want more than live the day when contact happens, it's just that the universe is so ridiculously large and relativity is not helping.

Edited March 1, 2018 by koti

[swansont]

20 minutes ago, BahadirArici said:

you are almost going to say we must be the most advanced civilisation out there. 

No, I am nowhere near saying that. I am tempering your rather aggressive and unrealistic assumptions.

Probably doesn't matter much, since the ability to observe will scale with distance. It's far easier to observe someone close by, both in signal strength and in light-speed signal delay. A civilization a billion years older than us must be less than 500 million light years away, and would currently be observing the antics of Cambrian flora and fauna.  

[beecee]

8 hours ago, BahadirArici said:

you are almost going to say we must be the most advanced civilisation out there. 

I don't believe anyone is even contemplating that. While most accept the fact that we would most probably not be the only life in the Universe, the facts of the matter is that sadly, as yet we have no evidence for any life off this Earth. 

In saying that, if by the remotest of chances, we were the only life in the universe, it would raise far many more questions then the alternative I believe. The god botherers would have a field day!! 

Swansont has raised some excellent points that needs to be accepted. Also the Kardeshev scale of civilisation that you have mentioned is no more then a man made hypothetical  application of possibilities. But don't despair. As I said in another thread, most reasonable people would agree we are probably not alone, with probable civilisations existing in this big wide wonderful universe, that maybe in advance of us, and plenty more probable examples of life at its most basic form. The universe is made for that I believe. Plus also SETI and some scientists including Seth Shostak are pretty confident that we will have the extraordinary evidence for basic life off this Earth within a decade, and that most likely will be in our own solar system...worlds such as Europa and Enceledus for example. For more complicated life forms including advanced  intelligent life forms, then they may be further afield....Time and distance though are the two great barriers to inter-planetary contact between intelligent life forms, assuming we can be classed as intelligent.  

 

Edited March 1, 2018 by beecee

[Moontanman]

I think it's difficult to even assert there could be such a thing as a Kardashev 3 civilization, the speed of light would limit the the size that a civilization could be and still be connected in a realistic fashion.