In my honest opinion, for humans to think that this planet hold the ONLY life, intelligent or otherwise, in this, as yet, unmeasured Universe is nothing short of absolute arrogance to say the very least.

@Triphid so i said "life, sure." but i do not think it is arrogance to recognize the extremely special circumstances that brought on the extremely slow evolution of what we call intelligent life. i am not sure we should even call ourselves that, but given that caveat, i nonetheless stand by every word i said, without fear of being arrogant.

g

@genessa Have you ever considered the possibility that given this solar system is one the youngest that evolution on others may have taken far less time to occur, especially given the possibly innumerable variants, etc, that may just be present in the very ancient Universe?

@Triphid evolution can go in many directions. what we call intelligence appears not to be the most necessary element for survival, and survival is toward what evolution leans. (our intelligence may be our downfall, in fact.) so it is not a matter of speed. it's a matter of necessity. i STILL stand by what i said.

g

@genessa Yes our 'intelligence may indeed be our ultimate downfall, I agree there, but evolution, as we see it, is based solely upon what we have learned and BEGUN to understand from the very LIMITED perspective we have here, is it not?
What has/may happen elsewhere in the very vast Universe unknown to we mortal and fallible humans may be an entirely different matter altogether, may it not?

@Triphid yes of course it may. but i didn't comment on whether or not it was possible. i commented on whether or not it was likely. i don't see its being likely. anything is possible! well, almost anything lol me in a parachute jumping out of a plane, yeah, not happening. but almost anything is possible. i quote myself in toto: "life, sure. life as we know it? we have to expand our definition of life. intelligent life? not as likely as all that but no one really knows. it certainly isn't impossible." see? not likely.

g

@genessa They once said similar about humans flying or men landing on the Moon, didn't they?

@Triphid no, not really. well, it depends on the "they" you mean lol. and it's different. one is about our capability, which we worked hard to expand. the other is about something that could be true right now and we wouldn't know. we can't work hard and MAKE their be intelligent life elsewhere.

g

@genessa True, we can't even work hard enough to make our own species intelligent at times, BUT I'd rather think that there may a species out there in the vastness that HAS solved that problem.

@Triphid i would rather think so too, and i agree about our own species. usually when people ask if there is intelligent life out there i counter by asking if we have it in here! but preferring to think something is so... well, we know how that works with religion, right? it doesn't make something so. anyway, we probably won't ever know.

g

@genessa Yeah well religion and life on other planets are two different things, i.e. there is a slim probability that intelligent life is somewhere out there, whereas, with religion the chances of there actually having been or ever being a Supreme Omnipotent Being are far less than there would be of mermaid winning the Melbourne Cup.

@Triphid wait... a mermaid didn't win the cup? i'm shattered!

g

I'm not sure that's true. They have an incredible ability to reconfigure their biblical narratives.

You may be right. @ElusiveMoby

We even find very little of that on this planet.

@ElusiveMoby Yes, especially amongst the religious peoples and politicians of this world.

My thoughts too. Some type of life is a statistical probability. Good chance a number of life forms have formed and died out as well.

@Beowulfsfriend very true! Do you think anything will find the Voyagers?

@Donna_I only after Earth ends