Do you believe other intelligent life exists?

Believe? No, I'm certain. Why? Because it exists right here on Earth! We may be the most intelligent species on the planet, but there's more than enough evidence of cognition, emotion, and empathy in other animal species. I don't know who said it, but there's a great quote: "There isn't a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It's a very wuzzy line and it's getting wuzzier all the time."

 

You need a 'probably' option

 

I believe that there is probably life outside this solar system, but it would be irrational of me to assert that life either does or does not exist given the complete lack of evidence for or against, let alone speculate on the intelligence of such postulated life. I therefore don't believe that life outside the solar system does exist, and i don't believe thatlife outside the solar system doesn't exist.

This is not fence sitting, it's following the evidence. I can, however, conject based on probability...

so i'll abstain from this vote

 

Some speculations are absurd, granted, but we even have Presidents and notable astronauts talking about it and their sightings. So, there is definitely something there. A lot of police handbooks have a protocol for an alien attack - ask yourself, why else would they have that plan across the board? If it was seen as really a joke, I highly doubt these protocols would be called for in a "in case" scenario. The government might not be saying everything - but there has been plenty that's gotten past them; part of me actually believes a great part of the 'conspiracy' is the notion that there is one. Thinking there is no information out there could stop some from looking for the information.

How this aligns with God? I don't know. I've been guided to where I was in life by some higher power's hand. I've also grown up in a haunted house and have predicted two deaths. One of the guys I fell in love with, we basically clicked due to both being pisces and having been conduits for supernatural activity (seriously, look up pisces and supernatural - it's odd).

So, yeah this world is fucked up. How does it all relate/combine/interact? I don't know. Truth be said, I don't care. And I think that's the point. We'll never have the answers. Whatever it is - it is probably beyond our realm of understanding how everything can co-exist. And frankly maybe we're not meant to know. And I'm a-okay with that.

 

Holy shit, I was literally going to post almost exactly the same thing. I was even going to use to the word 'abstain'.


Maybe there are some sustained chemical reactions out there that we would not recognise as being 'alive', but then from their perspective they don't recognise us as being 'alive' either. Humans are very self-important - it seems silly to assume that what is classified as life has to be at all similar to what we encounter here on Earth.

 

Yes, absolutely. Will we ever get in contact with them, or vice versa? Not likely.

 

and what about pseudo-life, like viruses? or prions? They self propagate, but are they alive?

 

Like Pseudojim said, there is neither evidence for or against it. While there is no evidence supporting it, I personally lean towards yes, or rather, I hope it is a yes.

Even assuming that life elsewhere had to follow the same rules as life on Earth, there are already a number of planets observed to be in the "Goldilocks zone" of their respective stars. Given the sheer number of stars simply in our galaxy alone, not to mention all the galaxies out there, odds seem high that there would be other Earth-like planets out there. Of course, life elsewhere wouldn't necessarily have to follow the rules of life here. I.E. carbon based and requires water.

 

I also think there's a good probability, but since there is no hard evidence either way, there's no vote option that fits my position.

 

Europa, Titan, Enceladus are three options a bit closer to home that could conceivably already harbour what we might consider to be 'life'

 

I remember talk about a mission to Europa. Wonder what the status on that is now.

 

Life has only been shown to exist on this planet. Therefore, terrestrial life is the only kind we can study; with nothing else to compare it to, we don't know the probablility that life would exist, nor do we truly know what is necessary for life to exist.

But considering the vast size of the universe, life almost certainly does exist somewhere else- how intelligent extraterrestial life is, I can't really say. But I do believe that microscopic life exists somewhere else. I'm less certain that intelligent life exists, but am still fairly confident that it does.

I would like to believe that Earth has been visited by extraterrestials in the ancient past (legends of which would be opassed down as interactions with gods) as per the Ancient Astronaut theory, but only because that would be awesome. The evidence doesn't convince me though.

 

I have no beliefs either way: I don't believe there is intelligent life elsewhere, but I don't believe there isn't, either. I'm open to both possibilities.

 

i believe, i like to believe that there are advanced civilizations out there too, but also primitive life also.

people think too much in the box, not enough imagination, always sticking to science for proof.

 

That's because the empirical and scientific method is the only reliable way of examining the evidence, we have right now.

 

well science may be accurate, but hasnt and probably wont reach a point where we can use it to explain everything, we are using as a means to make profit rather than anything ground breaking

 

Science may never reach a point where it can explain everything, but it is the only way to factually explain anything.