What if Earth is the only place with life?

[JesterFace]

The universe is massive. It has been around for a very long time. Could it be said that it's almost mathematically impossible that there is no life anywhere else than Earth? But until life somewhere else is discovered, could it be possible that Earth is the only place with life? Ingredients are all around, is this planet the only place where everyhting clicked and there's life? When watching some documentaries how everything must be just right for life to be possible.... If there's life out there, is it something more than just microscopic creatures? If Earth is the only place for life someone might say that the universe, what a waste of space.

 

[Markonian]

The answer is the Fermi Paradox.

There may be barriers for the development of life itself, or complex life.
Perhaps countless worlds harbor single-cellular life but only very few crossed the barrier towards multi-cellular.
Or, life has a hard time coming about to begin with. Otherwise, wouldn't it be easy for us to throw the ingredients together and cook up new life any time we want?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In an infinite universe? I doubt it.

 

[Relayer1]

Chances are, life is separated by the gulf of deep time as well as distance.

Even if life is / was relatively common, the chances of it's span of existence coinciding with ours in a near 14 billion year old universe is...limited.

 

[at Quark's]

I would be very surprised if we were the absolutely only location where there's life. The universe simply seems too large for that, especially as the universe probably is vastly larger than the portion we can see, which already is incredibly huge.

However, I could imagine a scenario where the odds of (intelligent) life existing are so low (or the barriers to creation of complex life so high) that we could for all intents and purposes very well be alone. What if those Drake equation estimations are far too optimistic, and these odds are so low that at any given instant in time, only about one in a hundred galaxies harbors a sentient species? We'd probably never find evidence of any other species ....

 

[Swedish Borg]

It's likely the only place with life, we'll ever know. There's only a small window during which "a civilization" reaches a level of technology comparable to ours after which it most likely self destruct... The probability of another one like us being at the same stage of development is less than one in a billion, even if "intelligent life" is a probable thing which it most likely isn't since it depends on so many things going right.

 

[valkyrie013]

Life? Sure, there's probably other life in our solar system. Microbial.. Maybe some simple life under the ice on Europa or Ganymede. Intelligent? Not here.
Chances of some simple life like deer, fish, birds? Decent chance of it.
Inteligent? Maybe. They may be just cave people, or intelligent squid but chances of another space faring? Slim, but not none.

 

[fireproof78]

If Earth is the only place for life someone might say that the universe, what a waste of space.

And? I appreciate existential crisis as much as the next person but even if Earth is a waste of space what does that change? We can only engage what we know.

 

[JesterFace]

And? I appreciate existential crisis as much as the next person but even if Earth is a waste of space what does that change? We can only engage what we know.

I didn't mean Earth is waste of space but the entire universe could be called that if Earth is the only place for life when you think how massive this universe seems to be. Kind of a jokey thing....

 

[fireproof78]

I didn't mean Earth is waste of space but the entire universe could be called that if Earth is the only place for life when you think how massive this universe seems to be. Kind of a jokey thing....

Well, when you have odds like that bet on Earth.

 

[BK613]

If the original premise is true, then, IMO,
1.) We have almost a moral obligation to ensure something so rare as life outlasts the death of our Sun, and
2.) It's all ours, baby! Let's go get it!

 

[Imaus]

I mean for all intents and purposes you could have 100 species at the same rough tech level in this galaxy at once but if you can't cross the distance in any short amount of time, or have the energy/drive to, you may as well be alone.

In any case, lets say we send probes to every star of note within 20-30 ly and find nothing. Maybe a few wet worlds with oxygen atmospheres and no life. All this within the next 100-500 years, while Earth decays and buckles in the meantime.

Well, religion will probably get a kick up, but also the drive to spread the gaian biosphere around as much as possible. It's free real estate, or our manifest destiny, and you'll still see man rush to fill in the void, either out of some sense of obligation to spread life, which is seemingly so rare, or some religious reasoning, or what have you.

It's not like we're just gonna stop and give up.

 

[Australis]

Then we will be the Founders.

 

[think]

US on the earth being the only form of life everywhere ?? it is like the universe is infinite and every snowflake there ever was ---- was different just totally different from every other snowflake and our snowflake (earth) happened to have life. yeah I would believe that --- I can get that --- but it seems so dag lonely though like we are that snowflake melting in the spring never to be known again ..MMMM I sense a poem getting ready to happen mmmm Yeah ---

Snowflake Snowfake.

You are my snowflake and I am your snowfake,..
I pretend I am you just like you but you are not me.
I have been faking my flaking forever and making snow?
You can fall from the sky while I try to follow you down below.

You are snow I am not. I am without the chills of uniqueness,..
I believe in the snow that flakes off from the sky and these I Idolize!
I find in the way I fake my lifelessness that I have no life to live like it is.
Your uniform unique-ing is beyond meaning and I can feel as lonely as I am?

A unique snowflake that makes it's life and crystalized itself its own way is good,..
A Bleak winter day, that gets no life, as faking flaking fray of infinite possibilities in the universe
A Clear and lonely field full of flakes all trying to be like each other but all are failing miserably alone
In the end, they melt on the ground of lifelessness, finding life as a pointless goal to keep evolved into a,...

Bill Newbold

 

[Swedish Borg]

I didn't mean Earth is waste of space but the entire universe could be called that if Earth is the only place for life when you think how massive this universe seems to be. Kind of a jokey thing....

Nature is nothing but waste... It takes about a billion spermatozoa to fertilize one human egg... Most individuals in any species don't live more than a few minutes before they're gobbled up by some predator... up until a couple of centuries ago the infant mortality in humans was enormous...
Only one child in five on average lived long enough to have children of their own...

 

[Coops]

As far as intelligent life goes, life that we could in some way communicate with, depressingly I don't think we'll ever find out.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

There’s almost certainly microbial life out there.

We don’t know what it really takes to make complex or intelligent life. For all we know it requires a series of adverse climactic events that nearly wipe out all life but not quite. That happening for billions of years might be rare, for all we know, planets are much more likely to either never be challenged enough to evolve intelligence or get wiped out by one of them.

I don’t buy the inevitability of self destruction angle. But I’m also not convinced the light barrier can really be broken.

 

[Swedish Borg]

There’s almost certainly microbial life out there.

We don’t know what it really takes to make complex or intelligent life. For all we know it requires a series of adverse climactic events that nearly wipe out all life but not quite. That happening for billions of years might be rare, for all we know, planets are much more likely to either never be challenged enough to evolve intelligence or get wiped out by one of them.

I don’t buy the inevitability of the self-destruction angle. But I’m also not convinced the light barrier can really be broken.

Life has been stuck on the monocellular level for about three billion years and that's likely the kind of life that you're more likely to find if you explore the planets of the universe (assuming that would be possible). It seems that when life starts evolving at an accelerated rate it also burns the candle at both ends and ends up destroying itself, by destroying the environment. For instance, long before we got to the industrial stage and started really damaging this planet we were already an ecological menace, for example, we caused the Sahara desert to appear where before there was profuse tropical life.

We can no more help ourselves in that area than a virus can refrain itself from killing its host...

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It’s extremely presumptuous to first assume that environmental destruction inevitable for any industrial life and also assume we won’t find adaptations to survive.

You’re basing that on one data point that you don’t even know the final outcome of yet.

And yes, if the virus was as smart as humans are they could figure out how to spread itself without endangering the host just out of self interest. If COVID could figure out how to only spread and not kill the host it’d be twice as effective at spreading.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Heh, now I’m imagining COVID Greta Thurnburg.

“How dare you attack the lower respiratory system! How dare you! This is our home, and we’re destroying it when all we had to do was make it cough! We need to learn to live on the upper respiratory system alone, and exist in harmony with our hosts!”

 

[think]

every snowflake is different -- all of them every earth is different everyone of them--- our earth has life ... that is --- our uniqueness alone among infinite earths all the same but all very different --- life is the gift our present is like no other --- my present is mine and unique for what it is as unique as every finger print-- it is like this-
________________________
Of course my personal belief it that the universe itself is alive --- everywhere everyplace.. it is all alive all the levels and dimensions of life it is all life