Just a laymans musings.....
 

With... all posibilities of life on other planets, intelligent life on other planets and multitude of possibilities available.... although it is nice to think of life more intelligent than us, has there ever been a scientific theorey factoring "intelligent" life within the universe, or a theorey factoring "we" human beings are THE most intelligent life this universe can produce..?




With my avatar you can assume I believe in life throughout the universe but this just a thought......

I was previously S.c.P but I got married and now doing science through TAFE, life is getting better, but I still drink, just no more depressing posts, PROMISE! :-)

bit self serving when it is humans who say humans are the most intelligent

sorta reminds me of the age of imperialism when white "man" said they were the most civilized and the third world were savages

But what if we are...? I've never met an off world alien yet......
White 'man' and savages knew each other.....

There are testable hypotheses, but not sufficient data as yet to come to a rational conclusion. It's an open question in science.

There are testable hypothesis but again it is humans who do the testing-bit self serving

The scientific method is specifically designed to counter self-serving biases. It doesn't always work, but it is the best we have at this time.

The scientific method you are out of date
there is no scientific method
go read Kuhn "the structure of the scientific revolution"
or
Paul Feyerabend -against method

as the greek philosopher Protagoras said
"man is the measure of all things"

It pays to be skeptical of everything, but it also pays to remember that skepticism does not invite baseless, fanciful, imaginative speculations as valid alternatives. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, "It's alright to say 'We don't know."

"It's alright to say 'We don't know." but it is humans saying this
as the greek philosopher Protagoras said
"man is the measure of all things"

I'll be sure to do that, but in the meantime if you could offer a concise summary of their main points it would serve to further this discussion, rather than shutting it down.

What would be your preference to humans?

I'll be sure to do that, but in the meantime if you could offer a concise summary of their main points it would serve to further this discussion, rather than shutting it down. i suggest you go read the works yourself you really cant talk about science without having read these works

What would be your preference to humans? hey may be a dolphin or a bird -but then we have not the intelligence to talk to them

for all we know they are laughing at our stupidity
i bet based on human criteria we are real dumb ie just look at what we have done to the planet climate change-birds etc have not
done that

and take all the wars humans have done
so we come across on some criteria as real stupid

Once we find an impartial third party, the question, as to alien intelligence, will have been answered. So we may as well stick with investigating ourselves, until someone more qualified turns up.

I already said I will. It might take a little while though, so if you'll kindly summarize the relevant ideas we can continue this discussion.

Once we find an impartial third party, the question, as to alien intelligence, will have been answered. So we may as well stick with investigating ourselves, until someone more qualified turns up. so long as we investigate our selves -it is just self serving
as the greek philosopher Protagoras said
"man is the measure of all things"

It's my wish to debate you, not an ancient Greek philosopher. Say what you think, not what you think long-dead Hellenics thought we think.

It can be argued that intelligence may be an evolutionary dead end, due to unintended self-extinction (through war/disease/ecosystem failure) or eventual societal collapse. I doubt such catastrophes are inevitable, however.

To paraphrase Carl Sagan, "It's alright to say 'We don't know."
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Correct, yet the same man proposed the far more likely outcome of life, including intelligent life in abundance throughout the Universe.
He was of course using the argument based on numbers again...numbers of stars, numbers of planets, numbers of galaxies.......and of course the stuff of life.




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so long as we investigate our selves -it is just self serving
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Yeah we were once the center of the Universe with it revolving around us....
But some Imaginative, innovative men saw though such silly arrogance.




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It's my wish to debate you, not an ancient Greek philosopher. Say what you think, not what you think long-dead Hellenics thought we think.
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Yet you yourself paraphrase Carl Sagan. [Not that there is anything wrong with that in itself]
:-) The same copout argument that some like to use with me...It generally means they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.





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has there ever been a scientific theorey factoring "intelligent" life within the universe, or a theorey factoring "we" human beings are THE most intelligent life this universe can produce..?
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Only along the lines of "time" I would suggest.
If a species has had a million years of evolution on us, there is then the likelyhood that they may have developed intelligence far above us.
I certainly believe its true, as I do about the possibility of all stages of evolution throughout the Universe.
All we need to do to make contact is overcome the barriers of time and distance.

It pays to be skeptical of everything, but it also pays to remember that skepticism does not invite baseless, fanciful, imaginative speculations as valid alternatives.
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Imagination without Knowledge is lame, knowledge without Imagination is blind:
B.C. 0820hrs 8/9/2012


or to put it in the words of the great man


"Imagination is more Important then Knowledge:

We all know what he meant.

I am not sure that simply not doing something qualifies you as intelligent...