Being that we haven't identified all the life forms on earth yet, it would be naive to believe we know all the ones elsewhere in the Universe.
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2026
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Of course there's probably aliens. I mean, there's a non-zero chance we are alone, but I think most astro-scientists would confidently say they are most likely out there somewhere even with our current problem of only having a sample size of one (us).
What I worry about is if the average civilisation is less than one per galaxy at any point in time, then we're probably never going to meet them. Even if humans (and our descendant species) are about for millions of years.
Yep, time is the problem, not the possibility... considering there are trillions of planets and billions of galaxies...
I read a cool-ish sci-fi book one time that was about the basic idea Einstein had that you could communicate faster than light if you had two entangled particles. Even though we know we really can't but the book was fun because it suggested that whoever or whatever created the universe did that on purpose so that we wouldn't be dangerous to each other. But put the "Spookyons" out there so that we could eventually communicate but never be close enough to ever touch each other but in the story we find one of these little spookyons and it's connected to another species unbelievably far away but they managed to communicate and put it in a robot so the alien can visit Earth and all this crap it's really cool it's dumb but it's cool.
Sorry you made me think of it.
Even though we know we really can't
I know there are lots of questions about quantum entanglement, but I didn't know it had been disproven.
What was the book? It sounds reminiscent of Ender's Game.
edit: I don't know for certain, but it seems likely it's New Eden.
The cosmic entity so unfathomably vast that it had no prior experience of self once the ansible signal passed through it. Ender named it "Jane", IIRC?
I don't remember with any degree of certainty, but yes, that sounds correct.
Quantum entanglement hasn't been disproven, but the idea that it can be used for faster than light communication has.
I'm no physicist, but I always doubted it.
We can't but we know it's potentially possible with wormholes...if they exist...which in theory they should. So don't lose hope.
Do you remember what the book was called? I'm re-reading the bobbyverse right now, and it's got a lot of FTL communication in it.
I am not OC and so don't know for certain, but it seems likely it's New Eden.
Bobiverse is phenomenal.
Yes it was the new Eden series. Bobiverse is amazing, agreed!
Einstein definitely did not believe you could communicate faster than light if you had two entangled particles. Einstein believed non-locality was an absurdity.
Ruling them out seems absurd, given the 0% of the universe we can see in sufficient detail - but the difference between 'they're in the next galactic arm' and 'it's just us' is mostly philosophical.
When people ask NASA about aliens, they mean, do you have some. And the answer is no.
No one can say anything definitive about the universe.
But there are certainly intelligent life forms far ahead of us by thousands of years.
Suppose an advanced civilization on the other side of our galaxy observe the Earth at this very moment, they are seeing the early homo sapiens. Suppose they send a radio signal to say "Hello world!", it will be received about 100 000 years later when our civilization will likely be not anymore. The End. Now, if you think about a courtesy visit, it's even worse, odds are the Solar system will be no more by the time they arrive.
This was the problem inherent in the Fermi paradox. Fermi never really appreciated how human brains really cannot understand just how far a light year is. We did not evolve with any possible frame of reference.
Not this bullshit again....yes, in an infinite universe the probability of life is 100%. In our solar system, perhaps bacteria.
Intelligent alien life visiting earth? Nah. Learn how far a light year is.
Didn't fearless leader release all the UFO files or something recently?