Let’s not look for aliens (maybe listen). We are Isolated and meant to be

I happened upon a Science Channel show; How the Universe Works / Hunt for Alien Evidence, narrated by Mike Rowe. It is a great show on the possibility of space travel by us, or by others coming to visit. The easily arrived at conclusion is we are stuck in our little corner of the Milky Way Galaxy and remain confined to our own solar system. God is not mentioned but it seems like our isolation from other intelligent life is intentional.

I recently wrote a story inspired by the aforementioned, on my conclusion to pass along to friends which included the science of DNA - something so perfectly engineered couldn’t have evolved and Our Universe - which wouldn’t exist at all if any of its parameters were altered slightly during the seconds after the big bang. As a result, scientists are beginning to say, “something or someone, out of our realm, had something to do with both” . AKA “Perfect / Intelligent Design Scenario”.

I wont get into either here, only the science of my arriving at my conclusion.

Humanity is Solitary, and It’s meant to be.

Most of us assume, as I do, there just has to be intelligent life out there on some of the planets orbiting the 250 billions of stars in the our Milky Way Galaxy alone. As far as the billions of other galaxies, I’m not even going to go there.

The closest exoplanet in the “Goldilocks” zone of its sun, is Proxima B, the second planet orbiting our closest star neighbor, Proxima Centauri. It is only 4.2 light years away . But Proxima B completes one orbit of its star in, the hard to imagine, every 11.2 Earth-days! As a result, it’s likely that the exoplanet is tidally locked, meaning it always shows the same face to its host star, just as the moon shows only one face (the near side) to Earth. That translates into boiling hot surface on one side, ice cold freezing on the other. Not a place to visit.

All the exoplanets (catalogue) that we have discovered, and that is over 4000 so far, 150 are analyzed as earth like, but for assorted reasons are not suitable for carbon based life like ourselves. Surely nothing close. There are numerous features required. First it has to be in the Goldilocks zone, and most obvious, it has to be a planet of similar mass and gravity, oxygen atmosphere and water. A liquid metal core that produces an earth like magnetic field for gamma ray protection and atmosphere retention. Polar tilt for seasonal renewal. A large mega planet nearby (like our Jupiter) would help attract space debris like meteors, astroids and comets. As far as alien intelligence goes, sure, they may have evolved in an atmosphere and gravity different than ours, which in a reverse scenario, would make our atmosphere and gravity, harmful to them.

As for getting there, for us, Apollo 11 hit about 25,000 mph on its journey to the moon. Lets say we were to head out to our closest neighbor Proxima B at 40 times that speed at a million mph, still it would take 2,500 years just to get to our closest neighboring star’s planet. (You can do the math.) And that works in reverse for any visitors, despite what they say at area 51.

The way I see it, the bottom line is, we will never be able to leave our solar system in any practical sense. Maybe with the unlikely “hibernation chamber” as in many scifi movies. Then we’d have to take our chances on, “where to go”.

Already a believer of the Intelligent Design Scenario, I arrived at my conclusion that the, “Intelligence that conceived and formulated the universe”, also intended us “to be” isolated in our little corner of the Milky Way Galaxy surrounded by a zillion more galaxies in an ever expanding universe. The movie mentioned in my opening sentence, helped precipitate this conclusion and prompted this dissertation. Watch it and see what you conclusions you come to.

Digressing somewhat, without getting bored, what could one do for Eternity?

Next time you are in the country somewhere, look up at the milky way in all its awe and wonder in the night time sky. Know all what you see is waiting when you are called to beam off our roller coaster ride here on earth. All the planets to galaxies, past, present and future will be your eternal domain. But for now all self-aware intelligence has been intentionally made inaccessible to one another by the same Person that so perfectly engineered the universe in the first place. Maybe all planetary sentients must be tested in one way or another. Some might have passed, some still in the testing process, like us.

So what do you have planned for eternity? Have you ever thought about it, as have I. What could one do for eternity with out getting Bored, no matter your favorite hobby or pleasure. How much Ice cream can you eat after all?

I cant say why, but I feel in the afterlife our soul will be free to meander an eternity of time and space in an infinite universe in another dimension, and “at will” in an instant. Free to meet all those other folks [on other planets] in other galaxies on your own time. Free to see what the folks did on earth before we were born and in your current time too. You could head back to earth to see how we humans are running things in 2460. I know I would head back to walk with the son of God in his days in Bethlehem and Judea. Maybe even Adam and Eve, Alexander the Great, even sail with Columbus, hang out with Abe Lincoln and Einstein, watch the dinosaurs roaming our earth. What fun! And sometimes I’d travel with a friend, spouse or family member.

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY ETERNITY CAN BE.
The answer to the question that always mystified me.
Without Getting Bored, What Could One Do for Eternity?

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I originally wrote,

"There’s nothing meant about it.

The distances are simply too vast for any technology but passive telescopy and spectroscopy. We’ll never hear a thing, not even with an Earth orbit array."

which I might well implacably believe, but it’s… too direct.

And we agree on our utter isolation Sandy. Few do!

It’s the ‘meant’ that cannot work for me, but does for you. Where we go from there I don’t know!

I largely agree with this. We are indeed rather effectively isolated. And… it is a rather big protection from all the things that can happen. Though… I am mostly thinking more of the simple physical things which can happen like a stellar explosion or jets from a black hole. Any effects from such things take a great deal of time to get to us, even if they freakishly happen to be coming in our direction. And the protection from hostile aliens is even more complete. The whole idea of star empires is quite unworkable, and even the idea of marauding alien hordes is bit dubious.

Anybody else reminded of the science fiction of C. S. Lewis by this?

However… while you might put an infant in a playpen for their protection, if they don’t touch the bars of the playpen, look at things outside, or seek attention from others not in there with them, then… there is something wrong with them. Perhaps they should be tested for autism.

So… another thing we might be reminded of is the attitudes of the middle ages. We really do not need to pay any attention to people with straight-jacket notions of “the way that people ought to live.”

I like your understatement Mitchell: A bit dubious.

To give this substance we should explain why this is dubious. The proposition of a marauding horde is that a life can sustain itself by devouring the resources of star systems after moving from one to another. The presumption however is that what is gained can exceed the cost and that is what makes this dubious, for it is hard to see how the gain can exceed the cost. It might be compared to using nuclear physics to make gold from lead. It is indeed possible, but hardly worth the price. The most likely propositions for star travel is to use enormous resources in order to deliver a tiny payload to another star. Taking resources from a star system only multiplies the cost of moving it elsewhere, and the faster you would move to another star system the more it costs at least proportional to factor by which you would reduce the travel time (i.e. gamma which divides the time dilation also multiplies the energy cost). Babble about side stepping this with new physics is pure fantasy because this is part of very structure of space-time itself.

Therefore, the number one most valuable resource of a star system is the energy produced by the star itself, but that is gained by staying in the star system and not something you can take away with you.

Aye, HegSwarms; Aggressive Hegemonizing Swarms (Iain M. Banks), Moties (Niven & Pournelle), Killers (Greg Bear) and the like. Again, they can’t get to first base. If they could, we wouldn’t be here.

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