X-Message-Number: 14436
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 07:21:24 -0400
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: if so, where are they?

Hi everyone!

I note George Smith's comment on current theories of cosmology. 
While the universe is unlikely to follow current theories, 
there is one problem with the notion that the universe is 
endless in the past: right now, there's a serious problem
about the existence of other intelligences. If they existed,
they could easily have colonized our solar system millions of
years before human beings evolved. So where are they?

An infinite past makes such other intelligences (millions of
years in advance of us) seem even more likely. Even if we
suppose that most intelligent species destroy themselves
early in their history, such destruction would have to be
unbelievably common if the past of the universe is infinite.
Not only that, but the DISTANCE such intelligences migth 
come to get to our galaxy becomes far larger ... even if
they take a relatively slow trip, trips between galaxies
become just as easy as those between stars.

Moreover, theories which propose the existence of other
intelligences which (for some reason) don't arrive here
seem even less plausible. Even if we suppose that many
civilizations decide not to interfere with Earth, it only
takes one willing to interfere for everything to change.
Not only that, but that interference could easily have
happened, again, millions of years before human beings
had even evolved... even the primitive forms with which
we began, and which seem to have been wiped out by the
arrival of Homo sapiens.

Yes, if we stretch our imaginations enough we can come
up with ideas for how there might be other civilizations but
NONE decide to come here. I do not know of any PLAUSIBLE
theory for that. At the same time, with an infinite past,
the problem of "Where are they?" becomes even more pressing.

		Best wishes and long long life for all,

			Thomas Donaldson

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