Are We Alone? 

"Only two possibilities exist, either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." - Arthur C. Clarke

This needs 65 million views, not 65 thousand. This is a big deal.

Thank you for making another Video! I really love your stuff and I'd be devastated if you quit. You're one of the few people on RU-vid that asks the questions others won't and it is very intriguing to me!

This is the final frontier of youtube channels. Simply beautiful

This guy is like vsauce. I really like it! You've earned my sub

Awesome, i love the Fermi paradox subject. Cool usage of animation too!

Perhaps in this particular Universe, we are one of the earliest developed planets. That means that it will be our job to go out and explore, and visit other planets that are developing behind us.

There is no chance that we are alone in the universe. Not a single one. Everyone always makes the assumtion that aliens MUST to be far more technologically advanced than us. I just dont see why they must to be more advanced. They could just as well be in the caveman stages of life. Or just as us, using fossil fuels to murder their planet. I love your videos dude! Keep on recording!

So...What do you think? Are we alone?

I wonder if we do find aliens, how different their history will be from ours. Would there be global wars on their planets? Would borders even be a thing? Did they have a Cold War, and if they did, did it even end? What if they were on a Pangea like world? Would Colonization still exist? And perhaps the most important question... Do they have memes?

I think chances are quite big that intelligent life connects their brains to virtual worlds where they enjoy pure happiness. No one wants to quit that. So, real things like space travel, won't be done anymore.

I have to say that introduction was the most awe-inspiring, invigorating and tear-jerking of any video I've seen. There was a certain elegance in your words that made me marvel at the potential of greatness within humanity. Kudos.

I need some feedback regarding the Audio. There seems to be problems with it. Where does it sound bad, is it the beginning part or after 3:55?

I'm so glad I found this channel today, loving every second. And no, I don't think we're alone.

Damn, that last bit about us being alone, or becoming the first successful interplanetary intelligent species is quite weird to think about. Really messes with my head, great video Sharkee.

Awesome quality on the video! I love that you don't just upload videos weekly, but you upload a video when it's fully finished.

after my old account was deleted, i created this one in very early 2013. i have never subscribed to any users or uploaders whatsoever, on either account. because i felt so compelled, and found justification and reasoning that i hadnt yet discovered before, yesterday was my first subscription ever: thank you Sharkee; i LOVE your videos, your subject matter, your personal and professional style, and definitely believe you deserve any fame and fortune that may befall you.

Finally a new video!

Another great video Sharkee. I'm so glad I found your channel.

Well, before I watch the rest of the video (I'm honestly only 2 minutes in), just had to say the visuals for this are so amazing. And very intriguing as a topic, I'm happy to hear about it from someone intelligent and passionate about what they teach and theorize. Love your videos!

Fantastic video as always! :) I believe like many others, that the biggest problem we are facing, with regards to finding and communicating with beings on other planets, is the insane/humongous distances involved... :) Nuff said?

Hey sharkee! I think, without a doubt, that if you did RU-vid full time, and put a video out every 10 days or so, you would be up there right next to Vsauce. I think you should go for it! And I'm sure your current 44k subs would love it too! Like if you agree!

FTL travel is not necessary for the subjective experience of FTL travel. *Why does nobody get this?!* Time dilation when travelling at ALMOST 1c means that the astronauts could potentially travel 100s or 1000s of light years without getting old or requiring hibernation. But the downside of leaving your home planet to seed other planets is that you *destroy* your home by means of accelerated ageing. It's not just a logistical issue, but a philosophical one as well.

And of course many of these possibilities could be occurring simultaneously. Another great vid--thanks for taking the time to make it.

Easily one of the best videos you've done so far

Here is my personal theory as far as a solution to the Fermi Paradox. First off, I believe single cellular life is incredibly common in the universe. I believe it wouldn't be long after we find a planet similar to ours that we'd find single cellular life. However, let's think about how the jump from single to multicellular organisms happened to the best of our knowledge. It was an incredibly lucky series of mutations and situations. Although multicellular life forms is clearly a successful way for an organism to survive, a group of cells had to get together and all, together, have the correct mutations to start it off. I honestly feel like, given our reference point of how long single cellular life has been here versus multicellular, the problem might be that cells are just never combining to allow for complex organisms. This was more or less what I thought before watching the video. It's nice to see my ideas are actually compatible with how others think.

Thanks for doing this mate, your videos are absolutly amazing and inspiring! keep it up and take it easy

You could do all your vids at chipmunk speed, and I'd still watch them. Thanks for all the intriguing content Sharkee!

Given the lack of evidence, all of the hypothesis presented are possible. I personally believe, nevertheless, that the difficulty lies on building a society whose individuals would live in peaceful and spontaneous cooperation within a culture of mutual incentive for personal development rather than in constant competition driven by greed on a culture of wasteful consumerism.

You should put these videos out more frequently, I love your channel!

Your videos are really cool. I really like the storytelling aspects that compliment the discussion. Very entertaining, educational and even uplifting.

Wonderful video, keep up the great work!!! You're making a highschool student very happy each time you post a new video :)

loving the channel, by the way, I don't know if we're alone or not. All I know is that as soon as we'll have the tecnology to do so, we'd try to explore outside our solar system even just for the sake of it. That's humanity

Love your vids man, keep them up :D

Holy shit you're still making videos, that's amazing. Yours are my favorite.

Also, with the Fermi paradox, this is based on the fact that habitable planets containing resources exist in close enough proximity that it allows a path from one side of the galaxy to another (given enough time). However, what if such path didn't exist? What if the nearest habitable planet is outside the range of the ship. This would prevent the ship from making further hops. What if some of ships fail to acquire the resources of a certain planet (again this stops that particular ship from making further hops). What if more than one ship land on the same planet but the two ships come from a common ancestor that is so far back in time that the original species has evolved so differently that language, technology, appearance change. What if the two different species are so different that the safe environment they require for one would be toxic for another?

What if life can exist in a larger environment. What if life and intelligence is just a very complex physical event, that happens everywhere at any given time. entire planets having determined features are only part of a part of a single cell. Just like Carbon bonds between the Helix of the our own DNA Entire galaxies dedicated to self awareness of the entity. Process like perception take millions of years to process. What about subatomic awareness, Planck length is the smallest we can measure, but not the smallest something can exist.What if nature as a whole is an entity, the oldest entity of the planet. self aware and sensitive about the exterior forces. And what about quantum entanglement, what if quantum entanglement is just a property of a bigger world that takes place outside ours.

it would be really funny to see alien colonists stumbling upon us on Earth and vice versa

This is a great companion video to my favorite video of yours, "what if we can never travel faster than light"?

Hooray! A new video from my favorite RU-vidr!

I missed your videos glad to see your back sharkee

The best thing is to be alone in the universe, we will get to keep the whole universe when there is no one else to disrupt.

Life as we know it, doesn't matter on what planet, has one thing in common... survival. Which means things like fighting for resources and everything that comes with it, wouldn't be strange or unknown. The alien forms of life would know that most of the time it's better not to engage and fight only when it's necessary. If there's a interstellar alien civilisation, they would have access to all resources they'll ever need and encountering another intelligent civilisation would be wasteful and risky. Simply put, there's nothing on Earth they couldn't find somewhere else, without risks of such "meeting". For them humans would be perceived as our two-year olds. They need to touch the fire to find out that it burns. They wouldn't have to.

That's because all the cool aliens is near center of galaxy where things has shorter distances, more stars, lots of actions. and we got stuck in the far side of milky way arm.

I have a theory. What if in the evolutionary process we discover that there is a higher form of existence, a 4th dimension, where you can see, observe all whats happening, and not be observed by lower type of life forms. What if those high intelligent species are allready there, observing intelligent life, so on...

Please don't stop making videos they are amazing :)

We'll probably never know, sadly. There's just too much distance.

Such a great video. My 8 year old loves your work. Keep up the good work 😊👍🏻

Good timing with that recent announcement of the possibility of an alien megastructure! Can't wait to see what we see next.

It's for the best we are alone. We can hardly resist destroying ourselves, much less other worlds' inhabitants.

First off, love the videos man keep them coming! Secondly, I have an idea for a future video. I would like to hear your take on dinosaur evolution if the asteroid never struck earth? I know this is in the realm of science fiction but, I can't say that I have ever heard anyone else speak on such a topic so just a suggestion. Brain development, size or if you see one species becoming more dominant than the others? Thanks again

Can't wait for more of your videos!

Dude, your science is infectious.

What if there's something wiping out all inteligent life in the galaxy every 50.000 years for millions of years and one badass human commander with his badass crew flying ia badass ship is going to sacrifice him/herself to stop it? It would be a great idea for a sci-fi rpg.

Something I were wondering about for a while, is that, maybe, there are dimensions apart from our three in which matter exist without ever interacting with our dimension. This would probably explain why nobody is visiting us. They found a way to explore other dimensions, which are way more interesting than our three. I can't imagine a way to test whether there is matter in other dimensions, but the thought of it is quite intriguing.

We have not been around for long and the universe is big. Also, someone has to say the first word.

I read like year ago about this paradox, nice to listen to some wider perscepctive of it. Subscribed :)

always love these vids shark, keep it up!

Maybe for an advanced Civilisation there are better options for living than our universe (as we percieve it) They might escape into other spacial dimenions or they are capable of creating their own "Universes" where they could live as a "god" Or they couldve invented something like the Matrix (out of the movie) where they could simulate everything they want (for example simulate a life as an animal) They sure could speed up that simulation so they are able to live thousands of lifes in a second, fullfill all their dreams and make every possible experience. There could be Simulations like godmode (pretty obvious), reallife (while in it: no memories of their former lifes) and ofc sth like fps/rpgs etc :p

Regardless of why we haven't heard from intelligent ET yet, the fact that we're alive, thriving, and have the ambition to push toward exploring the galaxy means we have a real chance to do so.

Another excellent video. Thank you, Sharkee. A comprehensive review of possible explanations for the Fermi paradox. I believe there is life beyond earth, but I have no evidence and no definitive answer to the paradox.

Awesome channel. Love the videos. Keep it up.

Hi Sharkee, thank you for this fascinating video. I loved it as well as your other videos. One suggestion to you: The white background that you're using isn't very pleasant for the eyes. It's just too bright, especially when watching your videos in a dark room. Other than that, the video is great :)

I like the sound of your initial theory that we are the first intelligent life in the universe just waiting to colonize the stars. Personally I don't think we are alone and it is only a matter of time before we discover other intelligent life in the universe.

sharkee is one of the most underrated youtubers.

I LOVE these videos around the topic of the cosmos.... Im on the educational road to become a atronomer

You are more likely to win the lottery 10 times in a row than for humanity to be the only species in the universe

No matter how many different mental gymnastics you perform, it all keeps coming back to "nobody's out there". The preponderance of evidence keeps leading to the conclusion that we're alone, and probably because life itself is impossibly rare. (As in, our entire galaxy is probably devoid of life). Maybe life only emerges on one galaxy in a billion or some other staggeringly rare number. We still can't explain abiogenesis, so this theory (that we're actually alone, or effectively alone, in the universe) is the most logical conclusion.

I personally believe we are alone , because he just explained it perfectly , the sooner we accepted the better,. but how about other dimensions within our dimension, there is many traces of evidence of that but for some reason scientists choose not to follow up and investigate, that would be much stranger than finding people like us on other planets.

the little boy Janiel from Brazil ,the most incredible alien case ever

From the Fermi paradox, we have learned that estimating wether or not there are intelligent life nearby in the universe is impossible. I saw a breakdown of the problem by Isaac Arthur recently which makes a good case for there not being intelligent life anywhere nearby, and I mean for a million lightyears around us. Are we completely alone? Probably not, the universe, after all, is very very big.

This goes back to the "What if we can never travel FTL" if it is truly impossible, then no other species would he able to do it. And any other species that might possibly exist is stuck on their home planet like we are.

Really love your videos! Keep them going! Maybe we all live in a huge hologram\computer program and everything around our planet and beyond is just a 'background'. Of course that sounds ridiculous, but its fun to think about. *Also i have a question about photons.* (sorry for my english ;P) You often hear that light from a distant galaxies travels billions of years to reach us, that it takes so long for them, by the time they were born and reach their destination our solar system and planet formed, our species evolved, etc. This makes you think that if a photon of light was somehow conscious (lets just pretend that) it would 'live' and 'experience' that huge amount of time.... but... will it? Wont it be just instantaneous for it, because it travels at a speed of light and time for it basically stops?!

I would like to live for a billion years just to find out how humanity will advance over time.

Forget 'bout technological developments, we don't even know whether those life forms, to mention particularly "intelligent life forms' would even be able to know about electricity or not.... Kinda sad for us :(

Great video. While you were explaining reasons why aliens might not want to contact us, I recalled this scene from the movie K-Pax, where Kevin Spacey (the alien traveller) was telling Jeff Bridges (the psychiatrist) about notions us humans can't comprehend, like how K-Paxians consider the concept of violence or biological parenthood as primitive and arbitrary points in social evolution. Maybe if intelligent alien life does indeed exist in the universe, they might have a reason supernaturally incomprehensive to us. We, humans, gave birth to questions, answers and purpose, in order to eventually transcend God or any other God we constructed, but above all, everything happened, happens and will happen because we need to. Beyond that, we know about the Cosmos as much as an amoeba does.

Today news: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html Nice timing

Great video once again ! Keep the hard work going =)

There is a philosophical question as well: Are you alone, when you are in a place you currently can't get out of, but there is a whole civilization out of your field of perception ignoring you. I'd still feel alone in that case, even though i technically am not. So, fot the moment, yes, we are alone. May be someone will join us and we will no longer be alone :)

I think it's highly improbable that we are alone, it's my opinion that that are just too far away and warp drive or worm holes are not likely to actually be built. Isolated by the vastness of the universe, but eventually we will meet, maybe in a billion or two years.

Jesus you deserve mire subs your amazing.

It's also possible that most stable life-bearing environments are subterranean oceans like Europa or Enceladus. In that case what is rare about Earth is not so much the presence of life as the presence of liquid water (and life along with it) on the surface. Consider also that while for life to exist on Earth's surface we require an unusually stable environment, benign atmosphere, stable orbit, magnetic field to protect the atmosphere, etc., for life to exist under a crust of ice is much easier. The ice's albedo effect will keep the interior shielded from radiation and temperatures relatively constant, even if the orbit is chaotic. It is a much likelier candidate. Given that we only have a sample size of one there are several things we can consider from our own sample. Single-celled life seemed to arise almost as soon as it was possible in Earth's history. Complex multicellular life, however, did not for a very long time after that. Intelligent life, in turn, did not arise quickly either, even after multicellular life appeared - even though one would think intelligence would be advantageous. We also know that our universe is young and so life on Earth is also very young. So we can conclude: Single-celled life may be common, but multicellular life is rare. Most life of any kind exists deep below water, and is entombed in a crust of ice dozens or even hundreds of kilometres thick. Even if such life were to be intelligent it would have no way of knowing there was a universe outside at all without very advanced technology, and they would have no intuitive way to investigate in those directions. Only the most weakly interacting particles would ever come through their neighbourhood from the outside. Even if they figured it out, getting from their habitat into space would be monumentally difficult compared to our relatively simple method of blasting a lightly pressurised tin can into orbit. They would need to send a container filled with highly pressurised water through an immensely thick solid crust before even starting to think about lift-off. Furthermore, because the universe is so young yet, we are not likely at the epoch of maximum density of intelligent life. We may simply be among the first and happen to live in a relatively quiet area. It is also possible that species with the technology to travel between stars cease to be interested in settling planets. If we could create a self-sufficient habitat in space, why look for a planet at all? Why not simply build in space? Such species would be more interested in energy than rock collection, I suspect. Settling other planets is just a quaint notion that appeals to us because we are still dependent on our planet.

Most likely we are alone. And most likely we will never know if we are not.

You should make a video with Vsauce

Awesome video dude! i think the probability of there not being any life is really slim, i mean if there are life forms that can survive in outer space, like neil degrasse tyson said, the tardigrade. and it doesn't make any sense from an evolutionary perspective, because there weren't harsh environments in which the tardigrade would have struggled to survive. i mean maybe it came from outer space, i don't know but it's an amazing topic. :D

Sharkee actually answered this himself in another video. Not only there's life, but there would be an exact copy of yourself somewhere. If the universe is infinite, then there would be an infinite number of yourself.

I think it's possible that we are one of the few who have made it this far in our technology so it is possible we haven't heard from each other as we live too far from each other in our galaxy.

We will never no sadly

What's going on is that we're alone. That's just how it is! Learn to live with it people! We are the Kings and Queens of the Universe!

Here is something to consider: 1) The possition of our solar system within the galaxy might be detrimental to sustaning life. Maybe cosmic phenomena would kill us if we moved closed or further from the center of the galaxy similarly to moving closer to or further from our own sun. 2) I heard somewhere that only recently dark energy has comparable effect to the universe as regular mattet. Maybe life manifestation is related to that as well, so we might not be alone but we might bw the first. 3) why do we say "life in the universe"? if universe started out with a pile of carbon atoms and ended up with walking multi-cell organisms, wouldnt you call the universe itself a living thing? this is the same philosophical question as "am i one organism or the collection of trilions single cell organisms?" are the cell aware that they belong to me? am i aware that every single cell of mine belongs to me?

Great post thankyou , This ,the Sci show , pbs and others are really helping people get clear informative pap free information and routes to an enquiring mind .

If we do end up populating the universe, we all now will be considered the real OG's of EARTH

We are both alone and not alone until someone observes, with definitive proof, one or the other. and we will never definitively observe the entire universe. by definition it cant be done. so i believe that the possibility will always be there.

Love your videos Sharkee!

finally a new video! Nice vid buddy

+Sharkee A little constructive criticism. I think your video's quality would improve even more if you bought a better microphone. Besides that, you're video's are friggin perfect!

That was sooo damn interesting. You need to be my teacher.

Interesting point about alien civilisations not wanting to explore other solar systems. Aside from looking to expand our civilisation, a key reason for our search for extra-terrestrial life is 'insatiable human curiosity'. Maybe we are alone in wanting to explore the universe? Maybe alien species simply don't care?

I think life is really frequent but intelligent life is probably rare for many reasons...

I don't think we are alone. Intergallactic travel is something that even a civilization that could reach 99% the speed of light would be impossible almost. I think somewhere out there, in the billions of galaxies, there are galaxies that have been colonized (moderately). It's just a matter of completely different civilizations only being around for short blips of time at one place. I mean, let's assume the message we sent to the star cluster gets received, and they answer back. For us to receive that, we would have to remain on Earth for 50k more years. Most of these civilizations on different galaxies could have existed millions or billions of years ago. I would bet the house that intelligent, self-aware beings have evolved at least a few hundred times minimum over the course of the lifespan of the universe though. Your videos are so thought provoking and interesting. I wish you did more of them! Thank you for sharing your thoughts and making us think about the biggest and coolest questions!