Milky Way has more planets than stars

Our universe is so big, and now with the discovery of so many planets out there many scientists are now thinking it's more absurd to think there isn't more life out there somewhere than to think there isn't. Funny how opinions change.

I still remember in HS when I had a teacher go through the "odds" of another intelligent lifeform, if I knew then what I know now I would have shut him down pretty hard.

The life is out there. The sad part is that none of us here will be around to ever see humanity meet any of them. Space exploration, minus a godsend of a discovery of a yet-unknown transportation system, is going to proceed at a snail's pace for the next five hundred years. Odds are we'll barely have the entirety of our own solar system explored over the next five centuries.

We can always hope the option of storing your consciousness in a computer just before you die becomes a possibility by the end of our lifespans.

That would be incredibly unwise. Permanently store the likes if Rush Limabaugh or Sarah Palin's brain engrams in computers? Sounds like a good way to ensure an angry robot/computer apocalypse that would make a combination of Skynet and the BSG Cylons look like a daycare facility in comparison. The universe does not deserve to have immortal and thoroughly insane human thought patterns stomping around the entirety of creation for the rest of forever.

We could always add a common sense test to it. Plus the hardcore Christians/Jews/Muslims/etc would probably consider it a blasphemy and opt to die.