Citizen Hearing on Disclosure of Extraterrestrial Presence

[GoinAllTheWay]

Ok, perhaps my examples aren't perfect either, that's what I get for posting at work and not thinking through it better.

But basically the point I'm trying to make is the human civilzation has been around for a very, very short period of time. Who knows what we will look at differently in 10, 100, 1000 years?

The point I was trying to make was in response to people saying why would aliens travel millions of light years to see us? I was just trying to say that maybe to them, if they exist, it's really not all that difficult to do.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Yasa

Been reading Slaughterhouse 5, have you?

I wish I could say that I was sophisitcated enough to read literary treasures.

I just read a synopsis and it sounds like a good book, but I don't get the connection.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

If science today is saying that FTL travel is impossible, why are organazations like NASA working on it? If it's 100% certain, nothing can be done about it, why work on it?

A big part of scientific discovery isn't just proving what is possible, but it is also about proving what is not possible.

Also, NASA is all about self-promotion in order to get funding and they aren't above sensationalism to get it.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

But basically the point I'm trying to make is the human civilzation has been around for a very, very short period of time. Who knows what we will look at differently in 10, 100, 1000 years?
.

This is one of the best arguments as to why no advanced alien race would even know of us yet. We have been around in a blink of an eye, actually that is being generous considering the time scale of our planet, our universe and the mind boggling distances we are talking about with interstellar travel.

There is certainly theories and concepts that people look to when talking FTL travel, wormholes, bending space, etc.. But the idea from the OP here that we have been visited by aliens based on any rudimentary understanding of cosmology is incredibly silly and is why you will not find one serious astro physicist who thinks we are being visited.

[Yasa]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I wish I could say that I was sophisitcated enough to read literary treasures.

I just read a synopsis and it sounds like a good book, but I don't get the connection.

The aliens in the book live in a different state of being. They're already born, living and dead at the same time. Kind of a loose connection to your post saying that another civilization is living in a different moment than we are.

[photon]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Really? Why do some of the vets on this board have to become douchy like this? Really not necessary.

Why is asking someone to substantiate a statement they make "douchy"? Or was it "people" in quotes? That was in reference to your usage of people in your post, essentially re-stating the criticism of using what "people" say as if it has any meaning as to what's possible.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

I can't give you an exact name if that's what you are looking for, it was mentioned on a documentary on the X1 I was watching some time ago.

Just because you say it was mentioned doesn't mean it was mentioned (not that you are lying, people mis-remember all the time), and just because the documentary mentioned it doesn't mean they're correct or accurate.

If a piece of information is given to support a position, it's reasonable for someone to want that piece of information supported.

AND even if that was accurate, just because something was the case in the past doesn't make it the case now. Our understanding now is certainly different than our understanding then, not just what we know, but how we know what we know.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

To be more specifc, they said a machine couldn't be built that could exceed the speed of sounds as turbulence could tear the aircraft apart and controls would become unresponsive amongst other issues.

That's different than "physically impossible". That's just a limitation of materials and engineering, not an actual limitation.

The speed of light and sound were measured far before the first flight, and there are probably other measurements (meteors maybe) that showed travelling faster than sound was a physical possibility, just maybe not doable with the engineering of the time.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

I was reading just recently in popular mechanics that scientists think they can develop a computer model for warp drive. Obviously a number of challenges ahead but there are those in the scientific community that think it can be done.

There are those in the scientific community who thing the earth is 6000 years old too, that by itself means nothing more than someone found it interesting enough and had enough time to be able to play around with some math.

That same math also has solutions that involve closed timelike curves which imply that time travel is possible, but those things also involve things that there's no reason to believe exist (infinitely long cylinders, negative energy, negative mass, etc).

Playing around with Einstein's field equations to come up with interesting solutions does not mean those solutions actually represent physical realities.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Ok, perhaps my examples aren't perfect either, that's what I get for posting at work and not thinking through it better.

But basically the point I'm trying to make is the human civilzation has been around for a very, very short period of time. Who knows what we will look at differently in 10, 100, 1000 years?

The point I was trying to make was in response to people saying why would aliens travel millions of light years to see us? I was just trying to say that maybe to them, if they exist, it's really not all that difficult to do.

I get what you are saying and it's a very popular, natural, and rational thought/argument. It's very hard to imagine what would be possible in 50 years, 100 years, 500 years. Especially as we are aware how our knowledge is growing exponentially. From fire to the wheel took thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. From TV to the internet only took a few decades.

All we were saying is that your specific example, wasn't a very good example for the problem that was being discussed. It's a fine argument, just in the wrong place. Figuring out how to fly, or even fly fast, is such a different thing than breaking the laws of physics that it can't really be used as an example of why it may be possible to do so. We know things fly. We know things go fast. We knew this before we could do these things. So we knew it was possible. But in all our observations and scientific research, we have never come across anything that violates these physical rules we have discovered in our universe.

As for my personal opinion I am of the belief that we will probably never meet an advanced (or really any) civilization. I am certain there is life out there, maybe even intelligent life. I think we will find (or find evidence of) microbes and other lower life forms. Maybe even plant life. Maybe even life that forces us to refine our definition of life.

But I don't think we will ever find 'intelligent' life or a civilization. Or have one find us. You may have read a few people here talk about the Fermi Paradox. I'll just quickly explain if you don't know it already. If you do, I apologize in advance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

It basically says, if intelligent life did exist, it would have found us already (or we would have seen signs of it). I guess that's what this whole thread is about really. But I'm talking about HARD proof. Things that would have been common knowledge if we knew them, not discussed on conspiracy message boards.

The reason is relatively simple. From what we know of the nature of the universe, there are billions of stars in a galaxy and billions of galaxies. Scientists are even starting to suggest there may be billions of universes. It kinda seems to be the way our knowledge expands. But lets forget that for a moment and go back to just the galaxies.

It would only take ONE RACE to hit that threshold where they would have a great civilization. Maybe we couldn't get to them, but they should sure be able to get to us. And even if they couldn't, with our ever increasing ability to look at space, billions of light years away, we would see signs of them.

As well our sun is a young sun in comparison to the rest of the universe. If we are behind the mid point of the universes evolution, surely a smarter race would have bumped into us by now.

Now, there could be a few reasons for this. The simplest, but perhaps not most popular is that life is extremely rare, even in cosmic terms.

One can compound on that to an idea that makes a little more sense, maybe life itself isn't super rare, but having the chance to have the time to evolve to an intelligent state is. We have already had nine big extinction events on this planet? Something like that. What if we never got the chance. Or what if one of them happened when we were on the planet. Still could. We could get wiped out by some heavenly body like a fly on a windshield very easily.

Also, for other planets their star may go dark, or supernova, might get sucked into a black hole, could get a dangerous dose of radiation for a hundred different reasons. The universe is incredibly hostile.

Next you have the more introspective arguments. What if there are no hyper intelligent races because they kill themselves before they learn to break space and time? We look at that every day of our lives right now. Nuclear war, irreversible environmental damage, super plagues, etc. From the little bit we know about intelligent beings, they are often their own worst enemies.

There's the simple scientific arguments. Space is freakin huge. If our knowledge of physics is close to complete and there is no way around the speed of light, it would be pretty close to impossible for any species to populate much more than a few star systems, never mind galaxies.

There's the evolutionary arguments, popular in some sci-fi books. What if, once you hit that threshold where you can bend space and time, you've evolved to a being or race beyond what we can even comprehend as life?

I've always kinda liked that one. Romantic. And it makes sense. If we were so powerful and knowledgeable we could bend space and time, why WOULD we bother with races that are like us presently. We would have nothing to learn from them, and nothing to teach them. Probably couldn't communicate with them. It would be even grander than the human and ant analogy.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter. If you made it this far, thanks for listening. I really don't see it happening. And if it does happen, it will be so far in the future, and we will have evolved to such a point we wouldn't even really be human anymore, we can't really understand it with our current brains, so it doesn't really matter anyway.



Though, I really hope I'm wrong...

[photon]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

If science today is saying that FTL travel is impossible, why are organazations like NASA working on it? If it's 100% certain, nothing can be done about it, why work on it?

I think it's more a matter of the words you are using here. Science doesn't say FTL travel is "impossible", it says it isn't possible and probably won't be possible in the future. Science never ever deals with certainties.

As for NASA "working on it", I don't think there's a specific team or division dedicated to FTL travel, as I said before playing with the math and exploring possibilities is something that a lot of scientists would do just for fun.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Science is not infallable. It's been wrong before.

Sure, but "wrong" in terms of science doesn't mean what I think you mean here.

General Relativity is so well tested that it will never be "wrong", i.e. we won't just one day find out "Oh, I guess all these observations that have gone before were all done incorrectly." Something may replace General Relativity, but GR will still be 100% valid within a subset of tested ranges whatever theory replaces it.

I've posted this before, highly recommended reading:

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscien...ityofwrong.htm

Plus just because something has been wrong before doesn't mean it is now. That's a logical fallacy. People have been killed by alligators before, that doesn't have any bearing on the question of if this particular person was killed by an alligator.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Now this is a different demon, I totally agree. If you can't break the laws of physics, maybe bending them is the answer? I dunno. However I don't think the human race has been around long enough or knows enough to say 100% certain that the light barrier can never be broken.

As I said it's not just a speed limit, it's the very nature of the universe, the way the universe as a whole works with space, time, gravity, etc. Being able to go faster than the speed of light violates causality, and there's no indication that our universe supports such a thing on the scales that we've plumbed.

There's other considerations as well, things like this:
http://scienceblogs.com/startswithab...c-speed-limit/

Things in science are never impossible, just improbable, but just because something isn't impossible doesn't mean that it's reason enough to give it a great deal of thought.. we could find out one day Santa is real too (and there's more to rule out FTL travel than there is to rule out Santa I'd say).

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Daradon

I get what you are saying and it's a very popular, natural, and rational thought/argument. It's very hard to imagine what would be possible in 50 years, 100 years, 500 years. Especially as we are aware how our knowledge is growing exponentially. From fire to the wheel took thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years. From TV to the internet only took a few decades.


It would only take ONE RACE to hit that threshold where they would have a great civilization. Maybe we couldn't get to them, but they should sure be able to get to us. And even if they couldn't, with our ever increasing ability to look at space, billions of light years away, we would see signs of them.

As well our sun is a young sun in comparison to the rest of the universe. If we are behind the mid point of the universes evolution, surely a smarter race would have bumped into us by now.

Now, there could be a few reasons for this. The simplest, but perhaps not most popular is that life is extremely rare, even in cosmic terms.

One can compound on that to an idea that makes a little more sense, maybe life itself isn't super rare, but having the chance to have the time to evolve to an intelligent state is. We have already had nine big extinction events on this planet? Something like that. What if we never got the chance. Or what if one of them happened when we were on the planet. Still could. We could get wiped out by some heavenly body like a fly on a windshield very easily.

Also, for other planets their star may go dark, or supernova, might get sucked into a black hole, could get a dangerous dose of radiation for a hundred different reasons. The universe is incredibly hostile.

Next you have the more introspective arguments. What if there are no hyper intelligent races because they kill themselves before they learn to break space and time? We look at that every day of our lives right now. Nuclear war, irreversible environmental damage, super plagues, etc. From the little bit we know about intelligent beings, they are often their own worst enemies.

There's the simple scientific arguments. Space is freakin huge. If our knowledge of physics is close to complete and there is no way around the speed of light, it would be pretty close to impossible for any species to populate much more than a few star systems, never mind galaxies.

There's the evolutionary arguments, popular in some sci-fi books. What if, once you hit that threshold where you can bend space and time, you've evolved to a being or race beyond what we can even comprehend as life?

I've always kinda liked that one. Romantic. And it makes sense. If we were so powerful and knowledgeable we could bend space and time, why WOULD we bother with races that are like us presently. We would have nothing to learn from them, and nothing to teach them. Probably couldn't communicate with them. It would be even grander than the human and ant analogy.

Also, another possible road block is that evolution isn't goal driven or "forward" moving. It's simply a mechanism for survival. There seems to be this idea that humans are going to keep growing in our intelligence and that there will be no end, but that is not the case. We could easily plateau if there is no survival or reproductive advantage and even though we are still in an age of discovery, it may not always be that way. Or worse yet, we could regress and one day our big brains could be nothing more than vestigial like the pelvis structure on whales.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

Also, another possible road block is that evolution isn't goal driven or "forward" moving. It's simply a mechanism for survival. There seems to be this idea that humans are going to keep growing in our intelligence and that there will be no end, but that is not the case. We could easily plateau if there is no survival or reproductive advantage and even though we are still in an age of discovery, it may not always be that way. Or worse yet, we could regress and one day our big brains could be nothing more than vestigial like the pelvis structure on whales.

Very true, and could be a good reason why intelligent life doesn't pop up more often in cosmic terms. It simply doesn't need to. However, for us, I couldn't really see it happening as we are at a point where we are starting to control our own evolution. We already have made great strides in reproduction. Preventing it, fixing it, controlling it.

Our lives, and our society doesn't really hinge on survival advantages in the evolutionary sense anymore. People with diseases that would have been disadvantageous live long lives now, and pass on their genes.

As creepy and kinda sad as it is, we will begin to evolve based on the decisions we make about ourselves and our society (and our technology!). And even in other terms, if we ever do get to the point where different people live on different planets they would probably start to evolve subtly to them. Maybe longer limbs for one, maybe squatter ones for another.

True our brains may plateau, and it's possible they already have, but with what we know about medicine and especially genetics, we'd find a way around it. I find it doubtful our knowledge would ever plateau, because we wouldn't let it.

I do love your example for intelligent beings that don't include us. If they began to regress BEFORE they got to the genetic and reproductive knowledge we did, it could easily be very possible.

You are right, further evolved does not necessarily mean smarter (or faster or stronger or 'forward') just better suited to the environment and increased chances of survival and reproduction.

For us though, we are already controlling our environment, and I believe have just started to control our evolution. Heck, even controlling our environment would be controlling our evolution in a roundabout way.

[Thor]

I think the likely evolutionary end game for intelligent life is cyberbeings, which is where humans are going.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Thor

I think the likely evolutionary end game for intelligent life is cyberbeings, which is where humans are going.

It scares me, but I think so too.

We just got google glasses, actual implants are just years away. :/

[photon]

Originally Posted by Thor

I think the likely evolutionary end game for intelligent life is cyberbeings, which is where humans are going.

Sure, why travel to the stars in reality when you could do it in virtual reality.

[Thor]

It also makes time irrelevant, well mostly.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Thor

I think the likely evolutionary end game for intelligent life is cyberbeings, which is where humans are going.

I think that the likely evolutionary end game is complete extermination

[GoinAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Photon

I think it's more a matter of the words you are using here. Science doesn't say FTL travel is "impossible", it says it isn't possible and probably won't be possible in the future. Science never ever deals with certainties.

Isn't possible doesn't equal impossible? Sounds like they are saying just about everything expect the word itself.

Originally Posted by Photon

Things in science are never impossible, just improbable, but just because something isn't impossible doesn't mean that it's reason enough to give it a great deal of thought.. we could find out one day Santa is real too (and there's more to rule out FTL travel than there is to rule out Santa I'd say).

Of course not all concepts are worth pursuing, but I'd say FTL travel would certainly be one to give a fair amount of attention to.

Going back to my original comment on travel times down under, I guess I should have thought that through a bit more but didn't realize it would get picked apart as much as it did. The only point I was trying to get across is large distances may not be as big an issue to us in the future as it is now.

Originally Posted by Photon

Sure, but "wrong" in terms of science doesn't mean what I think you mean here.

General Relativity is so well tested that it will never be "wrong",

Then why isn't it the Law of Relativity? Honest question, not trying to be a d**k.

[Hair bleach and Vodka]

Entered the thread to see reptilians and I'm leaving it with knowledge on the fermi paradox. Huzzah. Seriously though, I do hope life exists out there--even if we will never ever have contact. I love the idea that we aren't alone in the universe.

You blokes turned a quick 30 second thread view into a good 20 minutes.

[CaptainCrunch]

What if the Aliens have two opposable thumbs on each hand?

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

What if the Aliens have two opposable thumbs on each hand?

Evolve twice as fast?

Or maybe slower cause, 'they'd be all thumbs!' Har har!

[photon]

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Isn't possible doesn't equal impossible? Sounds like they are saying just about everything expect the word itself.

Saying something is impossible is a positive statement of certainty, and science doesn't do certainty.

Saying something isn't possible has has an implicit "in our current framework/model/etc", which may change in the future.

Semantics I guess but the underlying point is very important. Science doesn't and will never say FTL travel is 100% impossible, it'll just say it isn't given our current understanding of the universe and there's no current observations that would be suggestive of such a thing.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Of course not all concepts are worth pursuing, but I'd say FTL travel would certainly be one to give a fair amount of attention to.

So one should give attention to fields of research that have zero indication that there's anything there? Just because the payoff might be huge?

How much time do you spend practicing magical spells? By the same logic it should get a fair amount of attention because while there's zero indication that such a thing is even permitted by our universe let alone doable, the payoff would be huge.

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

The only point I was trying to get across is large distances may not be as big an issue to us in the future as it is now.

Understood, but "may not be" needs a lot more behind to bring it from the realm of wishes to the realm of possibilities, that's my point.

Finding fairies in my garden may not be as big an issue to us in the future as it is now...

Originally Posted by GoinAllTheWay

Then why isn't it the Law of Relativity?

Because it isn't a law. Laws aren't what theories want to be when they grow up.

Laws are empirical generalizations (generalized observations). They simply define in a general way what a phenomenon is (F=G*m1*m2/r^2).

Theories are an explanatory framework supported by a body of knowledge that included tests and observations that have no contradictory observations. A theory would explain why a law exists.

Newton's law of universal gravitation states that point masses attract each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the the square of the distance between them. This is just a generalization of empirical observations, it's a formula to calculate what the force would be, but it doesn't say why matter has mass, why the proportion is the product of the two masses or why the square of the distance matters.

Einsteins theory of gravity explains the law (well not really, because Newton's gravity only works in flat space and low speeds, so it constrains the law as well showing the law is only valid in some circumstances not all). GR says why masses attract each other.

That's also a good example of science being "wrong" (if you haven't already read that Asimov article I linked), Newton was "wrong", but there you can't just throw Newton away because his gravity still works under all the conditions when he formulated it. Newton's formula is still used to send probes to the solar system, GR is unnecessary in those conditions.

If it makes you happier, you are travelling faster than light right now in a sense; the distance between you and the galaxies at the other side of the observable universe is increasing faster than light speed. But that's because space itself is increasing, you haven't accelerated to or beyond the speed of light in a co-moving reference frame of that and our galaxy.